29 September  2001, Copyright © Turkish Daily News

Opinion by Gunduz Aktan

NGOs and terrorism

The large number of human rights NGOs active within the UN human rights system have virtually supported terrorism with the attitude they have adopted over the past 20 years. Amnesty International acted as their pioneer. These NGOs never brought the terrorist activities committed by what they called "armed opposition groups" to human rights forums and never criticized them. All they did was to concentrate on the human rights violations allegedly committed when states combated these armed groups, or to be more correct terrorist groups. In response to those who criticized their position, they would reply that they could not equate these armed groups with states because that would mean defining them as belligerent parties in a war. Or they would say, "Only states commit human rights violations, not armed groups, therefore it is quite natural to criticize only states." Thus the actions of terrorist groups were kept far away from the UN human rights system. Countries combating terrorism were silenced through intense criticism of human rights violations. A good many NGOs invited terrorists to their meeting as if they were their own members and ensured they could address these meetings.

The reason underlying this position was clear: The ethnic, religious and other minorities in many countries were being oppressed. As there were no democratic processes being practiced in these countries they had no other choice but to resort to violence. The terrorism, or as they put it the armed struggle, would end automatically as soon as the state gave in to their legitimate demands.

Besides, the constant accusation of these armed groups by states as terrorists aimed to smear the legitimate struggle of these armed groups by taking advantage of the fact that terrorism was an illegitimate or unacceptable form of warfare. The "state terrorism" that states resorted to in this struggle was far worse, in any case.

In a world where "national" or ethnic terrorists are treated like freedom fighters, is there any reason to treat "international" terrorists any differently?

In fact, the situation could well be different. According to Article 3 of all four Geneva Conventions, which provide the basic rules of war, it was possible to criticize the actions of an armed group without defining it as a belligerent party in a war. The NGOs knew this, but in order to increase the chances of these armed groups in their struggle against states they knowingly failed to apply this article.

As a result of terrorist activities not being brought to UN human rights forums, the number one right of tens of thousands of innocent civilian victims of terrorism, the right to life, could not be defended by world public opinion. Amnesty International took the decision at its meeting in Yokohama in 1991 to monitor violations committed by armed groups, but this decision has never been fully implemented. It always insisted on playing down the numbers of terrorist victims. They gave priority to preserving the rights of terrorist suspects.

These NGOs were not interested in democracy getting established in all countries. They could have defended the idea of the majority founding democracy in non-democratic countries rather than maintaining that minorities had to resort to arms when democratic processes were lacking. They did not. Nor did they defend the democracies of non-Western countries against terrorist violence. What was important for them seemed to be to ensure that the armed action of minorities led to the partitioning of the country.

In order for terrorist actions to be brought to international forums and get them criticized and to defend the victims of terrorism, Turkey got a resolution adopted by the Human Rights Commission stating that in accordance with Article 30 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, individuals and groups were capable of violating human rights and freedoms just as states were. The EU countries abstained during the voting. The United States joined the rest of the world in voting for the resolution. However, shortly afterwards, the United States changed its vote to abstention. NGOs have continued to defend the rights of only terrorist suspects. They largely remain without comment in the face of terrorist actions. Just as AI did not say actions of armed groups in violation of the rules of war were terrorism, it never called them violations of human rights either.

That is until the AI "announcement" on 13 September in the wake of the disaster.

Well done, AI! Humanity is grateful to you.

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