World leaders call for anti-terror efforts to go beyond fighting terrorists

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, September 23, 2003

World leaders call for anti-terror efforts to go beyond fighting terrorists

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World leaders on Monday stressed the need to go beyond simply fighting terrorists in the war against terrorism and warned against committing outrages in the war which may serve to strengthen the cause of terrorists.

Opening a high-level conference on fighting terrorism at a hotel in New York this morning, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, "To fight terrorism, we must not only fight terrorists. We have to win hearts and minds."

"Terrorism will only be defeated if we act to solve the political disputes and long-standing conflicts which generate support for it. If we do not, we shall find ourselves acting as a recruiting sergeant for the very terrorists we seek to suppress," he told the day-long conference.

He warned against crossing the line and committing outrages in countering terrorism, saying such acts as ethnic cleansing, the indiscriminate bombardment of cities, the torture of prisoners, targeted assassinations or accepting the death of innocent civilians as "collateral damage" are not only illegal and unjustifiable, but also may be exploited by terrorists to gain new followers and to generate cycles of violence in which they thrive.

Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said the meeting, launched two years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, aimed to focus on the roots of terrorism in search of a new generation of tools against "this evil."

"The rule of law and respect for human rights are the first and the best way to counter terrorism," the Norwegian leader said, urging governments to ensure that educators and religious leaders raise children to embrace tolerance and mutual respect rather than hate.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf dismissed the idea of a "militant Islam" as being at the root of the problem, saying, "There are only some 'militant Muslims', as there are militant Hindus, Christians and Jews."

He said "most of the political disputes of our times afflict Islamic peoples and nations." "Religious extremism and militancy have risen because these conflicts have been allowed to fester. There is a feeling in the Muslim world that Islam is being targeted."

French President Jacques Chirac said that when a country is under foreign occupation, terrorism "unjustly captures the struggle for freedom for its own ends." He did not mention directly the US-led war in Iraq, which France opposed.

As the fate of the West is bound up with that of the ailing Middle East, wealthy nations must hold out to that region the hope of "development and democracy, modernity, openness to the outside world, and dialogue," Chirac said.

Richard Lugar, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the conference that world's top priority must be to prevent militants from obtaining nuclear, biological and chemical arms which they could use in suicide attacks.

"The next 10 years must show how an increasing number of responsible nations work together to make the safe storage, accountability and destruction of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons a fundamental objective of international policy," he said.

Lugar represented the United States after President George Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell turned down an invitation to attend.

The conference, held on the eve of the general debate of the current UN General Assembly session, drew more than 10 heads of state and government, among other senior officials.

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