Mutual distrust stands in way of war on terrorism

Date: 13/11/1997

As the EU and US continue to argue over 'extra-territorial' laws, By Mark Turner examines the obstacles to international cooperation IN AN apocryphal country, an apocryphal newspaper based in the capital publishes the following headline: "Terrorist attack in far north shocks government."

The following week, another explosion rocks a major industrial centre. The paper reports: "Rebels destroy central shopping street." As time progresses, the incidents grow in number and force, so the newspaper duly reveals: "Armed opposition faction threatens to overthrow government."

By the time summer arrives, the country is on the brink of take-over. "Freedom fighters approach capital," blares the headline. Finally, the tanks roll in and power changes hands. "Liberators free oppressed masses," the paper proclaims.

This tale illustrates the major problem facing European governments in their fight against terrorism. Nobody can agree precisely on what it is.

As a result, although most Europeans instinctively understand each other, meshing 15 different legal systems together to combat the phenomenon is proving very difficult indeed.

While the problem cannot be insuperable - after all, the European Union has already managed to align the lion's share of its commercial laws - it is compounded by the profound political sensitivities which accompany any discussion on the subject. As the old expression goes, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.

The countless international figures who have made the transition from criminals to respected leaders - Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa and Menachem Begin, to name a few - demonstrate how thin the line can sometimes be.

Conversely, the plucky Afghani mujahidin fighters applauded during the Soviet era are now being denounced as Islamist thugs.

Closer to home, the provisional Irish Republican Army and Basque separatists ETA have both lurched between approval and condemnation throughout their turbulent history. Wavering support from abroad, such as from the US Irish community, serves to complicate matters even further.

Given the subject's capacity for controversy, therefore, most EU governments would prefer to sweep it quietly under the carpet.

At present, the Union claims to approach the problem of terrorism from two angles: the external, under its common foreign and security 'second pillar', and the internal, under the justice and home affairs 'third pillar'.

On the internal front, the challenge is fairly clear. EU governments need to establish sufficiently similar rules to allow their police and security services to cooperate effectively, and to extradite wanted terrorists from country to country.

But as the fight between Belgium and Spain in the mid-1990s over two suspected ETA terrorists demonstrated, even that can prove beyond the Union's ability.

Traditionally, under rules established by the Council of Europe 20 years ago, European countries will arrest and ship out criminals wanted by their neighbours so long as both accept they have committed a crime, and that their misdeed is not deemed to be 'political' in character.

Although the first stipulation is not so intractable considering the severity of terrorist offences, it can prove an obstacle if, for example, one country requests an extradition because a suspect belongs to a proscribed organisation.

Since membership on its own is not an offence in many European countries, extradition can often only take place if a particular crime has been committed and evidence directly links the suspect to it. That is not always so easy to prove.

The second problem is more difficult. Despite almost half a century of cooperation and bridge-building, Europeans still find it difficult to place absolute trust in each other's political systems. The Belgian government's refusal to extradite the Spanish suspects on political grounds is a case in point.

The 1977 European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism went some way towards alleviating this problem by defining a number of crimes as non-political in nature. These included the seizure of aircraft, attacks against life, hostage-taking and planting bombs. The 177 Interpol members also agree that where a crime affects innocent victims not involved in a political campaign, political objections to cooperation should be overruled.

But in practice the rules are vague and subject to legal dispute.

EU governments have since agreed to go beyond the 1977 accord in a follow-up extradition convention which drops the political exception altogether. But that convention has not yet been ratified by all countries and looks unlikely to enter into force for some time to come.

Another major internal hurdle is the inability - or unwillingness - of EU governments to share information on terrorist activities.

Frequently falling into the category of vital national secrets, details are often passed on only grudgingly and on a case-by-case basis. Europol, the EU's fledgling police agency, will have a mandate to collate terrorist information when it is up and running, but again, Union governments have not yet ratified its founding treaty.

Finally, member states find it very difficult to agree where the line falls between terrorism and organised crime, each of which elicits very different responses from law enforcement agencies and can lead to legal confusion.

On the external front, things are even tougher. Although institutional meetings between European and foreign political directors, the transatlantic dialogue, and the Euro-Mediterranean partnership all offer opportunities for debate, these fora have proved startlingly ineffective at tackling root problems in practice.

Furthermore, the legal difficulties at European level fade into insignificance compared to those encountered when attempts are made to agree on anti-terrorist strategies in the United Nations, and efforts to do so have yielded little consensus.

Recent wars of words between South African President Nelson Mandela and the UK over where the Lockerbie bombers should stand trial demonstrate the huge gulf that still exists on basic issues.

Similarly, when the US passed its notorious Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), forbidding any country from investing in the countries' energy sectors, the European Union immediately condemned it as international bullying.

Nearer to the border, Turkey's campaign against Kurdish terrorists has brought it into sharp conflict with Europe, as has Israel's clamp-down on Palestinian activists.

And although the Union has been rather quieter over events in Algeria, the two sides' inability to cooperate has all but frozen a proposed EU-Algeria association agreement.

As at European level, world governments seem to prefer a lower-key approach to terrorist issues, leaving the burden of protection with airports, national police forces and ordinary citizens.

The trouble is that as mobility increases, communications become global and more insidious weapons fall into the hands of terrorists, this approach may begin to look rather lame.

The legitimacy of governments ultimately depends on their ability to offer safe living standards to their citizens, who expect cooperation where cooperation is needed.

If they do not start to agree on shared strategies now, the new millennium could bring those governments some nasty surprises.

Major feature. As the EU and US continue to argue over 'extra-territorial' laws, author examines the obstacles to international co-operation.