As should be expected, the recent terror attack on the Boston Marathon has triggered a wave of renewed denunciations of terrorism all over the world, with sections in Sri Lanka too making their voices heard on this most knotty and emotionally explosive issue. Regardless of who carried out the despicable act, it is abundantly clear that the attack has its roots in political terrorism, considering that US citizens and interests have been targeted by some terror organizations over the past two decades, particularly in the context of the US-led ‘war against terror’.

Terror , whether politically-motivated or otherwise, is an abomination which needs to be roundly condemned because the unleashing of terror is a criminal act which involves the loss of lives and limbs, usually those of the innocent and the unarmed, as was the case in Boston. The taking of life, for whatever reason, could in no way be condoned and it is for this reason that organizations, such as the LTTE, would remain condemned in the eyes of law-abiding, civilized sections the world over. The end does not justify the means in the context of political struggles, and it could be said that mankind is continuing to confront this centuries-long conundrum of finding the right or morally-justifiable means of achieving intrinsically worthy political goals, such as, equality, liberty and dignity.

However, militant groups, such as, the LTTE and Al-Qaeda, would continue to provoke moral outrage among the civilized and the law-abiding, on account of their unconscionable and unrelenting deployment of terror. It was all too clear that the LTTE, for instance, placed no value on human life and for this reason would almost universally remain condemned as practitioners of terror of the most brutal kind.

But political terror is many-sided. Terror is usually exclusively identified with non-state actors but it ought to be clear to the discerning observer that states too could out-step their bounds in exercising the coercive power that is constitutionally vested in them. If a state misuses and abuses this coercive capability while carrying out its ‘law and order’ functions, it could be said to be repressive in orientation and to that extent could be said to be an instrument of terror rather than an agency of governance. Therefore, states need to be guided by the norm of democratic accountability, lest they be seen as being terroristic in orientation. And terror only begets terror, although ‘terror’, wherever it may surface, cannot be justified and condoned.

Accordingly, states need to use the force at their disposal well within the framework of the law. The irony is that any attempts by states to violate these legal limits would only help in projecting them as practitioners of disproportionate and repressive force and, consequently, enable these states too to be seen as terroristic in orientation. It is the latter tendency which has provided the basis for the concept of state terror.

Unfortunately, over the years, these distinctions have not been made to the desired degree by both polities and publics. The end result has been a lack of conceptual clarity in the study of ‘terror’. It cannot be emphasized enough that ‘terror’ is not the exclusive preserve of non-state actors and that some states too have been instrumental in the perpetration of ‘terror’. This distinction needs to be borne in mind for the purpose analyzing the ‘terror’ phenomenon impartially and for working out policy prescriptions for managing ‘terror’ more effectively by states and international organizations.

Unfortunately, emotion rather than reason dominates ‘discourses’ and ‘conversations’ on ‘terrorism’, particularly locally. For instance, it is true that the LTTE unleashed veritable hell-fires in Sri Lanka over some 30 years, and there is no doubt that it should be repeatedly condemned for these horrific excesses, but it strikes one as extremely puerile for some local sections to repeatedly tell the world that although the latter is severe in its criticisms of the Lankan state for its perceived excesses, it is going slow in its condemnation of the Tigers. This is seen as an application of double standards, for instance, by the ‘international community’.

There is a fundamental conceptual flaw in this line of thinking. States and terror outfits should never be considered to be on par with each other. Terror organizations operate outside the bounds of the law and are therefore criminal outfits which should be brought to justice by states and international organizations which enjoy the relevant jurisdictional authority. However, states are sovereign, legal entities in the international system and are expected to be the upholders of the law at all times. While illegal conduct should be expected of criminal gangs, the same could not be expected of states. This is the reason why states tend to be taken to task by the world community when they are seen as breaching the law.

It is up to the governments who are thus accused of illegal, unacceptable conduct to engage the international community with the aim of clearing their names of any wrong-doing, if, indeed, they have done wrong. Polities and publics do not do any good to themselves by screaming out the claim that it is the excesses of criminal outfits, at the heart of internal strife, that should be always focused on and condemned and that it is these wrongs of non-state actors that must be righted rather than the highlighting of the seeming wrong-doing of states. Governments need to work with the world community towards bringing terror outfits to justice but they themselves must be above serious wrong-doing if they are to earn their due internationally.

Working towards ending double standards by the international community in handling questions such as accountability by states, in the context of managing internal humanitarian issues, is a very large question and beyond the scope of this column. But states would do better to work along with the international community on resolving these issues rather than conduct themselves in ways that would alienate it.

 

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