Page 198 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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Hostage Taking———175

such attacks considerably more risky, both for the
hostages and the terrorists. Although governments
strive to keep the progress of negotiations secret, the
heavy media coverage usually means that both resis-
tance and acquiescence to the terrorist demands are
often known instantly; terrorists encountering resis-
tance often kill one or more hostages to prove their
seriousness.
Another risk to the hostages is the Stockholm
syndrome, a psychological phenomenon named after
a bank robbery in which hostages were taken in Stock-
holm, Sweden. In that event, after several days of
imprisonment, some of the hostages came to sympa-
thize with their captors, even defending them from the
police. Psychologists believe that the Stockholm syn-
drome may be a consequence of the hostages’ desper-
ate attempt to stay alive; what may begin as an attempt
to stay on their captor’s good side transmutes into Hostage-taking scene from Exercise Orbit Sunset at
complete identification with their captor. Patty Hearst Fort Mead, Maryland. The training exercise was designed
is generally regarded as the most famous victim of the to test the base’s special threat operations plan and
the counterterrorism readiness of the 519th Military
Stockholm syndrome. In 1974, she was kidnapped by
Police Battalion and the 144th Explosive Ordnance
members of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA);
Disposal Unit.
after weeks of being beaten and imprisoned she joined
Source: Defense Visual Information Center.
the SLA and helped them rob a bank.
The terrorists are also endangered by taking
hostages in a public place—the government knows the shortcomings. In 1979, Iranian students overran the
whereabouts of the hostages, thus an attempt at rescue American embassy and subsequently held 53 hostages
is always possible. During the initial wave of hostage for more than 14 months. The government of Iran tac-
takings in the late 1960s and 1970s, the responses of itly condoned the students’ actions, and, in the result-
governments involved were often confused and incon- ing atmosphere of mutual hostility, direct negotiations
sistent because of inexperience. (Tragedies such as the with the hostage takers could not be conducted. In the
massacre of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich end, the United States was forced to make certain
Olympics resulted.) Since the safety and release of the strategic concessions to win the hostages’ release.
hostages were the paramount concerns of the authori- A series of abductions of journalists and other
ties, governments sometimes the granted huge conces- Westerners in the mid-1980s in Lebanon also demon-
sions to the terrorists, for example, ransom money, strated the limitations of counterterrorism, for crisp
freeing of imprisoned terrorists, and safe passage to and efficient military operations such as those that had
a terrorist-sponsoring state. Governments soon real- freed so many other hostages were impossible in that
ized that such concessions only encouraged more such country, torn as it was by civil war. One hostage
attacks. By the mid-1970s, hostage negotiation proto- in Lebanon, Terry Anderson, was held for nearly
cols had begun to be developed, and governments seven years.
began to deploy highly trained commando teams to In the late 1990s, guerrilla-style kidnappings once
rescue hostages, for example, the 1976 Entebbe, again became a favored terrorist tactic, with tourists
Uganda, operation of the Israeli Defense Force. and businesspeople the primary targets. This wave of
These tactics had their effect, and through the 1980s kidnappings has further blurred the line between poli-
and 1990s the type of spectacular attacks that the PFLP tics and crime. Ransom demands have always been
had used to capture world attention (and that had associated with hostage taking, but groups such as
been imitated by many others) became less and less the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
frequent. The new counterterrorist methods were not have begun treating hostage taking less as a means
foolproof; the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran revealed their of attracting publicity to their cause and more as a