Military action won’t end terror, report warns

Military option has minimal impact on taming terrorism, the Global Terrorism Index report 2014 says.

The latest report by the Institute for Economics and Peace indicates that bare-knuckled combat against terror cells, such as the one Kenya has taken against Al-Shabaab since 2011, tends to fuel terrorism. Alternative approaches like better policing and initiation of political processes yield better results.

“The two most successful strategies for ending terrorist groups since the late 1960s have been either policing or the initiation of a political process. These strategies were the main reason for the ending of over 80 per cent of terrorist organisations that ceased operation. Only 10 per cent of terrorist groups could be said to have achieved their goals and only seven per cent were eliminated by full military engagement,” the report says.

The report ranks Kenya in position 12 of Global Terrorism Index after Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Syria, India, Somalia, Yemen, Philippines, Thailand and Russia in that order. Kenya scored a GTI score of 6.58. The index is calculated after factoring in the total number of terrorist incidents in a year, total number of fatalities, injuries and measure of property damage from terror incidents in a year.

In a study annexed to the report, Larry Attree of Saferworld, a UK organisation, and David Keen, a professor of complex emergencies at London School of Economics, warn state actors against knee jerk reaction to terrorism as it plays into terrorists’ game plan.

“Whether the option in question is to bomb a reviled spoiler, to arm those opposing an evil regime, or to sponsor a regional partner to take on the dangerous militants, public debate tends to focus minds on apparently simple choices between action and inaction,” they say.

The two experts note that in a climate of pressure on leaders to appear strong and decisive, especially in the face of violent provocation, they end up messing on prospects of properly and decisively combating terrorism.

Knee-jerk intervention

“When the media directs its fickle gaze to newer stories, the success or failure of policy responses to ‘terrorism’ threats overseas in the long-term is rarely publicly discussed,” they said.

The two cite instances where knee-jerk interventions proved counterproductive to the fight against terrorism. In Somalia, they say, thousands of weapons and hundreds of vehicles and high-frequency radios provided by the international community as security assistance during the 1990s, ended up in the hands of local militias.

They also cite a supposed strategic intervention undertaken by Ethiopia around 2004, which is not unlike the strategy Kenya has employed. In this instance, Ethiopia trained over 14,000 Somali soldiers who consequently defected or deserted with their weapons and uniforms.

“In Iraq, heavy handed military action, such as the assault on Falluja in the wake of the lynching of four American security contractors in April 2004, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, including many women and children and served to fuel further insurgency,” they say.

In Afghanistan, the experts observe, killing insurgents has often served “to multiply enemies rather than subtract them.” In Yemen, external counter terror support served to reduce the Saleh regime’s need to be responsive to its own constituents and institute reforms.

“It is remarkable that such failures have not led to detailed public debate on how peace can best be achieved in the wake of ‘terrorist’ violence. But what is even more striking is that the mistakes of the present echo those of past decades,” the two scholars note.

To demonstrate the folly of some of the approaches, the two even cite British colonial government’s strategy to tame Kenya’s Mau Mau, then considered a terrorist group, in the 1950s. They say British attempt to use “development” and forced relocation only served to fuel the insurgency.

Long-term approach

In the Kenyan context, the Kenyan military credibility has been dented by allegations of illegal charcoal sales in Kismayu.

“While such problems are tragically familiar, attention to the lessons of the past is strikingly absent from the public debate on how to do better in future,” they warned.

The GTI report singles out three “statistically significant factors” driving terrorism and whose focus would reduce such insurgency drastically. The first factor is lack of intergroup cohesion and grievances between ethnic, religious and linguistic groups.

The second factor is presence of state-sponsored violence such as extrajudicial killings, political terror and gross human rights abuses.

The third factor is “higher levels of other forms of violence including deaths from organised conflict, likelihood of violent demonstrations, levels of violent crime and perceptions of criminality.”

The three factors are vividly acknowledged in the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission’s report as undeniable realities of the Kenyan state since 1963. The report says focus on longer term approaches to combating terrorism such as addressing group grievances, ending gross physical rights abuses and improving access to justice, as well as the rule of law, provide better returns than focusing on short term ones.

“Extremist Islamic movements that encourage the use of terrorism need to be counteracted with moderate theologies within Islam that advocate other non-violent methods of addressing legitimate political grievances,” the report says.

Violence for violence

Attree and Keen rule out violence for violence as a long-term solution. They blame the West for selling this idea by setting “national security above human security objectives.” They claim “such violence has, all too often been indiscriminate, and has had a tendency to exacerbate conflict dynamics rather than contribute to sustainable peace.”

“Military force should not be used simply to demonstrate the resolve or power to retaliate in response to violent provocation — indeed, military responses of this kind often play into the intentions of ‘terrorists’,” they warn.

The two give another option which Kenya could consider: stay off!

They say this strategy works in cases where “terrorist” atrocities frequently produce a sense of revulsion even among those the terrorists claim to represent. This revulsion would eat them from inside to cessation.

Based on the identified correlates of terrorism, the report identifies 13 countries that are at risk of increased terrorism activities, among them Angola, Burundi, Central Africa Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Mali and Uganda. Besides, all the first 10 countries have “significant Muslim populations” and the rates of political terror and political instability are also “significantly higher” than the international average.