Conflict & emergencies

US order sparks a new kind of terror

2001-12-20, Issue 47

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/4917

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By most accounts the West is winning the war against terror and terrorism. And yet, there are disturbing signs, both in the United States and Afghanistan, that their actions might be laying the groundwork for other kinds of terror.

Copyright 2001 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd.

The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo)

December 15, 2001 Saturday Final Edition

SECTION: INSIGHT; Pg. A23

LENGTH: 1014 words

HEADLINE: US order sparks a new kind of terror

SOURCE: SPECIAL TO THE RECORD

BYLINE: Leonard Friesen

BODY:
By most accounts we seem to have won this war against terror and terrorism.
The Taliban has crumbled into so many stone piles and scattered caves.
North American television is even showing tapes of Osama bin Laden speaking
again.
And yet, there are disturbing signs, both in the United States and
Afghanistan, that our actions might be laying the groundwork for other
kinds of terror.
Let's look at our southern neighbour first. Few Canadians seemed to notice
a military order issued by President George W. Bush on Nov. 13. In its
present form, the U.S. president established a new system for the
prosecution of terrorists. Persons so identified can be Americans, but they
need not be.
The definition of terrorism itself is stunningly broad. It applies to those
who violate "the laws of war and other applicable laws" associated with
"acts of international terrorism."
The accused can be denied the right to challenge the information that has
been gathered against them. They might not even be allowed to know how it
was gathered. They might not even be told what it is.
They can be held indefinitely before trial, even as hundreds of
unidentified individuals remain in U.S. custody since Sept. 11, without
named cause.
The order leaves open the possibility that these trials will be held in
secret. There is no explicit assumption of innocence in the military order.
Individuals can be convicted by a two-thirds majority of the commission's
members, and it can lead to the death penalty.
What about the appeal process? Well, there is one. But it is to the
president, the one who identified the individual as a terrorist in the
first place.
It would be better to have simply made all of this up. But it's very real,
and disturbing.
Critics of this military order include human rights organizations,
political leaders in Washington, and the editors of major Canadian and U.S.
newspapers. They have suggested that this military order violates the
fundamental rights and procedures found in existing United Nations
tribunals. They charge that it violates the U.S. constitution itself and
that it bypasses Congressional checks and balances.
Others point out that Americans have long denounced the establishment of
secretive and ambiguous systems of justice in other lands, from Cambodia to
the Soviet Union. Why, now, introduce it in the United States?
And if that isn't worrisome enough, U.S. legislators are set to consider a
bill that will -- if reports are to be believed -- strike a blow to the
establishment of an International Criminal Court (ICC). Proposed
legislation will unilaterally exempt American military personnel from
prosecution in such a court. It will also ban military aid to any nation in
the so-called Third World that endorses such a court.
For Senator Jesse Helms, the ICC "has the unbridled power to intimidate our
military and other citizens with bogus, politicized prosecutions."
Perhaps, but one wonders why the president's order of Nov. 13 has not
received the same condemnation. At least the proposed ICC will implement a
system of justice that we can recognize. That is something that Bush has
not done.
In some ways, questions of justice are the luxury items of the privileged
and well-fed. For millions within Afghanistan, the only issue worth
anything concerns food and the frightening lack thereof.
A report on this besieged and beleaguered country was issued on Monday by a
coalition of North American organizations. The American Friends Service
Committee (Quakers), Mennonite Central Committee, and the United Methodist
Church Board on Global Ministries were among the groups that signed it.
Among their concerns is the belief that the United States, Canada and the
rest of the "coalition partners" are contributing to an impending
catastrophe for an estimated five million people in Afghanistan. In other
words, the very ones who have been victimized by the Taliban have now been
made to suffer for yet another military conquest.
Our concentrated bombing of major cities and populated areas has forced
thousands into less populated parts of the region, where food is scarce.
Our air strikes of humanitarian-based warehouses in Kabul destroyed food
and blankets intended for 50,000 displaced civilians. Our allies, the
northern alliance, have outdone the Taliban in disrupting and looting food
deliveries intended for crisis regions. Our allies in the south, including
Pakistan, maintain refugee camps in appalling conditions.
One report suggests that there is actually less aid getting through to
regions controlled by the northern alliance than was the case before.
Others suggest that food aid itself has been politicized, and used as yet
another weapon in this desperate struggle for survival.
Oxfam reports that "large areas of the country are now riven by
factionalism, war, looting, banditry and fear." Not all of this can be
blamed on the coalition, of course, but some of it can -- at least enough
to unsettle even those who believe that the gains to date have far
outweighed the losses.
What, then, is the way forward to a more just and global society? For one,
we might want to join our voices to those calling for one system of justice
in the United States, not two. We might want to consider that giving
unilateral power to leaders we like also means that we'll end up giving
that same power to those we dislike or fear.
We might want to urge our leaders to commit themselves to human rights for
all, even those in distant lands. We might support those calling for an
immediate and massive humanitarian campaign in Afghanistan and surrounding
lands.
Finally, we might want to declare that acts of terror don't just happen
when we are threatened, and killed; they also happen when we -- or our
proxies -- threaten others and deny them what we claim for ourselves.
Summary -- We might want to urge our leaders to commit themselves to human
rights for all, even those in distant lands.
Len Friesen of Waterloo is chairman of the global studies program at
Wilfrid Laurier University.

GRAPHIC: Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS; People from around the world, including
these travellers at Berlin's main railway station, have been watching the
Osama bin Laden video tape on television. The tape was released as part of
the U.S. effort to support claims that bin Laden was the mastermind behind
the attacks that killed thousands in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
His glee at the "successful" terrorist attack feeds the U.S. thirst for
justice, at any cost. ; Photo: Leonard Friesen

LOAD-DATE: December 15, 2001

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