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India's binding obligation to right to self-determination
By Prof N Sanajaoba
Western Terrorism: The suicide attack of a handful of Islamic-Arab youths on Pentagon and WTC on September 11, 2001 has proved that the mightiest super-power is no longer invulnerable against a band of committed international delinquents.
America's disproportionate revenge leads to American's aggression on an independent county in direct violation of the charter of the United Nations. The world sans international law and emotive war cries like 'Terrorism around' has made every one panicky. The world outlook has been overturned.
It is not for the first time that terrorism has struck civil society. Human history is replete with political violence in the past. The resort to violence, military means, massive revolution, terrorism, wars and wars of national liberation is not unprecedented. Although, the entities justify war of terrorism, we examine not merely their choice of methods but the political justification and moral arguments they advance.
Social contractarians have logically justified civil disobedience and revolutions, whenever the political sovereignty or, despotism has denied popular sovereignty. We have not heard of a Hindu Taliban or, fundamentalist ideologue chastising, brandishing the horrendous Kurushestra war and Rama's invasion in Sri Lanka and burning the innocent civilian population to ashes. These warmongers and Islamic-Talibans unhappily make ostensible justification of their militant political action. To an independent witness, warmongers and terrorists stand on equal moral default; they stand in dock of Human Justice.
American invasion in Vietnam and massacre of 4 million Vietnamese in 1960s and 1970s, America's annihilation of millions of Japanese citizens by using atom bombs in 1945 and American denial of food to millions of Iraqis are best illustrations of mega-terrorism not comparable to the minuscule Taliban misadventurism on a small scale that cost 3,000 lives at WTC on September 11, 2001.
The international community is badly in need of a universally accepted
definition of 'Terrorism' and 'Aggression'. UN Security Council Resolution No. 1373 and 1377 of 2000-2001 are measures against Terrorism and the CTC (Committee to counter terrorism) of the Security Council forbids one form of Terrorism, but not all kinds of Terrorism like state Terrorism and wars of terrorism, that the USA had been conducting during the last half a century in as many as 50 countries.
Wars of national liberation or the exercise of legitimate right of the people to self-determination are absolutely distinguishable from the so-called mindless religious fundamentalism or Terrorism. Similarly, the UN Charter lawfully empowers the states to use force for self-defense, if not for aggression. The use of force or, resort to armed conflict in conformity with the International Humanitarian laws does not ipso facto constitute the commission of an act of terrorism.
Legitimate use of force or military means in the aforementioned
legitimate cases and under qualification are not disallowed in international law. Terrorism does not happily fall in any of the legitimate cases, which are accorded sanctions under the law of the comity of nations. However, there are mixed armed conflicts and gray areas in such type of political violence and the state-parties or legitimate non-state entities (NSE) have to convince the world community that they do not commit terrorism by killing or injuring innocent civilians, non-combatants and hors de combat. To the neutral witness, the Hindu Talibans who demolish Masjid and Islamic Talibans who demolish WTC are indistinguishable. Destruction is common.
Right to self-determination is not terrorism: The United Nations, IGOs, every state member of the UN structure is under obligation to enforce, implement and materialize the legitimate right to self-determination (RSD) as per the mandate of the UN charter, 1945, series of an GA resolutions (1514, 1541 of 1960 onwards), and above all, by the binding provisions of common article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 (1CCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 and as per the mandate of the Committee of 24 (De-colonization Committee of the UN).
UN De-colonization decade has been deferred to 2010 AD and non-self-governing territories (NSGT) plus the AANSGT (After-Acquired Non-self-governing territories) like East Timor call for de-colonization under the framework of the RSD. It will be absurd and ridiculous to label the UN, the IGOs and all these RSD process as terrorism, for the simple reason that the NSE in these occupied areas had taken resort to military means-which has been invariably adopted by the states as well in their self defense against aggression. It appears that the entire fourth estate, strategic analysts and the Indian elite have ignored these legitimate acts in their passionate obsession with Hindu and Islamic fundamentalism or discomfort in nurturing dissentient opinions. They suffered from 'dementia' due to lack of liberation of their emancipatory reason from their medieval mind-set. At best, it could be double-speak or manifest hypocrisy of one-dimensional man, misled by expediency.
Terrorism is a crime against humanity, whereas the legitimate exercise of Right to Self-Determination (RSD) is guaranteed by the UN laws and state practice since Woodrow Wilson enunciated the doctrine at the beginning of the 20th century, and VI Lenin crystallized RSD in proven ways. Revolutions are not terrorism, and the converse is not true. History gives testimony to this distinction.
RSD binding to Government of India ICCPR & ICESCR: Both the USSR and the Republic of India sponsored and co-sponsored the UN GA Resolution Nos. 1514 and 1541 of 1960 on the floor of the General Assembly for granting RSD to legitimate people and advance de-colonization. On the 26th September 2000 KS Bajpai-GOI representative in UN, espoused the RSD in the Fourth committee of the General Assembly. As the historical records speak, India had been consistently supporting the militant struggles of ANC, Vietnam, PLO, Bangladesh Mukti Bahini and nearly every de-colonization movement in the world irrespective of the
methods the NSEs resort to. In East Pakistan, India sent all her troops to liberate the Bengalis subjugated by their lawful government.
After ratification of the ICCPR and the ICESR by GOI in 1979, these two treaties are binding to the GOI. By way of reservation, the RSD may be confined to people under alien rule, foreign domination and racist regime. The Vienna Conference, 1993 and other world fora had been urging member states of the UN to remove the reservations. RSD could be exercised even under these three reservation-provisions. The people in Manipur, Assam, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya make vindications that they are under alien rule, foreign domination and recast regime. In support of their legitimization process, they lend history as the best testimony. National and tribal questions in India are yet to be judiciously addressed. Every successive federal government overlooked the moot point.
As regards Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the state repression of which has
impoverished Indian economy and ruined the national GNP, GDP, Noam Chomsky in his tour of India in 2001 has rightly passed the neutral judgement that the people of JK and not the two governments in dispute should determine their future political status. GOI's only clumsy technical argument is that a Hindu maharajah, which did not enjoy the democratic mandate of the people, had signed a standstill agreement with Pakistan and another Accession agreement with India.
As much as the people of 'Junagadh state' had been allowed by Dominion of India to exercise plebiscite, J&K people are equally entitled to a plebiscite. The taxpayers' money has been drained out for state repression in J&K for too long a period and their money shall have to be used for the economic development of 1 billion poor Indians. The huge economic waste is counterproductive and calls for rational utilization.
Misnomer: It is not impossible that mixed phenomena of Terrorism and exercise of RSD in their separateness could occupy territorial center-stage at a point of time, and they ought to be made separate from each other by the state concerned and the NSE involved in the process. Unfortunately, Indian mass media, elite and opinion-makers have terribly mistaken legitimate political movements for terrorism like Don Quixote rushing into any windmill.
(This article is a lead paper for presentation at a seminar organized at New Delhi by the Lok Raj Sangathan)
(The writer is Dean of Law, University of Guwahati, and Assam)
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