"We do not negotiate with terrorists", why?

[Jux]

I know this is a Thatcher policy, and remember (albeit hazily) the hijacked plane when she said it. The thing is, the people who actually pay for this policy are the ordinary people, the people like you and me who are caught up in the middle of it through no fault of their own.

Not every country follows this policy. Their citizens get out of the situation much more quickly having suffered much less harm.

So I wonder why we continue to pursue this policty so avidly, and whether we really ought to examine it more closely. IIRC at the time that Thatcher uttered those words, there hadn't been much debate about it, and once she'd said it it was written in stone.

It was taken as an example of the Iron Lady being iron and therefore it was a good thing. Was it, though, I wonder?

Interested in what people think.

because if it pays to take hostages everyone would do it.

Thread ends.

What @Yusanaim said.

Yep. it's not really wise to incentivise hostage taking.

We do negociate with terrorists, hence the Good Friday Agreement.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Of course we negotiate with terrorists at times. That information isn’t shared with the public fir obvious reasons.

That may have been Thatcher's policy in public, and as @Yusanaim points out it may act as a deterrent to other would-be hostage-takers.
Behind the scenes things can be different, it was Thatcher who opened up secret talks with the IRA. It can be agued that these paved the way for the Good Friday agreement.

@Yusanaim

because if it pays to take hostages everyone would do it.

Thread ends.

This. But we do talk to them, secretly, because we have to work through the problem.

'cos then the terrorists will see that kidnapping and holding to ransom works and do it again. And again. And again.

Also, there is a lot of behind the scenes negotiation, often through third parties.

Absolutely correct that we should not negotiate

She was right

Can you really not think of a reason…?????

Similar reasons to why "live" TV events are nearly always on a delay now and there are guidelines for portraying potentially harmful activities that others might mimic -- as others said, while things are going on behind the scenes, copycats are an issue when it's widely shown.

It might be interesting to compare the power and other factors of those countries that do openly negotiate to those who do it behind closed doors.

Thatcher didn’t even believe in this policy, clearly, as she had secret meetings with the IRA.

I started reading this article (as proof of my views above)
Kidnappings in Mexico increased 32.2% the State of Mexico and Veracruz top the list

Read down to see the figures 110 and 123 and thought 'it not as bad as I thought' then read on and that is kidnappings per month in 2021.

veracruzdailypost.com/2021/03/17/kidnappings-in-mexico-increased-32-2-the-state-of-mexico-and-veracruz-top-the-list/
And I believe many are kidnappings of children - horrendous.

My response is... because otherwise terrorising people would become really popular.

It's like if you give in to the demands of a toddler 'for a quiet life'. No - they take your weakness and raise it 10 times, then you are stuck with a brat who is never happy to have what they've got.

You've got two different things going on here. Negotiations with terrorists and negotiations with hostage takers.

Non negotiators with hostage takers has worked well in the Indian Ocean were British boats are now less likely to be targeted than French (for example) I believe.
Non negotiators with terrorists, well as they say, you don't make peace with your friends, you can only make peace with your enemies.

@Kendodd is spot on. Eg piracy in west Africa ransoms can be negotiated as it isn’t a political motivation (purely economical/transactional as bleak as that sounds) and often ransoms are paid, just usually by companies with K&R policies and not be the government. Whether or not you’re allowed to pay a ransom to hostage takers and how also depends on the local jurisdiction/local laws and what group has taken hostages

The thing is, the people who actually pay for this policy are the ordinary people

This is the effect of all political decisions though. From going into war to deciding when/how lockdowns happen to taxation policy.

Any government decision will have costs as well as benefits. They have to calculate that in as a price of making decisions.

Even for relatively mundane stuff -- like every time a new road is greenlit there's basically a tacit agreement happening between politics and public that X amount of extra road deaths is deemed to be acceptable.

You would be validating their negotiation methods - there can be no good outcome to that (perhaps slightly good short term, but just think about a week later, when they want something else).

It also depends on how you define negotiate - the people need to behave in a legal and appropriate way to be listened to, that is a sort of negotiation. For example, you might say to your toddler that you would listen to them when they are shouting at you - that could be seen as not negotiating with them, or setting the terms of the negotiation.

We do negotiate with terrorists, and we do negotiate in hostage situations too.

But that doesn't make a good soundbite.

We negotiate with terrorists all the time. But it’s better to pretend we don’t. You can’t have people thinking that they just need to bomb somewhere or take hostages and they get their own way.

Plus it sounds good on the news.

You would be validating their negotiation methods - there can be no good outcome to that (perhaps slightly good short term, but just think about a week later, when they want something else).

Sorry, don't agree at all.
Negotiations with terrorists brought peace to NI. Unfortunately the current lots in number 10 are pissing all over GFA

I think it was designed to discourage travel to higher risk countries with known terrorist activity. Most of the ransoming for money activities that I’m aware of (eg in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Somalia, Mexico) don’t involve terrorists at all but can be opportunistic or involve local criminal gangs. And they tend to involve people who go there on business or have local links rather than tourists because local police tends to crack down hard on crimes to the latter.

Won't negotiate but will sell them weapons.