SPEECH BY HON'BLE SHRI L. K. ADVANI

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA

AT INTERNATIONAL YOUTH CONFERENCE ON TERRORISM

ON 11TH FEBRUARY, 2003

I congratulate the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP for conceiving and successfully organizing this International Youth conference on Terrorism.

Young people are full of energy and idealism. They are impatient for change. And, of course, there is a lot in this world that needs urgent change.

Sometimes, youth are told that resorting to violence is the only way to get things done.

Youth organisations like the ones who have gathered in this conference should combat these negative forces. They should work actively to channel the tremendous energy of young people for the realization of positive ends.

Young people across the world should work together to promote the ideals of peace, friendship, respect for spiritual and cultural diversity, non-discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and gender, and removal of hunger and poverty from the face of the Earth.

Therefore, I commend BJYM for selecting the theme "Global Dialogue for Peace".

What is going on in the world today is a historic struggle between Democratic and Despotic forces, between the forces of Enlightenment and Darkness.

In different eras, this struggle has manifested in different ways. The forms and manifestations of enlightened popular will have changed; so have the manifestations of Despotism and Tyranny.

In the eighteenth, nineteen and twentieth century, Despotism manifested in the form of alien rule, and colonialism.

In the same era, it also manifested in the form of Fascism in some countries.

For many decades in the colonial and post-colonial period, it manifested in the form of Communist dictatorship.

What was common to all these forms of Despotism was the reliance on brute force, on extreme methods of violence and torture, and refusal to accept pluralism in society and a desire to impose the will of a few on the many.

This is what we se in Despotism's newest manifestation: Jehadi terrorism.

The violence it wreaks may seem mindless (example: killing of tourists in Bali or Alexandra in Egypt, or terrorizing ordinary Muslim women not wearing a burqa in Kashmir), but is ideologically driven.

And that ideology hates the very concept of democracy, of secularism, of multiculturalism, of individual freedom, of choice.

This ideology of pan-Islamism does not even believe in the concept of national sovereignty and national boundaries.

Hence it does not hesitate to kill ordinary citizens of Kenya in its capital Mombassa, in a plot aimed at blowing up an Israeli civilian plane.

Hence, it does not hesitate to kill thousands of innocent persons, belonging to over 40 different countries, in the attack on the World Trade Centre in NY. Many of these killed belonged to Muslim countries.

Hence it claims legitimacy in sending jehadi fighters from other countries into Kashmir, at a time when there are no longer any local recruits for militancy and the people of Kashmir have in fact, rejected militancy by adopting the democratic path available to them. Yet, this is being done in the name of "Kashmir's Freedom".

These are non-State combatants.

But non-State combatants cannot sustain their campaign for too long, without the active support of States that believe, to whatever degree, in the ideology of jehad to settle political disputes.

In our case, such active support to non -State combatants is coming from the State of Pakistan.

Pakistan also lent its support to thes non-State combatants to target other democracies and secular societies by actually midwifing a jehadi State in its immediate neighbourhood-the State of Taliban in Afghanistan.

As far as Pakistan was concerned, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was a low-cost Force Multiplier.

Except that, its strategy has gone awry.

It has had to pay a very heavy high price, with no gains in Kashmir.

Even since Shri A. B. Vajpayee was elected Prime Minister in 1998, his Government has been carrying on a sustained campaign in the world to create the awareness that terrorism may be a menace today for India's peace but actually it is a global threat for all democracies and for civilisation itself.

Our efforts in this regard were yielding gradual results. But a dramatic change has come about in international awareness following the Sept. 11 happenings.

Before Sept. 11 we were waging a war against cross border terrorism all on our own.

Even after Sept. 11 our resolve is to continue the war on our won, and to win a decisive victory over the forces of terrorism.

We do not expect other countries to fight our battle. But we do hope that post September 11, all nations of the world who have associated themselves with the global coalition against terrorism will not in any manner support countries which directly or indirectly promote terrorism.

Could Sept. 11 have been averted?

I have read two different kinds of writings on the subject. One is a book by the Defence and National Security reporter of The Washington Times, by name Bill Gertz. In this book titled "Breakdown", he documents how America's security failures led to Sept. 11.

The other piece is a critique of America's Afghanistan - Pakistan policy.

Written by Prof. Amin Saikal, Director of the Centre for Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies at the Australian National University, Canberra, the article affirms:

"The crisis of international terrorism emanating from Afghanistan might have been avoided had Washington heeded the now-slain leader of the Afghan anti-Taliban forces, the legendary commander Ahmed Shah Massood. The Commander repeatedlywarned that Pakistan was rapidly consolidating a potent geopolitical instrument in Afghanistan to further its regional ambitions, and that this instrument was being grounded in a dangerous triangular alliance between the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), turning Afghanistan into a major source of instability in world politics.

The article adds :

"Washington's failure to help Masood to limit the menace eventually cost both the Commander and the US dearly. Masood died on September 15, 2001 as the result of fatal wounded inflicted on him in a suicide bombing by two Arabs, apparently organised by bin Laden, only two days before the US fell victim to the worst apocalyptic terrorist attacks in history on September 11, 2001. Why did the US fail to act earlier over Afghanistan, and is it now capable of addressing effectively the root-causes of the present crisis?"

In conclusion Prof. Saikal Writes :

"In short, a reshaping of Afghan, regional and international political and economic orders has never been more urgent. the removal of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda activists and the Taliban regime on its won will not ensure the necessary changes. Nor would it necessarily eliminate the danger from those groups that are or will be gripped by apocalyptic missions, and such groups may well require further military responses as they pose challenges. The US and is allies will have to cast their net wider to address all the root causes that provide the motivation for such horrific acts as those committed against US targets on September 11, 2001. A state, like Pakistan, must never again be allowed to cause so much disruption and stress in world politics.