Show Me the Money Selective Amnesty and Reward Programs in Counterinsurgency

1
Show Me the Money! Selective Amnesty and Reward
Programs in Counterinsurgency

• Colin Jackson and Austin Long
• MIT Working Group on Insurgency and Irregular
  Warfare
• October 2005

2
Outline

• Introduction
• General elements of programs
• Malaya case
• Vietnam case
• Conclusions

3
A Way Out of the Dead End

• Victory in warfare seldom a result of pure
  attrition surrender of enemy a key component
• Amnesty and reward programs complement
  coercive/military strategies by making surrender
  more attractive

4
Benefits of Amnesty and Reward

• Removes insurgents
• Defectors invaluable source of intelligence and
  possible additional manpower
• Demoralizes remaining insurgents, weakens
  insurgent networks
• Forces insurgents to increase efforts to limit
  defection

5
Basic Elements of Programs

• Safe passage to surrender
• Guarantee of reasonable and fair treatment
• Protection from insurgent reprisal
• Reintegration into society
• Possible monetary reward

6
Typology of programs

• Defector- amnesty (plus possible reward) for
  individual defectors who cooperate
• Facillitator- rewards for those acting as
  go-betweens to encourage defection
• Informer- rewards for those providing information
  which leads to insurgent capture

7
Obstacles to programs

• Efficiency objections
• Serial defection
• Signals weakness
• Can be exploited by non-insurgents
• Normative objections
• Rewards murderers
• Massive payouts to traitors
• Allows insurgents to enter legitimate political
  sphere

8
Malaya

• 1948-1960

9
The Malayan Setting

• Ethnically divided Malay Federation (5.3 MM)
• 2,600,000 Malay (49)
• 2,040,000 Chinese (38.5)
• 578,000 Indian (11)
• 12,000 European
• 70,000 Others
• Malaysian Communist Party overwhelmingly Chinese
  (90)
• 50,000 square miles, 80 uncultivated jungle

(1.5)
10
The Malayan Emergency (1)

• Prewar activities of Malayan Communist Party
  (MCP)
• WWII Alliance between UK and MCP
• Postwar MCP agitation (1946-1948)
• Outbreak of Emergency (1948)
• Opening moves (1948-1950)
• Large scale British sweeps
• MCP terror

11
The Malayan Emergency (2)

• Briggs Plan (1950)
• War Executive Committees
• Small unit patrolling
• Resettlement (500-700K rural Chinese, 410 New
  Villages)
• Special Branch reforms
• Mass surrenders (1958)
• Mopping up (1958-1960)

12
Rewards for SurrenderThe Opening Phases
(1948-1950)

• Surrendered and Captured Enemy Personnel (SEPs
  vs. CEPs)
• CEPs Those who declare continued loyalty to MCP
• SEPs Those willing to cooperate with government
• Gurney Amnesty (September 1949)
• Pardon terrorists not implicated in capital
  crimes
• Insurgents doubt government promises of safe
  treatment
• Minimally effective

13
Hugh Greene's Reforms(1950-1952)

• WWII propaganda experience
• Early recognition that propaganda is essentially
  an auxiliary weapon and cannot operate in a
  vacuum.
• Greenes Reforms
• Suspended prosecution of all SEPs
• Fair treatment of all SEPs
• Vast increases in scale of rewards (US 158,257
  for Chin Peng, US 5,275 for rank and file
  members)
• Weapons programs
• Half rates offered for surrendering SEPs

14
Greenes Objectives

• Goals (Greene)
• Attack morale
• Drive wedge between leaders and troops
• Encourage defection
• Use of defectors to develop products and refine
  propaganda message
• Sympathy
• Avarice
• Limited emphasis on violence

Core Themes
15
Templers Changes

• Alleviating pressure on Chinese population
• Extending citizenship to 1.2 MM Chinese
• ? Detention
• ? Collective punishment
• Creation of White Areas
• Increased scale of bounties on senior MCP leaders
• Problems
• Rewards do not capture risk/reward of individual
  cases
• Increased bounties confer hero status on senior
  leaders
• Fears of political impact of wholesale pardon
• Final Position Under-promise, over-deliver

Improved perception of government
16
Final Phase (General Bourne, 1954-1958)

• Rising pressure on insurgents
• Dominating tactics
• Geneva Agreements sap MCP morale
• Loyalist Chinese groups (GCC) in New Villages
• Publication of sliding scale, rewards schedule
• Tunku Abdul Rahman negotiations and Merdeka
  amnesty (full immunity for all SEPs, August 1957)
  and ultimatum
• Mass surrenders ensue (1958)

17
Bourne Rewards Schedule (1955)

• Four categories
• Above District Committee Rank
• District Committee Leader
• Branch Committee Leader
• Below Branch Committee
• Reduced bounties for top tiers
• Published figures are minimums subject to
  revision upwards

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Top Rewards

• Chow Fong (State Committee Member) USD 633,029
  (2005) for 118 terrorists delivered
• Hor Lung (Central Committee Member) USD 651,492
  (2005) for 160 terrorists delivered
• Kim Cheng (District Committee Secretary) USD
  131,881 (2005)
• Point of comparison (Average Rubber Tapper
  monthly salary (USD, 2005) USD 263)

19
Rewards Schedule, 1951
Source Stephen Enke, Vietnams Other War
20
Major Trends in Emergency
Briggs Plan/ Greene Reforms
Gurney Amnesty
Bourne Rewards
Merdeka Amnesty
21
Guerilla Communism in Malaya

• Interviews with 60 SEPs during climax of
  Emergency
• Case study of MCP motivations
• Conclusions
• Motives for defection related to motives for
  joining MCP (personal frustration, ambition)
• Limited role of official Party policy
• Losing cause and party corruption as tipping
  issues
• Rapid swing in allegiance
• Very little guilt about actions while in party
  (FAE)

22
Vietnam The Chieu Hoi Program

• Selective amnesty (defector) initiated in 1963
  for Vietcong, North Vietnamese, and other
  non-communist nationalists
• No cash reward for defection
• Large scale program- over 200,000 defectors over
  the course of the war

23
Chieu Hoi Defections by Month
1963
1964
1965
1966
24
Benefits of Chieu Hoi

• Source of intelligence through defector
  interviews (RAND, CIA, Simulmatics)
• Converted defectors into security forces (PRT,
  APT, Kit Carson Scouts)
• VC devoted significant effort to deterring and
  punishing defectors

25
Problems of Chieu Hoi

• Major reintegration issues (jobs, relocation and
  housing)
• South Vietnamese always fearful and suspicious of
  ex-insurgents
• Attracted few if any high level defectors
• Program lacked consistent attention and
  integration with other programs
• Guarantee of good treatment not sufficiently
  convincing

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Benefits of Selective Amnesty

• Simple attrition with limited collateral damage
• Complements offensive action (release valve)
• Damages morale invites purges
• Positive contributions of defectors
• Intelligence
• Propaganda
• Scout roles
• Pseudo-operations
• Marginal benefit often high
• Advances political reconciliation

27
Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam (1)

• Defection the product of interaction of military
  pressure (threat) and amnesty offers
  (reassurance)
• Effective amnesty programs require detailed study
  of insurgent motivations
• Each movement composed of some mix of soft and
  hard targets
• Government and military ambivalence towards
  amnesty programs

28
Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam (2)

• Government treatment of defectors/prisoners
  central to credibility of amnesty programs
• Serial defection (returning to enemy) rare
• Three elements for defection (Kitson)
• External pressure (stick)
• Credible offer (carrot)
• Plausible rationale for defection
• Greatest gains come in final stages of COIN
  conflict (cascade effect)

29
Iraq
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Rewards for Justice

• Program established in 1984 to provide large but
  flexible cash rewards for information leading to
  terrorist apprehension
• Program centers on most wanted list (Zarqawi
  25 MM)
• Payouts
• 57 MM over life of program 43 recipients
• Maximum payout 30 MM for Uday and Qusay
• Average payout (650K/informer)

31
U.S. Rewards for Information Program

• Established in January 2005 by MNSTC-I
• Total Funding 60,000
• Total Spent (Jan-Mar 2005) 9,500
• Average monthly spending rate 2,000
  -3,200/month
• No set rewards schedule
• Review Board J-2, J-3, J-8, SJA
• Rewards range 100-2,500

32
Observations on Iraq vs. Malaya

• U.S. Rewards for senior leaders far higher
  (650,000 (Chin Peng) vs. 25 MM (Zarqawi))
• U.S. spending on tips and weapons buy backs far
  smaller in absolute and relative terms
• No attempt to pay for surrender
• Sliding scale of rewards with very low upper bound

33
Coalition Weapons Rewards
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Malaya Weapons Rewards
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(No Transcript)
36
Amnesty Programs in IraqAllawi (June-August
2004)

• Allawis announces desire to extend broad pardon
  for those involved in resistance
• Domestic push back Shiites resist amnesty for
  suicide bombers or sectarian killers
• American push back (Negroponte, Armitage) no
  amnesty for those who have killed American
  soldiers
• Amnesty proposals neutered

37
Amnesty Programs in IraqTalabani (April 2005)

• Attempt to distinguish between legitimate
  resistance and terrorists
• Iraqi politicians support amnesty for killers of
  Americans
• Americans reject distinctions between American
  and Iraqi casualties
• Amnesty discussions shift into courtship of Sunni
  notables (group appeals)

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Gaps in Coalition Programs (1)

• No major effort to encourage individual defection
• Sectarian overtures (e.g. appeal to Sunnis en
  masse)
• Tribal/group overtures (e.g. American and Iraqi
  talks with local leaders, resistance groups)
• No corresponding appeal on individual level
• Rewards for Justice focus on hard targets
• Tips programs offer small sums for information on
  insurgents (limited resources allocated)
• Abortive Iraqi government amnesty concepts center
  on pardons not rewards

39
Gaps in Coalition Programs (2)

• Limited research on composition and motivation of
  insurgency
• Exploitation/cooptation of prisoners
• Use of defectors
• Limited integration of ex-insurgents into ISF,
  coalition effort
• Net effect no release valve for potential
  defectors

40
Room for Improvement?

• Anecdotal evidence suggests multiple cleavages
  within resistance
• Foreign vs. Local
• Secular vs. Religious
• Economic vs. Ideological motivation
• Leaders vs. rank and file
• Some portion of resistance economically motivated
  (IEDs, ambushes)
• 200-400/attack on coalition forces (JIR)
• Bounties for successful attacks on U.S. troops
• Potential to combine pardon, rewards, and
  reintegration offers
• Peel off economically motivated rank and file
• Focus military attack on hard core foreign and
  FRE

41
Sources

• Kumar Ramakrishna, Bribing the Reds to Give
  Up Rewards Policy in the Malaya Emergency, War
  in History, 2002
• Robert Komer, The Malayan Emergency in
  Retrospect, RAND 1972
• Lucian Pye, Guerilla Communism in Malaya
• Frank Kitson, Bunch of Five
• Anthony Short, In Pursuit of Mountain Rats
• Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency
• Richard Clutterbuck, Conflict Violence in
  Singapore Malaysia, 1945-1983
• Jeanette Koch, The Chieu Hoi Program in South
  Vietnam, 1963-1971, RAND 1973