U.S. takes up the cudgels against terrorism

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33035, 30 September 1972, Page 21

U.S. takes up the cudgels against terrorism

( By

JAMES RESTON.

of the "Neto York Times" through N.Z-..P.A.)

WASHINGTON. The United States is going to carry the fight against terrorism and anarchy in world communications to the United Nations in the next two weeks and try to make this an important test, not only of the world organisation, but also of the “basic principles” signed by President Nixon and Mr Leonid Brezhnev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, four months ago.

The problem is clear static intercourse between the nations has been violated repeatedly by the harassment, kidnapping and even murder of diplomats during the last few years. Not only dplomats, but ordinary citizens cannot be sure when they enter an aircraft these days that it will not be hijacked, diverted and threatened with destruction in the air. An evening out on the town for Dr Henry Kissinger is no longer merely a social occasion but a military operation, with

policemen watching the kitchen and the doors. POTENTIAL TARGETS All international meetings, whether of athletes, diploi mats or businessmen, are subject to this terror, and now the postal services of the world are being used to send explosive devices to Israeli embassies, where the mail has to be sifted by experts in bullet-proof vests. The Secretary of State (Mr William Rogers), whose quiet efforts to deal with the problem have failed, is now going to challenge the United i Nations, and especially the I Russians and the other perI manent members of the

Security Council, to agree to tough new regulations to punish the hijackers and the bomb-throwers, and those who finance and protect them. He will propose that the members of the United Nations agree not to provide arms and money to organisations engaged in this international banditry, and that they agree to extradite or punish air hijackers and cut air traffic with any nation that refuses to cooperate. NO SUCCESS BEFORE He has tried this before without success, but next week he intends to call on the United Nations for effective action, and much depends on whether in the meantime he can persuade the Soviet Union, China, Britain, France and the other leading commercialairline nations to cooperate. This will be an interesting test of the Nixon-Brehnev “basic principles” signed in Kremlin on May 29. The third article of that declaration said: “The United States and the Soviet Union have a special responsibility, as do other countries which are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, Britain and France), to do everything in their power so that conflicts or situations will not arise which would serve to increase international tensions. Accordingly, they will seek to promote conditions in which all nations will live in peace and security. BIGGEST AIR FLEET The Big Five on the United Nations, except China, have the largest commercial air fleets in the world. They not only have a “special responsibility” to try to bring some order into international air travel, but together they could go a long way towards discouraging hijackers if they refused to allow flights to any nation that refused to extradite or punish them. So far, the Brezhnev regime in Moscow, while deploring air hijacking, has shown little interest in withdrawing its air traffic from

Cuba, Algeria, or the Arab States, which are the usual destinations of gunmen who blackmail the airlines and take control of the aircraft. But Mr Rogers. is going to make a public issue of the problem, anyway.

HARDER PROBLEM Protecting the mails and international meetings from political terrorists is a harder problem, and about all Mr Rogers can do is to urge extradition or punishment of those who are caught. But it is easier to stop commercial air travel to nations that refuse to cooperate than it is to withhold all postal services. Nevertheless, the first “basic principle” in the Nixon-Brezhnev agreement is that the United States and the Soviet Union will be “guided by their obligations under the United Nations Charter,” and as Mr Rogers says, “If the United Nations won’t apply its principles to this international anarchy, I don’t know what it will do.” VIETNAM WAR

The trouble with this argument, of course, is that when the American Secretary of State raises the question of imposing the principles of the charter and defending human rights, he is likely to be asked to apply those principles to the war in Vietnam, and to the misery of the refugees in the Middle East ana South-East Asia, and this is not his favourite subject. In fact, it might be that a private appeal by Mr Nixon to Mr Brezhnev, Chou En-lai, the British Prime Minister (Mr Heath), and President Pompidou of France would have a better chance of success than a public challenge in the United Nations. FARM PROBLEM The Soviet Union has its worst agricultural problem since the 19405, and Mr Nixon has agreed to sell it more than a quarter of the American wheat crop at favourable prices to get Mr Brezhnev over a very difficult political and economic problem. Under these circumstances, it is not unreasonable for the President to ask that the Nixon-Brezhnev agreement of last May be applied to the world communications crisis, even if this leads to a serious debate on the war in Vietnam, which should probably have been held at the United Nations long ago, anyway.