Negotiate with Boko Haram to release girls?

Nigeria rules out talking with Boko Haram until the girls are released. But it also welcomes US assistance in hostage negotiation. It must draw on the experience of other countries in how and when to negotiate with terrorists.

|
AP Photo
Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, Nigeria's military spokesman, center, walks with representatives of kidnapped schoolgirls of Chibok school, in Abuja, Nigeria May 6. Boko Haram claims responsibility for the mass kidnapping and threatens to sell the girls.

When the militant group Boko Haram abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria last month, a few parents went into the jungle in hopes of negotiating their release. They fled the area after locals warned them away. But ever since, the idea of negotiating with the terrorists has been floated in Nigeria.

Last Sunday, President Goodluck Jonathan soundly rejected the idea without Boko Haram first releasing the girls. Yet on Tuesday, he welcomed American assistance that includes the United States sending experts on hostage negotiations. The option to talk with the terrorists may still be open, even if doing so carries the risk of encouraging the tactics of fear used by Boko Haram and similar groups.

The parents who went into the jungle that night might have recalled a previous mass capture of girls in Africa by another religion-based rebel group. In 1996, the Lord’s Resistance Army took 139 girls from a Roman Catholic school in Uganda. In an act of bravery, the school’s Italian headmistress, Sister Rachele Fassera, pursued the rebels and talked them into releasing 109 of them.

Such cases of negotiating with terrorists are rare. But they signal a hope that terrorists might decide not to live up to the label put on them and make concessions – or even drop their radical militancy.

Israel has negotiated with Hamas over a cease-fire but refuses further talks on a peace deal. Pakistan has talked with the Taliban while similar talks have been tried by the US with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Philippines recently concluded a deal with Muslim terrorists.

Among African rebel groups fighting between 1989 and 2010, a third made explicit demands for negotiations after using terror tactics, according to a study by Jakana Thomas of Michigan State University. The more terror they used, the more likely they were to enter talks with the government.

The most common response to terror has been the iron fist. For the US, the current weapon of choice is the drone. President Obama came into office in 2009 with some hope of using negotiations to end threats against the US from various Al Qaeda-linked groups. After all, under President George W. Bush, the US had successfully negotiated with Sunni terrorists in Iraq to end their support of Al Qaeda fighters in the country.

At the least, opening negotiations with the leaders of a terrorist group might have the effect of splitting off moderates or dissuading potential converts. But that move must be balanced by assessing the chance of giving legitimacy to the rebels.

In March, the national security adviser to Nigeria’s president, Col. Sambo Dasuki, released a strategic document on countering terrorism. As a Muslim, he pushed a hearts-and-mind approach that tries to win over local Muslims while keeping an open door for members of Boko Haram to be rehabilitated.

Now this “soft” approach is being put to the test by the mass kidnapping of the girls. Will the government negotiate? And if so, under what conditions? One can only imagine the pressures to rescue the girls and, on the other side, the desire to wipe out Boko Haram.

At best, US assistance can help Nigerians make the tough decisions on these issues. Many countries have collected a wealth of experience on whether and how to negotiate with terrorists. With care, planning, and wisdom, Nigerian leaders can make the right choice.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Negotiate with Boko Haram to release girls?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2014/0507/Negotiate-with-Boko-Haram-to-release-girls
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe