Terrorism in Syria

From day one of the Geneva peace talks between Damascus and the Syrian opposition, the Syrian government wanted to give terrorism in the country a priority consideration.

Fair enough!

Terrorism should indeed be given a top priority in all peace negotiations, provided the two sides can agree on its definition.

All efforts to define terrorism have eluded the international community thus far, despite repeated attempts to come up with one that gets the support of the world at large.

The attempt to give terrorism a legal face that all nations would agree on is made especially daunting because it is politically loaded and emotionally charged.

Accordingly, efforts to agree on a universally accepted definition of terrorism floundered in the past because many countries had yet to achieve their independence and their peoples waged wars of liberation for the enjoyment of the right to self determination.

The aim to protect freedom fighters in any given situation from the stigma of terrorism caused some countries to postpone giving a clear definition of terrorism.

Ironically, Syria was among the nations that rejected any attempt to define terrorism if it is intended to delegitimise liberation movements.

Against this backdrop, the UN had to improvise a workable definition that does not raise objections from various regions of the world.

Ever since 1994, the UN General Assembly resorted to a political rather than a legal definition of terrorism, which stated that criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror for political purposes, is unjustified for whatever reason.

For all intents and purposes, however, there is still a wide consensus across the world that terrorism is the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce peoples, communities or other groups of people for political or religious or ideological purposes.

In all situations, terrorism entails the deliberate targeting of the life and safety of non-combatants.

Under all these criteria, both the Syrian government and the opposition forces have committed acts of terrorism.

Giving high priority to terrorism even in the absence of a universally accepted criteria is therefore right, starting with the acts of terrorism committed by the Syrian government forces and its allies since they started it all by deploying chemical weapons, barrel bombs, heavy artillery, gunships and aerial power to silence its opponents.

At one stage or another, there will come a time to hold all those involved in terrorism accountable.

Neither Damascus nor the extremists fighting in Syria should expect to enjoy impunity for their crimes.