When Rescued Hostages Are Ungrateful
On September 2, 1990, 47 Americans arrived in Washington, DC by a chartered 747 from Baghdad. They were the first tranche of American hostages released by Saddam Hussein following his invasion and occupation of Kuwait weeks earlier. One of them told reporters, "But for the grace of God and Jesse Jackson, we wouldn't be here. The State Department hasn't lifted a hand for us." A U.S. diplomat accompanying the group went up to the ex-hostage and said, "Thanks for the good word," and walked away.
This was not a unique case of a hostage blasting their (or another friendly) government after being freed. We saw it again this week when a Canadian-American family of five was rescued by the Pakistani military after being held by Taliban militants for five years. Joshua Boyle, the Canadian husband of U.S. citizen Caitlin Coleman, nodded at a State Department official as he told a reporter, "Their interests are not my interests." He had earlier refused to board a U.S. military cargo plane sent to collect the family and return them home.
His interests and those of Washington, on the contrary, overlapped in one key area: freeing him and his family. Not that it would make any difference to Mr. Boyle's evidently anti-U.S. convictions, but he's undoubtedly oblivious of the herculean and costly efforts by the U.S. government over the years to free him, his wife and their three children. It was an American drone, in fact, that detected they were being moved by their captors. American intelligence officials flashed the info to their Pakistani counterparts, who then acted quickly to strike and liberate the Boyles. Hopefully, details of the multi-year efforts by the State Department, the FBI-led Hostage Recovery Fusion Center, other agencies and the Canadian government to track the Boyles and seek their liberation will come to light in the months and years to come.
In the case of the Saddam Hussein-held hostages, U.S. diplomats moved heaven and earth, risking their own lives in the process, to win their freedom. American charge d'affaires in Baghdad Joseph Wilson had called a press conference at which he hung a makeshift noose around his own neck, and admonished the Iraqi dictator, "If you want to execute me, I will bring my own (bleeping) rope." He gave sanctuary to more than 100 U.S. citizens at the American embassy. His beleaguered staff had established communications networks with American hostages and managed to wheedle and cajole Iraqi officials to release Americans on all manner of grounds. They chartered the planes to get the hostages out. In the end, all American citizens (and many foreigners) were repatriated safely. For a first-hand account of the diplomats' heroic efforts, see, Freeing American Hostages in the First Gulf War.
I believe this apparent ingratitude by some largely stems from hostages' ignorance of the mostly behind-the-scenes efforts to win their freedom. By necessity, officials must act discreetly. If their actions became public, the hostages could be harmed or killed. One of the Boyles' captors ordered his cohorts to "kill the hostages" when the Pakistanis attacked in the nick of time.
I was directly involved in two cases to free captive Americans during my years as a diplomat. A young American man was arrested and kept incommunicado by the communist authorities of one country where I was posted. Sensitive intelligence collection enabled us to track the whereabouts of this man and to hold the feet of the hostile host government to the fire to release him, which they ultimately did.
The second incident involved a young American aid worker seized by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. This guerrilla movement was as bloody-minded and murderous as any in history. They had assassinated a dozen other foreign aid workers during my time in Cambodia in the early-to-mid-1990s. I worked patiently with the young woman's NGO employer and Cambodian authorities in carrying out indirect negotiations with the KR commander who held the American. An embassy officer and I had to wear flak jackets and helmets when we traveled via armored vehicle through lawless territory to a locale close to where the hostage was held. At one point, we in the embassy rushed to intercede with the Cambodian prime minister to get him to call off a military assault that in all likelihood would have resulted in the hostage's murder. In the end, the young woman was released in return for agricultural assistance by her employer. Apart from risking our own lives, we embassy officers spent countless hours on the case at the expense of our regular duties. Having myself previously been a detainee of the KR, I also had a nuanced sense of how to deal with them. None of this ever reached the news media. This is what diplomats do on behalf of their fellow citizens and, occasionally, those of other governments, who land in serious trouble. The young American woman was the only KR hostage to make it out alive. The other foreigners were killed in captivity.
Those who give us the biggest case of agita are naive folks who purposely put themselves in harm's way out of a sense of duty, idealism and/or invincibility. (Americans who travel to North Korea often fall into these categories.) Mr. Boyle chose to travel with his pregnant wife into the heart of terrorist country to help "the most neglected minority group in the world, those ordinary villagers who live deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan." The result was almost indescribable catastrophe for the entire family. The horror that they endured is heart-wrenching to say the least. And one prays for recovery and healing for them.
I just hope that, in time, however, Mr. Boyle opens his eyes to and acknowledges the massive efforts of the dedicated officials - Canadian, American and Pakistani - who delivered him and his loved ones from his bad decision.
UPDATE (8/13/2018): According to press reports, Caitlin Coleman has returned to the U.S. with her children, but without her husband, who was arrested last December by Ottawa police on 19 charges, including sexual assault, unlawful confinement, making death threats and causing someone to take a noxious substance. He has been released on bail but is under home confinement and must wear an ankle bracelet. Boyle is undergoing psychiatric evaluation as well. Caitlin is seeking legal custody of their three children. She reportedly is pregnant with a fourth.