A hostage taken, a ransom paid (again)

International Herald Tribune
Saturday, March 24, 2007

by Ian Fisher

ROME: THE words, as always, come easier than the resolve. "We don't negotiate with terrorists," Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman told reporters on Thursday. "We don't advise others to do so as well."

He was denouncing the swap Italy made last week with the Taliban: five Taliban prisoners held in Afghan jails for an Italian reporter kidnapped in southern Afghanistan. The trade, officials around the globe warned, was wrong all around: It rewarded terror and encouraged more abductions.

But steely conviction often melts away where hostages are concerned, and not just for Italy, which famously refused to negotiate in 1978 for the life of its kidnapped former prime minister, Aldo Moro, who was then killed by his abductors.

The reason is that kidnapping, as old as war itself, entangles the personal and the political, with real harm possible for hostage and politician alike. Now the problem spots are Iraq and Afghanistan, where soldiers roam the country along with less-protected reporters, aid workers, diplomats, builders and high-priced private security guards.

But the dilemma can also be neatly framed by American experience: Did Jimmy Carter lose the presidency in 1980 because of the Iran hostage crisis? And how different would Ronald Reagan's presidency have been without the secret sale of arms to Iran to win the release of hostages in the Middle East?

"Kidnappings are more difficult for governments to deal with than murders," said Brian Michael Jenkins, an expert on kidnappings and political violence at the RAND Corporation. "Because human life hangs in the balance, and because it appears that the government or the company or whoever is the target of the demands can do something. Of course, in the process the culpability shifts."

He added: "What American presidents have learned is that hostage situations are politically very dangerous."

And so, whatever a country's official policy against negotiating with terrorists, the reality is another matter. Mostly, governments prefer to handle things quietly, with cash for ransom paid by local governments or the companies of the kidnapped workers.

Some experts speculate, in fact, that the international uproar against Italy's action had less to do with the principle of not meeting a kidnapper's demand than the fact that it involved not cash but a public swap of prisoners. Unlike money, the prisoner swap was hard to hide. In fact, the kidnappers immediately declared it "a victory for all the Taliban."

But Israel, the country most often forced to confront hostage situations, has also swapped prisoners regularly — and has declared a willingness to do so now to free Corporal Gilad Shalit, captured in Gaza last summer.

It is worth noting that Jewish religious law recognizes the particular difficulties of hostage taking: It does not forbid paying ransom, but only one that exceeds the value of the transaction. And so in cases like that of Shalit, leading rabbis issue opinions about the worth of various possible exchanges.

But one of the most renowned cases in Jewish history showed how difficult such an evaluation really is: the 13th-century Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg was taken hostage by Rudolph I, the first German king of the Hapsburg dynasty. A huge sum reputedly was raised for his ransom, but Rabbi Meir refused to allow the transaction, saying it would only encourage other kidnappings of rabbis. He died in jail.

Similarly, some Israelis argue that one of the largest prisoner swaps — in 1985 in which three Israelis captured in Lebanon were traded for 1,150 people — emboldened Palestinians to revolt two years later in the first intifada. Whatever the precedents, many experts say the actual deals are negotiated under enormous pressure and with minimal regard for what happens later. "There is no theoretical basis," said Mark Heller, director of research at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel. "It's just a question of ad hoc decision-making by the government, which is a function of domestic pressure and public opposition. Even family pressure."

"After every deal like this," he added, "there is a kind of post facto analysis and everyone says it was a mistake and we shouldn't do it again. And we do it again."
Jenkins, the RAND analyst, noted that kidnappings for ransom in the United States are rare, partly because the police have been very successful in tracking down the kidnappers. Outside the United States, capture is rare, and so kidnappers hold most of the cards.

He said, too, that sometimes kidnappers do not even care if they receive a ransom, further strengthening their position. In Iraq, kidnappings of foreigners often seem carried out merely to create an atmosphere of chaos, to scare away companies or countries and increase the cost of American projects there.

And kidnapping these days carries a particularly horrific modern edge: the inevitable, grainy videotape of the pleading hostage, which jogs memories of other grainy videotapes in which hostages die badly.

"You see the guy, you see his picture," said Edward Luttwak, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "You see his wife and children and brothers and cousins, and after a while you think you actually know him."

"This makes it almost impossible for governments to deal with a crisis," he said.
Last week, after the journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, was released, several experts noted with interest that it was Italy that provoked the storm of criticism. After all, the nation had long battled internal terror groups, as well as the Mafia, and did so largely with a stern hand and few concessions.

To some experts, the willingness of Prime Minister Romano Prodi to deal in Afghanistan — and of his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi reportedly to pay ransoms in Iraq — showed how weak support in Italy is for those ventures.

Many experts, too, mentioned Italy's resolve in not negotiating for Moro, who was kidnapped by the Communist Red Brigade. The nation won much praise at the time for not bending, but there have been many doubts since about whether his death was worth it — and even whether Moro's political allies found it easier to leave him to his fate.

"It is unhistorical to say that taking a rigid stance like that pays off," said Robert Katz, an American author in Italy who has written about the Moro case. "Italy was the only country ever to try it completely. It was manipulated and never tried again."

Σε σχέση με το παιχνίδι που παίξαμε την προηγούμενη Πέμπτη, το άρθρο αυτό επιβεβαιώνει ότι η στρατηγική της νίκης στο παιχνίδι ήταν (και στη ζωή είναι;) η κατάληξη μίας συμφωνίας κατά την διαπραγμάτευση και όχι η απόριψη ενός "κακού" συμβιβασμού για να δημιουργήσουμε την φήμη του ασυμβίβαστου προσδοκώντας σε υψηλότερες τιμές από μελλοντικές διαπραγματεύσεις. Η γενικότερη απάντηση βέβαια έχει να κάνει με το πόσες πολλές θα είναι οι μελλοντικές διαπραγματεύσεις και με το αν οι παίχτες θα είναι πάντα οι ίδιοι.