Hostage Taking

Hostage taking is the act of abducting and/or imprisoning a person for political or monetary gain; since the 1960s, it has evolved into one of the distinctive tactics of modern terrorism.

The practice of taking hostages has a long history. In ancient and medieval times, hostages (often the families of nobles) were sometimes taken by rival powers during times of peace, in the hope that the possibility of their death would prevent the outbreak of war. In war, kings and other rulers were also often captured and held hostage in exchange for ransom payments. This kind of hostage taking had generally ceased with the evolution of the modern nation-state—the relationship of a political leader to the hostage, or the hostage to the functioning of a state, was no longer so close or direct. Terrorism in the 1960s reverted to some of the earlier concepts: terrorists regard individuals as emblems of their nation and do not distinguish between combatants and civilians in planning attacks.

Hostage taking as a major terrorist tactic was encouraged in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the rise of urban guerrilla warfare and the revolutionary ideology of George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Since the 19th century, guerrilla uprisings have been endemic in Latin America; the guerrillas, however, operated in remote rural areas, and their strategies and tactics depended on their ability to retreat into and hide in the jungle. Not until the theories of Brazilian communist Carlos Marighella, set forth in his Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla (1969), became popular did guerrillas begin to operate in cities. Marighella's treatise discussed the threefold purpose of terrorism: to disrupt the workings of government and civil authority, to create a climate of fear and apprehension among the populace, and to publicize the terrorists' cause. Hostage taking, especially when the victim is a high government official or industrial leader, accomplishes all these purposes.

Beginning with the abduction of the U.S. ambassador to Brazil in 1969, guerrillas across Latin America executed a daring series of kidnappings over the next several years, in particular targeting diplomats and the executives of Western companies. Governments reacted variously to the kidnappings, with some making concessions to terrorist demands and others adamantly refusing to negotiate. Latin American guerrillas proved that hostage taking could be an effective and profitable terrorist tactic. Even if the hostage were rescued or killed and no ransom received, the kidnappings brought immense publicity to the terrorist group.

Latin American terrorist groups laid the groundwork, but Habash and the PFLP were the first to put the principles they had demonstrated into action in the Middle East. A Marxist, Habash's primary goal was the liberation of Palestine; his ambition was to spark world revolution. Perhaps his most important innovation was the idea of an international terrorist front, in which terrorists from various countries and groups (many with widely varying goals and allegiances) supported each other's operations and worked together on specific attacks. During the early 1970s, at the peak of the PFLP's power, the Palestinian group was provided training and funds to terrorist groups from around the world, and in turn terrorists from Germany, Japan, Uruguay, Venezuela, Lebanon, and Turkey took part in operations to further the Palestinian cause.

The PFLP was able to seize world attention to a degree undreamed of by its Latin American counterparts. The Latin American guerrillas had generally kidnapped their victims. Kidnapping offers a tactical advantage: as long as security forces are unable to locate the hostage—often extremely difficult and sometimes impossible—the government is generally compelled to negotiate in some way with the terrorists and may acquiesce to some of their demands. The PFLP and its associate groups, by contrast, favored much more public attacks, in which a band of terrorists would take over a given location (a building, train, or airplane) and conduct negotiations on the spot. The PFLP pioneered airplane hijacking for political purposes with its July 1968 attack on an El Al flight; some of the many other terrorist attacks in which the PFLP was involved include a 1974 attack on the French embassy at The Hague, Netherlands, and a 1975 attack on an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting in Austria attended by representatives of more than a dozen countries.

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