Treading more cautiously

THE UNITED NATIONS Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, has aptly assessed the worldwide mood of dismay over the killings of four U.N.-contracted civilian workers during the ongoing American aerial and missile attacks on Afghanistan. Describing the deaths as a ``hard blow'' for the U.N., Mr. Annan is hoping that ``precaution will minimise (further) civilian involvement'' of such a tragic dimension. The U.S. too has regretted the deaths, but it has raised doubts whether these killings were directly caused by its own bombardment of some installations of the Afghan-Taliban regime. An alternative suggestion by Washington is that the ``ordnance'' from the Taliban's anti-aircraft batteries could have just as probably killed the workers who belonged to an agency that was engaged in clearing land mines - the grim legacy of Afghanistan's earlier internecine battles and externally- instigated wars. At best, the American statement will qualify as a cosmetic argumentation, if not also a callous one at that, about the reality of human casualties. The truth simply is that the U.S. has not been able to stick to its virtual advertisement that the ongoing raids over Afghanistan reflect a technologically precise exercise which should not affect the non-combatants. On the wider international stage, a more disturbing reality is the chain-reaction of political anxieties that Washington's Afghan operations have triggered in a remarkably short period since they began last Sunday.

Significantly, Mr. Annan himself has, while responding to media questions, spoken about ``some anxiety amongst the membership'' of the United Nations. These international worries relate to the letter that the U.S. communicated to the Security Council shortly after embarking on the present raids over Afghanistan. Now, the global community has by and large acquiesced in America's contention that its initial targets are the terrorist camps of Osama bin Laden and the military infrastructure of his collaborator, the Taliban regime. Except for some sizable pockets of fundamentalism, most Islamic states too have tacitly or openly acknowledged America's rights under the relevant international law to act in self- defence. Now, the U.S., in its letter, drew the Security Council's attention to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter that permits individual or collective self-defence by the member-states that feel threatened by external forces. Yet, what seems to have caused concern within the U.N. forum is Washington's parallel assertion that it might in course of time target unspecified organisations and states other than the Afghan-Taliban regime and Osama's Al-Qaeda. In a delicate interpretation at this moment, Mr. Annan tends to think that the U.S. has neither predicted the inevitability of such a follow-up action nor expressed a pointed intention to go after other states and groups. However, the legitimate concerns of the international community on this score must be fully addressed by the U.S. as it seeks to sustain a `campaign' against terrorism with a global canvas.

Some Islamic nations, in particular, appear eager to evaluate the possible outlines of an incremental U.S.' agenda. The legal and moral support which the U.S. now enjoys is derived from two relevant resolutions that the Security Council adopted in recent weeks. While the first condemned last month's terrorist attacks on America and upheld the principle of self-defence, the second directed all states to combat terrorism in various specific ways. Yet, some other U.N. agencies, which are traditionally mandated to address humanitarian issues, have begun to point out how the current American air offensive is hampering relief supplies to the drought-stricken Afghan people. Because of the overall atmosphere of fear caused by America's aerial raids, its own follow-up air- drop of food and medicines seems to have had little or no beneficial impact inside Afghanistan. Overall, the U.S. should therefore recognise the need to tread or fly cautiously in the face of an increasingly volatile international situation.

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