Oleh/By : DATO SERI DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : PALACE OF THE GOLDEN HORSES
Tarikh/Date : 01-04-2002
Tajuk/Title : THE EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE
ISLAMIC CONFERENCE OF FOREIGN
MINISTERS ON TERRORISM
Versi : ENGLISH
Penyampai : PM
I am greatly honoured to be asked to speak at this
very crucial Extraordinary Session of the Islamic
Conference of Foreign Ministers on Terrorism.
2. Terrorism we all know has always been with us. It
is not a new phenomenon. What is new is that newer and
more diabolical ways have been used in order to kill
and injure more people and achieve more spectacular
damage.
3. But we have always been ambiguous, regarding
terrorism in other countries as not really terrorism
but as the legitimate struggles of people against their
oppressive Governments or alien rule. As long as it
happens to other people we do not believe we should do
anything.
4. Certainly we do not feel a need for a universal
effort to fight against terrorism.
5. But we know now that no country is safe, no one is
safe.
6. We recognise now that terrorism is a crime, a
heinous crime against humanity as a whole. It is a
crime against the whole world no matter who or what or
which country has been or is being targeted. The
attack on September 11 we know, affects the whole
world and damages not just buildings in a particular
country and the people in them but it has struck at the
very foundation of the world's economy and it has
resulted in death and destruction for the country and
people believed to be the base of the attacks. It has
shattered the confidence of the world and has left an
atmosphere of fear. The fallout from that terror
attack is not over yet. Others will suffer, will
lose their freedom, their rights and will lose their
lives too. They will have to flee from their countries
and live in misery in sub-human conditions.
7. Even the richest and most powerful countries, far
removed from the scene of terror attacks will pay the
price in other ways.
8. Perhaps the September 11 attacks are unusual in
the extent of the fallout. But terrorist attacks in
the past have also had an effect on the world. We may
not have realised it but actually for years now we have
been living in fear. That is why we accept the
security measures taken by every country. We know that
even the innocent among us may be gunned down, or
kidnapped and killed.
9. There was a time when air travel was so safe that
nobody checks our luggage. Then came the first
hijacking. Since then we have to undergo ever more
stringent checks, ever more inconvenience. And yet we
still feel fear, for despite the checks the aircrafts
could still be used as guided missiles even. We will
be more strict now, but we can never really be certain
that the aircraft we are traveling in would not be
exposed to newer acts of terror. We fly despite the
inconvenience of security checks but we fly in fear.
10. Millions of us need to travel and whether we are
in the air or on the ground we will always be exposed
to terrorist attacks, to kidnapping, being held to
ransom and killed even.
11. The world is inventing more and more new weapons
for conventional war. Every country prepares for a
frontal attack. And so the weapons race goes on,
bleeding the nations involved, bleeding other nations
as they are forced to acquire these weapons which they
will never use for decades.
12. But all the while there will be some people,
misguided perhaps, who watch the development of these
weapons. These are the people who plan to make
terrorist attacks. And there will be any number of
greedy people willing to procure and sell the latest
weaponry to the would be terrorists.
13. Today it is entirely possible for terrorists to
acquire the weapons of mass destruction. A small vial
of deadly bacteria, or virus is not too difficult to
come by. Indeed it is possible now to acquire nuclear
weapons even. Whether the world is aware of it or not
we are being held to ransom. We pay a high price for
protection but some day, despite all our precautions,
our security arrangements, we may see these weapons
being employed not by security forces but by terror
groups or individuals.
14. And all this while the cost of defense against
terrorism will mount inexorably, both in terms of money
and our convenience and our life-style.
15. We must all fight against terrorists and terrorism
for none of us are really safe. But we cannot fight an
enemy we cannot identify.
16. Fighting terrorists is not like fighting another
country. We can flatten the enemy country until
nothing is left of that country. It is entirely
possible to do that now, and it has been done. But we
can still miss the terrorists, for we do not know who
they are and where they are. They may not be in the
country we have destroyed. They may be elsewhere; they
may even be in our own country.
17. Today people are mobile and there is no country
that is ethnically pure. Migration takes place as
travel becomes more easy and almost every country will
become ever more multi-racial, multi-religious and
multi-ethnic. Swearing allegiance guarantees nothing.
There will always be aliens among us. We cannot keep
track of all the aliens in all the countries. In fact
we can never be certain that our own people might not
be terrorists, or potential terrorists.
18. We cannot hunt down terrorists until we all agree
who they are and we cooperate in the hunt. We have a
need to agree on the way to identify the terrorist, to
agree on what constitutes an act of terror.
Discriminating against people who are ethnically or
religiously similar to the terrorists only angers more
people and perhaps contribute to the breeding of new
terrorists. It is counter productive.
19. We already know that it is entirely possible for
freedom fighters struggling against oppression to be
mistaken for and to be deliberately labeled as
terrorists by their oppressors. Thus Jomo Kenyatta,
Robert Mugabe, Nelson Mandela, Sam Nujoma were all
labeled as terrorists, were hunted and faced jail
sentences if they were captured.
20. But we know that today they are accepted as
respected leaders of their countries.
21. Clearly today's terrorists may be re-designated
freedom fighters tomorrow and today's freedom fighters
may become terrorists the next day depending on
circumstances. If we hunt everyone whom some people
refer to as terrorists we may be doing a great deal of
injustice.
22. On the other hand misguided people and countries
may harbour and support terrorists believing them to be
fighting for a legitimate cause. In the liberal
western countries there are quite a few terrorists'
cells working in support of terrorist organisations in
other countries. They are not too different from
Afghanistan which provided a haven for the Al-Qaeda
terrorists.
23. So how do we identify terrorists? How do we
distinguish freedom fighters from terrorists, how do we
determine which government should be condemned for acts
of terrorism or harbouring terrorists?
24. War is about killing people. Why should it matter
how people are killed? Yet today in war poison gas is
outlawed by international convention. In the struggles
waged by oppressed people, can there be weapons or
forms of attacks, which should be proscribed by
international convention? Can there be aggressive acts
by those in authority, which should be condemned and
punished?
25. Terrorists will not respect convention. So what
good would conventions do in the fight against
terrorists? Nothing at all. But it will put the onus
on Governments everywhere to act against those who
violate these conventions.
26. Before we can agree on the conventions we must
decide what acts constitute acts of terror and who
should be described as terrorists.
27. I would like to suggest here that armed attacks or
other forms of attack against civilians must be
regarded as acts of terror and the perpetrators
regarded as terrorists. Whether the attackers are
acting on their own or on the orders of their
Governments, whether they are regulars or irregulars,
if the attack is against civilians, then they must be
considered as terrorists.
28. Groups or Governments, which support attacks on
civilians, must be regarded as terrorists, irrespective
of the justification of the operations carried out,
irrespective of the nobility of the struggle.
29. However, if civilians are accidentally caught in
the crossfire, the attackers should not be labeled as
terrorists.
30. According to this definition of terrorism, the
attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, the
human bomb attacks by Palestinians and the Tamil
Tigers, the attacks against civilians by Israeli
forces, the killings of Bosnian Muslims and others must
be considered as acts of terror and the perpetrators
must be condemned as terrorists. And anyone supporting
them must be considered as terrorists. Where states
are behind the acts of terrorism, the whole Government
must stand condemned. But no race or religion should
be condemned or discriminated against simply because
people of the same race or their co-religionists have
been involved in terrorist activities.
31. While we may be able to agree on what constitute
acts of terrorism and who should be condemned as
terrorists, it is important that there is international
agreement on the condemnation of any particular
incident or incidents as acts of terror by terrorists.
Then the world community can cooperate and participate
in whatever action is to be taken against the
perpetrators. Here there is no authority more
competent than the United Nations to make these
decisions. Once the UN has decided the whole world
must cooperate fully in the fight against the
terrorists concerned.
32. While we should identify terrorists everywhere and
act in whatever way prescribed we must also find ways
and means to prevent as much as possible the tendency
of certain people or Governments to resort to
terrorism. We must identify the causes of their
bitterness and anger and we must remove these causes.
I don't think people would want to blast themselves to
death simply because they enjoy doing so. These are
acts of the desperate, acts of people who see no way to
redress their grievances, to alleviate their
sufferings. We cannot just dismiss them as senseless
perverts who enjoy terrorising people.
33. If we want to stop new acts of terrorism we will
have to attend to the causes of the bitterness and
anger and try to eliminate them. We must seriously try
to do this.
34. Today we live in a glaringly inequitable world.
While some countries and people are terribly rich and
powerful other countries are terribly poor. Even
within countries there is extreme disparity in the
wealth of the rich and the poor. Today capitalism is
supreme and there is no more option to defect to the
Socialist or the Communist system. The rich of today
do not even try to hide their avarice and
acquisitiveness. In fact in the eyes of the helplessly
poor the rich appear very oppressive, forcing them to
accept systems, ideologies and values which they are
not yet ready for. Worldwide there is a great deal of
bitterness and anger among the deprived because of the
resulting disparities between the rich and the poor,
the strong and the weak. These factors can lead to
acts of terror.
35. The world must address these injustices more
seriously than just preaching the values of tolerance
and understanding while ignoring the adverse results of
these "virtues".
36. For the Muslims the grievances are real and truly
unbearable, beyond mere understanding and tolerance.
For the past five decades the Palestinians for example
have not only had their lands confiscated but they had
also been expelled from their own land by the Israelis.
Their puny attempts to regain their territory through
conventional war with the help of friendly states
failed and they lost more land. In the occupied land
the Palestinians were subjected to oppression and
humiliation. Because they throw stone at the Israelis
they are shot at and killed, children included. For
the Israelis it is not an eye for an eye; it is a life
for being hit by a stone. They believe that by
terrorising the terrorists they can stop the carnage.
The suicide bombers consider themselves already dead
and are on the way to heaven. They are not likely to
be deterred by the threat of death. Killing their
leader is not going to help either. More violent
leaders will replace the fallen leader and the terror
attacks will go on. The Holocaust did not defeat the
Jews. A second Holocaust with Arabs for victims will
not defeat the Arabs either. Israelis must come to
their senses and opt for deescalation of terror rather
than escalating it.
37. If the Israelis won't, then the world must
forcibly stop them. If we are serious about stopping
terrorists then we must stop both the Palestinians and
the Israelis from mutual massacre.
38. In Bosnia-Herzegovina more than a 100,000 Muslims
were massacred in full view of television viewers and
for a long time nothing was done. The Muslims were
actually prevented from acquiring weapons to defend
themselves because this might result in more killings,
i.e. the death of their enemies might add to the number
of casualties. If only Muslims were killed and the
Serbs saved then obviously the casualties would be
less. We have seen that the world can put a stop to
the killings of Muslims, but the world acted very late.
Yet the Slovenes and the Croats could be protected and
they were able to gain their independence without too
much bloodshed.
39. Elsewhere Muslim countries are subjected to
attacks and economic sanctions resulting in many deaths
from deprivations of all kinds.
40. Because of all these there is a great deal of
bitterness and anger among Muslims. The impotence of
Muslim countries to do anything to remedy the situation
adds to this frustration and anger. While the majority
of them are resigned to their fate, a small number
cannot help but feel a need to vent their anger in some
way.
41. These people may be misguided. They may be wrong
in believing they are fighting a jihad, a holy war.
They may achieve nothing to put an end to their
grievances. Indeed they may actually be doing a lot of
harm to their cause, to their co-religionists, to Islam
itself. But the fact remains that they are very angry
and bitter and willing to commit terrible acts of
terror, even if they lose their lives in the process.
42. The world must deal with these misguided people
not just by hunting them down but also by removing the
causes of their anger and frustration.
43. In Malaysia we had to deal with terrorists for 42
long years - from 1948 to 1990. We fought against
them, we hunted them and we punished them. But we also
looked into the causes of their insurrection. We found
that they were mainly Chinese who felt alienated
because they had not been given citizenship status by
the British. Their insurrection was supported by the
majority of ordinary Chinese who sympathized with them
and who also felt just as alienated.
44. Accordingly the independent Malaysian Government
gave more than a million citizenship to the Chinese,
protected them, provided land for them, enabled them to
go about their business, and gave them a meaningful
participation in the government of the country. This
was what the Malaysian Government refers to as winning
the hearts and minds of the people. And the Chinese
were won over. They slowly ceased helping the
terrorists, stopped the recruitment of new members and
they actually helped the Government apprehend many of
them.
45. What the Government did may sound like
appeasement. It may encourage people to resort to
terrorism in order to achieve their objectives. But by
removing their grievances and the causes of their
violent anger, they had to admit that their struggle
had become meaningless. Eventually they laid down
arms. Today Malaysians of Chinese origin are peace
loving and loyal to the country.
46. If Malaysia's experience is anything to go by, in
the fight against terrorism world wide, the causes, the
grievances of the terrorists must be attended to. We
must win the hearts and minds of the people most likely
to support or resort to terrorism.
47. The extreme disparity between rich and poor and
poverty must be reduced, the rigid insistence that
everyone must accept the same ideology and set of
values must be relaxed and in the case of the Muslims,
the oppression of the Palestinians and the other
Muslims and their countries must be brought to an end.
48. But Muslims everywhere must condemn terrorism once
it is clearly defined. Terrorising people is not the
way of Islam. Certainly killing innocent people is not
Islamic. Bitter and angry though we may be we must
demonstrate to the world that Muslims are rational
people when fighting for our rights and we do not
resort to acts of terror. We must object strongly to
the linking of Muslims with terror just because a few
Muslims have resorted to acts of terror. We must point
out that Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and others
are equally guilty of terrorism. Terrorists must be
identified by their acts, and nothing else. And we as
responsible Muslims must contribute to the fight
against terrorism by helping to define what constitutes
terrorism and who are the terrorists. And when that is
done we can all join in the fight against the
terrorists, be they Muslims, or Christians, or Hindus,
or Jews.
49. The September 11 attack on New York and Washington
is an unmitigated disaster for Muslims all over the
world. Our image, which had not been good, has been
made worse. It does not help that we are all weak and
disunited.
50. If the present crises in the Muslim world are to
be overcome we have to be serious about handling it.
You are here I believe because you recognize the danger
facing us. Unless we are able to turn the present
worldwide anger over the terrorists attack of September
11 into a real campaign against all terrorists
irrespective of their religious faiths we are going to
find that Muslim bashing will be heightened and our
struggle to alleviate the sufferings of hundreds of
millions of oppressed Muslims will fail.
51. We have a duty here to the Muslim ummah, to Islam
and to Allah s.w.t Let us put aside other
considerations and strive for consensus in our fight
against the blight of blind anger and frustration and
prove that Islam is indeed a way of life that will
bring about the well-being and glory to the Muslims and
to Mankind as whole.
52. I pray that you will have a successful conference
and may Allah s.w.t guide you all. Amin.
Sumber : Pejabat Perdana Menteri
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