Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Beslan tragedy remembered

Staff Reporter

Terrorism deprives society of its sense of security

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The main stumbling block in the battle against terrorism is the lack of a clear definition of what terrorism is, former Indian Ambassador to the United Nations T. P. Sreenivasan said on Thursday.

He was speaking at seminar on `Psychology of Terrorism' organised here by the Russian Cultural Centre to commemorate the second anniversary of the Beslan school tragedy.

The unity that exists between terrorist organisations does not exist between the nations that combat terror, Mr. Sreenivasan said, according to a press note issued here on Thursday. Terrorism is a threat to the very existence of our world and has today become a phenomenon that deprives society of its sense of security. Even those countries that thought they were secure, are today feeling the pressure of terrorism.

A nation's sense of security changed after the attacks on the World Trade Centre. America and Europe that saw terrorist activities in such places as Kashmir and Chechny as freedom movements, changed their opinion after the attack on the World Trade Centre. Even the United Nation is thinking on terrorism changed only after September 2001.

Terrorism cannot be classified as good terrorism and bad terrorism. India's assertion that actions that kill people and destroy the nation in the name of freedom should be classified as terrorism is gaining international acceptance. Europe and the United States that did not see the first Mumbai serial blasts as acts of terrorism condemned those incidents at post 9/11 G-8 conference, he said.

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