With offices on nearly every continent, Amnesty International continues to be one of the world’s leading organisations keeping track of human rights abuses. This week Amnesty has released its annual yearbook of the state of the world’s human rights. Here’s how the crime of hostage-taking played out in the last 12 months:
In Colombia, 437 persons were kidnapped in 2008 (a decrease from 521 the previous year), the majority by criminal gangs.
Armed groups in Niger abducted numerous soldiers and civilians, some of whom remain in captivity.
The Pakistani Taliban took dozens of hostages, including foreign workers, journalists, diplomats and civilians. Their Afghan counterparts also stepped up kidnappings, including deliberately targeted women and high profile businessmen.
In one month alone (August) in the southern Philippines, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front abducted 70 persons, including women and children.
Other countries were kidnapping was rife: Chad, DR Congo, Haiti, Iraq, Mexico, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Yemen.
The UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has pleaded with the Iraqi captors of five British men to release them on the eve of their second anniversary in captivity. The families of the men have expressed optimism at recovering their loved ones, saying that a recent video shows the men looking healthy. Miliband testified that both British and Iraqi authorities were tirelessly working to secure their release. The reported suicide of one of the five men, known only as Jason, is still to be verified.
The end of the decades-long conflict in Sri Lanka – and the scheduled release of remaining civilians held hostage as human shields by the Tamil Tigers – is not the only glimpse of peace on the horizon. Two other countries are witnessing the first hints of reconciliation among groups known for their history of kidnapping.
In Colombia, the chief of the country’s second largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN) has asked its enemy FARC to agree to a truce. Together, the two groups have been responsible for thousands of kidnappings over the course of the last few decades. President Alvaro Uribe, who is pressing forward in a process to revise the country’s legislation and be able to run for another term, dismissed the ELN as “cowards” and “bandits”.
Meanwhile, nearly 200 Somalis have allegedly renounced piracy after a meeting in Puntland with local leaders and religious elders that promised amnesty to those who ended the practice of taking ships and their crew hostage.
The Islamic Maghreb faction of Al Qaeda – who have been holding a British man hostage in North Africa – have extended their deadline for negotiations by 15 days, after which they say they will kill the man. The hostage-takers are seeking the release of controversial Jordanian cleric Abu Qatada from a British prison in exchange for the man (who sources say is named Edwen Dyer) they are holding in a remote region of Mali near the Niger border. Dyer was kidnapped with several other European tourists on 22 January, but they have since been released.
For more information, the folks over at the Jamestown Foundation have written an excellent article giving more background on Abu Qatada and the jihad he continues to wage from his prison cell.
A teenager involved in piracy off the coast of Somalia has been indicted in a New York court, papers say. Eighteen-year-old Abde Wale Abdul Kadhir Muse faces more than ten felony charges, including piracy and holding a hostage (Captain Richard Phillips) for ransom. The young man’s mother – who claims he is only 16 – says he is innocent of all charges. Muse is expected to enter his plea in court tomorrow.
And Mauritius and Malaysia are now among the countries wanting to combat piracy in Somalia:
After his family failed to generate the millions in ransom demanded by his kidnappers, Dorotheo Gonzales was beheaded by the Abu Sayyaf Group. The 61-year-old farmer had been abducted in the area about three weeks earlier. Family members of other Abu Sayyaf hostages, including Red Cross employee Eugenio Vagni, fear for the safety of their loved ones.
Turns out that children in the Philippines aren’t the only ones these days that fear kidnap-for-ransom gangs. Venezuelan citizens – including children – increasingly face abduction for money, regardless of their social class or ability to pay. The Guardian reports that the kidnapping trend began a decade ago in the border areas with Colombia, a possible extension of a crime common to that country. But unlike in Colombia, where hostage-taking has been a political strategy among groups fighting for control over the state/different territories, in Venezuela it is literally highway robbery. The practice has spread even to the country’s capital, where unsuspecting foreigners are taken in express kidnappings and robbed of their possessions. The Venezuelan authorities are proposing tough legislation that would demand at least 30 year sentences for those found guilty of the crime.
For more on the shifting trends in Latin American kidnapping, check out this article.
A sailor captured off the coast of Nigeria on Thursday has been killed in an ensuing battle between the government and the militants who held him. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) seized at least 15 foreigners from a boat and has declared “all out war” on the contentious oil-rich region, demanding oil companies to pull out or face the consequences. MEND also has stated it may soon release a British oil worker, Matthew Maguire, the group has held hostage for over eight months.
In the interim, the Akwa Ibom State Assembly passed legislation that gives a sentence of life imprisonment to anyone found guilty of kidnapping.
You know a country has a human rights problem when its children are so scared of being kidnapped, they bear arms to protect themselves. That’s just what is happening in Basilan, according to the Philippines Human Rights Reporting Project. A new article offers a compelling account of how youngsters fear kidnap for ransom gangs plaguing the region, where even the youngest citizens are not spared. Earlier this year a nine-year-old boy was abducted and held 60 days after the gang holding him demanded a ransom. Add thousands of illegal guns into the area – and adults encouraging their young to carry them – and you have a recipe for disaster.
The mother of a FARC hostage has criticised Colombian President Uribe for stating that only the Red Cross and Catholic Church are authorised to negotiate for the release of her son, Pablo Emilio Moncayo (pictured), kidnapped 11 years ago. FARC insists that no negotiations will be made without the presence of Senator Piedad Cordoba, who has been involved in the release of several high profile hostages.
On another continent, the Maghreb segment of Al Qaeda is said to be in negotiations to free a British and Swiss national held in the Sahara. Diplomats believe the two are being sequestered in Mali, but are hopeful for their release by July.
Posted by radiocaptivity 
Posted by radiocaptivity 
Posted by radiocaptivity 
