Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

How to free hostages: war, negotiation, or law-enforcement?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • How to free hostages: war, negotiation, or law-enforcement?

    How to free hostages: war, negotiation, or law-enforcement?

    Mary Kaldor
    http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/ViewPopUpArticle.jsp?id =3D2&articleId=3D2127#

    29 - 9 - 2004

    The seizure, and sometimes killing, of civilian hostages is not random
    violence but part of a deliberate strategy that is changing the
    relationship between war and politics. Mary Kaldor asks: how should
    citizens, and their governments, respond?



    The eruption of hostage-taking onto the agenda of international
    politics and the lives of ordinary citizens worldwide - both those
    directly affected and those consuming the phenomenon via the media
    spectacle - is not itself new.

    But while past incidents like the 444-day United States embassy crisis
    in Iran from 1979-80 and the seizure of westerners in Lebanon in the
    _1980s_
    (http://www.palgrave.com/products/Catalogue.aspx?is=3D0333647009)
    could beunderstood as particular outgrowths of defined security
    crises, hostage-taking in the era of `war on terror' has acquired new
    and more disturbing aspects that reflect the changing relationship
    between war and politics.

    Chechnya and Iraq reveal this new reality at its most brutal. The
    siege at Beslan, _North Ossetia_
    (http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=3D2080) was only
    the latest in a tragic series (_Budyonnovsk 1995_
    (http://www.boyntonweb.net/Policy/Chechnya2.htm) , Moscow 2002), while
    the proliferating kidnappings of foreign personnel (journalists, aid
    workers, contract employees) in Iraq suggest a pattern of behaviour
    that reflects not just the agency of individual radical groups but a
    deeper political and even moral disorder in which all those who
    witness it are at some level implicated.

    To understand what is happening, and how we - citizens, governments,
    families, NGOs, media observers - can best respond to
    hostageâ=80`taking requires an assessment both of the difference
    between `old' and â=80=9Cnew' wars and of the main existing strategies
    used by states in the light of `best practice' in the field.

    A rose in the black garden I remember visiting Baku, Azerbaijan, as
    part of a Helsinki Citizens Assembly delegation, in the middle of its
    war with Armenia over the statusof the disputed territory of
    _Nagorno-Karabakh_
    (http://www.usip.org/pubs/peaceworks/pwks25/pwks25.html) in 1992. A
    Russian builder approached us and asked if we could help find his son
    who had been taken hostage in Armenia. We travelled with him to the
    border and spoke to the local authorities. They told us that the
    builder's son had been taken hostage by a family in Armenia, who
    refused to release him until their own son - who had been taken
    hostage in Azerbaijan - was released; indeed they described a long
    chain of hostage-taking.

    They suggested we talk to a former KGB agent on the other, Armenian
    side of the border. We negotiated a temporary ceasefire so we could
    cross the border; our Armenian and Azeri interlocutors knew each other
    well from before the war and seemed bewildered by what was
    happening. When we arrived on the other side we were greeted by the
    KGB agent, wearing military fatigues and Rayban sunglasses with a
    silver cross round his neck. We exchanged the names of the missing
    young men.

    This particular story had a happy ending. The Helsinki Citizens
    Assembly _committees_ (http://www.hcav.am/site/abouthca.html) in both
    Azerbaijan and Armenia were able to use the information we had
    collected to put pressure on the authorities on both sides; on 12 May
    1994, hundreds of hostages were released in the border _area_
    (http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?caucasus_map.html) where we had crossed.

    But in other wars, the hostages are not lucky. At best, they are
    ransomed for money, weapons or even dead bodies. But they are also
    dragooned into fighting, raped or mutilated, kept in captivity for
    years, or are killed in often macabre ways.

    A third way of warâ=80¦ Contemporary wars are quite _different_
    (http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=3D0745620663) both from the
    classic wars of the past where soldiers fought against
    fellow-soldiers, and even from the more recent `small wars' where the
    adversaries are at least recognisable combatants, like guerrillas or
    paramilitary units. In this new form of warfare, battles are rare,
    most violence is inflicted against civilians, and the distinction
    between war itself, organised crime, and violations of human rights is
    increasingly blurred.

    These wars are transforming the relationship between politics and
    violence: rather than politics being pursued through violent means,
    violence becomes politics. It is not conflict that leads to war but
    war itself that creates conflict. The insurgent or terrorist
    combatants try to establish political control by killing or
    intimidating those who are `differentâ=80=9D - politically,
    ethnically, religiously. This generates fear and hatred among all the
    social groups involved.

    Population displacement, mass rape, the destruction of historic
    buildings and symbols, are not side-effects of war - they are part of
    a deliberate strategy. Actions of spectacular violence - beheading,
    the chopping off of limbs, the destruction of 16th century mosques (as
    in Banja Luka, _Bosnia_
    (http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/cultural-property-histor.html) )
    or of Buddhist statues (as in Bamiyan, _Afghanistan_
    (http://www.photogrammetry.ethz.ch/r esearch/bamiyan/buddha/statue.html)
    )- are designed to highlight and give reality to the idea of holy war,
    an epic struggle between good and evil.

    These wars are usually fought in what have become known as `failing'
    or ` failed' _states_
    (http://www.leonard-cheshire.org/compass/17/c17-p18p19.html) .

    In the absence of tax revenue or state sponsors from abroad, finance
    for these wars is raised through violence - looting, pillage,
    â=80=9Ctaxation' at checkpoints, illegal trading. Many commentators
    argue that this abnormal political economy becomes a self-sustaining
    system and a motive for continued violence.

    Chechnya and Iraq offer current examples of how in practice, politics
    and economics become blurred in these _new wars_
    (http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=3D0745625207) . In Chechnya,
    Russian generals buy oil drilled by Chechen warlords from backyard oil
    wells, and sell their own higher-quality oil for a profit on the open
    market. In Iraq (as in former Yugoslavia) hundreds of criminals
    released from prison use the cover of war to continue criminal
    activities which they can now justify in political terms.

    At the same time, political militants, former regime officials or
    religious fanatics, become involved in crime to finance their
    activities. Failed states are often former authoritarian states, where
    the shadowy activities of former political leaders and officials have
    come to the light, but withouta political transition that allows the
    society as a whole to establish security and come to terms with past
    violations.

    Hostage-taking is a typical expression of this blurring of the
    political and economic. Much of it is undertaken for profit. Many
    family members of the Iraqi elite have been taken hostage for
    ransom. The Italian government reportedly paid $1 million for the
    freeing of two Italian aid _workers_
    (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3699350.stm) , Simona
    Parretta andSimona Pari.

    Sometimes hostage-taking is motivated by political instrumentality- to
    get prisoners or other hostages freed. In the case of the French
    _journalists_
    (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3662562.stm) , Georges
    Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, it seems that the goal was better
    media coverage for the insurgency. The status of the journalists has
    reportedly been changed- in an echo of the experience of Jo Wilding in
    Fallujah in April _2004_
    (http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=3D1860) -
    fromhostages to ` embedded reporters' with the insurgency.

    In other cases, hostage-taking is part of a wider strategy involving
    spectacular violence that captures the attention of the media as well
    as terrifying the local population. The killing of Wall Street Journal
    reporter _Daniel Pearl_
    (http://www.danielpearl.org/news_and_press/articles/a_very_different_revenge.html)
    in Pakistan, the mutilation of children in _Liberia_
    (http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/V iew.jsp?id=3D1685) and Sierra
    Leone, or the bizarre atrocities of the Lords Resistance Army in
    _Uganda_ (http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?id=3D2346&l=3D1)
    seems expressly designed to invest shockingly horrific violence with a
    non-human and therefore religious significance.

    At the time of writing, it appears that the case of the British civil
    engineer, Ken Bigley, belongs to the latter category. The head of the
    group (Tawhid & Jahid) holding him, _Abu Musab al-Zarqawi_
    (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3483089.stm) , is a religious
    fanatic in the Osama bin Laden mould (indeed, one interpretation of
    his actions is that he may be trying not simply to emulate but to
    `succeed' the al-Qaida _leader_
    (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1313021,00.html)
    ). He employs Qur'anic terms like ` raids' or `plunder' that
    deliberately seek to place his actions in the context of a history of
    jihad. Beheading - inflicted on Bigleyâ=80=99s two _American
    colleagues_
    (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F547EE41-3F12-4D79-AE9A-A35CD171DD92.htm)
    , Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley - is propagated as the ritualised
    slaughter that early Islamic warriors inflicted on infidels.

    â=80¦needs a third strategy in response Hostage-taking, as well as
    being the subject of a United Nations _convention_
    (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/terrorism_convention_hostages.html) ,
    is an international crime - something different from both war and
    politics. In response, neither military pressure nor political
    negotiations are appropriate tactics. Britain's prime minister, Tony
    Blair, is _using_ (http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/page6356.asp) the
    hostage crisis to claim that everyone has to choose the side of
    democracy against terrorism. The more shocking the behaviour of
    al-Zarqawi and his cohorts, the more he can put on his concerned face
    and explain why a the terrorist challenge demands a forceful reaction.

    But this is exactly what _al-Zarqawi_
    (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/094npvzg.asp)
    wants. He wants a war of the west against Islam, in which there is no
    space for democrats who are critical of the west and no space for
    Muslims who are horrified by violence, hostage- killing and
    suicide-bombing. He may indeed hope that the Americanswill bomb
    suspected places where he might be hiding and that many people will be
    killed as ` collateral damage'.

    But if polarising rhetoric from western leaders like Tony Blair plays
    into the hostage-takers' hands, nor should there be any political
    negotiations.

    Contacts with groups who can act as intermediaries (like the Council
    of Muslim Clerics in Iraq) may be part of a necessary attempt to save
    lives, but those who argue that conceding the hostage-takers' demands
    wouldstrengthen and legitimise the kidnappers are right.

    What is needed is a third approach beyond militarism and concession:
    one based on law-enforcement. Rather than defeat the hostage-takers in
    war or negotiate with them, the police must make systematic efforts to
    uncover their hideaways and arrest them. This approach requires a
    political and moral strategy aimed not so much at the kidnappers
    themselves but at the local population, especially those living in the
    immediate neighbourhood where they operate.

    The aim should be twofold: to deny the hostage-takers local support,
    and to create a situation where local people both believe it is right
    to give information to the authorities and feel safe in doing so.

    This was the strategy of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly committees in
    the south Caucasus during the Armenia-Azerbaijan war of the early
    _1990s_ (http://www.nyupress.org/product_info.php?products_id=3D3613)
    . They tried to engender a political and moral atmosphere where
    hostage-taking became less acceptable because local people themselves
    refused to allow their local area to become a favourable environment
    for hostage-taking.

    This experience suggests that the approach adopted by Ken
    Bigley'sfamily is probably the best in the circumstances: inviting
    spokesmen of the Muslim _Council of Britain_
    (http://www.mcb.org.uk/mcbdirect/feature.php?ann_id=3D491) to visit
    Iraq, talk to local dignitiaries, and leaflet the area where he is
    being held. But more needs to be done. The United States-led
    coalition's continued bombardment of urban areas and maltreatment of
    Iraqi prisoners- both involving terrible suffering by innocent
    civilians - make Iraqis less likely to condemn hostage-taking. The
    kidnappers themselves make gleeful useof the argument that the west
    itself holds `hostages' in _Guantánamo_
    (http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=3D2110) and _Abu
    Ghraib_ (http://www.markdanner.com/nyreview/100704_abu.htm ) .

    Although _Ken Bigley_
    (http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= 3D10000087&sid=3Dax2Pbf7Aqusg&refer=3Dtop_ world_news)
    may well be alive, it may prove impossible to save him; al-Zarqawi is
    a fanatic who probably wants to prolong the media attention for as
    long as possible. But the approach adopted to try to free him is the
    best way to deal with the hostage phenomenon in general â=80` one that
    combines police primacy in arresting criminals with a strategy aimed
    at gaining the confidence and support of local Iraqi
    people. Unfortunately, what Blair defines as a second conflict in Iraq
    - understood as one between the forces of good (coalition troops and
    the puppet Iraqi government of Iyad Allawi) and evil (Abu Musab
    al-Zarqawi and his accomplices) - is just what the hostage-takers want
    to legitimise their criminal activities.


    _Mary Kaldor_
    (http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/ViewPopUpArticle.jsp?id=3D2&articleId=3D2127#) 2004. Published by openDemocracy Ltd
Working...
X