Taliban free eight Korean hostages:
| Taliban insurgents freed eight South Korean hostages in two separate batches on Wednesday, the first of 19 Christian volunteers the Taliban agreed to release.
Three South Korean women were released first, and later five — four women and a man — handed over to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Ghazni province, Reuters witnesses said. Wearing long, traditional headscarves, the three women who were first to be freed wept as they sat in an ICRC vehicle. Taliban representative Qari Mohammad Bashir, who was involved in the negotiations that led to the agreement to free the Koreans, told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency he hoped all would be free in two or three days. |
Like I say, this is good news for the hostages, their families and friends, and the sending organization. Very good news. Extremely good, in fact.
But then there’s this fly in the ointment:
| South Korea’s presidential Blue House said the agreement was on condition it withdraw its troops from Afghanistan within the year and stopped its nationals doing missionary work in Afghanistan.
However, South Korea had already decided before the crisis to withdraw its contingent of about 200 engineers and medical staff from Afghanistan by the end of 2007. Since the hostages were taken it has banned its nationals from traveling there. A spokesman for South Korea’s president, Chon Ho-seon, did not respond to questions at a news briefing in Seoul on Wednesday on whether a ransom was part of the deal but said South Korea had done what was needed. “We believe it is any country’s responsibility to respond with flexibility to save lives as long as you don’t depart too far from the principles and practice of the international community,” Chon said. |
Then again, maybe that’s a pterosaur instead of a fly.
In which case, it’s bad news for Future Hostages-To-Be Who Are Not Yet Hostages.
But what do I know? It’s all theoretic to me. I’ve never been a hostage. Nor the relative or friend of a hostage. Nor have I been responsible for a hostage.
Update 1: Wednesday 29 August @ 11:11 Pacific
| A third batch comprising three women and a man were released later on Wednesday, they said.
[…] A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said by telephone he expected all of the hostages to be free by Thursday. |