With headlines coming daily about an apparent Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, raising comparisons to past conflicts with terrorist movements, it’s worth remembering how such movements were successfully undermined in the past:
In 1966, Roy Prosterman, then a professor of property law at the University of Washington, published a paper called “How to Have a Revolution Without a Revolution.” It proposed small-plot land reforms to help the rural poor. At that time, U.S. policymakers were watching how easily the Viet Cong was able to recruit landless peasants. They tapped Prosterman and brought him to Vietnam, where he drafted legislation that provided land ownership to 1 million tenant farmers. Implemented between 1970 and 1973, the “land to the tiller” program came too late to stop the war–but it cut Viet Cong recruitment by 80% (emphasis added)….read the complete article from Forbes.com
The same strategy worked to undermine the Shining Path Movement in Peru, as documented in The Other Path. People aren’t born violent, but too often they’re born into conditions that leave them no other choice to voice opinions and satisfy needs. Property rights and markets are a gateway to choices beyond violence, through which former terrorist foot soldiers have marched en masse before. Will they get the chance to do it again?
Published Date: September 29, 2009