6th September, 2004

DAVID ADAMS

While we in Australia celebrated Father’s Day last Sunday, in southern Russia they were mourning the loss of more than 150 of their sons and daughters.

Beslan, a small town in North Ossetia, probably wasn’t a place many of us had heard of until last week. Now it’s one we’re unlikely to forget, taking it’s position alongside New York, Bali, Madrid, Belfast, London, Tel Aviv, Nairobi and countless other places in an ever-growing international list of terrorist targets.

And just when we thought the insanity of those who perpetrate such crimes couldn’t get any worse, it has. This time, the terrorists, believed to involve a group known as the ‘Black Widows’, coldly targeted a school and the children who attended, some of whom were there for the first day.

No matter what cause they claim to fight for, nothing can excuse such acts. Nothing can justify their crimes.

It is without doubt true any ‘war against terror’ must involve addressing its root causes - whether they be poverty, political injustice, even the mass murder of ethnic groups - and we in the Western world must exert pressure to compel our governments to undertake a radical re-examination of what role we are playing in ensuring freedom and justice for all and how we can help to address the inequalities in the world.

That said, terrorists who claim to represent such groups do nothing to help their cause if they resort to methods such as those that were used in Beslan. No-one with even the barest hint of compassion in their soul could fail to be moved by the images of traumatised, bloodied and, yes, dead children being carried from the school's gymnasium. No parent could remain untouched by the reports of desperate fathers and mothers as they sought to save the lives of their children. Such acts will do nothing to soften the hearts of Russians - or indeed the international community - to the supposed cause of the terrorists.

Whether - as it now seems may have been the case - the explosions and final confrontation began by the accidental triggering of explosives in the school or by deliberate action is irrelevant. The fact is those who took the 1,200 children, teachers and mothers in the school hostage did so deliberately. They did so knowing the consequences of their actions could result in many deaths.

Terrorism is not and never will be an acceptable means of achieving anything. I don’t pretend to have all or even some of the answers on how to address the myriad of what can be life and death issues those who commit terrorist acts say they are supporting. But I, like millions - billions - of others around this world, know that terrorism will not provide the answer they seek. There are no exceptions.