Assessing Damage, Urging Action Algeria, Argentina, Chile, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Northern Ireland, Peru, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey, Uruguay, all experienced years and decades of “emergency” measures. Measures that often were presumably intended to be temporary, gradually became the norm. Witnesses spoke directly of the risk of “sleep-walking” into a legal and political contradiction – temporary and emergency measures which become permanent and routine. Furthermore, much of the evidence suggested that these “temporary” and “emergency” responses tend to seep into other areas of law, and negatively influence the institutional culture of the police, the legal system, and the judiciary. Where there had been a separation of powers, long-lasting emergencies gradually undermined this important safeguard, and privileged the centralisation of the power with the executive and/or its military and intelligence agencies. The Panel was told that the exercise of special powers, especially the militarisation of law enforcement or of the judiciary, as seen in the Middle East, has had a long-term corrosive effect on the rule of law. 2.5 Much of the current threat is a continuation of past threats Whilst some contemporary threats have new elements, many are a continuation of past conflicts. Sri Lanka has experienced three decades of conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), fighting for a separate State in the North of Sri Lanka. Serious terrorist acts, including suicide attacks, remain a continuing reality. Another long-standing threat that continues to this day is the targeting of civilians in the violence that seeks the separation of the Basque country from Spain. There is even the risk that governments explicitly re-define long-standing domestic conflicts as part of the worldwide contemporary threat from terrorism, to further their own ends, and possibly in the expectation that this will secure more external sympathy and support. For example, in Moscow, the Panel was told that the conflict in Chechnya was originally characterised as a separatist struggle; from 1999 it was described as a terrorist operation; and since 9/11 (although intermittently), the conflict has been portrayed as being part of international terrorism. In Colombia, the Government of President Alvaro Uribe now characterises the decades-old confrontation with armed groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia: FARC), as a fight against terrorism.31 In Nepal, armed activities by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) started in 1996. Yet in November 2001, new terrorist legislation justified by the global context of counter-terrorism was passed, and the Maoists were formally designated (at home and abroad) as a terrorist organisation. Some contributors claim that the Filipino Government has selectively subsumed a complex web of long-standing local conflicts under the “counter-terrorist” label. In Uganda, the longstanding conflict in the north of the country was reclassified: the insurgent Lord’s Resistance Army 31 See the summary of the EJP Colombia Hearing. 29