Rachel Briggs OBE
Well, good evening, everybody, and welcome to this seminar from Chatham House. I’m Rachel Briggs. I’m an Associate Fellow with the International Security Programme here at Chatham House, and apologies for some technical difficulties as we got started, you saw behind the curtain for a minute or so there, such is the way of the post-pandemic world, of course. Before we get started, let me just deal with a few admin and housekeeping rules, just to get those out of the way and clear before we get into the substance of the discussion.
So, the first thing I’d like to point out to you is that this session will most definitely be on the record, and we will also be recording it today. For members, you’ll be able to access the recording of this session via the Chatham House members’ YouTube channel later. You are therefore very welcome to tweet about today’s event, and if you’re doing so, we would love it if you would use our #CHEvents, as in Chatham House Events, CHEvents. You are very welcome to submit questions, and I would ask that you do that in the Q&A function. Do not use the chat function, that will not be active during this session, but if you send them into the Q&A function, I will then be able to see them and post them to the speakers at the right moment.
Just a brief note on the format today, I will introduce the topic and the speakers in a moment very briefly. We will then open with approximately five minutes from each speaker, with a little bit of backing and forthing between the speaker and myself. We’ll open it up to some panel discussion, and then we will have plenty of time to bring you all in with your questions and comments before we close at 6:00pm GMT prompt. So, thank you for joining us.
So, just a – just by little way of introduction and background, I myself have been interested in the hostage brief for well over two decades now. I was actually introduced unfortunately because my family had a personal experience. I had a family member taken in Colombia 25 years ago, thankfully returned safely, and, like many who have been touched by hostage-taking, you, sort of, then find yourself getting drawn in closer and closer. And over the last 20 years, I’ve played various different roles, particularly in a couple of non-profits, Hostage International and Hostage US, which we’ll hear a little bit more about during the course of today’s events.
One of the things that has always struck me about this crime of kidnapping is that it is simultaneously never out of the news, but rarely in the news, and what I mean by that is that I think back on my life, and hostage-taking, quite aside from my own personal experience, has felt like it’s been part of the backdrop to my life, whether it was the Iran Embassy siege, which dominated our screens for two whole years at the end of the 1970s, the Beirut hostages, who were held for many years during the 80s into the spate of hostage cases that happened as the former Soviet Union opened up, indeed Latin America through the 90s, and my own family, found itself caught up in that, of course, the dominance of Al-Qaeda’s position within this crime, and, more recently, of course, those terrible hostage cases that we no doubt all remember in Syria in 2014 and 15 when, sadly, American and Brits, amongst other hostages, were murdered by that group.
So it’s never been out of the news, and yet, as somebody who’s watched this incredibly closely over the years can tell you, most cases don’t make the news, and so, while we all feel like we know a fair bit about the crime, actually, there’s so much that isn’t made public, that doesn’t, sort of, come front and centre. And that’s part of why we wanted to hold this event today, really, is to engage the members and to bring to you a number of the world’s leading experts on hostage-taking to answer the questions, what is it? Where does it happen? Why does it happen? Who does it? Is it growing or declining, and what do we think is going to be the – what do we think are going to be the trends that we’ll see over the coming years ahead?
This is the second in a series. We held an event last month on State Hostage-Taking. Today we’re going to be focusing on non-state actors, and their role as hostage-takers, and as I said, we’re absolutely lucky beyond belief to have really three of the world’s leading experts on this issue. We have Tim Lambon, who is Director of Risks Response at Crisis24, an old hand on – I can’t imagine the number of cases that he has worked on over the years. He’s also a former Journalist, so he has a background that is well aware of the risks, from a personal perspective, as well. Secondly, we’re joined by Amy Mason, who is President of Kari Corporation, an organisation that is involved in this area, and also I know is a very proud founding board member of Hostage US, and I hope we hear more about that non-profit during this event. And finally, Ambassador Roger Carstens, who is the US Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. Not only is he serving under President Biden, but he also served under the previous administration, as well, a Diplomat and a former Special Forces Officer, so brings some of that hinterland of experience to the table today, as well.
So, we’re going to start today with you, Tim, and, really, I would love it if you would set the scene for our members today on international hostage-taking. Where is this happening? Who is it happening to? Why is it happening? Give us a flavour of what the hostage map looks like today, Tim.
Tim Lambon
Sure, okay, so what I’m going to do is just have a look, first of all, at the types of what we’re referring to here as hostage-taking, but actually, in the commercial world, is really more referred to as kidnaps, because every hostage-taking involves a kidnap, but not every kidnap is a hostage-taking, so we’re going to run through a few of those. Now, you’ve already dealt with the – in the last session, dealt with state-derived hostage-taking, and that really is hostage-taking, it’s not necessarily kidnapping as such. But when it comes to kidnaps themselves, we run through – obviously, there is the ancient crime of kidnap, which is basically to abduct a victim, hold them, and then extort their loved ones or whoever they work for for a ransom exchange for the return of the victim. The kidnapper can use threats of harm or death, but he also uses silence and time, to apply pressure and to achieve the desired ransom.
Then we move onto something, which is facilitated these days by digital banking, which is express kidnap, which is actually just an extended mugging. Tiger kidnaps, a rather obscure corner of the kidnap world, but having a new iteration at the moment, which is the holding of people or property in order to compel the target to exercise their authority, in order to steal money or goods. This used to be the keyholders of vaults and safe deposits, but a latest iteration, of course, is the targeting of bitcoin exchange owners, and the way that loved ones can be held against them transferring value out of bitcoin accounts into different wallets.
And then, of course, we move onto the political kidnap, which is one of the things that is the highlight, that everybody thinks about and knows about, when you say kidnap or hostage-taking, that’s what you think about. Often referred to as hostage-taking, it’s the demand – a demand, which may not be financial or for material gain, but to gain or exert influence and achieve political, religious or ideological goals.
In the past 50 years or so, of course, political kidnap has been associated with terrorism, or with state actions, but it’s not always been like that. I can remember back in the 90s, kidnaps in the Yemen were actually to try and force a neglectful government to talk to local communities who they were neglecting. I did a case once in the DRC, for instance, where the local tribe was desperate to have their clinics staffed and provisioned, and so they held a number of aid workers until their objective had been met.
But political kidnappings that everybody remembers is – as Rachel has just said, were the kidnappings in ISIS and by – in Syria by ISIS in 2011/12, and these were not necessarily hostage-takings, they were kidnaps, because they were resolved by the secret payment of ransoms by governments. And even those unfortunates who we remember, James Foley, Steven Sotloff, David Haines, Alan Henning, they could have been ransomed, but, in fact, it was the stance of their governments, which is largely an English-speaking thing, to – which resulted in their deaths because of the no payment stance adopted.
Of course, resolving these cases where the perpetrators are a prescribed group, in other words, they’re on a sanctioned list, is a facet of most political kidnaps these days. Punitive laws prohibit any party from engaging in negotiation if the intention is to pay a ransom, leaving any persuasion, which is unlikely, or rescue as the alternatives, and of course, rescues have statistically proved to be less than 48% successful, and usually result in at least one of their rescuers being kidnapped or seriously injured on the way. So the difficulty in achieving a release, without any benefit to the threat actors, is extremely difficult, and only in my experience has been achieved once in the last 20 years, and that is not a case that many people know about.
And then, of course, you move on from there to the very interesting and psychological exploit of the telephonically-based virtual kidnap, an exploit where money is extorted by giving the impression that a victim has been kidnapped. The apparent victim will either be unaware, because they are not in contact, or contactable, or they’ve been tricked into self-isolation.
So, now we know what kidnapping is, and I’ve just run through it in a very short order what the types of kidnaps that we would be dealing with are, where does it happen? At the moment, the countries with the highest rates of kidnaps are those with weak security infrastructures, high levels of impunity, and economic disparity, such as Mexico, Haiti, Nigeria, Venezuela, and those experiencing long or prolonged conflicts, such as Syria, Yemen, the countries in the Sahel, and until the return of the Taliban, of course, Afghanistan.
Most highly-developed and sophisticated countries with stable governments and strong institutions have quite low levels of kidnap as such, or hostage-taking. There is hostage-taking, but that is high intensity, low – I mean, sorry, short duration, high intensity, and usually involve a siege type situation, and that’s a different kind of hostage-taking to the one that we would be talking about where a terrorist organisation or a state has held people hostage.
Where are these things taking place? So, Africa at the moment is by far – has by far the highest number of incidents and victims, because that’s not always the same thing. Nigeria and the surrounding Sahelian nations loom large in the stats because of the Islamist groups in the North, and domestic kidnaps and maritime kidnaps in the South. Next in Africa would be the Democratic Republic of Congo, with high potential threats also in Libya and Somalia, potential threats. A small outlier of course is South Africa, where there’s a growing number of kidnaps of local nationals and foreigners, but the issue here is the level of ransom that is being paid, with numbers in excess of $3 million.
The next highest in case numbers is Latin America with the emphasis in Mexico, where we’ve seen a resurgence in physical kidnaps, after a lull in favour of virtuals and express kidnaps. Probably due to COVID travel restrictions, people are just not travelling in the way that they used to, and the physical kidnaps are taking place off the street. Again, there’s probably a vast underreporting of kidnaps of migrants on their way to the United States because these are the cases that really just don’t make the news.
Although kidnap is done in Venezuela, as most of the money has left and gone to Miami, Haiti is a kidnap hotspot, with anyone being a target. The crimes declined significantly in APAC, the kidnaps of local nationals, particularly into the sex and people trafficking trade, is vastly underreported in India. Kidnapping in the Middle East, and particularly those areas affected by the Islamist insurgencies, is low at the moment, with Afghanistan influx, and on the face of it, kidnap gone away. This is a crime that’s been a way of life for mountain bandits for centuries, and it’s only a matter of time before that resurges.
So, what are the trends at the moment? In the last nine months, we have seen kidnap in the Naija Delta and Central Nigeria down, although if you look at Nigerian numbers, they’re up, but that’s huge because of the group kidnaps of schoolchildren and other groups in Northern Nigeria. Piracy and maritime kidnaps appear to have dropped off a cliff, they really just have stopped happening at the moment. The number of factors which might be affecting that, like weather, etc., but certainly they have not been happening in the last nine months.
Kidnapping of insured victims is down in Mexico, although, as I’ve said, we’ve seen a slight shift to physical kidnappings, which haven’t been around for the last four years or so. Haiti is an absolute red hotspot at the moment and will remain so for some time, even after the election coming up, it’s hard to see how they’ll get a grip on the country. Afghanistan and other Middle East countries are no longer hotspots, in terms of occurrence, though they remain extremely dangerous to go to, particularly for foreigners, and the place to – with potential to become another hotspot, of course, is South Africa, which I think basically takes me to the end of about five minutes, so thank you very much for that opportunity.
Rachel Briggs OBE
That’s fantastic, Tim. Could I – you gave us a lot to think about there. Could I just ask you to say just a couple of words on virtual kidnap, which I think is known to some people, but maybe is not as widely known as some of the other types of kidnap, and quite extraordinary, I mean, people, sort of, not being kidnapped but being kidnapped. I mean, can you just give us one example maybe of what a virtual kidnap is, and how it’s getting easier, given, sort of, technological developments?
Tim Lambon
Yeah, absolutely, so here’s a – an anonymised case study. A gentleman who lives in Guadalajara, which is a pretty dangerous place, but he knows his environment, he knows the threat actors and how to move amongst them, he knows his own piece of the reef, basically. He goes off to Tamaulipas, which he also knows to be dangerous, but it’s not his environment. He gets to Tamaulipas, checks into the hotel, has his evening meal, goes to bed. At 11 o’clock at night, the landline telephone beside his bed rings, thinks, “That’s a bit odd,” picks it up, and the chap on the other end says, “Listen, I’m the local Comandante of the police, we’re doing a raid into the hotel where you are. I need you to stay in your room because it will be very dangerous if you leave. And by the way, can you just give us your mobile telephone number in case the landline gets cut?”
So, of course, he, wanting to co-operate, gives the mobile telephone number, immediately the mobile telephone rings, the gloves come straight off, and he is told, “Listen, actually, we’re from the Cartel, and we’ve got a gunman watching you. You leave and he’ll come in and kill you.” He’s out of his depth, the pressure is on, the psychological pressure is intense, he is abused for a couple of hours, then they’ll tell him, “Okay, take your credit card and a bottle of water, we have a taxicab waiting out the front of the hotel for you, keep your phone open, refer to me as Brother if anybody overhears you, just refer to me as Brother, and I’ll tell you what to say.”
And he goes out, he goes and finds – the taxi is there, he gets into the taxi. The taxi starts taking him downtown. At some stage during that journey, with the phone still open, he will be told, “Yeah, you see that white car that you’ve just passed?” How many white cars are you going to pass? Plenty. And he said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He said, “Okay, that’s us, we’re watching you.” And so they start piling on the pressure. The taxi has been preordained to take him to a cheap hotel downtown, he’s there told to check into the hotel, take himself off to the room, where he locks himself in, and then they say, “Okay, we’re going – you’re going to receive a four-digit number on your phone. We want you to take – give us what that four-digit number is,” and what they’re doing there is they’re using WhatsApp to take over his phone. Through WhatsApp, they get access to his camera, they get access to his contacts, and they can also make sure that he’s not contacting anybody else. They then tell him to go into the bathroom, take his shirt off, put one hand behind his back and take a photograph with the other hand of him, which they then use as a proof of life and proof of possession, which they then send off to loved ones, to his Line Manager, to anybody else they think they might be able to extort.
Rachel Briggs OBE
And thank you very much, and in the interests of time, I’ll pause it there, but just to give folks a sense of how extraordinary this crime is, and we all think ourselves, “Gosh, I would never, you know, dot, dot, dot,” but it’s easily done and it’s on the rise, I know, so thank you for sharing that, and I’m sure there may well be questions on that, as we get to that point, and if people do have questions, please start sending them in. You can send them in as soon as you would like. Thank you, Tim.
Amy, I would love to hand over to you now. I mean, we’ve had a great exposition of the problem from Tim. What do we do about this? What is the solution? And dare I ask you to talk about the elephant in the room, which is paying ransoms? Over to you.
Amy Mason
Right, so thank you very much, and I’m looking to dovetail with what you’ve all just heard. So, kidnap for ransom is a brutal crime and it leverages the life of a hostage to reap a financial windfall. So, in situations in which the life of your child, your spouse, your sibling, your parent, is at risk, families will do anything, or they won’t not do anything, they’ll sell their homes, or their business, they’ll take on loans, they’ll travel blindly to a country where their loved one is being held, all in a – kind of, a frantic effort to try and bring their loved one home. So, as long as there’s a lucrative financial benefit of kidnapping and it outweighs the risk of being caught and prosecuted, criminal and terrorist groups will engage in kidnapping.
In addressing the nature of non-state hostage-taking, the traditional divide has been between ideological and politically-motivated groups. So let’s say terrorists, and economically-motivated groups, so criminals. Contemporary research by Dr Danny Gilbert lays out a difference – out a different matrix, from looking at the nature of non-state hostage-taking. He builds a typology between kidnap conducted for exchange, so either ransom payments or prisoner swaps, and kidnappings conducted for attention, either to get press or to change government policy. And I know we’re losing – we’re not losing, we’re confusing a bit with rhetoric, but it does start to matter because the labels help us understand the policies that might be effective in trying to eliminate or reduce the crime.
So Dr Gilbert recognises that those ideologically-motivated and economically-motivated actors engage in kidnap. It’s not the exclusive domain of one, both can seek financial windfalls, so it’s not just one side or the other of the divide. This is supported by START’s Global Terrorism Database, and it recorded some 2,000 cases of kidnap for ransom by terrorist groups, and it included all 15 of the most prolific terrorist organisations.
So, to your point, Rachel, in cases of kidnap for ransom, what are the tools available to decrease the frequency of the heinous crime? So, one option is to make the payment of ransoms a crime. Nigeria is considering banning the payment of ransom, and to Tim’s point, the numbers are way up, so there’s attention being put on this, and they’re thinking of amending their Terrorism Act. And to quote it, it says that it would make it illegal to “make payment or collude with an abductor, kidnapper, or terrorist, to receive any ransom for the release of any person who has been wrongfully confined, imprisoned or kidnapped.” It also imposes a 15-year prison term for anyone paying a ransom to free a kidnapped victim, so this would be called, in our world, a blunt instrument tactic, and it disregards previous lessons learned in countries like Colombia and Italy.
In 1991, Italy responded to an explosion of kidnappings by organised terrorist groups, and it outlawed negotiations and payments, unless there was an exception granted by authorities. So the law allowed, for example, for the freezing of assets of a family that had its member kidnapped, and it was done to prevent them from circumventing authorities, but this significant – well, significantly decreased the official rate of kidnappings, it didn’t eliminate the crime, so families and organisations acted to conceal a kidnapping and make payments on the sly. The long-term decrease for Italy was a result of the development of investigative and [inaudible – 23:46] tutorial institutions, which effectively increased the risk to kidnappers, and the outcome was a reduction in number.
In Colombia, the same approach was implemented in 1993 under what was called Ley 40 or Law 40, and that sought to cut off revenue to guerrillas during the country’s bloody civil war. It outlawed the payment of ransoms, and anyone, including a maid in a house, who failed to report the fact of a kidnapping, would incur or stand to incur the possibility of prison time, and it was, kind of, an increasing scale, so the person who made the payments, delivered the ransom, had a higher criminal – no, sorry, of jail time possibility than, say, the maid in the house. The law did the exact thing that it did in Italy, it drove negotiations underground. In one kidnap that, as we all say, anonymised cases, right after the law was passed, we tried to use this as a negotiating tactic, “Look, there’s a law, you can’t pay a ransom,” the family was curtly told by the kidnappers that obviously they didn’t give a damn about that law or any other law.
Additionally, the blunt instrument approach has an inherent fallacy. Legal systems should punish the lawbreaker and not the victim. A ban on paying ransoms is inconsistent with the criminal law principle of retribution, since it punishes the innocent parties and – that pay the ransom rather than the hostage-takers. So while it’s rather oversimplified, it’d be like prosecuting someone who turns over their wallet to an armed robber. Because criminalising the payment of ransom drives families and organisations and other stakeholders underground, it negatively affects the ability of security forces to collect information and prosecute perpetrators. It also deprives victims’ families and organisations of resources, and the intelligence of security forces, so when sharing information free from the fear of prosecution could actually be a multiplier effect in the hostage’s favour.
So, rather than penalising those who pay ransoms, countries need to improve and strengthen security and legal institutions, just what Tim said, there’s a direct correlation between the rates of non-state kidnapping and impunity, poorly resourced police, inefficient and overburdened judiciaries, and corruption. So, Colombia provides a strong case study for reducing the rate of kidnapping for ransom by strengthening law enforcement in tandem with strengthening the legal process to hold kidnappers accountable.
Rachel Briggs OBE
Thanks very much, Amy, and it’s useful to get some of those historical examples of countries that have tried to outlaw ransoms and the – some of the unintended consequences that can come as a result of that. I know you’ve worked extensively with hostage families and continue to do so, and I won’t draw you on any particular cases ‘cause I know you can’t, but I know that Ambassador Carstens in a moment will be talking about how governments engage more broadly with families. Just give us a snapshot of what it’s like for a family going through this, where you’re not only under pressure from the hostage-takers, but there’s so much else going on. Just give us a minute on, you know, what it feels like to be a family that’s at the heart of this drama.
Amy Mason
So, the first determinator, Rachel, would be what country? Right, what country is the family living in and what are they nationals of? Because that’s one of the big realities that we have is that there is no international law, no international practices or policies, and it creates an incredibly challenging, almost impossible to navigate, maze and I’m sure that, Roger, you can speak to this point, so I – as an American versus a Colombian versus somebody else, that’s going to be a very different situation. The US and what are called the Five Eyes, so Canada – the Five Eyes have really tried to come together on policy, so that’s very much helpful. There needs to be some co-ordination there, otherwise you’re going to always have a lower ground to travel to or somewhere that there’s going to be opportunity.
But to answer your question, I think there’s been, without question, PPD-30, Presidential Directive 30, as well as the hostage review that happened in the US that resulted in Roger’s office being formed, there’s been a movement toward no more – we’re not making concessions, which means we don’t negotiate, which means we don’t pay, we don’t do anything, to we don’t believe in allowing the captors, those responsible, to get financial benefit. But it doesn’t mean we won’t engage, so that engagement then has to look at the needs of the family and – as well as trying to deal with the legal aspects of it. So, in general, the situation in the US certainly has improved, as it has in the UK and Canada, but most families are less adrift, with fear of the authorities, unlike in some other countries, where they have to worry that the police may actually be involved.
So the example that was given, with regard to Tim’s virtual Mexico, we know most people aren’t going to go to the Mexican authorities ‘cause they may have perpetrated the crime, or there’s certainly a very high probability that they are related to somebody who’s perpetrated the crime or they’re going to get a win off of it. So imagine being in a situation where you can’t trust the police to go to and there is not an institution or an organisation that’s going to help you. So obviously for that, Hostage US and the Hostage International side that – organisation can at least be helpful and help families navigate, but it’s like being on an iceberg that’s quickly melting in the middle of a warm sea.
Rachel Briggs OBE
You are nothing if ever able to provide a very graphic anecdote or metaphor to describe it, and that describes it perfectly, so thank you, and it’s a beautiful segue into Ambassador Carstens. I mean, you’ve been – the SPEHA office, I’ll say that beca – SPEHA, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, I came to love and embrace acronyms when I lived in the US for a few years, but many will not be familiar with that acronym, which is your job title. You’re the third person to hold this role since it was created in, I believe, 2015. You’ve worked with two Presidents, we don’t have an equivalent of your post, we don’t have a special Prime Ministerial representative for hostage affairs here, so maybe if you could start by telling us what your job is, how it fits in. Some – I know that partnerships are so central to everything you do and maybe some of the challenges that all governments face, but I imagine there are some which are particularly pertinent to the US Government.
Ambassador Roger Carstens
Well, Rachel, thanks, first off, for hosting this event, to Chatham House for organising everything and bringing us all together today, it’s an important discussion, and grateful to have a chance to talk to you, and also to learn from both Tim and Amy. I’d also like to just spend a few seconds thanking you for all the work that you did here over your time here in the United States. I honestly am not sure if the – what we call the Hostage Recovery Enterprise would look like it currently does without the work of – without your hard work, and I’ll also give a tip of the hat to Amy, as well. The work that Hostage US did in trying to create this ecosystem, these partnerships, a certain way of looking at this, really came from a lot of the NGOs and the third-party interlocutors who were a little, I would say, felt either disenfranchised or frustrated with how we were doing business, so I want to thank you for that. The fact that I’m sitting here before you is a result of your hard work, and with that, I’ll jump into my remarks.
I’m going to keep ‘em short. I’m going to try to hit what you just asked, and tell you, I guess, why the SPEHA office exists, and I would go back to something that Tim mentioned earlier, and that is namely Peter Kassig, Luke Somers, Kayla Mueller, Warren Weinstein, James Foley, and Steve Sotloff. These are those Americans that were hold hostage by both ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and they all died in captivity. Now, the series of recovery failures related to these Americans led to that hostage review of the US Government Hostage Recovery Framework, it’s what Amy was just talking about, and out of this 2015 hostage policy review came some important legal authorities to direct a more agile US Government response to hostage-taking of US nationals abroad. So, Presidential Policy Director 30, PPD-30, what Amy was just discussing, was a result of this 2015 review, and it reshaped the way that the US handles overseas hostage-takings and placed special emphasis on improving the ability to support the families of US hostages.
Now, one critical result of this review was to establish three working bodies within the US Government. The first is the Hostage Response Group, or we call it the HRG, that’s a senior level interagency government body that co-ordinates the US government’s policy and strategy for US nationals being taken hostage abroad. The second, my office, SPEHA, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. We’re supposed to be leading the US Government’s diplomatic efforts on US hostage policy and wrongful detainees abroad. And the third, the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, or HRFC, which is an interagency body that co-ordinates general operational recovery activities. And in December of 2020, this framework that was started by PPD-30, as well as key elements of the hostage and wrongful detention policy, it was codified in law, pursuant to the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act. Now, the Levinson Act is named after our longest-held US hostage, a former FBI Agent by the name of Robert Levinson.
So, with that as a starter, what does my office do? Well, first off, we’re housed at the US Department of State and I have an incredibly talented staff that works with me. In addition to non-state actor cases, my office also works on these ever-growing I guess you could say caseload of state actor wrongful detentions. My office also works closely with Consular Office at the Department of State, and with the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, that interagency body, which co-ordinates the operational aspects of a hostage recovery, as well as providing intelligence gathering and victim support services.
Now, I have one primary mission, and that’s to bring people home, but I have two critical subsets of this mission, and the first is to support families and update them on what’s happening, and the second is to build a strong and effective organisation by implementing the Levinson Act. And on number one, I would say that that’s incredibly important to us, and I think we’re trying to essentially fix something that was broken around the 2011 to 2015 timeframe. It’s not unusual for me to spend one to four hours a day on the phone or in person, updating families, letting them know where we are, telling them what our strategy is trying to achieve, giving them milestones and objectives, and, frankly, just, kind of, listening through the struggles that they’re going through, and, frankly, their advice.
So, that, kind of, gets me into, like, how we do our work. So, as you, kind of, get the idea, partnerships are actually really important to us, and, Rachel, you asked about it, you know, what does that mean when we say that we partner and how do we do that? Well, we try to work very closely with the families, the private sector, NGOs, think tanks, our congress, and foreign governments. And I like to call the work that we do along with our partners the Hostage Recovery Enterprise because, in our minds, the US Government just can’t do this alone. So our goal is every time someone’s taken a hostage, it’s not just this cold distant US Government, which is trying to work on a strategy and keeping everyone at distance. Rather, we want to be very open, we want to partner with people, we want to find ways to get this done, recognising that the solution may not necessarily come from something that someone thinks of in an office in the Department of State, and so we – what we want to try to get to, as time goes forward, is this united coalition to tackle each of these cases. And that’s important for us because each partner, whether it’s an NGO, third party interlocutor, or a family, they all bring important elements to this effect.
And I think, Tim, I actually took a few notes when he was talking, the level of effort and the things that the private sector can bring to bear is also worth noting, and I’ll probably be following up with Tim after this discussion. Hope – the bottom line is that we try to partner. We try to be very open and transparent, and I would actually ask or challenge you all to maybe ask me some questions or maybe we can talk about that later this evening, because it’s something that we believe in and I’d be willing to explore that with you, if that’s the direction the conversation goes.
Now, when most people think of a hostage recovery, it’s not just us, the people that have been worrying about this for maybe ten or 20 or 30 years, but your average person on the street’s going to probably think of Delta Force kicking in doors, shooting all the bad guys and rescuing the hostage, or they might think of a secret negotiation that’s happening behind closed doors in a foreign capital. Now, while those things do happen, the reality is that there are other tools to choose from when looking for recovery solution. Now, my office’s diplomatic effort rests with using those tools that are in our toolbox. Some cases, they may require robust public messaging, others it’s best to just, kind of, stay lowkey, to say nothing publicly while concentrating on private messaging. Some cases require a diplomatic stick through tough sanctions, for example, others may require a carrot, give an offer to maybe provide a renewed diplomatic relationship with the United States. But part of my job is to bring all this together, to synchronise it, to co-ordinate these tools across a broad enterprise, to effectively recover our citizens wrongfully detained or held hostage.
Now, we continue to review the no concessions policy and try to look at creative ways to solve these difficult cases, and my objective is to really increase the tools at our disposal, and I don’t feel I’m doing my job properly if I’m not looking for new approaches to these cases. I think a challenge that we have is – and Tim and Amy were both bringing up the work that’s been done, the case studies that you can find, when it’s a kidnapping for ransom or someone’s maybe holding a hostage in a barricade situation in a bank.
There’s less when it comes to using diplomatic tools or the elements of national power, which could be diplomacy, information operations, the military, economics, financial efforts, intelligence efforts, or even law enforcement, and so when a government tries to apply these tools, we would like to see some more, I would say, analysis and research on that. We find precious few analytical tools, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have the tools, that we’re not aware of what they are, and perhaps how to implement them, but we would definitely like to see some more research going forward, on which tools are most effective to get the job done.
I could talk for hours on this, I think Rachel knows this. I’m going to force myself to be disciplined and be quiet, and take a few questions, and I look forward to learning from all of you, especially the members of the audience, because there’s never a time when we don’t have an engagement and we don’t walk away, having picked up something that we didn’t know was a tool, and, of course, bringing our tool bag, so, Rachel, I’ll turn the floor over to you.
Rachel Briggs OBE
Thank you, and I would really encourage you all on the call today to keep your questions coming in, we’ve got a few in the box, and I want to hear from as many of you as possible, ‘cause having had a sneak preview at the list, I know that we’ve got a fair few world-leading experts in the audience, as well as on the panel today.
I wanted to just – before I bring in Liz Frank from Hostage US, I wanted to just come back to you, Roger, on the issue of research and policy and so on and so forth, and, you know, I was surprised to hear that, you know, this – the policies just haven’t been reviewed for decades and decades, and I’m not just talking about the US or the UK, I mean, there’s a – as you said, there’s just not that body of research that would normally support, encourage, nudge, policy review in the way that it would in pretty much any other area of policy. And I’d love to get your thoughts on how, and I’d also love to give a plug to Chatham House ‘cause it’s part of what we’re trying to build up here, is a body of knowledge, a, sort of – a coalition of the willing and the interested. S I’d both ask you to say a little bit more about the how but also to encourage anyone who’s on this call who feels they have something to contribute to that to get in touch via Chatham House ‘cause we’d very much like to hear from you.
Ambassador Roger Carstens
Sure, I’ll say it in about 60 seconds or less. What I would say to that is, you’re right, we have some pretty good policies. It’s been six years since we had PPD-30 created, the Levinson Act, December 27th of last year, but I think we’re all mindful that we need to take a look at this again, but it also needs to be constant, and that’s why I’m grateful that I get to talk to people like Liz at Hostage US, the folks at the Foley Foundation, the Richardson Center, Lawyers like Jared Genser, Jason Poblete, people like yourself, and Chatham House. It’s – there’s a community of people now that are holding each other accountable, and so, there’s no chance at this point that we’re going to fall asleep at the wheel because if that’s the case, I have you and Liz calling me, saying, “We need to start looking at this.”
And my office is now institutionalised and so you have people on our side that are constantly – are willing and passionate to receive those phone calls and find ways to work together, because the last thing I want to do is waste my time or the taxpayers’ dollars and not do the job of bringing people back and taking care of their families by using an old set of tools. If we can dust off those tools, find new ones, review the policies, everyone’s the better for it, and I’m grateful these – for these partnerships that are allowing us all to hold each other accountable ‘cause I think, at the end of the day, we’re going to come up with something good, and I think some of it’s going to come out of these discussions that you’re hosting at Chatham House.
Rachel Briggs OBE
That’s great, I think that’s an invitation to do some research. I think that’s wonderful. So, let’s hear from Liz Frank, who’s the Executive Director of Hostage US. I will read her question, she says, “Thanks for the interesting and important discussion. My question is around curtailing hostage-taking. As Amy pointed out, policies of prosecution for ransom payments don’t work, but are they useful tactics for one country to take when many hostage-takings are opportunistic and are not targeted for their specific citizenship? Would any policy one country takes have to be adopted by many other countries to get them to work?” Maybe Amy, can I pass that question to you, please? And I…
Amy Mason
You may, although…
Rachel Briggs OBE
…would also say Leslie McKenna has asked a similar question, which is, “Thanks for your insight so far. How do the panellists think – what do the” – sorry, I can’t read, either. “What do the panellists think are the most powerful tools available to curb hostage-taking?” So, Liz’s point on consistency across countries, and Leslie’s questions around the – what is effective.
Amy Mason
Right, so, one point that should be said is that in Colombia, for example, they struck down Law 40 on the basis of the fact that there were elements that actually went against the Constitution. So if payment of a ransom would return a constitutional right, that’d be free and not held, then it can’t be unconstitutional, so attempts have actually then been found to be non-constitutional. So, what are the tools? This is the big challenge.
The inconsistency of policies and practices across the world means that there are always opportunities to do this crime. So, having a global programme would be obviously a first start, where there would be at least a minimum expectation on what might be a prison time, might be a – you know, a set expectation. Pakistan had a – if you were found to be a kidnapper, you were hung, public hanging. Was it effective? Yeah, very effective. Would it be tolerated? No. So, it’s just interesting to see different countries’ attempt, I wish I could tell you an answer. We tend to be like medicine, we can diagnose what you don’t have, but necessarily finding what is the one solution has yet to be found.
But, clearly, being able to make it not an attractive crime, so that’s where we go back to strong political institution, strong legislative and jurisprudence that you are able to find not just then charge, but actually convict, so impunity has to go with it, corruption has to be dealt with. So I’m not answering the question because there isn’t yet an answer, and not – maybe Roger, you know a better answer, all we know is that we have to keep trying, and making it not a profitable enterprise is a logical first step. So, in the US, we had an old saying that came from some TV show that said, “If you can’t pay the time, don’t do the crime.” Make it unattractive, make it particularly unattractive, but the reality is, as Tim was saying, these devices and everything else like them will make us all targets of extortion, so it’s not going away. It started in times of the Bible and it continues. I’m sure someone sadly was kidnapped somewhere in the world today.
So my answer to you is, it’s about looking for setting standards, which at least decrease the profitability and the benefit of doing it, so that you’re dissuaded from engaging in the kidnapping, and there’s a piece of it that goes to – that says, “I, as an individual, shouldn’t be travelling into locations that are really dangerous and expect that I may not run into problems.” Right? So Roger would tell you, “Yeah, the State Department gives travel advisories, which indicate red countries.” So, going birdwatching in Colombia during the height of the infiltration, not a good choice. Did people do it? Yes, and the result was that they were kidnapped. So there does need to be some ownership, but I am in no way victimising the victims because we should feel that we could go anywhere and do anything, but there is an element of shared responsibility, it’s not just each government’s responsibility to be sure it doesn’t happen. So I don’t know if, Roger, you want to talk on anything there, too.
Rachel Briggs OBE
Well, I would just – I mean, I – before he does, and I would absolutely – I think the – you know, I’m always struck by the fact that, you know, we’ve had G7 communiques on this, we’ve had UN resolutions on this, and governments still, sort of, sign up to those things and then go off in their own directions. So even with the instruments we have internationally, and sign up officially, it still can break down. And Claire Smiley asked a question, which maybe I will point towards you, Roger, which, sort of, takes this on, she says, “What is the scope in building out a global framework to tackle non-state hostage-taking?” And I, sort of, wonder whether there’s something we can learn around the coalition that seems to be forming around state hostage-taking on this.
Ambassador Roger Carstens
So, thank you for that question. I will jump right into that, that we’re making progress right now on states. The Canadians did a wonderful job of leaving the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention and State-to-State Relations, that was an announcement that took place on the 15th of February of this year. They followed up by trying to garner together a group of other nations to engage in a partner action plan, where we can find different ways to work together, nations based on their volunteer – where the volunteer would take a certain activity. So the United States might take a certain role, another country might take a certain role, based on their strengths and weaknesses.
But I think the big thing that can be done here that I think should transfer to the hostage-taking sphere is just building out that global coalition. We talked earlier, when I was giving my pitch, that within the United States Government, we’re trying to cast a wide net. I want people on, like, my phone, they’re on speed dial, from Capitol Hall, Senators, Congressmen, media people, NGOs, third party interlocutors, hostage families, I want this wide coalition, so that when something happens, we can all band together and support each other, whether it’s in care for a family, post-care after someone comes back, whether it’s coming up with a strategy. We’d like to see that on a global scale, to where if someone from the country of Botswana is taken hostage or they’re taken in ar – as arbitrarily detained by another country, as opposed to that country then having to go point-to-point with the hostage-taking country or the hostage-taking group, instead we’re all surging together to try to help that person.
In our case, if an American citizen is taken hostage, say by Janan in Mali Al-Qaeda or ISIS, instead of us trying to figure out how to do this in a point-to-point with that hostage group, or trying to figure out ways to – in a very narrow manner, work intelligence or law enforcement efforts, we’d like to be able to go much more broadly, and when we show up, it’s not just trying to figure it out. It’s almost like a standing joint taskforce almost, so when the problem surfaces, we all already work together, we all know each other, and we have a certain way of addressing this.
So I’ll shut up by saying that, what I would like to do, I think, to address this, and it was just discussed by Amy, and that is to raise the costs, but also to establish a norm. Now, this norm should have been done years ago, you know, there – as you mentioned, there are already been – there have already been documents that have been produced by the United Nations, for example, that should address this. We have to show a respect to our past, but I think we need to build a new norm, so it’s just a little less likely that a terrorist group will take someone hostage, or a country will arbitrarily detain someone.
And maybe I’ll throw in this last thing. I think every time I talk to someone who was held by a nation state, they always come to me and say, “Why am I not a hostage? Why wasn’t I not – why can’t I use the laws that gone – that govern hostage-taking against the President of the country that arbitrarily detained me?” So I’ll be really curious, going forward, if there’s going to be a – it may be healthy blurring of lines between hostage-taking and arbitrary detention, being very mindful, as Amy and Jim point – Tim pointed out, that the definitions are important because they – as they said, it allows us to pick which policies to implement, and which tools to use. At the same time, I think, especially if you’re getting a global coalition, there are areas where it might be a little more healthy to blur those lines, so we’re not just recreating another organisation. I hope I scratched the itch, but I’ll go ahead and save the floor to you.
Rachel Briggs OBE
Thank you, Roger.
Amy Mason
I would – if I may just jump in one quick second, Rachel, and that is…
Rachel Briggs OBE
Yes, just quickly, and then I’ve got a question for Tim, yeah.
Amy Mason
The word that we should – it has to be partnered with impunit – dealing with impunity, so you’ve got these great laws, or a common law, it’s a big fat book that might hold the door open, but it’s not going to work unless it’s partnered with and in tandem with institutions that actually then prosecute, and so you have to change the balance between authorities and the kidnappers.
Rachel Briggs OBE
Thank you, Amy. Tim, I wanted to – I wondered if you could address a series of questions from Mustafa Mohammed. I’m going to hopefully do a reasonable job bringing together – he’s asking us about, of course, the children who are kidnapped in Nigeria, and we hear these all too frequent reports of kids being taken, and I – essentially, I think what he’s asking is, you know, what can we do about this? I’m putting you on the spot, it’s a very particular type of case, what are your thoughts on what on earth we can do to improve that situ – that dreadful situation?
Tim Lambon
Well, okay, so, we’ve been talking a lot about laws and about international confederations and agreements to basically bring about a norm, but actually, none of that stuff works, unless you’ve got the institutions, as Amy said, in the countries. And the thing that is going to stop ongoing group kidnappings up in the north of Nigeria is basically to have institutions that work in Nigeria, and at the moment the institutions in Nigeria don’t work. They just don’t work, and bringing in a law to try and criminalise the people who are just trying to remediate the problem, as we’ve discussed, is not going to go anywhere.
So, what can you do about it? You have to clear up ISWAP and any of the other basically rebel organisations and bandits that are washing around in that part of the world. We do a lot of cases up there, and it is heartbreaking, and extremely difficult to actually figure out who you’re dealing with, whether this is a proscribe group or not, and once you have actually got hold of them, to then involve the families in a resistance-based negotiation, because part of reducing the appeal of this crime is to reduce the expectations of the threat actors or the kidnappers, and to pay them as little as possible. Now, that’s not to save insurance companies and other people, even the families, money, that is, at a very, very basic level, to disincentivise the crime. Now, that’s not going to stop political acts and large group takings in Nigeria, but they are seen as lucrative, and they are used just as the ISIS kidnaps were used in Syria, to fund military options and things, which are then counter-government. So, how do you stop this? You have to develop the institutions in the country.
Rachel Briggs OBE
And just while we have you unmuted, Tim, Mary Showstark says, “What was the end of the story, the virtual kidnap story, did he came out okay?” Just…
Tim Lambon
Yeah, that’s…
Rachel Briggs OBE
…was it a happy ending?
Tim Lambon
Very, very quickly, they got hold of us, we looked – there were a number of factors that you can look at in the story that immediately flags it up as being a virtual kidnap. All you have to do is switch the phone off. The people who are being extorted just have to stop talking to the threat actors. And we happen to have a federal police in Mexico, you can use some police, mostly the federales, and the federales had a direction finder, of course. His phone’s on broadcast all the time, they tracked his phone and they kicked in the door of the hotel, there’s a guy looking a bit embarrassed. That…
Rachel Briggs OBE
Well, I think…
Tim Lambon
…is not good. Can I just say that that is, particularly with Hostage International and Hostage US and UK, that is not to say that this did not change him and his family.
Rachel Briggs OBE
Absolutely. Absolutely, and I’m hearing a pitch for another event in our series specifically on virtual hostage-taking emerging. We are drawing to a close. Before I do, you know, we’ve spent an hour talking about awful stuff that happens around the world that we wish didn’t happen and that all of us on this call and no doubt many in the audience are working really hard to try and stop and help with. Could I just ask you to tell me, just in 30 seconds, what makes you hopeful? And I hope there is something, what makes you hopeful? Roger, can I start with you?
Ambassador Roger Carstens
Gladly. What makes me hopeful is the Canadian effort, the fact that multilateral organisations, states, that they’re starting to recognise this is a problem that we probably should be trying to solve together, whether it’s sharing intelligence, whether it’s coming up with solutions together. But the bottom line is that there’s an awareness that’s being generated and nations are finally, I believe, starting to come together. We’re probably a few years off where we have something that’s robust, but at the end of the day, when I go to bed at night, I’m glad we’re going in that direction.
Rachel Briggs OBE
Wonderful. Amy. You’re on mute, Amy.
Amy Mason
The example of Colombia gives me hope. Hearing Roger say that he knows that he’s not allowed to go to sleep at the wheel because we’re all after them, after you, is very hopeful. So it’s recognising that hostage families are no longer left in the dark, alone and scared, on their little iceberg, that gives me hope.
Rachel Briggs OBE
Thank you, and Tim.
Tim Lambon
Well, I’m not sure what hope really looks like in this particular situation because, as we’ve said, this crime is with us, it has always been with us, it is not going to go away until all countries and nations have strong institutions and are sophisticated. However, the one thing that I would like to say to Roger is that the great beacon of hope and the most useful thing that has come onto the scene, in the last few years, has been PPD-30 and the development of the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, who we’ve worked with a lot. And I have to say I have never worked with a government institution that is more adept and jacked up, and also sharing, because one of the things about being in the commercial sector is that government views you, particularly in the UK, unfortunately, as some kind of strange animal that’s not to be dealt with. And we end up giving a lot of information over, get very little back. That’s not true on an individual basis, and I have very good relationships with the NCA in this country and with your people in the hostage fusion cell, Recovery Fusion Cell, and we – the co-operation is great, that’s the beacon of hope. You won’t get rid of this, but you can co-operate in making sure that it’s disincentivised.
Rachel Briggs OBE
And I thought you were going to leave us on a downer there, but you’ve rescued it, so thank you for that, and having worked in the US, I would second your endorsement, it really is quite an extraordinary community that has been created there and was created super fast. I mean, it was very, very impressive.
Unfortunately, folks, we have reached the end of the hour, and so I have to bring this event unfortunately to a close. I hope it is – it’s going to lead onto something more, though, because I think if numbers of folks turning up are anything to go by, there’s a real interest in looking at this issue and looking again at the policy and trying to improve understanding.
So, I’d like to thank my three speakers today: Ambassador Carstens, Tim, and Amy for joining us today, sharing your knowledge, being generous with your knowledge and your expertise. I’d like to thank Chatham House for being willing to platform these kind of conversations and particularly Tim and Emily, who work with us behind the scenes and do a fantastic job. There will be a video of this event that will be available for members, so please do check that out. You can also see a video from the previous event that we mentioned a couple of times that was last month on state hostage-taking. I want to give a shoutout and use my Chair’s privilege, I’m shameful – shamelessly going to do that, to Hostage International and Hostage US, two non-profits that very dear to my heart who do fantastic work. If you don’t know them, go to their websites and get in touch.
So, I will – with that, I will draw this to a close. If you’d like to stay in touch with our work on hostage-taking at Chatham House, please do. Thank you for your time, thank you for your interest, and goodnight.
