billionaire George Soros agreed at the gathering that the international community had to pull together.
"Terrorism takes many forms and has many causes but there is a commonality in that terrorism takes away innocent lives and that is a violation of human rights. Taking life is a crime against humanity," US financier Soros told the conference's plenary session.
"Consensus is emerging here on how to address terrorism," said Soros, who said the correct way forward was emphatically not the United States' declared 'war on terror'.
"We have a different and more constructive way of looking at terror," said the investor, who spent millions of dollars last year trying to block US President George W. Bush's reelection.
"In combating terrorism we must be careful not to fall into the trap of violating human rights and creating innocent victims.
"The way President Bush has waged war on terror has violated (that) principle because war by its nature creates innocent victims.
"They have violated international law by using torture," said Soros, who nevertheless welcomed recent signs that Washington wanted to make the spread of democracy a major strut of Bush's second term agenda.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was due later Thursday to outline the world body's strategy for combating terrorism to the gathering here of 20 current and former heads of state and 200 experts.
He was expected to call for a multilateral approach that would uphold human rights.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, also addressing the session here, urged the international community to unite to eradicate terrorism, as it had done to free his country from Taliban rule.
"Afghanistan has proved that when the international community wakes up and joins hands it can defeat any menace," Karzai said, regretting that for too long the world had "unfortunately neglected" Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
"Afghanistan was incapacitated by years of war" which gave way to the rise of the Taliban, finally ousted in 2002 by a multinational force with a United Nations mandate.
The absence of such a mandate poisoned relations between the international community and Washington when it came to the conflict in Iraq.
"When the help of the international community came (Afghanistan) was freed immediately," Karzai, elected last autumn, told delegates.
"The election wrought a massive transformation in the minds of the people," he said.
This week's summit has been marked by criticism of the US war on terror and the invasion of Iraq, but it has also seen hope that the recent Iraqi election and Bush's reaching out to Europe may signify some progress towards eventual stability.
Javier Solana, EU foreign policy coordinator and former head of NATO, said respect for democracy had to be paramount.
"In the struggle against terrorism we should be the first to uphold democratic values. It would be our first defeat if we resort to the methods of the terrorists," he told the assembly.
- AFP
Ah, the wonders of democracy. May she live forever.
