Step 3
Open Channels
Initiating talks with groups that use terror is often difficult for a host of reasons. Terrorist and government leaders—and mediators trying to promote dialogue between terrorists and governments—may want gestures of good faith from the other side before talks begin, even though no good faith exists. Constituents on both sides have long become accustomed to viewing the potential interlocutors as enemies and even as fundamental y evil, and initiating talks with the other side may thus be seen as unrealistic or unconscionable.
There are, however, many ways to begin a dialogue with terrorist groups. At one end of this broad spectrum are very roundabout approaches that involve no official representatives of either side; at the other end are direct and public contacts between the mediator or negotiator and the PAG. In most cases, and especial y those cases where political cover is required, indirect approaches should be tried first. Parties to the conflict can use trusted intermediaries, such as a friendly state or a trusted private individual, so that parties do not have to engage each other. In cases of mediation (rather than negotiation), the mediator himself or herself can provide political cover (the parties engage the mediator, not each other) or the mediator himself or herself may choose to use a more distant approach. track 1½ or track II can also be helpful in providing political cover and in discovering whether the two sides have anything to talk about.
Contacts may begin in secret and through third parties, but they need to be backed by public statements indicating openness to negotiate under whatever conditions are appropriate, and ultimately transitioned to formal, public processes. The advent of formal talks does not necessarily mean the end of indirect or covert contacts, because the latter may be helpful in overcoming roadblocks encountered in the formal discussions.
This chapter outlines a variety of ways of opening channels with PAGs. These are arranged in a spectrum that runs from the most indirect to the most direct of approaches. If an initial approach proves promising, a mediator or negotiator may well opt to move further along the spectrum, switching to increasingly direct channels as the prospects for fruitful discussion grow. Ultimately, this path may lead to ful , direct, and public negotiations.
However, it is important to note that most openings do not lead to full-blown negotiations. A failure to progress to direct talks often occurs because the parties discover they have little to say to one another and little interest in trading concessions. In some instances, though, this lack of progression reflects the fact that one party never wanted to advance beyond an initial move, which was conceived not as the start of talks but as an alternative to talks.
Choose from a Spectrum of Engagement Options
Conduct Talks on the Sidelines
Discussions on the sidelines of international conferences whose subject matter is apolitical can set the stage for more serious political talks. Business, scientific, and academic conferences provide a venue for tapping the thoughts of attendees who might be members of a PAG or have close personal or professional ties to mid- or top-level leaders of a PAG. Mediators and negotiators, or individuals in contact with them, can use such forums to identify common interests and areas of future cooperation outside of the political realm, as well as to evaluate a proscribed organization’s legitimacy to determine whether it is a genuine representative of a distinct constituency whose needs and concerns are reflected by the organization’s leadership.
The term “talks on the sidelines” or a “meeting on the margins” denotes this type of approach: it is unofficial and informal, providing political cover to mediators and negotiators who want to explore the views of their interlocutors prior to an actual engagement.
In Iraq, Sunni insurgents approached senior U.S. military officers during a regional business conference in Kuwait City in early 2004 seeking a political opening and an end to the conflict in Iraq’s Sunni tribal areas.
Identifying the forums in which a movement’s leaders or allies are in regular attendance will help a mediator discover other, non-political issues in which a terrorist movement or organization is interested, and which can be central to planning a dialogue.
Contact Organizations That Are in Contact with PAGs
A number of private organizations are in the business of engagement. Some of these have developed innovative approaches for engaging terrorists in ways that mitigate the risks and downsides. If not legal y constrained from doing so, a mediator or negotiator may find it helpful to contact such an organization to discover if it has held discussions with members of a proscribed organization of interest to the mediator or negotiator. Any information that the organization is able to pass along may prove valuable in determining if more direct, official contacts might lead to fruitful talks. The organization may also convey the mediator’s interest in exploring talks when next it meets with the PAG.
Use Public Diplomacy and Megaphone Diplomacy
Mediators and government negotiators have a number of public diplomacy options. Diplomacy by declaration is one common way of talking without having formal talks. Governments may issue formal statements that offer the promise of talks or at least the hint of talks subject to certain concessions by the terrorist group.
In 1986, Colombia’s newly elected president Virgilio Barco Vargas publicly announced he was offering leftist guerril as the chance to reintegrate themselves into society and political life in exchange for dismantling their military structure and disarming. In December 1993, the leaders of the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland issued the Downing Street Declaration, which offered the IRA a role in negotiations over Northern Ireland’s future should it reject violence.
Using declarations rather than direct negotiations offers governments a political advantage as they can claim they are condemning violence even as they hold out the possibility of talks. The declarations, of course, often are necessarily vague and are difficult to use for delicate discussions of any quid pro quo. Rather than issue formal declarations, both terrorist groups and governments may grant interviews or otherwise encourage media reports that convey their message on the conditions for negotiations: an approach that has been labeled “megaphone diplomacy.”17
Leaders of both the IRA (through its political wing, Sinn Fein) and the British government gave repeated interviews as the IRA considered entering talks in the mid-1990s. This method, like the use of declarations, enabled the government and the group to avoid charges of even considering talks until both sides could be satisfied that some concessions by the other were on the table.
Rely on Trusted Intermediaries
An alternative to the public but distant approach via declarations and the media is to rely on a trusted intermediary who, discreetly, will pass messages to and from a terrorist group. A mediator or negotiator may quietly use a member of a foreign government sympathetic to or at least in contact with a PAG to convey messages.
Dependable unofficial individuals can also be used. Such individuals can be more easily disavowed given their lack of links to the government in question.
The IRA and the British government communicated for years through the Redemptorist priest Alex Reid, whose discretion and good offices both sides trusted. The Reagan administration conveyed messages to Arafat and his advisors through Swedish foreign minister Sten Andersson about what Arafat and his organization must do before the U.S. government would engage in talks.
In January 2010, a British businessman, David Abrahams, met privately with a member of Hamas, Aziz Dwaik, who had just been released from an Israeli prison. Dwaik told Abrahams that Hamas might be prepared to nul ify the Hamas Charter, which cal s for the destruction of Israel. Abrahams, who was on what he described as a personal mission to negotiate peace in the Middle East, relayed the offer to the Israeli media and British government.18
An individual need not hold a particular post or have embarked upon a peacemaking mission to be of use as a go-between. Some are simply in the right place at the right time. If they take action, they can serve as a bridge to a more official process.
An American businessman seeking reconstruction contracts with prospective Iraqi overseas business partners met an Amman-based businessman who had deep and broad contacts with the political wing of Iraqi insurgency. The American businessman used his Washington legal firm to inform the Pentagon of his contact and the prospective dialogue that the Iraq businessman offered. In the end, the American business contact provided an unprecedented baseline of knowledge for the U.S. Marines prior to their exchanges with Iraqi insurgent leaders in Anbar Province.
At time, governments have even used individuals who they regard with some suspicion in this capacity. The Reagan administration conveyed messages to Arafat on conditions for talks through American Jewish peace activists.
Use Deniable Official Tracks
A more official but still discreet method is for governments to use intelligence officers or other deniable but official individuals as Interlocutors.
In 1973, CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters met with PLO officials in Tunis, which produced a promise that the organization would not attack Americans. The United States also passed diplomatic messages via lower-level CIA operatives who had already established contacts with PLO officials in Beirut to exchange information on protecting diplomats. In 2006, the British intel igence service, which had been holding secret talks with Hamas, sought to arrange a meeting between Hamas and Israeli representatives.
When such a back channel is exposed, it can prove embarrassing to governments that claimed not to negotiate with terrorists, but the use of intelligence officials is less political y risky than formal ties.
Engage in Covert Talks
Diplomats or other senior government officials can convey the seriousness of a government’s commitment to talks more convincingly than other interlocutors. Similarly, a mediator or senior member of his or her team can underscore a readiness to start substantive talks by meeting in person with the representatives of a PAG. However, a government—or mediator— may have many powerful reasons not to want to make such personal contact public, not the least of which is the danger of provoking a firestorm of condemnation for sitting down with a group that is currently murdering its political enemies and members of the public. In such circumstances, covert talks may be the only practicable option.
In 1972, even though the British government official y foreswore negotiations with the IRA, senior British officials met with IRA members, including Gerry Adams, who was transported from prison for the talks.
Covert talks, however, are dangerous in themselves, because they run the risk of being discovered—or, more likely, being revealed. Members of the government who are uneasy about the talks may leak details of their existence to the media. And the terrorist group may itself publicize the existence of the talks if they do not generate the results the group had hoped they would. Remember that at this stage of the conflict, mutual distrust is very high and violence is likely to be ongoing. Indeed, the secret talks often take place at the same time as each side tries to improve its bargaining position via military action.19
Talk with Political Wings
If direct talks with terrorists are too difficult to arrange or too moral y or political y objectionable, mediators and negotiators can work through a political wing of the PAG. Sometimes, indeed, governments help to create such wings. Governments can knowingly allow a group to form an overt political wing as a way of engaging the organization. Governments can then negotiate directly or indirectly with these political figures with less risk.
In the late 1970s, Spain encouraged the formation of Herri Batasuna as a political party, even though it was closely tied to ETA. (Twenty-five years later, with ETA losing support among Basques and with disil usioned members of Batasuna having formed a party opposed to ETA’s terrorism, the Spanish government outlawed Batasuna.) Similarly, the United Kingdom al owed Sinn Fein to function even though for many years it was closely tied to the IRA’s Army Council.
In conflicts in which the government prohibits a PAG from participating in the political process and stifles its efforts to form a political wing, a mediator who senses the opportunity for constructive dialogue should evaluate options for enlisting international support to persuade the government to relax its ban or permit the formation of a political wing. In South Africa, it was the government itself—or, rather, its leader, F. W. de Klerk—who took the bold step of unbanning the ANC, the South African Communist Party, and all other liberation movements in February 1990. “I realized that we would have little chance of success in the coming negotiations,” De Klerk explained, “if we did not grasp the initiative right at the beginning and convince the important players that we were not negotiating under pressure but from the strength of our convictions.”20
Engage in Direct, Non-secret Talks
Direct, non-covert talks between a mediator or government and a terrorist organization are rarely, if ever, the first form of engagement. Especial y in the case of government-PAG talks, neither side trusts the other sufficiently to switch dramatical y from violent struggle to direct negotiation, and both sides sense that the political costs of doing so would be exorbitant in terms of their constituents’ outrage that their representatives were sitting down to talk with the very people they had for so long denounced as beyond the pale.
Consequently, direct talks are almost invariably preceded by one or more of the other forms of engagement described above. Indeed, even when direct negotiations begin, other forms of engagement are likely to Continue.
The decision as to when to transition to direct talks is highly context dependent, but at a minimum a mediator or negotiator should not make that transition until:
Select an Approach Appropriate to the Context
The choice of approach should be highly context-driven. The level of ongoing violence, the degree to which the parties have reached a mutual y hurting stalemate, the history of past contacts with the PAG, the degree of public and political support for or opposition to engaging the PAG: all such aspects of the conflict should be factored into the calculation of how best to open channels.
Not surprisingly, the character of the parties to the conflict is among the most influential of contextual factors to be taken into account. The nature and structure of the terrorist group (e.g., the extent to which its goals are negotiable, whether its internal discipline is tight, and whether its leaders or representatives are accessible) will rule out some forms of engagement while recommending others.
The nature of the entity that the mediator or negotiator represents will also profoundly shape the form of engagement chosen. NGOs typical y have far greater latitude than governments when it comes to talking to a PAG. An independently financed conflict resolution or human rights NGO with its own self-defined mission, agenda, and rules has relatively little need to fear the loss of support or funding if it engages an PAG; to the contrary, its supporters are likely to cheer on its efforts to build bridges and seek peace in very challenging circumstances.
The United Nations or a regional organization is also likely to be readier to directly engage a PAG than is a government. Indeed, a mediator working for an IGO may have explicit instructions to talk to all sides in a conflict, including PAGs. When he was mediating the peace process in El Salvador, Alvaro de Soto, the personal representative of the UN secretary-general, had a mandate that required him to talk to all parties. He found himself acting to some extent as the intermediary between the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) and the U.S. government, which could not engage directly with the FMLN.
Among the ranks of governments, questions of international status, reputation, and relative power create different opportunities and obstacles for engagement. A government that has loudly and consistently proclaimed its refusal to talk with terrorists and/or that has cast itself as a leader in the fight against global terrorism will have to restrict itself to very distant, indirect, or deniable contacts with PAGs. It may be able to broadcast a message to a PAG by public diplomacy, but any exchange of messages between the government and the PAG might well have to be handled by an intermediary or in highly covert talks. Such a government could not itself play the role of intermediary for another government. Other governments, however, face fewer constraints. A government that has developed a reputation as an honest broker would be both readier and better able to talk directly with a PAG and to play the role of intermediary for others.
As noted in the Introduction to this handbook, legal considerations also dictate the range of options for engagement. U.S. law severely limits the range of contacts that U.S. policymakers, NGOs, and individuals can have with groups that appear on the State Department’s or Treasury Department’s list of proscribed organizations. European Union proscription regimes are less restrictive—permitting, for instance, consulting with and offering advice to proscribed organizations as long as no financial transaction is involved—but, in practice, they still impede many types of direct engagement. Mediators from non-EU countries such as Switzerland and Norway have a much freer hand.21
In light of these differences, consider whether to craft a coordinated approach to engaging a PAG. Such a strategy could assign different roles to various actors, exploiting the advantages of each. Coordination of effort, however, requires considerable trust between the NGOs, IGOs, and governments involved, as well as a readiness and ability to maintain strict confidentiality as contacts with the PAG are developed. Such trust and confidentiality are hard to find and diminish in direct proportion to the number of actors involved and the length of the engagement. For this reason, coordinated efforts are often best restricted to the opening moves of an engagement initiative.
Set the Right Tone at the Outset
In either indirect or direct approaches, mediators and negotiators will be confronted with challenges in how they relate to the PAG and its representatives. Successful engagement requires mediators and negotiators not to identify with terrorist movements, but to understand their motivations and mindsets and to behave in ways that engage rather than alienate them. This is easier for a mediator representing a third party than for a negotiator representing a government that is fighting the terrorist organization. Even so, there is no point entering talks in the first place unless one is prepared, from the outset, to set a professional, respectful tone that will allow discussions to move beyond the trading of accusations and insults.
Listen
A common complaint voiced by the leaders of terrorist movements and organizations is that they are misunderstood and that they are continual y lectured on their behavior. Because these movements have been stigmatized, their belief that they themselves are victims is very strong. Listening, allowing the leaders of terrorist movements and organizations to feel heard, is perhaps the most important confidence-building measure a mediator can undertake at the outset of any dialogue.
Display Respect
One of the most difficult aspects of talking with groups that use terror is the need to respect one’s interlocutors. Respect is the basic condition of any negotiation. The opponent must be recognized as a party with standing—a negotiating partner because of its ability to veto any agreement and an actor with identifiable reasons behind its actions. However, respect does not mean sympathizing with the terrorists’ aims and goals or even recognizing their legitimacy. It means understanding where the terrorist comes from, mental y and experiential y. In terms of personal relations, respect is conveyed through status gestures and personal politeness. Regardless of public relations with the state the negotiator represents, the negotiator needs to be interested and appear understanding in his or her contacts with the terrorist representative.
Respect carries with it entrapment dangers, especial y for third-party mediators. Do not become so attuned to the terrorist’s point of view that the original aim of negotiation becomes obscured. Falling into this trap will make it difficult to persuade a government to accept any understandings one has reached in discussions with the PAG’s representatives.
Identify Common Interests
Successful engagement requires the identification of common interests. There are deep and substantive disagreements between terrorist movements and nation-states. But there are often areas of broad agreement: on economic growth, for instance, or on the importance of providing social services and dampening violence. Identifying these common interests at the outset of a dialogue will help shape a more substantive exchange on difficult political issues.