UN General Assembly
1998

direction. We urge the international community and the General Assembly to support the Mechanism in order for it to function effectively and to the benefit of Africa. The spectre of international terrorism has assumed a dangerous momentum of its own. It does not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. The brunt of it 28 all is in fact borne more by innocent bystanders. The acts of terrorism that rocked our sister republics of Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa, and the subsequent retaliatory action on Sudan and Afghanistan, have struck a cord in all of us, without exception. At issue is the unnecessary loss of human life. To protect human life, the international community should seriously address itself to the root causes of terrorism. The hour has now come for the full implementation of the General Assembly Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism contained in resolution 49/60, and the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings adopted at the fifty- second session. This Assembly must waste no time in its urgent conclusion and effective implementation of a