Opinion: Negotiating with terrorists only encourages terrorism

by Kenechukwu Oraelosi

Abubakar-Shekau

You’ve got to be strong, not weak. The only way to deal with these people is to bring them to justice. You can’t talk to them. You can’t negotiate with them.

There is an assumption that negotiating with terrorists does encourage terrorism. Many countries believe this, and adopt it as their foreign policy . The United States strongly believes this, and it forms the center of its counter terrorism initiatives . George Bush, former president of the United States, during a press conference, gave this as a reply to a question he was asked: “You’ve got to be strong, not weak. The only way to deal with these people is to bring them to justice. You can’t talk to them. You can’t negotiate with them.” Margaret Thatcher herself said “democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.” There are important reasons why we should analyse this assumption to prove it to be true of false.

This idea, this assumption clearly has been, and still is, the main stay of lots of arguments among terrorism and counter-terrorism scholars, policy makers, leaders and governments. This is very important considering that their views on this assumption and consequent policies determine the relations between countries, level of stability of global peace, and the likelihood of the occurrence of conflicts and wars . Wars, when they do happen, have high economic and human costs. Consider the human and monetary costs of the war in Afghanistan . Still, there are reasons why the assumption, even with its attendant tolls, is a better option than its antithesis.

One is the fact of the organization’s ideology. The presence and overriding influence of the ideal is what separates terrorist groups from criminal organizations . These ideals present a problem. For criminal organizations, they exist solely for self-profit and gain, and do not mind the path way taken to get to that end, whether it is legal or not, whether it is violent or not. All they care for is their personal safety and profit. For them ‘the end justifies the means’. This mentality makes it that in severe situations and circumstances, they are willing to make a tradeoff of their intended profit goal for their well-being. This is a sharp contrast to terrorist organizations. Their ideal is their singular goal, and nothing else matters. Their system is more of a ‘winner takes all’ kind of system  and if their goal is not achieved, they consider it a loss. The pathway taken to reach that end is also factored in the definition of the end itself. Their ‘means’ do matter. This becomes an important issue when the concept of negotiation is brought to the table. Because negotiations are essentially tradeoffs, they are not duly considered by terrorist organizations. A terrorist will only agree to a negotiation that means he/she gets all he/she wants, if not, it may just be exploited as a politically tool, maybe even for time stalling.

Consider also the fact that negotiations bring forth a sign of weakness on the part of the party initiating it . It puts forth an image that the (negotiating) party is afraid to lose (which signals lack of adequate battle resources and power levels) or that even if they think they can win, they will suffer heavy losses to their interests, both of which signal a good position and increase the confidence of the terrorist. This action encourages impunity, terrorist organizations tend to continue their acts, even act out at higher levels. An example is Boko-Haram sect in northern Nigeria who until the declaration of state of emergencies in certain regions, and the killing of their leader, continued to run rampage, and still do even now . Even when ceasefires are made, terrorist organizations that haven’t experienced a show of force and who believe to have the upper ground tend to disregard and sometimes eventually redraw from the rules of cease fires.

From my discussion above, I would label the above assumption true. Note here that most of these terrorist mindsets apply to ideal terrorist, those who act and abide a hundred percent to their ideals, and do not bring in personal and profit based interests. In the real world most terrorist groups do not hold completely to their ideals, and so are open to negotiation tactics. But recently, in the fourth wave, we have seen the rise of a new group of terrorists, especially the extremists Islamism and other extremist religious groups, who abide most closely to their ideals and are not swayed by personal interests. In these groups, as observed in current acts of terror, are the mindsets previously expressed, hold true.

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This article was published with permission from Omojuwa.com

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

 

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