Bush "Axis of Evil" Speech Kills Hope For Anti-Terrorism Treaty

by Thalif Deen

The UN "Comprehensive International Convention Against Terrorism" has been the subject of debate for more than two years. Barring dramatic changes in the Middle East, diplomats here say, it is unlikely to be finalized this year.

The latest twist in the treaty's tortured birth came last week, when President George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union address to Congress.

In his speech, Bush said three anti-Israeli organizations -- Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbollah -- are terrorist groups and should be spurned by governments sympathetic to the groups' cause, lest they be tarred as state supporters of terrorism or perpetrators of state terrorism.

The 58-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) says all three groups are legitimate liberation movements fighting Israeli occupation in the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights -- all Arab territories annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

In the OIC's view, Israeli violence in the occupied territories -- including military intervention but also a policy of selective assassinations -- constitutes state terrorism and should be singled out for condemnation in any new international treaty against terrorism.

Washington argues that Israeli military retaliations against Palestinians are acts of self-defense against suicide bombings. Bush said the groups pose as much of a threat to the United States as they do to its ally, Israel.

"The climate in the Middle East is not conducive towards the new treaty," said Rohan Perera, chairman of the UN Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism. "The time has come for delegates to be innovative and creative in exploring new approaches to find an acceptable compromise."

The committee ended weeklong sessions inconclusively on Feb. 1 but is expected to give the treaty another shot when it meets again in October.

The Permanent Mission of Iran to the United Nations dismissed the charges as irresponsible. "Not even a single piece of evidence has thus far been presented by the U.S. trying Iran to terrorism and/or proving any efforts on its part to develop weapons of mass destruction," it said in a statement.

Abdeloushed Belkziz, OIC secretary-general, said that "the recent unjustified statements and campaigns against the Islamic states (of Iran and Iraq) are likely to undermine the credibility of the international coalition against terrorism, weaken its cohesion and be counterproductive."

"The OIC rejects any mixing up of issues and any leveling of accusations without proof of compelling evidence, particularly in the light of the negative positions vis-ˆ-vis the grave Israeli escalation (of violence) and oppressive practices in Palestine," he added.

The proposed UN pact -- described as the mother of all anti-terrorism treaties -- was expected to incorporate into a single document key elements from all 12 existing UN treaties against terrorism.

But the issues at dispute, including a definition of terrorism, have resulted in a virtual North-South divide in the committee.

The Arab-led South seeks to bestow the term "freedom fighters" on the Palestinians, while the United States and Israel, along with some Western nations, dub the Palestinian fighters as "terrorists."

The OIC also wants to ensure that any armed struggle against foreign occupation -- as evidenced in the ongoing battle between Palestinians and Israelis -- is not deemed a terrorist crime. But this argument is strongly opposed both by the United States and most Western nations.

Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said that although negotiations on the treaty have been under way for several years, pressure to complete the text intensified in the wake of last September's terrorist attacks in the United States.

Negotiations stalled at the end of a two-week session last October, he said, in large part because of an effort to exempt individuals struggling against foreign occupation from consideration as terrorists.

But he was critical of other provisions of the treaty which would "undermine freedom of expression, the laws of war, and, to a certain extent, refugee protections, and create a loophole allowing the military to commit acts of terrorism" in peacetime.

According to a joint submission by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the draft convention would undercut the laws of war by criminalizing acts committed in an internal armed conflict that are not prohibited by humanitarian law.

The draft text also has a loophole that could allow military forces during peacetime to commit acts of terrorism that would neither be covered by the convention nor by humanitarian law, he said.