Hostage Situation Update

Here is some of the latest from the Korean hostage situation:

• Korean government officials are apparently participating in the Afghan government committee handling the crisis [Yonhap News, Korean].
• Local tribal elders have reportedly made progress in talks with the kidnappers [Newsis/AP, Korean].
• The Taliban have extended the deadline for a trade by 24 hours to 1430 GMT. [BBC]
• Yonhap (Korean) wonders whether Korea has the diplomatic clout to force Kabul to accept a deal similar to the one it OK’d under Italian pressure to free an Italian journalist in Taliban captivity earlier this year.
• The JoongAng Ilbo looks at the netizen clash over the kidnappings.  As you can guess, some are upset that the hostages are being bashed, while others point out that the victims brought this on themselves.
• The JoongAng Ilbo piece also mentions some of the stuff on the Cyworld page of one of hostages.  Yes, I found it.  No, I won’t link it.  But if you read Korean, you know what’s on it.
• Then there’s this photo taken by the group on their departure from Korea. Speechless.  The site also details the group’s long passage to Afghanistan (note: this is on a blog site, and I can’t confirm if the chronology is accurate) — the Foreign Ministry warned Bundang Saemmul Church several times and even canceled the group’s airline tickets the first time they tried to buy them (leading the church to threaten to sue the state).  Upon learning of their departure, the ministry even sent a chartered plane to bring the group back, which they refused.  The church also apparently told the Foreign Ministry to stop worrying about them since the group would leave behind wills.
• Then there’s always the discussion in my earlier post.

UPDATE 1:

• A Taliban command spokesman told Afghan Islamic Press (via Yonhap, Korean) that the Korean hostages have been split up into groups, and are guarded by suicide bombers under orders to detonate if a rescue operation is launched.  On a positive note, the spokesman said the hostages are being treated well.  “We’re not Christians or Jews who sic dogs on people,” he said.  No, you’re Muslims, who apparently take hostages and guard them with suicide bombers.

UPDATE 2

• The Taliban is now calling for direct talks with the Korean government. The afore mentioned Taliban spokesman said talks with the Afghan government were headed for failure, and that the Korean government would have to talk directly with them. He also said the hostages were being kept comfortable — they’ve been able to bathe and change clothes, and given chocolate and biscuits for breakfast. Eggs and meat would be given later, he said. The spokesman also warned, however, that if a resolution to the situation wasn’t reached by this afternoon, the hostages would be killed.

UPDATE 3:

• The Kookmin Ilbo (Korean) points out that obvious — NATO states would not look positively upon a prisoner swap. It noted that the United States launched an attack a full-day attack near Musa Qala, Helmand Province on Sunday, indicating that regardless of the hostage situation, the United States would take necessary military measures. The German chancellor, meanwhile, said Germany would not surrender to or be threatened by the Taliban, even with a German hostage possibly alive in Taliban hands. The chancellor even said Germany couldn’t rule out boosting its troop presence in Afghanistan. Britain and France are taking similar positions on the matter. The paper explained that unlike the Iraq War, the Afghan War was not a war started unilaterally by the Americans, and there was international consensus that the Taliban must be crushed.

UPDATE 4:

• AP is reporting that the Taliban have upped their demands. Or so says a lawmaker from Ghazni province, who said the Taliban have demanded by phone the release of all Taliban captives in the province. Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, however, denies this is the case, and says the demand still remains at 23 Taliban prisoners.
• The familes of the hostages, meanwhile, have issued a statement apologizing for the distress they’ve caused the nation, and that they understood the government was working hard to bring them home.  In the press conference that followed, family members stressed the fact that the team went to Afghanistan to do medical work, NOT engage in religious activities.  The head of the family group, the brother of hostage Cha Seong-min, said, “Our family members went to Afghanistan as members of a volunteer group, not as part of a church.” He also said the group sponsoring the visit was not Bundang Saemmul Church, but the Korea Foundation for World Aid, a Christian relief NGO that does a lot of work with North Korea. He also said that missionary work in Afghanistan would have been impossible because of language difficulties. I don’t know what to think, or more specifically, I don’t know what to think about the clashing claims as to which organization put the trip together.
• OK, now we know why there was confusion about the numbers — apparently, five of the hostages speak local Dari and/or Pashto, leading their Taliban captives to confuse them for Afghans. Actually, I heard from a coworker this morning that more specifically, they spoke Dari (a dialect of Persian), leading their captives to confuse them for Hazara, who may (or may not) be descendants of soldiers of Uncle Genghis’s army who settled down in Afghanistan. Here’s a photo of famous Hazara Gen. Mohammad Musa, Pakistan’s Army Chief of Staff during the 1960s — you could see how such a mistake could be made, especially if we consider that most Taliban are Pashto speakers who might not necessarily recognize non-native Dari when it’s spoken.

UPDATE 5:

• The Afghan government is playing hardball, apparently [Yonhap, Korean]. You can read the English version in the AP report linked in Update 4, but to quote, Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Abdul Khaliq told AP and Reuters that Kabul was not prepared to make a deal “against our national interest and our constitution.” And, to be frank, Seoul hasn’t exactly made it clear what’s in it for Kabul if they bite the bullet and give in to the Taliban’s demands. Not to put too fine a point on this, but Seoul’s contributions to the fight against the Taliban are rather underwhelming (which is not in any way, shape or form a slam on the fine men and women in the ROK military stationed in Afghanistan, but their numbers are limited, as is their mission), so there’s only so much pressure Seoul could put on Kabul to make a deal. You’ve got to pay to play, so to speak, and Seoul hasn’t. Seoul’s not going to get a lot of sympathy and/or support from NATO members with troops on the ground in Afghanistan, either.The most Seoul could probably do is threaten to pull its 210 soldiers out early, but seeing how Afghan officials have used just about every opportunity to express their displeasure at how this mess started, Kabul might very well respond by telling them not to let the door hit them in the ass on the way out. Bluntly put, Seoul may have to come up with the Mother of All Aid Packages and/or a commitment to deploy combat troops to the country if they’re going to get Kabul to release anybody.
• I shouldn’t have to say this, but as mind-bogglingly stupid as I believe the hostages were, stupidity should not be a capital offense. Nobody in their right mind should want to see these people harmed in any way, especially by a bunch of medieval savages who gave aid and comfort to the people who slaughtered 3,000 innocent people in New York and Washington DC on Sept. 11, 2001 and work to this day to destroy the best chance Afghanistan has had for a future in decades. We all hope and pray (well, if you’re the praying type) that the hostages come home safe.

UPDATE 6:

• Ahead of the third deadline, a Taliban spokesman reiterated his group’s demands for direct talks with the Korean government [Yonhap, Korean]. Speaking to the Afghan Islamic Press, the spokesman warned that his group could wait no longer, and that if the issue wasn’t solved by the deadline, all the hostages would be killed. He said his group was in negotiations with the Afghan government, but he didn’t expect anything to result from them.

UPDATE 7:

• The Hankyoreh Shinmun, meanwhile, said the Bush administration possesses “decisive influence” over whether Kabul releases Taliban prisoners, as demanded (read: if Kabul refuses to budge and the hostages get killed, it’s Bush’s fault). The Hani pointed out that the United States, at least officially, does not negotiate with terrorists, and it has been deafeningly silent about the Korean hostage situation. In fact, in Sunday’s broadcast with FOX News and CNN, White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend didn’t even mention the hostage situation when discussing Al-Qaeda, but did say the primary American mission was to protect Americans, and that all options were on the table, indicating further military operations were a possibility. The Hani said, however, that the United States doesn’t try to stop allies from making deals to free hostages out of fear of spreading anti-American sentiment. When the Italians wanted to make a deal for their reporter, the White House said it didn’t negotiate it with terrorists, and didn’t advise others to do so, and when the deal was struck, the White House condemned it. With a US general commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan, however, the White House had to have known the swap was going down, observed the Hani.

UPDATE 8:

• The Taliban has given the Korean government another 24 hours. The Taliban is also claiming that the Afghan government is blocking direct negotiations between the militia and Korean government negotiators (which, of course, the Hankyoreh Shinmun will blame on Evil Bush ™ — see above)

UPDATE 9:

• Now the JoongAng Ilbo, now, looks at why the United States is taking a hard line against the Taliban, and like the Hani, points out that White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend didn’t say a thing about the Korean hostages during his Sunday press conference, not even the usual “we hope they come home safe” line. The JoongAng said this appeared to be because expressions of excessive concern might harm the chances of the hostages being released. The paper also noted that US approval was “absolutely necessary” for Kabul to swap its Taliban prisoners for the Korean hostages (read: if Kabul refuses to budge and the hostages get killed, it’s Bush’s fault). it does note, however, that the United States has, at least on one occasion, given in to kidnappers’ demands — in January, five female Iraqi prisoners were freed to win the release of a female Christian Science Monitor reporter taken captive by an armed group in Baghdad (read: if Kabul doesn’t release the Taliban captives, it’s because the US is selfish and only cares about its own people, not Koreans). You’ll note very little in the way of analyzing the obvious — Italy had clout over Kabul (and the US) because it actually contributes significantly in Afghanistan, while Korea hasn’t because it doesn’t. Interestingly, the State Department today did issue a statement calling on the kidnappers to immediately release the 23 Koreans.

UPDATE 10:

• The Seoul Sinmun (Korean) reports that the hostages’ families have been hurt by all the nasty comments being made by netizens. In particular, with some rather ill-advised photos taken by one of the hostages floating around, the netizens onslaught has been pretty fierce, with the Bundang Saemmul Church homepage, the Korea Foundation for World Aid, and the Cyworld blog of one of the hostages being particularly targeted.

UPDATE 11:

• An Afghan serving an an intermediary between Korean negotiators and the Taliban said Tuesday that the kidnappers are asking for US$100,000 to allow Korean officials to see speak by phone with the hostages.
• Meanwhile, Yonhap (Korean) — citing an Afghan source — reports that the health of some of the hostages may be deteriorating.

UPDATE 12:

• Now even Cheong Wa Dae is asking netizens to stop condemning the hostages. A presidential spokesman said today that while there could be several opinions about the kidnapping issue, now was the time for citizens and netizens to encourage “with warm hearts” the families of the kidnap victims. Also interesting, he noted that while Korea was cooperating with allies (i.e., the United States) on several levels to bring Korean citizens home safely, the government didn’t not judge that it was necessary to request high-level cooperation.
• Michael Hurt has written a very reasonable post on the kidnappings over at Metropolitician.

UPDATE 13:

• OK, now this is weird. Japan’s NHK, quoting a member of the Afghan government negotiating team, reports that the Taliban has pledged not to kill the Korean hostages. [Kookmin Ilbo, Korean] Yonhap reports, however, that the Taliban said that while it hopes for a peaceful resolution to this crisis, if there was no agreement by the deadline (11:30 Korea time), it would kill all the hostages.