Step 4
Foster Commitment to the Process
Once talks have been initiated—and assuming they do not promptly reveal that the PAG is merely seeking a temporary breathing space or otherwise acting in bad faith—the mediator or negotiator should seek to nurture the terrorists’ fledgling and fragile confidence in the efficacy of talking as opposed to fighting. This section examines how to accomplish this step.
All mediation efforts, of course, need to cultivate commitment to the mediation process, but the challenge is greater when dealing with terrorists because they have chosen to operate outside conventional political and diplomatic channels, lack expertise and experience in bargaining, are hostile to the notion of trading concessions, are acutely suspicious of the mediator, and regard—and are themselves regarded by—the other parties as illegitimate. All these obstacles to productive talks are even higher in the case of direct negotiations between a terrorist group and the government against which it is fighting.
Nonetheless, by seeking to influence a PAG’s calculations of what violence can and cannot achieve, strengthening moderates within the PAG, acknowledging and addressing grievances within the PAG’s wider constituency, and encouraging track II learning the mediator can nurture a growing faith in the engagement process and a corresponding diminishing conviction in the efficacy of violence.
Build Support for Talks within the Terrorist Group
Affect Cost-Benefit Analysis of Violence vs. Negotiations
A terrorist group’s goals and demands may well seem unreasonable to all other parties, but that does not mean that the terrorist leadership is unreasoning. To the contrary, while there may be some high-ranking figures within the group who have an irrational attachment to violence, most terrorist leaders will countenance abandoning violence if they can achieve their goals more effectively another way. Thus, a key challenge for the mediator or negotiator is to shift the PAG’s cost-benefit analysis of the comparative benefits of violence versus talking. The mediator needs to show that there is a better way for the terrorists to reach at least some of their goals than through violence or that there are better goals to be achieved through negotiation than those currently claimed.
There are various ways of doing this, including the following:
Persuade international actors that provide support (moral, political, diplomatic, and especial y financial and materiel) to the PAG to promise to increase that support if the talks make progress, and to threaten to reduce or terminate their assistance if the PAG obstructs or delays the talks.
Enlist the Support of Prisoners
Imprisoned terrorist fighters can be powerful advocates for peace. Prisoners play an important role in the politics of most terrorist movements and are seen by many in their communities as heroes who fought to defend a way of life and an oppressed people. Yet time in jail sometimes gives a prisoner a reason or an opportunity to contemplate a negotiated settlement to the conflict. While in jail for political violence, a number of Egyptian Islamists had the time to explore other ways of pursuing their goals, and came to see the advantages of entering negotiations.24A letter written in the summer of 2004 by six leading members of ETA, all of whom were serving prison sentences, acknowledged that ETA had been defeated by the Spanish government’s strategies and demanded that the organization abandon terrorism. The six were expel ed from ETA, but the letter was filtered to the media and encouraged hopes that ETA would have to enter negotiations. In July 2005, the Spanish congress approved a resolution asking the government to enter into dialogue with ETA if the organization demonstrated “a clear wil ingness to end the violence.”25
Mediators and government negotiators should thus consider engaging prisoners who have or who may call for an end to violence, sounding out their views and, if they are helpful for the peace process, publicizing them. Prisoners may also be directly involved in the negotiations. Their authority with their own constituents—and thus their effectiveness as negotiators— depends, however, on their being seen as unapologetic fighters for the cause. Nelson Mandela led the ANC into successful negotiations for the introduction of multiparty democracy after serving twenty-seven years in prison. He was released from prison in 1990 specifical y to conduct the negotiations. On the day of his release, he declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation but he did not condemn or renounce the use of violence by the ANC.
Former terrorists who embrace the call for peace are well placed to face down those within a terrorist group who claim that negotiation is not only pointless but also cowardly. Former Protestant terrorists in Northern Ireland were able to ridicule assertions from some quarters of the Protestant nationalist movement that to contemplate negotiations was to sell out the Protestant cause. The former terrorists had already served prison time and otherwise demonstrated their bona fides, and thus could not easily be caricatured as traitors to Ulster’s cause.
Against the benefits of engaging prisoners, the mediator or negotiator must also weigh the impact on the wider public of being seen talking to prisoners who are in jail for violent crimes. Their victims are likely to resent and publicly protest such engagement. A mediator or negotiator may be able to mitigate the consequences in terms of public reaction by engaging in very low-profile talks, avoiding talking to terrorists convicted of particularly heinous crimes, or linking talks with prisoners to visiting victims as wel . But complaints are sure to be made, unless engagement with prisoners is kept secret, in which case its impact on the terrorists’ constituency—which is usual y a major part of the raison d’etre of engagement—will be undermined. When Ehud Barak sought to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the initiative almost immediately foundered because the Palestinians insisted on the release of all political prisoners held by the Israelis, no matter why they were being held. The Israeli public, however, could not tolerate the release of Palestinians who had kil ed Israelis. In short, there are no cost-free options, and the advantages and disadvantages need to be careful y weighed in advance. In the absence of subjective and objective indicators of conflict ripeness (see pages 28–30), the disadvantages of talking with prisoners convicted of violent crimes are likely to outweigh the advantages.
Strengthen Moderates in the Movement
By making violence seem less effective a strategy than talking, the mediator wil also help the cause of the moderate negotiating faction within the PAG, which needs to show other factions that it is not sel ing out but rather is seizing the occasion to achieve some goals. Rewarding moderates for their constructive participation in talks with a series of increasingly significant confidence-building measures—such as the creation of an independent commission to review highly contentious and highly symbolic issues—will not only foster the moderate’s commitment to the process but also give the moderate faction something to show to their skeptical comrades.
In 1984, Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi negotiated with a moderate Sikh political party, Akali Dal, in a bid to undermine support for ethno-national terrorism in the Punjab. Akali leaders were released from internment, Gandhi employed “a healing touch” toward the party, and the two sides signed a Punjab Accord in July 1985. A few months later, moderate Akali Dal candidates drew major popular support and won power in the state’s elections.
The U.S. government designated the Communist Party of Nepal—Maoist (CPN-M) a terrorist organization in 2003, and the State Department refused to discuss anything with the CPN-M, even when it won the largest share of the vote in nationwide elections in 2006 and became part of Nepal’s coalition government. This lack of contact helped neither side nor the wider peace process. A rethink in Washington led to a series of meetings—first informal, then formal—with Maoist leaders and a promise to reconsider the blacklisting of the CPN-M if the peace process moves ahead. This engagement has strengthened the position of more moderate leaders within the CPN-M despite the objections of hard-liners, who still distrust the United States.
Take steps to elevate the standing of moderates within their movement and/or their public profile, but do so without tainting them or otherwise undermining their legitimacy. For instance, an expression of support for a moderate figure within a PAG from the government that the PAG is fighting will likely seriously, perhaps fatal y, damage that figure’s standing within the PAG. However, a similar expression of support from a third party held in high regard by the PAG may boost the figure’s reputation.
Many urged the U.S. president to approve a visa for Gerry Adams to come to the United States. They argued that it would enhance Adam’s stature, enable him to persuade the IRA to declare a cease-fire, and permit Sinn Fein to enter into inclusive political negotiations. The U.S. dialogue with Adams that began in 1994 did indeed contribute to the IRA cease-fire decision later in that year, in part, by strengthening Adams stature at the expense of those in the IRA’s senior ranks who favored continued violence.26
Just as moderates should be rewarded, extremists should be punished or penalized for their obdurate opposition to talks and their efforts to sabotage them. Punishments and penalties can take many forms: inclusion on a list of proscribed actors, sanctions that restrict travel or target bank accounts, bans on political activity, indictments by war crimes tribunals, and so forth.
The overuse of punishments, however, can create the impression within the PAG that moderates are complicit with governments in the unjust treatment of hardliners, that the moderates have sold out not only their own principles but also their more principled comrades. Always be very cautious of isolating moderate leaders within their own group and (as discussed in Step 6) creating or encouraging support for rival movements and spoilers.
Weigh the Merits of Creating Internal Divisions
Third-party mediators and government negotiators may both seek to isolate spoilers within the ranks of a PAG, but may wel differ on the wisdom of creating deep divisions within the PAG. A mediator is more likely to seek to avoid creating or widening such fissures, on the grounds that a deeply divided movement is unlikely—now or in the future—to be able to agree on a peace agreement or, even if an agreement is reached, to ensure that its terms are observed by the PAG’s members and supporters.
A government negotiator, however, may decide (especial y when talks seem destined to lead nowhere) that talks offer the chance to weaken the PAG as a fighting force and a political force by driving a wedge between different factions. Talks that lead to an offer of concessions can create fractures within a movement. The British hoped that if talks failed to produce a settlement with the IRA, they would at least create divisions within its ranks and weaken the group as a whole.
Government efforts to split a movement and wean the moderates away may succeed, but enough hardcore members may remain that terrorism continues. Many members of the ETA’s political wing, Herri Batasuna, responded to the Spanish government’s policy of social reinsertion (concessions that maximized Basque cultural and political rights) but some radicals maintained control over the movement and continued violence in the name of complete independence. Many members of M-19 in Columbia also turned away from bloodshed, but a violent fringe remained.
This partial success, while far from ideal, can nonetheless reduce the scale of violence. However, creating divisions can backfire if the movement becomes so fragmented that it is unable to negotiate effectively for years to come.
Acknowledge and Address Sensitive Issues for the Terrorists
The tasks of shifting cost-benefit calculations and strengthening
moderates can both be assisted by creating concrete evidence that the talks are actual y tackling issues that are important to the terrorists, not just issues of concern to the mediator or negotiator.
Such highly sensitive issues are highly context-dependent. In Mindanao, the issue of “ancestral domain” (a Gordian knot of concerns about ownership of land, control of resources, and nature of governance) lies at the heart of the conflict between the Philippine government and a number of local insurgent groups. In South Africa, the ANC was concerned above all to end apartheid and introduce majority rule. Even so, some issues do feature prominently in many, if not most, terrorist conflicts, notably, the disarmament and demobilization of terrorist forces and the treatment of terrorists held prisoner by the government, whom the terrorists regard as soldiers rather than criminals.
“The early release of Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders from prison in February 1990 signaled the start of South Africa’s peace process; the release of hundreds of other ‘liberation movement’ prisoners fol owed during the next two years. In Northern Ireland, the early release of republican and loyalist prisoners had to await the Good Friday Agreement, but prisoners were central y involved in the negotiations that preceded it.”27
Symbolic as wel as concrete measures can be vital to the effective handling of sensitive issues. “The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) handed its weapons to NATO peacekeepers within the ninety-day deadline agreed on under a postwar accord signed in June 1999, although some of the weapons were merely transferred to the Kosovo Corps, a defense force newly created from the KLA. ‘We are not going to take off our uniforms and our weapons,’ said one of their commanders. ‘We are only changing to new uniforms and a new badge.’”28
Build Support for Talks within the Terrorists’ Constituency
Talks with a PAG are likely to prove more productive if the constituency that the PAG represents—or claims to represent—endorses the idea of negotiation in general as well as the specific ongoing talks. Such endorsement tends to be closely related to a declining support or tolerance within the constituency for violence.
Most of the tactics addressed above in terms of changing the terrorists’ calculations of the cost/benefit of violence versus negotiations also apply to influencing their constituents and supporters, but a few additional actions can be aimed directly at supporters.
Acknowledge and Address Community Grievances
Encourage the government to address community grievances and thus strengthen what is likely to be a fragile belief within the community: namely, that the government may, in fact, be worth talking to and does not respond only to violence.
Grievances will be context-dependent, of course, but just as prisoner releases and disarmament are typical y highly sensitive issues for the terrorists themselves, so policing and security are usual y of great importance to the terrorists’ constituents. Internal conflicts often lead to the militarization of the state’s security apparatus, and members of the community from which a PAG draws its recruits and supporters often are, or often feel themselves to be, targets of heavy-handed, biased policing. In order to signal to that community that a peace process is making headway, a mediator or negotiators should work to demilitarize the security apparatus. In addition to removing troops from the streets, the police force should be reformed and retrained, former militants integrated into its ranks, and some form of community policing introduced.
The challenge is to move forward in this fashion while not undermining the ability of the security forces to deal with violence by hard-liners and spoilers. To achieve this balance, the mediator should address police reform early in the peace process but proceed gradual y. The mediator is unlikely to have the authority to make policy decisions himself or herself, and should thus strive to persuade policymakers to demilitarize in response to—or sometimes in anticipation of—a decline in political violence while retaining the ability to reactivate the security machinery if the level of violence rises. The kinds of measures to be contemplated include the following:
for human rights abuses by security forces29
Throughout interactions with constituents of terrorist movements, the mediator should display great sensitivity to local concerns and restraint in the face of local expressions of frustration and resentment. Anticipate flashpoints. Allow, rather than stifle, noisy but peaceful expressions of discontent (e.g., street demonstrations) which can serve as pressure valves for frustration and disappointment with the slow pace of the peace process.
Decrease Constituent Support for Violence
An offer of talks may not convince a terrorist leader to change course by itself, but his (or her) public—hopeful that talks might lead to peace and other benefits—may become less supportive of violence. This increases pressure on the group to limit or suspend its violent activities out of fear of losing recruits, money, and overall sympathy. Once talks are under way, this pressure is likely to increase, especial y if the talks seem to be moving forward in an encouraging direction.
If a PAG responds to such pressure, the benefits for the peace process are immediate: the PAG will be more likely to enter talks and make concessions. If a PAG does not respond to such pressure, the peace process still benefits, but over the long term, rather than the short term: constituents will gradual y come to see the PAG as indifferent or hostile to their interests and the PAG’s political support will gradual y erode. Confronted with declining support, the PAG may at first respond by staging more and bloodier attacks, perhaps in an effort to provoke a government backlash that, by hurting the wider constituency, will reverse the tide of moderation. Over time, however, declining constituency support for violence will translate into fewer recruits and less support, which will undercut the group’s ability to use violence.
One of the mediator’s or negotiator’s chief assets is a population’s war fatigue and desire for normalcy, and the leverage they exert over a PAG. Indeed, in the absence of such fatigue an offer of talks may well be rejected or accepted only as a tactical gambit. Where such fatigue does not exist, the mediator can do little to generate it, but he or she can use the media and other public platforms to foster hope among the PAG’s constituency that talks may lead to a lasting peace, or at least a reduction in violence.
In the case of religion-based terrorism, clerics can be useful in casting doubt on the acceptability of the use of violence. This is a role that secular authorities cannot possibly fill, and indeed any perceived link between secular and religious authorities can weaken the latter. Often, the effect of the religious authorities on the terrorist is indirect; religious statements condemning terrorism can work to delegitimize it in the eyes of the potentially sympathizing public, and thus weaken public support for terror.
Encourage Track II Learning
Encourage track II activities that introduce the community to the other side and to alternative viewpoints. Challenge the victim mentality that blocks solutions and the standard assumption on both sides that the other side responds only to violence. Exposure to the other side may help to humanize the other side; if nothing else, it may help each side realize that both sides see themselves as a victim or minority community, under siege and the recipient of a long litany of violent blows from the other. At camps run by the Seeds of Peace, an organization that brings together Israeli and Arab adolescents for a summer camp at which they confront their prejudices and learn the practical arts of coexistence, “the campers begin without any understanding of the other side’s pain. . . . As they listen to the other side’s stories of individual and col ective suffering, they undergo a transformation; now they begin to understand the cyclical nature of the conflict and the need to end all suffering.”30
In consultations with various parts of society, be alert to suggestions for confidence-building measures and consider including these in the track I peace process. But also encourage a broad range of peacebuilding activities beyond the confines of the official talks. For instance, track II actors can enhance the likelihood of reaching and sustaining an agreement by familiarizing PAGs with the process of subscribing to and adhering to international norms and treaties. Geneva Call is a humanitarian organization dedicated to engaging armed non-state actors and encouraging them to comply with the norms of international humanitarian law and human rights law. The organization has encouraged forty-one non-state actors, including some PAGs, to sign a Deed of Commitment for Adherence to a Total Ban on Anti-Personnel Mines. The deed al ows these non-state actors, who are not eligible to enter into the AP Mine Ban Convention, to undertake to observe its norms. Such opportunities for a PAG to make the kinds of commitments made by state actors also show the PAG’s ability to negotiate seriously and enforce compliance by its fol owers.
(For an in-depth discussion of the usefulness of track II initiatives to track I mediators, see another handbook in the Peacemaker’s Toolkit series, Conducting Track II Peacemaking by Heidi and Guy Burgess.)
Weaken the Incentives to Support the PAG
Mediators rarely have it in their power to influence policymaking to the degree necessary to initiate a government policy that can sap a constituency’s support for a PAG, but a government negotiator is likely to have the ear of a policymakers. Such access may be an opportunity to suggest or support social reforms designed to make life less difficult for the PAG’s constituency and thus weaken the hold of a PAG. After Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the Israeli government instituted the “open bridges” policy that enabled residents to work outside those territories. One direct consequence was a dramatic reduction in unemployment. An indirect effect may be to have postponed the outbreak of the first intifada for twenty years.
According to one study of fourteen counterterrorism campaigns, “soft policies” to undermine support for terrorists by social reform and mobilization of moderates have been “crucial ingredients” in several of those campaigns.31 In some cases involving PAGs with a mass base, policy initiatives have been used independently of or in place of negotiations with the terrorist group. In Peru, the government refused to negotiate with the Shining Path itself but established microdevelopment agencies in areas where the Shining Path drew much of its support, and helped to regain local support for government authority.32