Taleban releases all S. Korean hostages

Taleban releases all S. Korean hostages
Aug 30, 2007

GHAZNI (Afghanistan) - THE Taleban movement freed three remaining South Korean hostages on Thursday as part of a deal with the Seoul government, said witnesses.
Like the previous 16 captives freed since Wednesday, the two women and a man were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ghazni province, from where the Taliban seized 23 South Koreans on July 19.

The two women and one man were covered in dust as they walked out of the desert, accompanied by three armed men, and were turned over to waiting officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross, a reporter at the scene said.

Earlier, Qari Mohammad Bashir said that four people - two male and two female - have been handed over to tribal elders.

They were handed over at an area called Janda, which is about 100km south of the town of Ghazni.

'Three others, all females, will be handed to them in another place on their way back to Ghazni,' Bashir said.

A tribal leader involved in negotiations to free the hostages confirmed that 'three or four' had been handed over to other elders and would be delivered to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

'They are driving towards us,' the elder, Haji Mohammad Zahir, said. He was with an ICRC convoy that had travelled down from Ghazni to collect the hostages.

Twelve other hostages were released in three separate groups on Wednesday after negotiations between the insurgents and South Korean negotiators.

The Taleban captured 23 South Korean hostages on July 19. They shot dead two of them, both male, and freed two women on August 13.

Safety concerns
Prior to the kidnapping, South Korea had warned its citizens not to travel to Afghanistan and blocked many of its growing legion of evangelical Christians from going there due to safety concerns.
The church that sent the Christian volunteers on a bus trip across war-torn southern Afghanistan said the government has told it to help foot the bill for the rescue.

The father of one of two hostages shot dead earlier in the crisis accused church leaders of being 'reckless', while newspapers said the government would suffer diplomatic damage for negotiating directly with the extremists. -- AFP, REUTERS, AP

It is indeed great relief that the nineteen South Korean hostages have been released by the Afghan Taliban en masse, safe and sound, after six weeks of harrowing misadventure in captivity, hopefully returning home appropriately transformed by their traumatic trip to Afghanistan, from which two from their faction will never make it home.

Unfortunate, however, unlikely are hospitable welcomes by their compatriots, many of whom felt their entire nation had been held hostage to the fates of this diminutive faction of puerile evangelists, who thinly obscure their proselytising intents under the fragile mantle of "aid workers".

It was a moral dilemma that South Korea faced: to pay the ransom to save nineteen lives and be the subject of criticism from global community for encouraging similar terrorism-driven abductions, or simply to turn a cold shoulder to its citizens, leaving them in the lurch to be slaughtered at whim and fancy, in the refusal to succumb to the terrorists’ overwhelming grasp.

Either ways, South Korea is in the blame. There is neither a right nor painless option.

With the pressure of public petitioning for the hostages’ lives to be spared, it is difficult and entirely inhumane to ignore the desperate pleas of these entrapped souls. Struggling to strike balance between the international norms and custom and the absolute premise to save the people's lives, the South Korean government have my empathy for their decision to forfeit the ransom fee.

Seoul denies it, but the Taliban’s trumpeting triumph is apparent, having collected ransom money to the tune of more than a million dollars per head for its South Korean hostages, along with scheduled withdrawal of all of South Korea’s non-combat troops in Afghanistan.

Compassion, nevertheless, would translate to financial nourishment for the growth of a powerful anarchic militia, confidence boost in future abductions given the recent success, and elevation of the Taliban insurgents to unprecedented legitimacy, with direct negotiation without reference to the administration of President Hamid Karzai , whose authority is effectively reduced while his chaotic Islam nation reverts to control of the Taliban.
I personally feel the spared missionaries ought to hang their heads in shame and guilt, their obstinate defiance and naivety being the ultimate cause of the tragedy. The irreverent concession is attributed to the utter disregard of their responsibility and accountancy as a citizen of South Korea. Their innocent impudence and audacious contempt of the Islamic religion is unforgivable, causing national and international distress.

As if Afghanistan’s accountancy for approximately ninety-three per cent of the world’s opium production alone is insufficient to provide the Taliban with superfluous arms and supplies needed to escalate its continuing insurgency, the hapless South Koreans may well have pioneered new revenue streams for the Taliban.

Having a microscopic viewpoint of a secondary school student, I may be unaware of other considerations that might be of paramount importance to the above issue.

South Korea must take cognisance of the unwelcome fervour of its nationals seeking to rush in where angels would fear to tread.

(500 words)