OPINION:
Low-intensity conflicts are infamous for grinding along in deadening ways, but the liveliest hope of this moment is that the PKK terrorists of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party have announced that they would finally turn in their weapons and quit. Their founding leader called from his Turkish jail cell for such a turning point in February. Now, dozens of at-large leaders congressed in northern Iraq have formally agreed.
How do terrorist groups end?
When I asked that question of British historian Michael Howard 23 years ago, he replied with one word: “Fatigue.”
Consider the Philippines’ Hukbalahap and the Malayan Communist Party. They were worn down to the bone by effective government and clever army operations such that they were subsisting on the margins, struggling for popular support. The two leaders could not see any more good chances; they cashed in their chips and surrendered in 1954 and 1989, respectively.
Fatigue is certainly evident in the leadership, if not all the younger ranks, of the PKK.
Abdullah Ocalan has led the PKK since the late 1970s, although he has been imprisoned by Turkish authorities since 1998. Mr. Ocalan has called for ceasefires or peace a number of times, but the group kept renaming itself and, in certain years, reentering the fight. Fifteen years ago, PKK appeared again in the rankings among the world’s top 10 lethal substate groups. Decapitation, capture of the leader, had not done the trick. It usually doesn’t.
Groundbreaking political scientist Martha Crenshaw emphasized internal group decision-making, a strategic choice, as a way the vector might change. That was useful, given that Mr. Ocalan was (at least overtly) talking peace from his prison cell, where he was allowed contact with outsiders and attorneys.
My publications from 2004 to 2006 named a half-dozen real factors in how different terrorist groups have disappeared.
I found innumerable cases where external force (by police or national armed forces) had been required. Another means: Grand strategy, used well by a few governments, sealed the fate of some major groups around the world. In unusual cases, diplomacy was the prime cause: the Irish Republican Army case is a sound archetype, and the efforts of Irish, British and U.S. diplomats deserve application elsewhere.
Many of these factors appear to have flowed together to bring down the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Some Kurdish nationalists favor a democratic theme, setting themselves apart from the brutalities and personal autocracy that Mr. Ocalan championed.
The splintering of the Kurdish movement has been important. Many militias, including female fighters, have gained favor and credibility in years of fighting the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. They showed how different legitimate guerrilla war can be from terrorism.
Turkish suppressive actions also have undeniably had effect. Over four decades, tens of thousands of PKK casualties have been racked up in engagements with the very professional armed forces of our NATO partner. Many PKK fighters and cadres were driven southward out of Turkey and across the border — hardly the way to gain liberated zones, which are hallmarks of effective “insurgency.”
No one is sure how PKK disarmament and demobilization will proceed, and innumerable devils hide among such details. Given that no country in the region has volunteered a homeland, the best option for Kurdish nationalists is to find their place and their peace within the big communities they have around them within Syria, Iraq and Turkey. This formerly lethal group should pursue a peaceful path.
Transitioning to democracy is difficult. Members of two Colombian communist groups, M-19 and FARC, sustained many killings from rivals and enemies once they disarmed. Yet as the surprising successes of Irish Sinn Fein show, this is one of the ways terrorist groups may end.
Are sharp slivers of Irish militancy still hidden about, able to pierce the feet of the unwitting? Yes, but they mean little in the national picture. Even old IRA stalwarts such as Gerry Adams denounce the remnants, and Ireland has moved on.
Two things are needed in the next year. First: magnanimity from Turks. They won; now they must embrace their Kurdish countrymen.
Second is the emergence of the gutsy and the wise from among a new generation of Kurdish democrats. They must lead the way forward for a weary people. There are tens of millions of Kurds, so this exhortation is not unreasonable. Mr. Ocalan was unreasonable, a killer and a fanatic. Kurds should turn away from him after the disarmament and decline to let him speak for their future.
After years of war, dislocation and political persecution, the Kurdish people have earned the right to begin a new chapter built on an optimistic view of the future that embraces peace and democracy.
Correction: Abdullah Ocalan’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this column.
• From 2003 through 2010, Christopher C. Harmon lectured throughout the U.S. and abroad on “how terrorist groups end” for audiences on Capitol Hill and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, and the Marshall Center in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. He is a full-time professor at the Institute of World Politics.
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