Govt kidnap policy: necessary or 'fatal'?

 Belinda Merhab
From: AAP
September 20, 2012
HELD hostage by rebels of a regime which had slaughtered millions while his government declined to negotiate or pay for his release, the last photographs of David Wilson portray palpable fear.
The murdered 29-year-old Melbourne youth worker had been backpacking through Southeast Asia in July 1994 when he and two companions were kidnapped by Khmer Rouge rebels.

They were taken to a rebel camp in the Cambodian jungle where $US50,000 in gold was demanded for each hostage.

The Australian government maintained its policy of not paying ransoms.

Instead, amid civil war, power struggles and an unstable social and political climate, it placed Mr Wilson's life in the hands of the Cambodian government.

Then foreign minister Gareth Evans wrote to Cambodian Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh and his disgruntled predecessor-turned-deputy, Hun Sen, confirming that they were responsible for resolving the hostage situation and making judgments on how to proceed.

Australian officials were told the Cambodian government planned to attack the area where the hostages were being held but were assured no such attack would take place until the men were freed and safe.
The Cambodians did not keep their word.

Ignoring demands by the captors to withdraw the army from the area as a precondition in the hostage release, the Cambodian government intensified its military offensive.

Mr Wilson, Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet and Englishman Mark Slater were murdered and buried in shallow graves in September that year.

Alastair Gaisford, an Australian diplomat who worked on the case while stationed in Cambodia, said that despite maintaining a no-ransom policy and discouraging a private ransom by the Wilson family and businessman Ron Walker, the Australian government knew the "dysfunctional, corrupt" Cambodian government would be paying a ransom.

He said ambassadors were shown a case of $US150,000 cash and release of the hostages was scheduled to take place on August 20 but the plan was derailed.

"(Deputy prime minister) Hun Sen wanted to stop the release so (prime minister) Ranariddh wouldn't get the credit for it, so on the morning of the 20th, he bombarded the camp," said Mr Gaisford.

Hun Sen mounted a coup against Mr Ranariddh years later.

Mr Wilson's father Peter has also maintained that the government botched negotiations to secure his son's release, naively placing its trust in the Cambodians.

He criticised the government's position on ransoms and its failure to facilitate his private payment of a ransom.

A Victorian coroner on Wednesday dismissed criticisms about the way the Australian government handled negotiations for Mr Wilson's release, following a 14-year inquest into his death.

Deputy State Coroner Iain West found the government did all it could under "exceptionally difficult circumstances" and said its practice of not paying ransoms was "sound".

"Mr Wilson was being held in a foreign country that was embroiled in a complex civil war, with shifting alliances and unstable social, economic and political dynamics," Mr West said.

"In these circumstances, it was appropriate that the responsibility for conducting negotiations with the rebel group remain an internal matter for Cambodia."

Mr Evans said vindication of his actions did nothing to relieve his personal distress over Mr Wilson's murder which was his "most harrowing experience" in 13 years of government.

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Bob Carr said he welcomed the finding that Australia had pursued every reasonable option in trying to save Mr Wilson.

But the criticisms levelled against the government in its handling of Mr Wilson's case have surfaced in similar cases and echo those made 15 years later following the kidnapping of Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan.

Mr Brennan was kidnapped in Somalia in August 2008.
His story made headlines after his desperate mother, Heather, unexpectedly confronted then prime minister Kevin Rudd during a tour of Bundaberg.

Mr Brennan was released 462 days later, after his family, frustrated by the Australian government's lack of action, hired a private company to negotiate their son's release.

With help from family, friends and the community including entrepreneur Dick Smith and former Greens leader Bob Brown, the family raised a substantial ransom and secured the release of Mr Brennan and Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout.

In a scathing submission to a Senate committee inquiry into the government's response to kidnapped citizens last year, Mr Brennan said the government adopted a "hopelessly fatal" do-nothing policy that would have ensured his death.

He said the no-ransom policy was contradicted at times, with federal police telling his family to liquidate assets for a ransom.

He said his family were ignored, were not informed of alternative options, such as hiring a private firm, and were laughed at by government staff when they asked for help transferring the ransom money.

Mr Brennan labelled then foreign minister Stephen Smith "tardy, dissembling and eventually blatantly dishonest", alleging he lied to his family about a tactic employed whereby his captors were ignored for nine weeks.

During that time, the frustrated captors put a gun to Mr Brennan's head forcing him to call his family for a final plea.

His calls went unanswered by federal police who had, without his knowledge, taken control of the family phone for 24/7 monitoring - an ordeal he described as "devastating, terrifying and bewildering".

The Senate committee last year recommended the government inform hostage victims of the option of hiring private kidnap consultants to negotiate ransoms.

This, Mr Brennan believes, is the only reason he made it out alive.