Terror attacks were a wake-up call to the West, says Mandelson

Labour conference: The 'Independent' debate

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Yesterday's highlights

Conference Sketch: Simon Carr

Andrew Dilnot and Carl Emmerson: The crunch may still be painful, Mr Brown

The former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson warned last night that the West should heed a "pretty powerful wake-up call" in the aftermath of terrorist attacks on the United States.

He called for the reform of international institutions and warned that there was "animosity, resentment and hatred" of the West.

Mr Mandelson told a Labour Party fringe meeting organised by The Independent that there were countries and cultures which felt overwhelmed by Western cultural domination.

Mr Mandelson insisted there was "overwhelming" justification for action against international terrorism. But he cautioned that, for many, the images of the West "generate aspirations among the poor, but equally it breeds animosity, and in other cases breeds resentment and hatred of the West". He said the world should wage a humanitarian as well as a military campaign against terror, to give the Afghan people freedom from poverty.

Mr Mandelson criticised the description of the campaign as a "war on terrorism". He said: "It is emotive, it is misleading, it's almost certainly counter-productive." He said Britain was right to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the Americans, but warned that economic sanctions and international pressure should be applied against state sponsors of terrorism, rather than military strikes.

He insisted the campaign against terrorism was not a war against Islam, nor a war against the Afghan people. Instead, it was a campaign against specific people and training camps involved in global terrorism.

He said: "It is a campaign that is being planned for a set of values and beliefs that are as much part of the Islamic faith as any other.

"I think that if one message above all comes out of this conference it is that Islam is fully part of the civilisation whose beliefs, whose values and decency we are trying to engage in this military campaign in the weeks to come; a campaign which is being taken just as much on behalf of those who are Jews and Christians."

Mr Mandelson described Osama bin Laden's followers as an occupying force in Afghanistan but also attacked the country's Taliban leadership. He said: "Let us be clear about the regime. I do not think there is any set of people whose attitudes, whose sheer disbelief in any comprehensible set of human rights exists in any country elsewhere in the world. They are an extraordinary, exceptional, oppressive set of people."

He added: "It is the liberation of the Afghan people which is so desperately needed in the circumstances."

Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham South and chairman of the Labour Campaign Group, said there had been no coherent justification for direct attacks on Afghanistan. He said: "We have not bombed Afghanistan, nor should we." He called for evidence against Osama bin Laden to be presented to an international tribunal and warned the West was at risk of "hanging without a trial".

Mr Simpson said: "We keep hearing there is incontrovertible evidence to try bin Laden for these atrocities. If this is so, then convene an international panel of justice to weigh the evidence."

He said that both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein had been supported by the West in the past, warning that it would be helpful if today's enemies were not "yesterday's friends". He also warned against the Government imposing fresh curbs on civil liberties in the wake of the attacks on America.

Carol Naughton, chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, speaking from the floor, warned of civilian casualties if military strikes go ahead. She said: "We need to look to the United Nations. We cannot look to more violence."

But David Aaronovitch, the broadcaster and columnist for The Independent, criticised anti-war campaigners. He said: "Where are the banners about Osama bin Laden? Where are the banners about the people who actually do these things?"