We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages and Ransom by Joel Simon

Author:Joel Simon [Simon, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Human Rights, Politics & Government, Politics & Social Sciences, Terrorism
ISBN: 9780999745427
Google: SSa7tAEACAAJ
Amazon: 0999745425
Publisher: Columbia Global Reports
Published: 2019-01-08T03:00:00+00:00

The Aid Workers

In March 2013, Italian aid worker Federico Motka got a new assignment. For the previous year, since relocating from Afghanistan to join Geneva-based Impact Initiatives, Motka had worked all over the world—South Sudan, Peru, and India. Impact Initiatives describes itself as a “think and do tank,” and works in partnership with the French humanitarian organization ACTED. Motka’s job was to carry out detailed assessments, to visit places confronting humanitarian emergencies, and, based on interviews with local communities, to prepare reports to guide international donors. Motka had recently completed an assessment in southern Syria. Camps of people displaced by the civil war there tended to be settled helter skelter, based on the timing of their arrivals. By organizing the camps along tribal and ethnic lines, aid groups could establish greater social cohesion and improve camp management.

Impressed with his report, the bosses in Geneva now wanted Motka to carry out a similar assessment in northeast Syria. This would be a more dangerous and difficult task, because Motka would have to navigate active front lines. But the work was vital, and the risk deemed manageable. Motka would also be paired with an experienced “security and logistics coordinator” named David Haines. Haines, a forty-four-year-old former British soldier, had gotten his start during the Bosnian conflict and spent two decades working in war zones around the world.

From his base in Jordan, Motka spent weeks doing preparations and making contacts. Motka recognized that he would be operating in a complex and fluid environment, but neither he nor Haines appreciated the radical transformation that was underway. A new rebel group, incipient and largely invisible outside Syria, was beginning to coalesce. It relied less on international support, and in fact seemed to spend most of its time and energy fighting other rebel groups rather than the government of Bashar al-Assad. The more moderate rebel factions now found it impossible to guarantee the safety of Westerners in their charge. Syrian criminal gangs that had long been involved in kidnapping were also taking advantage of the power vacuum. One key data point that Motka and Haines did not have was that two international journalists, James Foley and John Cantlie, had been kidnapped a few months earlier in the same area where they would be working. For the first several months, their abduction had been “blacked out,” meaning it was not reported in the media because it was believed that coverage would complicate efforts to locate and recover the missing pair.

Motka and Haines met up in Turkey, and made their final preparations to enter Syria. The border between Turkey and Syria was only open between noon and 4:30 p.m. each day, so once they crossed over they would have to spend the night. On March 8, they visited displaced communities around Aleppo, then stayed in a house they had rented near the Turkish border. They crossed back into Turkey on Monday, then headed back to Aleppo the following day, Tuesday, March 12. On the way back to their safe

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