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LTTE Deradicalization: Preliminary Findings

LTTE Deradicalization: Preliminary Findings. Arie W. Kruglanski, Michele J. Gelfand, Jocelyn, J. Bélanger START (Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism) and ICPVTR. Militants’ Detention.

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LTTE Deradicalization: Preliminary Findings

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  1. LTTE Deradicalization: Preliminary Findings Arie W. Kruglanski, Michele J. Gelfand, Jocelyn, J. Bélanger START (Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism) and ICPVTR

  2. Militants’ Detention • An Inseparable Counterpart of the War on Terrorism (cannot “kill them all,” do not want to “kill them all”) • The Penal and Political Problems Involved in Detention (occupation, prevention of escapes, of riots) • Importance of Militants’ Deradicalization in the Overall Counterterrorism Campaign • The Need for Release and Re-Integration: Ex-detainees as potential allies in Counter-radicalization

  3. The Challenges of Detainee-Deradicalization • Preventing Radicalization (Robert Reid, Jose Padilla, Christian Ganczarski, and Pierre Richard Robert all radicalized in prisons). • Why are detainees susceptible to radicalization? • Humiliation and Anger • Quest for a Ideology that Promises Significance • Radical Ideology Promises Significance Through Violence Against One’s Detractors (Real or Imagined)

  4. The Opportunity of Detainee-Deradicalization: Turning the Quest for Reality And Significance Around • Disaffection with Militancy and Terrorism, Openness to Alternatives • ETA detainees who deradicalized in prison (Reinares’ 2011 data)

  5. Prior Attempts at Detainee Deradicalization • In Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq • Contain a strong element of religious counter-narrative • Darth of Empirical Data Concerning Their Success • The present Empirical Attempt to Assess a Deradicalization Program: First of Its Kind

  6. The Rehabilitation Program in Sri Lanka: Its Basic Elements • Separation of moderate LTTEs from the hard core • No explicit counter-ideological narrative (implicit approach) • Restoration of the detainees sense of significance in various ways (e.g., “beneficiaries”, rather “prisoners,” or “detainees,”) • Setting up conditions for individual focus rather than collective LTTE focus (spiritual programs like Yoga, and Arts activities). • Vocational Ed courses designed to prepare the detainees/beneficiaries for integration into society.

  7. Why Assess Deradicalization Programs? Three Reasons • The Possibility of Self Deception • Objective Evidence for the Critics • Affordance of Improvement (Discovering what works and what doesn’t)

  8. TWO RESEARCH QUESTIONS • Have the detainees/beneficiaries deradicalize in Rehab? • Did the Rehab Program Work? (Perhaps the detainees deradicalize over time but NOT because of the rehab program)

  9. Have the detainees deradicalized? • 2058 participants (169 women; 1889 men); • Mean age = 27.74 years; SD = 6.68 • 1906 individuals in Rehabilitation vs. • Administer a series of tests to detainees early on in the incarceration period (December, 2009) and then nine months later (September, 2010)

  10. Rehabilitation group

  11. So the LTTE Detainees Have Deradicalized But is it Because of the Program? • Possibilities of Alternative Interpretations: • Time and historical events in the interim • Away from the atmosphere of battle; • Away from the LTTE organization. • A need for a control group

  12. Rehabilitation group Controlgroup Time 1 Time 2

  13. Characteristics of a Perfect Control Group • At Time 1, equal to the Rehab Group on All Relevant Characteristics: Psychological, Attitudinal and Demographic • Random Assignment Would Be Ideal.. • Tested at Same Times as Rehab Group

  14. Characteristics of the Available Control Group • The control group a No-Rehab group (FU-OMT) Omantei (N=152) (handicraft, meditation) • What makes it a good control group. Equality to the Rehab group on: (1)Support for armed struggle, (2) Negative attitudes toward Sinhalese (3) Meaning in life (4) Emotions (anger, shame, sadness) (5) self-embeddedness (6) social-dominance (7) Need for closure

  15. Characteristics of the Available Control Group • Tested at Same Times as Rehab Group (December 2009 and September 2010) • Rehab group Mage = 27.57; No Rehab group Mage = 30.28 • Rehab group Meducation = 1.91 (SD 1.10); No Rehab group Meducation= 1.50 (SD= 1.01) • What makes it for a less than perfect control group (they were a higher risk category, involved in anti social crimes and in recruiting, the rehab group involved in more peripheral activities)

  16. What About the Program Worked? • Was it Just the Friendly Attitude of the Center Staff?

  17. Attitude Change in Boossa (December 2010- March 2012)

  18. Has the rehab program worked? • Thus, not the effect of time as such, or separation from the battle or the LTTE organization that itself accounts for the change • Nor the initial level for support for violence, because initially the same in both groups • Not the mere friendliness of the staff • Nor the several relevant psychological variables, because the rehab and no rehab groups were equal on those • Hence, cautiously, though not conclusively, we may say that exposure to the rehab programs did the trick. • Implication, expose even the hard core to rehab programs

  19. Is the story finished? Malleability of the Human Psyche and Possibility of Re-Radicalization. • Importance of Re-integration of Beneficiaries • A Two Way Street of Pacification • Importance of Follow up Research

  20. Thank You!

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