GUYANA yesterday declared its firm opposition to terrorism as it vehemently deplored the "criminal and monstrously destructive terrorist acts" against the United States on September 11.

"Guyana's opposition to terrorism is complete and absolute", Ambassador to the U.S., Dr. Odeen Ishmael told the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

He said the enormous loss of life from the attacks "reverberates throughout the (New York and Washington) community and the world, the victims and their loved ones coming from a multitude of nationalities and ethnicities, many of my own countrymen and women perishing with the rest."

"The loss of life and property has also been injurious to economies everywhere in this age of globalisation", he noted.

Guyana, he said, "extends its deepest sympathy to the people and Government of the United States upon their suffering and loss."

"We wish that Government every success in its efforts to marshal the forces of humanity in a coalition to conquer international terrorism, which affects us all, and which violates the ideals that we both profess and support.

"If it were to go unchallenged, it would have the effect of negating all that we have worked and struggled for in this Organisation since its founding in 1945", he told the General Assembly.

Ishmael recalled President Bharrat Jagdeo's pledge of support against terrorism given in a message delivered at an inter-faith service of remembrance in New York Sunday for 24 Guyanese nationals who lost their lives in the disaster.

In that message, Mr. Jagdeo said:

"Death is almost always a painful thing. When it comes to people in their youth, or in the prime of their lives, and when it comes so tragically and in such an unexpected fashion as it did to our Guyanese brothers and sisters on September 11, in that disaster of such mind-bogging dimensions, the wrenching pain is unbearable and the grief unsupportable.

"Guyana supports the efforts to rein in terror and we pledge our full cooperation to root out terrorism."

Ishmael noted that Guyana has a substantial Muslim population, and said that as a member of the Organisation of Islamic Conference, it is "anxious for our efforts to eradicate terrorism to succeed."

"However, it is imperative...that we guard against the bigotry that has driven some to blame Muslims and Arabs for the events of September 11", he urged.

"It has been well and succinctly stated, at this very podium earlier in the debate, that terrorism has `no religion, no nationality and no ethnicity'. No religion authorises or legitimises terrorism, and any protestations or claims to the contrary are no more than a vain political excuse to justify that which can never be vindicated."

The Ambassador stressed this country's support for the multifaceted efforts of the UN to deal with terrorism, pointing out that Guyana is a party to several anti-terrorist conventions.

"These efforts require, for their success, that we pay heed to the instances of injustice that abound in the contemporary world. Where injustice is manifest, it can become a politically destabilising force and breed hatred - conditions that might be exploited by the unscrupulous for the furtherance of their own evil ends", he said.

The current revolution in communications has now rendered it impossible to conceal injustice from the eyes of its victims, Ishmael added.

Noting that it was the decolonisation process that gave rise to the greatest increase in the membership of the UN, he said the organisation "must ensure that the freedoms which we sought for ourselves are enjoyed by everyone else".

The UN has to ensure that there is "everywhere respect for human rights, for our common humanity; for our right as human beings to pursue our legitimate destiny, whether individually or as a collective, embodied in a state without arbitrary interference or denial; that the autonomy of the human spirit is maximised and its creativity, thereby, nurtured", he said.

Guyana, he said, welcomed UN Security Council Resolution 1373 which "in our view, represents a significant advance in the efforts of the international community to eradicate terrorism while, simultaneously, constituting an innovative interpretation of the Charter of the United Nations."

Ishmael told the General Assembly that the meaning of the charter in 2001 is significantly at variance with its meaning in 1945, and this reality is reflective of changes in the world that have occurred in the intervening period.

"We are concerned here with the fashioning of a legal structure that will facilitate the attainment of a purpose we all endorse. The validity of all law - and International Law is no exception - has a temporal dimension, and change being inherent in all forms of human social organisation, it follows inevitably and inexorably that law must be adapted to the exigencies of that change if it is to preserve its relevance and effectiveness."

Ishmael added, "The present period in which we live is different from 1945, and the framers of the charter contemplated threats to the maintenance of international peace and security that are often radically at variance with the kinds of threats with which we are confronted today.

"International terrorism, in all its ramifications, does constitute a threat to the maintenance of international peace and security. It is therefore appropriate that the decision-making machinery that is vested in Chapter 7 of the Charter is enlisted with a view to eradicating this malady.

"Guyana will fulfill the obligations that have been laid upon us all by Security Council Resolution 1373."

The Ambassador reiterated Guyana's "unswerving support for all the efforts we have crafted for the purpose of defeating terrorism", adding, "These efforts are hugely multilateral and derive an enhanced legitimacy from that sobering reality."

He declared: "We shall prevail! Our survival, with the full complement of rights to which we all aspire, requires that we do!"