Last Thursday, 23 South Korean aid workers, affiliated with an evangelical Christian mission, were abducted from a bus near Kandahar. Their mission was to develop hospital facilities. Fifteen of the 23 are women, and all are alive and said to be in good health. The Taliban is threatening to kill them today if some Taliban hostages are not released.
The Republic of Korea has about 200 troops in Afghanistan, although they were due to leave before the end of 2007, according to BBC reports.
Chance versus motives:
The above string of information lends itself to all kinds of Western speculation: why these hostages? Motives are implied: Christian, as opposed to Islamic fundamentalist; women, who are away, unprotected, from their households; developing hospitals, which the Taliban in its previous rulership ignored, neglected, or destroyed; and troops on the ground. Cooler heads should prevail: details can be misleading. This large-scale kidnapping may be in essence a crime of opportunity. The Taliban itself is calling it a trade of prisoners–essentially economic exchange, a kind of human traffick–and it seems more accurate to leave cultural differences, and the language of grievance, completely out of this account, and concentrate on results. It would also be instructive to know more about those jailed Taliban hostages that are requested in hostage trade negotiations.
Looking at hostage negotiations:
The Republic of Korea has taken specific steps in order to retrieve their citizens from the Taliban. From the BBC account linked above:
An eight-strong South Korean delegation, including a presidential envoy, is in Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and negotiate for the hostages’ release. Afghan elders have also been mediating between the militants and government negotiators in central Ghazni province, where the group was taken.
South Korea has also put its nationals, about 200, in residence in Afghanistan on notice that they should leave the country, and is forbidding its citizens to travel to the state.
Previously I reported that two German hostages were killed; this is perhaps incorrect. One of the hostages’ remains have been found. He apparently died of a heart attack and the other is believed to still be in captivity.
All economic thinking aside, I wish the best to hostage negotiators today, and to the hostages, of whatever nationality and creed.
Photo: (U.S.) National Geographic Society
Update: As of July 24, 2007 11:30pm, hostage deadlines have been extended for the second time, and negotiations continue.
