shiva

That's a shame as the Geneva convention specifically defines what many would call terrorism as legal and legitimate war. However ultimately the convention only defines a set of rules and conditions, but these are only applicable if at least one party is a signatory of the convention.


Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977.

"85 The principles laid down in the operative paragraphs of the resolution, though this was to be "without prejudice to their elaboration in future within the framework of the development of international law applying to the the protection of human rights in armed conflicts", may be summarized as follows:
[p.46]
-- the struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination and racist régimes for the implementation of their right to self-determination is legitimate; (53)
-- any attempt to suppress such a struggle is incompatible with the Charter, the friendly Relations Declaration, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Declaration on the Granting of Independence, and constitutes a threat to international peace an security;
-- armed conflicts resulting from such a struggle are international armed conflicts in the sense of the Geneva Conventions;combatants engaged in such struggles should enjoy prisoner-of-war status in the sense of the Third Convention;[/COLOR]
-- violation of such status entails the full responsibility of those committing it.

As such the ANC's fight was perfectly legitimate and legal under the Geneva Convention and not terrorism at all but an act of war as defined by the convention itself.


Sorry but sometimes semantics really do matter.

Autonomy

Dubaiexile

Very good debate, and I was pleased to see arguments based on fact and reason, as I said originally a very contentious subject.....now just to throw another spanner in the works, I find it particularly galling that Winnie is still in the fold when she should have been banged up years ago (Tyre necklace speech.....and the football team of thugs she had are a couple of examples).

Bipat

Please forgive the peaceful invasion from another forum (no intention of staying) but saw the thread title.
Could you good people explain to me why it was OK for 'white' people to march around the world 'taking' land, but to fight for the freedom to move about freely and enjoy their 'own' land are acts of terrorism??????

scrubbedexpat141

Woah woah woah there. We went to New Zealand and gave them rum and blankets.

Then they moaned, so we gave them guns, but no ammo.

See, just smart business. Nothing too mean.

Meow

No one is saying it was.

Just because there is a suggestion that Mandela is not the saint he is made out to be it does not mean that apartheid or colonialism is fair.

Bipat

Isn't "fair" a little bit of an understatement? Not allowed to move about freely in your own country "unfair"??

That said the word "saint" is usually wrong when applied to any human, but this discussion is whether fighting for the right to have freedom in your own country is "terrorism".

Boomhauer

What I can't figure is why Britain left the Gulf to the locals, it doesn't make sense, from a purely self interest standpoint.

scrubbedexpat141

I think what some people are getting at is the method of fighting for freedom / fairness etc.

Who knows? I think Shiva might have posted something that said something about the British bases being closed up even though nobody wanted them to be... I think.

shiva

yup, certainly in the UAE they wanted us to stay but the labour government decided its was too expensive and too right wing, even when the UAE offered to pay.

Meow

Yes it is an understatement, but there is little to be gained by hyperbole. You are just trying to be pedantic, whereas some of us are rational.

Boomhauer

What I'm surprised with is that Britain never settled the area with colonists. The area was sparsely populated and Britian didn't have an issue colonising other regions of the world or dominating the locals, yet in the Arabian penninsula they said to themselves "can't be arsed", even though vast hydrocarbon riches was known to exist. Just seems like there is more to it...

OleJanx

You've obviously never heard of the carve up known as the red line agreement. Look it up, it's interesting, and explains which countries had either British or American influence when it came to oil.

mikewot

So were the ANC a signatory? No.

As I said I'm not interested in getting into semantics, by which I mean something along the lines of "I'm not saying you're guilty, but I am blaming you"

shiva

Corrected that for you