When he (or she, of course) is a freedom fighter, naturally.
That’s the game that various nations have been playing at the UN for several years, during attempts to ratify an umbrella treaty on terrorism that would better unify international attempts to stop the practice.
The problem? Diplomats can’t agree on a definition. Or, digging deeper, nobody’s willing to agree on a definition that won’t implicate some group that they favor or support.
The most prominent stoppage?
The 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference insists on exempting “national liberation movements” and “resistance to foreign occupation.” They have Kashmir and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in mind.
“The UN must do its duty and differentiate between terrorists and freedom fighters,” said Rizwan Khan, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani UN mission. “Isn’t that what the UN was made for, to bring peace to the world?”
The Mitchell Commission, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, defined terrorism thusly: Terrorism involves the deliberate killing and injuring of randomly selected noncombatants for political ends. It seeks to promote a political outcome by spreading terror and demoralization throughout a population.
Though both sides of the conflict accepted the definition — largely because they could level it at each other — it’s gotten nowhere in broader arenas.
The EU recently floated a definition of offenses intentionally committed by an individual or a group against one or more countries, their institutions or people, with the aim of intimidating them and seriously altering or destroying the political, economic, or social structures of a country. That struck some folks as too broad — it could be used, for example, against trade union activity and globalization protests.
It’s worth recalling in this debate that a few decades back, there was another party that insisted on calling folks “freedom fighters” who were randomly killing civilians and seeking to destabilize a government. That party, of course, was Ronald Reagan, referring to the Contras in Nicaragua. We shouldn’t be too surprised that other groups today are seeking to play just the same word games to protect their own interest and agendas. Nor should that lesson be lost on our own, present-day, politicians.