Fight root of terror, UN leader tells forum

By Joe Lauria, Globe Correspondent, 9/23/2003

NEW YORK -- United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday said armies alone cannot fight terrorists.

"We delude ourselves if we think that military force alone can defeat terrorism," Annan said. "There must be more on the horizon than simply winning a war against terrorism," namely, a "promise of a better and fairer world."

Annan spoke at a conference on the root causes of terrorism, just hours after the second suicide car bomb attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad in little over a month. Annan did not mention yesterday's car bomb attack that killed one Iraqi UN worker and wounded 19 people. Twenty people were killed, including the UN's top representative in Iraq, when the same headquarters was hit with a truck bomb on Aug. 19.

Seventeen heads of government and four foreign ministers attended the conference at a hotel near the UN complex, a day ahead of the annual opening of the UN General Assembly session today. The United States sent Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar as its delegate. Lugar was the only speaker who was not a head of government or foreign minister.

Annan said that "if we are to defeat terrorism, it is our duty to try to understand this deadly phenomenon, and carefully examine what works, and what does not, in fighting it. . .. We should not pretend that all terrorists are simply insane." And because a few "wicked men or women" resort to murder, that does not make their cause less just, he said. "Nor does it relieve us of the obligation to deal with legitimate grievance."

Annan said terrorism would only be defeated "if we act to solve the longstanding conflicts which generate support for it." He added that indiscriminate bombing, or accepting the death of innocent civilians could be exploited by terrorists to recruit new followers.

Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, told the conference that until the world agrees who is a "terrorist" and who is a "freedom fighter," terrorism will be difficult to combat.

Musharraf said Muslims felt their demands for justice were ignored. "Foreign occupation is a direct cause for suicide bombings and terrorist acts that flow from a sense of despair," he said.

His view was echoed by Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath: "Ending the scourge of the Israeli occupation will end the scourge of terrorism."

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom retorted, "I am very sad he chose to blame Israel instead of finding ways to fight our common enemy: terrorism."

Arab League Secretary General Amre Moussa branded Israel a terrorist state and said he was "appalled" that it was omitted from a discussion of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction since it possesses the nuclear bomb.

The Associated Press reported that South African Foreign Minister Nkosasana Zuma left the conference rather than be frisked by guards, saying, "You don't treat a foreign minister this way."