UN inaction allowed terrorism to grow: MJ Akbar

Accra: Describing terrorism as the "gravest threat the world has faced since World War Two", Indian Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar has blamed the UN for the growth of international terrorism because of its inability to agree on its definition for the last two decades.

Speaking at a function here to mark India`s 71st Independence Day on Tuesday, Akbar said: "It would be naive to think that terrorists do not have political objectives, that they seek chaos through random attacks. They have concrete political objectives. They are challenging the concept of the nation state, which has been the central to the architecture of stability in the modern world."

He said, another threat that terrorists cause to peace is the threat to harmony in plural societies. "They inject fear through the random use of violence, and seek to create walls of suspicion and dread, with significant consequence upon communities, which have lived in harmony for centuries.

"There are countries which sup with devil and use terrorism as an instrument of state policy. No cause can justify the violence and destruction orchestrated through terrorism," Akbar said.

He added that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has placed a 10-point agenda to counter terrorism at the recently concluded G-20 summit in Hamburg and sought Ghana`s cooperation in combating "this global evil creating a stronger global framework for security".

He said the celebration of India`s 71st Independence Day is not just a celebration of an event that took place in 1947, but a "seminal moment" that marked the collapse of colonialism and imperialism across Asia and Africa, as well as the remembering the extraordinary generation of leaders who made their people`s dream of freedom.

Akbar said that the anniversary was also a moment to celebrate the bridges that those leaders built between India and Africa, adding that, these relationships have "remain pathways of continued friendship, rising mutual prosperity and enhance security against the menace of our age, terrorism".

He lamented over how Ghana and other parts of Africa were turned into "gateway to hell" from the forts and castles that Europeans built as the "barbaric trade in slavery became big business in the West".

"The dark dungeons of Elmina Castle resonate with the unspeakable pains of your ancestors; the shackles and other instruments of torture lodged in their museums are evidence of a terrible moral degradation, physical violence and collective tyranny," Akbar added.

Africa has a special place in the Indian history and in the Indian heart, Akbar said, adding that "the old world, which had complacently believed that colonialism would last for centuries, watched in astonishment as the mightiest empire in history crumbled before the fearless power of non-violence".

He said India`s developmental partnership with Ghana has already crossed $500 million and thanked the people and successive governments of the country for ensuring the safety and security of the Indian community in Ghana.

Ghana`s Minister of Transport, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, said Indian investors should help the country`s private sector to grow bilateral trade to $5 billion by 2020.