Annan Attacks Erosion of Rights in War on Terror

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, launched a fierce attack on Britain and the United States yesterday for weakening human rights in the name of the war on terror.

"We cannot compromise on core values," he said in Madrid on the first anniversary of the train bombings that killed 191 people in the Spanish capital. "Human rights and the rule of law must always be respected."

Addressing a three-day conference which included about 20 heads of state and government as well as terrorism experts, lawyers and journalists, the secretary general laid out five elements in what he called a "principled, comprehensive strategy" to fight terrorism.

He proposed a UN special envoy to monitor whether governments' counter-terrorism measures conformed to international human rights law.

"Compromising human rights cannot serve the struggle against terrorism," he said. "On the contrary, it facilitates the achievement of the terrorist's objectives by provoking tension, hatred, and mistrust of governments among precisely those parts of the population where he is most likely to find recruits."

Although he did not mention Britain's detention of suspects without trial, the use of torture, or the practices of sexual humiliation and other abuses uncovered at US-run prisons for foreigners, western governments' treatment of terrorist suspects was unmistakably one of Mr Annan's targets.

Human rights law already made ample provision for strong counter-terrorist action, "even in the most exceptional circumstances", he said.

The secretary general appealed to political, religious, and civic leaders around the world to state unequivocally that "terrorism is unacceptable under any circumstances and in any culture".

Rounding on the argument that oppressed people had a right to resist occupation, Mr Annan said this could not include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians.

He said the root cause of terrorism was the belief by certain groups that such tactics were effective and had the support of people in whose name they were used. "Our job is to show they are wrong," he said.

Since 2001 the UN has been under pressure to do a better job of coordinating and leading the fight against terrorism.

Instead of the 12 treaties that currently cover the issue, the secretary general called for a single comprehensive convention to outlaw terrorism in all its forms. Victims of terrorism should be compensated using the assets seized from terrorists, he said.

The secretary general set out what he called the five Ds: dissuading disaffected groups from terrorism; denying terrorists the means to carry out their attacks; deterring states from supporting terrorists; developing states' capacity to prevent terrorism; and defending human rights.

Calling for a universally accepted definition of terrorism, he endorsed the wording contained in the recent report from the UN High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, which he asked last year to develop broader thinking on the threats to security other than war.

The panel defined terrorism as any action intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organisation to do, or abstain from, any act.

Mr Annan drew an alarming picture of potential catastrophe in the fields of nuclear and biological terrorism. There would soon be "tens of thousands of laboratories around the world capable of producing designer bugs with awesome, lethal potential", he said. Health systems in poor countries equipped to deal with deadly infectious disease barely existed.

Governments must do more to secure and eliminate hazardous material and set up effective export controls, Mr Annan said. Stronger measures were also needed to uncover and stop money laundering by terrorists. Travel and financial sanctions against groups such as al-Qaida were vital.

Nuclear terrorism was still often treated as science fiction, he said. "I wish it were. But unfortunately we live in a world of excess hazardous materials and abundant technological knowhow, in which some terrorists clearly state their intention to inflict catastrophic casualties."

"Were such an attack to occur, it would not only cause widespread death and destruction, but would stagger the world economy and thrust tens of millions of people into dire poverty."