'The war against terrorism': a human rights perspective
Speech by Kate Gilmore, Amnesty International Executive Director Secretary General, at the European Social Forum, Florence, 2002
It was on the 9th of November, a year ago today, that masked Russian soldiers seized the two women: Aset and Milana (Aset Yakhiaeva and Milana Betirgirieva). The women were visiting Serzhen Yurt - a Chechen village - visiting there because a wedding was to take place. Their neighbour was to marry and with excitement and anticipation, Aset and Milana joined in the pre wedding frenzy of food and fashion. The raid on the house came without warning and without explanation: the masked soldiers forcibly seized and took away Aset and Milana. Neither woman has been seen or heard of since and despite appeals to the Russian authorities, and even though Amnesty International in March 2002 was assured that the military authorities would look into the case, no information has emerged about the fate of our two wedding planners, treated as terrorists: Aset and Milana.
Let me take you back to a morning in February (11 February) this year back to the city of Cali, Colombia. Let me show you Viviana Maria (Villamil) and Julio (Galeano), her husband. They are beginning their ordinary workday, travelling on their way to work by motorcycle. Maria and Julio are trade union members, actively campaigning against the privatisation of Cali’s electricity and other utilities. If you watch carefully, you will see what was reported to AI: that on this particular ordinary working day, Viviana and Julio are stopped by men on another motorcycle, that Julio Galeano is then shot dead and that Viviana Maria Villamil flees in terror of her life. How can this be? Well, AI can tell you that members of the Colombian armed forces prior to this murder and assault had accused union members of being linked to armed opposition groups as partners in a terrorist plot to destabilize the city. (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia), and that an army-backed paramilitary group, declared members of the union to be legitimate "paramilitary targets". And so one is left dead and one is left in terror: these two unionists or are they terrorists: Viviana Maria Villamil and the late Julio Galeno.
Two months further into this year, on 5 April, far away from Colombia, Benjaline Hernandez, a worker from the human rights organization Karapatan, and her three companions would be shot dead on the island of Mindanao, in the Philippines. According to information received by Amnesty International, Benjaline Hernandez was visiting the area to investigate reports of killings of civilians. She and three local residents - Cristanto Amora, Vivian Andrade and Labaon Sinunday - were reportedly about to eat lunch in a hut when soldiers and members of a militia group opened fire on the building, forcing them to run outside. According to eyewitness reports the militia and military personnel forced Benjaline Hernandez, Cristanto Amora and Vivian Andrade to lie on the ground and as they pleaded for their lives shot them at close range. Their other companion reportedly tried to escape but was fatally wounded a few metres away from the hut. Local residents who later inspected the bodies reported that Benjaline Hernandez’s skull had been crushed, and that her mouth, jaw and teeth had been disfigured by the exiting bullet. Apparently she had further bullet wounds in her neck, chest and hand, bruises on her body and burn marks on her chest. Military officials have claimed that Benjaline Hernandez was a member of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and that she was killed in the course of a gun battle between members of the New People’s Army and the militia. Amnesty International is deeply concerned that she was targeted as a result of her legitimate work in defence of human rights. Benjaline Hernandez, Cristanto Amora, Vivian Andrade, Labaon Sinunday human rights activists or terrorists?
Chechnya, Colombia, the Philippines: seemingly unrelated conflicts, thousands of kilometres apart; separated by hemispheres, economies, culture, nationality and yet somehow the product of the same relentless, unaccountable and now global phenomenon: for in each instance the state sees itself involved in fighting what is sometimes called "revolution", "separatism" or "extremism" but what is now more commonly described as "terrorism". This is the commonality connecting Aset and Milana with Viviana and Julio who are by this measure connected with Benjaline and Cristanto: a sinuous, elastic layered connectivenesss that is the personal, intimate, visceral and irreversible consequences of the unbounded, unaccountable potentially never ending war against terrorism.
How are we to engage this permissiveness which, since the travesty of September 11th 2001, governments have attached to conduct that more often amounts to grave violations of human rights? How should we best respond to their instrumentalization of human rights abuses as an allegedly justifiable weapon of the war against terror?
We can find the way forward through a dynamic trio of interventions:
First and foremost, our best and most pressing response is to search out and expose the individual cost wrought by this cruel expediency. As I have just shared with you, Amnesty International strives to expose this personal, intimate, indelible human cost of the blunt, imprecise, arbitrary and unaccountable instruments that are forged in the steel of governments’ resolve to combat violence through their attempted justification of the use of violence. In our experience, the excavation of the individual’s experience from amidst the rubble of states’ failure to honor their own promises, that most compellingly and irrefutably exposes allegedly legitmated actions for what they are: an abuse of human rights. Tis means we must always have people, ordinary people, as our first and foremost concern. It is an approach essential to the maintenance of our own humanity - and it is thorough the authentic narrative of the lives of individuals that we can more truly see the most serious and corrosive consequences of the state unaccountable, of the armed opposition group unchecked. It is here that we find the most incontrovertible evidence that it is oppression which cowers in the skirts of unchecked political power. Not in ideology nor in rhetoric but scrawled across the bodies of individuals and amplified in the despair of their unique particular voices.
Perhaps the next most critical opportunity to answer the troubling questions issued by the so called war against terrorism is to be found in the advocacy for and of international legal standards. It is in this realm that we and other human rights activists strive to ensure there is constructed an authoritative and efficacious temper to the power and authority of the nation state and to that power exercised by other actors. The role that agreed international standards, due processes, transparency and the rule of law can play in holding states and others to account should not be underestimated, if only because of what occurs when these standards are ignored or with deliberation and intent, overridden.
The so called war against terrorism is a case in point. Amnesty International does not use the word "terrorism". In our view it is simply not an acceptable term of use given that there is no internationally agreed definition of what the term means. Some years ago, academics identified over a hundred different definitions of terrorism and yet, despite the frequency with which it is now employed to justify everything from arbitrary detention to regime change, the term has not been subjected to the rigours of jurisprudence nor is there a broadly accepted definition under which we may systematically evaluate governments’ application of the term and the actions they seek to justify under protection of its rubric.
Be assured - the consequences of the imprecise command of this term are not merely semantic. Rather, it is the case that the term’s fluidity is serving to obfuscate the accountability of the state and of others’ whose actions amount to human rights abuses. Consider, for example, the particular lesson revealed by the origins of the term "terrorism". The term terrorism was first used in a political context to describe the conduct of the 18th century Jacobins who were in power for a short time after the French Revolution. The Jacobins sought to impose their will by the mass execution of their opponents and their period of rule came to be called the Reign of Terror. And yet, these days governments, journalists and others generally use terrorism only to describe the violence used by non-government groups not by state officials. Was it ever agreed that the state cannot be said to have committed acts of terrorism? Equally problematic to the cause of justice is the inconsistent application of the term to non-state actors. For example, with respect to armed groups it is not agreed whether or not terrorism should refer to violence perpetrated by armed groups or whether it should exclude violence by groups who are trying to overthrow oppressive governments. Arab and African states, for example, have adopted treaties to combat terrorism that exclude armed struggles for "liberation and self-determination".
Of course, we are all familiar with the acts that people generally refer to as terrorism: deliberate, violent attacks on civilians - hijackers flying civil passenger planes into buildings in New York; suicide bombers in Tel Aviv; bombs outside a discotheque in Bali; the seizure of hostages in a Moscow theatre. But it is quite simply true that existing domestic laws and international treaties provide an ample basis in law on which to apprehend and prosecute those who employ such violent means to secure their political objectives. We have no need of the language of terrorism to condemn these acts. For example, in recent years, we have reported, without recourse to the language of terrorism, attacks on civilians by armed groups in many countries, including Algeria, Burundi, Sierra Leone, India, Nepal, Colombia, Israel and Spain, as well as the attacks in the USA of 11 September 2001 and last month, the taking of hostages in Moscow. We can, using international standards, readily identify so called these so called "terrorist" attacks as an abuse of the human rights of the victims and calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice under domestic or international law, knowing that with respect to international law, depending on the circumstances, such attacks on civilians may well be found to amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity. Equally, we condemn unlawful attacks on civilians by government forces and by paramilitary forces allied to states.
Knowing the tendency of governments to ignore the rule of law and thereby violate human rights in the name of fighting so called "terrorism", and despite our intense lobbying, the UN Security Council has failed to ask states to uphold human rights when implementing counter-terrorism measures. The attitude of the UN Security Council and the behaviour of powerful states have sent a chilling message across the world that international law can be ignored with impunity. Countries like China and Egypt have cracked down on political dissidents. The Israel/OT conflict has escalated with Israel refusing to allow the United Nations access to investigate the attacks on Jenin last April. Russia threatened to attack Georgia in its pursuit of Chechen rebel hideouts. Human rights abuses in Chechnya have slipped off the agenda of European governments.
Of course, Amnesty International and other human rights advocates do not dispute the right of governments to take action to defend people in their jurisdictions from violent attacks on their lives, whether the perpetrators are groups trying to achieve political objectives, or common criminals motivated by greed and anger. On the contrary: governments have a duty to ensure the protection of fundamental human rights including the right to life. Our concern is with the manner in which states respond. We argue that they can and should respond within the framework of international human rights and humanitarian law that has been established, tried and tested during the last 50 years. And yet, by failing to condition it on respect for these fundamental human rights, the so-called war against terrorism has become a license to governments to ignore human rights and to commit a wide range of abuses, secure in the knowledge that other governments are going to turn a blind eye in the interests of a "global coalition against terrorism."
In reality, there was and is no need to invoke the rhetoric of terrorism unless, of course, governments’ seek its immoral garb to deftly cloak actions that otherwise would be exposed as illegitimate. Is this then the underlying motivation for the war against terror: that in a climate of fear, people are prepared to accept a wide range of measures from which they would otherwise, in the name of freedom, resile: It appears a convenience to governments that what was unacceptable on the 10th of September 2001 became acceptable on the 12th. Subsequently, governments with long-standing records of disregarding human rights in their actions against domestic opponents claimed vindication of their toughness. Egypt’s Prime Minister Atef Abeid suggested that perhaps the US and the UK would stop calling on Egypt to give terrorists - his term "human rights. "You can give terrorists all the human rights they deserve until they kill you", he said. "After these horrible crimes committed in New York and Virginia", he went on, "maybe Western countries should begin to think of Egypt’s own fight against terror as their model."
Governments which laid claim to longstanding records of advocacy for respect of the rule of law began to backtrack: The US has asserted a controversial interpretation of international law as the basis for imprisoning without charge or trial more than 600 people who are not US citizens at Guantanamo Bay and two US nationals on American territory. It is possible that they may be imprisoned for the rest of their lives without ever being brought before a court.
The UN Secretary General has observed that the context of the war against terrorism requires that our analysis of globalization worry not only "about the gap between haves and have nots, we need to worry about the gulf between insiders and outsiders in a globalised world." Post-11 September, political rhetoric about "good and evil", "you are with us or against us", "the forces of evil", "them and us" have accentuated this gulf, dehumanising and demonising people. Anti-terrorist laws in some countries, including the US and the UK, have targeted only foreigners or foreign-born citizens, stigmatising them as a source of danger and encouraging a climate in which xenophobia and racism flourishes. In a number of countries Moslems and Arabs have been attacked. In others anti-Semitism has re-emerged, particularly with the worsening of the conflict in the Middle East. Racism is a latent feature of all society, but shamefully, it appears to have become a blatant feature of European politics and election campaigns. Its victims are refugees, asylum seekers, foreigners, and even foreign-born citizens. Those who need their rights protected the most have become the ones most targeted for attacks.
This erosion of fundamental freedoms leads us then to the third essential plank with which we must build our platform of insistent advocacy for the promotion and protection of human rights and that is a concern with the root causes of so called "terrorism" and with those actions which are its breeding ground.
Shortly after the attacks the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution that condemned terrorism but stated that
"the long- term prevention of terrorism must include a proper understanding of its social, economic, political and religious roots and of the individual’s capacity for hatred. If these issues are properly addressed, it will be possible to seriously undermine the grass roots support for terrorists and their recruitment networks."
Clearly, many conflicts are fuelled by grievances that involve violations of human rights, such as racial and religious discrimination. More than fifty years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed that governments should respect and protect human rights not only because it was the right thing to do, but because if they did not people would be compelled to rebel against tyranny and oppression. But there is no clear and direct link between injustice and violence. Many victims of human rights violations do not threaten violence against their own and other governments but what is clear and must be understood to hold consistently and globally is that respect for human rights is not an obstacle to ensuring security but an essential ingredient for its achievement.
Contrary to rhetoric of the war against terrorism, the world’s most significant human rights challenges did not emerge on 11 September. The majority of those whose lives and well-being are at risk, the sources of their insecurity are unconnected with the events of 11 September, pre-dating the so-called war against terrorism and enduring despite its interventions. They struggle to obtain enough food and clean water to live and to receive medical attention for their illnesses; they are the victims of attacks by police, prison guards or – for very many women – in their own homes by their husbands. They are persecuted by the state and private people because of their race or sexual identity; they flee persecution but cannot find safety. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that the highest aspiration of the common people is a world in which human beings enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want and that everyone is entitled to the rights and freedoms it sets forth, without distinction. The vision of the Declaration is as relevant today as it was when drafted in 1948 under the shadow of the smokey clouds of Treblinka’s, Dachau’s and Auschwitz’s ovens. Straightforward, transparent, consistent and unconditional observance of its standards is the best weapon against so called terrorism and the best antidote to its consequences.
We meet today under the shadow of war. Military attacks threaten 24 million Iraqi women, men and children. Many of these people have already suffered terrible human rights abuse at the hands of their own government, and are even now crippled by the impact of sanctions imposed by UN. If war comes, the only certainty is that many of these people will die. They will be killed by the bombs and bullets of the US and its allies. They will be killed by the Iraqi security forces if they dare to rise against the Iraqi regime as they did in 1991. Many might die if they flee in search of refuge as they did in 1991 when neighbouring countries refused to grant them asylum. And no one knows what fate will befall them in a post-conflict Iraq, what kind of abuse or upheaval they will have to endure.
President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have invoked the human rights record of the Iraqi regime as yet another reason for military action. But this selective reference to human rights is sheer manipulation of the work of human rights activists. Let us not forget that western governments turned a blind eye to reports of widespread human rights violations in Iraq before the Gulf War. They remained silent when thousands of unarmed Kurdish civilians were killed in Halabja in 1988. And they continue to remain oblivious to the impact of sanctions that have jeopardized the right to food, health, and education and, in many cases, life of hundreds of thousands of individuals, many of them children.
A year ago, we were under the shadow of another war. Then it was the war against the Taliban regime executed in the name of justice but which caused great injustice to hundreds of innocent Afghan civilians who perished under the onslaught of American bombing or Taliban oppression.
And yet there are more wars still, hidden from public scrutiny and rendered insignificant by the preoccupations and self interests of the world’s powers. Burundi is a tiny country in the heart of Africa, which has been torn by a brutal and vicious conflict since 1993. Tens of thousands of civilians, both Tutsis and Hutus, have been killed by Burundian military forces and by armed opposition groups: if there be such as terrorism, it can surely be found in Buriundi. For children, even babies, have been shot, stabbed or beaten to death. There is almost total impunity - killings are not investigated, perpetrators are not prosecuted.
In September this year, AI sent a delegation to meet with the Burindi government, with human rights victims and with the defenders of human rights. Just days before our delegation arrived, there was yet another massacre. Under pressure from us the government admitted that more than 174 civilians had been killed in cold blood by the army, so brutally, with bodies piled on each other, that the authorities could not even tell us exactly how many had been women, how many children, and how many babies. Are babies too terrorists? Yet very few people outside Burundi know or care about that war.
There were only four survivors, of whom two were children, and each survivor had been wounded. Claudine is one of the four survivors of that massacre. Our delegation came across her while they were waiting in a big empty hospital hall sitting at a table in one corner. The door at the other end of the hall opened. Claudine walked in slowly. She is just a little girl of around six or seven years old and she was naked, except for the blanket she held about her body, with one of her arms, bearing a bullet wound, supported by a sling. She told in a soft, shy voice her name, but couldn’t remember her family name. She did tell AI how she saw her grandfather, father, stepmother, her baby brother and two sisters killed. She herself was wounded but because she was so small somehow managed to crawl between the legs of the soldiers and in the commotion escape without being noticed. A neighbour later explained that she had found the little girl wounded, naked and unconscious in the forest, and had brought her to hospital, but the neighbour herself was too poor to afford to buy Claudine any clothes. That is why Claudine, the youngest of the four survivors of a bloody massacre, was still wrapped in a blanket two weeks later when we saw her. Claudine a child or a terrorist?
For the sake of Claudine and all the other Claudines around the world, I know we will never give up the struggle we share with you the struggle against the erosion of freedom no matter in what name that erosion is justified. Our struggle for human rights will prevail. Despair is not an option. We must not give up. Do not give up. Never give up.
