Annan underlines need to deny terrorists safe havens

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan underlined the need for nations to deny safe havens and logistical support to terrorists in comments he made ahead of a key policy speech he is to deliver today before a world summit on terrorism.

Annan’s address is expected to be the highlight of the four-day session, which was timed to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Madrid train bombings. The attack, believed to have been carried out by Islamic extremists, killed 191 people and injured more than 1,500.

“We live in one world and the issue of terrorism affects us all,” Annan said after meeting Spain’s prime minister. ”When the people of Madrid are hit or people in New York are hit, it does have an effect on all of us.”

Annan said he wanted to express solidarity with the victims of the Madrid attack and to affirm the United Nation’s determination to work with governments and people around the world to try to prevent such bloodshed.

He and other world leaders and experts attending the summit here on democracy, terrorism and security are grappling with ways to combat violence without jeopardising human rights.

The experts have begun offering their recommendations ahead of Friday’s final session. In one key area – financing terrorism – experts urged world leaders to create an international institution under UN auspices to track the elusive methods terrorists use to raise money.

The draft recommendation said measures undertaken so far to curb terrorist financing were insufficient to cut the flow of funds to al-Qaida and other international terrorist groups. The experts stressed that governments need to be more flexible if they hope to turn off the tap.

Fighting terrorism – particularly its financing – is complicated, in part because terrorists get money using legitimate business as well as through kidnappings for ransom, drug dealing and credit card fraud.

“We don’t have a clear image of how the money of terrorists moves around,” said Petre Roman, the former prime minister of Romania. “We know that the most terrible acts have been committed with very little money.”

The train bombings in Madrid on March 11, 2004, cost as little as €1,000, Roman said, while the September 11 suicide attacks in the US in 2001 didn’t exceed €372,300.

But tracking the money poses huge challenges for governments and private industry, because there are few legal guidelines to apply. The finance working group experts stressed that a judicial review process should be put in place to put anti-terror measures within a legal framework.

Leaders said the issue would be included in the draft recommendations wrapping up the conference that has featured leading terrorism experts from 50 countries and about two dozen current and former world leaders.

Foreign policy experts warned that nations must join together to fight terrorism – rather than letting differences of opinion weaken their resolve.