Posted on 09/03/2007 4:13:09 AM PDT by Clive
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea's relief at the release of 19 countrymen held hostage by the Taliban gave way Friday to anger at the victims themselves, members of a Christian church who are being criticized for ignoring warnings against travel to Afghanistan.
Critics said the group's actions forced their government into negotiations with the Islamic militants that damaged the country's international reputation.
A day after the last hostages were let go, some of the church workers apologized for the trouble caused by their captivity, and a few collapsed when told the militants had slain two male colleagues. One said she secretly kept a diary on the lining of her pants.
With the crisis over, South Koreans turned their focus to what went wrong, who is to blame and what lessons can be drawn from the six-week ordeal. Public anger toward the hostages had been expressed in one form or another from the beginning, and it was rising on Friday.
Scathing comments, written with the cloak of anonymity, flooded Internet message boards. Newspapers published critical editorials.
Most noticeable was the feeling the hostages themselves and the church that sent them to Afghanistan were to blame because they did not heed repeated government warnings to stay away from the volatile Central Asian country. One advisory cited an intelligence report that insurgents were targeting Koreans.
"They were told not to go," said Kim Young-soo, 42, a travel agency employee in Seoul. "They shouldn't have gone there in the first place."
The apparent ignoring of the warning levied a high price on the government, critics argued, forcing it to deal directly with the Taliban in violation of the international principle of not negotiating with terrorists. Seoul is also alleged to have made a secret ransom payment to the insurgent group, although the government denied it.
The United States, a South Korean ally, welcomed the hostages' release, but it also alluded to the talks with the Taliban.
Asked Thursday if meeting with the militants set a dangerous precedent, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said: "I'd simply reiterate that the long-standing U.S. policy is ... not to make concessions to terrorists."
The hostage crisis has hurt the pride of many South Koreans, who have sought international recognition for their homeland's rise from the rubble of the 1950-53 Korean War to become one of the world's richest countries.
"Of course, the country has a duty to protect its people, but I'm worried that the status of South Korea will slip a lot in the international community," said Kim Kwang-ho, 32, an employee at a consulting firm.
Local media also raised concerns about the ramifications of any ransom being paid. A senior Afghan official close to the negotiations alleged Friday the South Koreans had paid money to win their release.
"Speculation has been rife over a ransom payment. And we are concerned that other kidnapping incidents targeting our nationals might occur," the newspaper Dong-a Ilbo said in an editorial.
Officials have hinted at the possibility of seeking compensation from the former hostages for expenses incurred by the government in winning their release - at least airfare and medical fees - an unprecedented move seen as reflecting public anger over the crisis.
Still, there were some calls for sympathy.
"Two of them have already died in the crisis. They are also victims," said Kim Kwang-il, an activist with an antiwar group that has argued Seoul's dispatch of some 200 soldiers to Afghanistan caused the hostage crisis.
The Taliban freed the hostages after South Korea's government repeated a pledge to withdraw those troops before year's end.
The two male hostages were slain soon after the Taliban seized 23 South Koreans on July 19. The militants freed two female captives last week, and the remaining 19 hostages this week.
Yonhap news agency reported that some of the former captives fell to the ground in shock when they were told that the two members of their group had been slain. Television showed the former hostages tearfully reuniting and hugging at a hotel in the Afghan capital.
"I can't sleep due to concerns that we caused so much trouble," Yoo Kyung-sik, 55, one of the hostages, said in an interview shown Friday evening on South Korean television.
He said the captives had been separated into groups of three or four and were repeatedly moved, mostly by motorbike or on foot.
Suh Myung-hwa, 29, another freed hostage, also apologized.
"We caused so much anxiety to the people and our government was hit hard," she said in a televised interview.
Suh showed reporters a pair of white pants on the inside of which she had written detailed records about when the kidnappers moved her, the times they had meals, the kinds of Korean food she longed to eat and other details.
"All I could think about was staying alive," she said. "I didn't feel any pain under captivity, I guess because I was in a panic the whole time. But now that the tension is gone my body aches all over."
As another condition for winning the hostages' release, the government promised that it will stop Christian missionary activity in Afghanistan, and Korean media raised questions about what they called "rash" evangelical activity in a Muslim country.
The suburban Seoul church that sent the 23 volunteers to Afghanistan and the hostages' relatives have said the group was working on humanitarian projects and not evangelizing.
More than any “face” or “reputation” being damaged, the supposed $ 20 million that was given by the Koreans as ransom to these thugs, will pay for many more abductions and bombings by the Islamikazes.
"Also" victims? Hello?
Koreans can be angry at their government for caving, if they like. They should be livid at the murderers. Instead they beat up the helpless hostages. Why? Because they won't hit back, that's why. Cowards and bullies too.
Sounds like the hostages were well-intended but also foolhardy in their naivete.
They should get their butts kicked.
“Sounds like the hostages were well-intended but also foolhardy in their naivete.”
They’re like those “human shields” that went to Iraq right ahead of our first attack and then screamed to the press because Saddam was violating “their constitutional rights.” It’s amazing that these people can work up the brain power to blow their noses.
Disgusting buncha cowards.
And we keep 30,000 troops there as a ‘tripwire’ to defend these creeps. They helped us in ‘Nam—why not in the middle east?
Time to pull out and send the troops to Iraq.
Germany, too.
where is the rage against the terrorists who are the culprits. The world needs to rise up against these radical Musclims.
They were naive missionaries who had no business being in a war zone. What happened to them is proof of that.
these Koreans went to do humanitarian work among the people, which is how most evangelism goes on. To serve the poor, the hungry, the destitute, the widows and children, etc. is the call of every Christian. They were not standing on street corners handing out flyers, or overtly preaching the word.
As has been often said, the best way to spread the Gospel is the life “you” live. They were doing just that.
Proselytizing Muslims is very difficult and dangerous. Muslims sometimes will convert if they are living here or in Europe. But Afghanistan is way beyond dangerous for this kind of activity. Islam needs some huge blows to its self confidence such as the obliteration of Mecca and Medina. Then proselytizing will be easy
*** Such nuking to occur after Muslim mega-terrorism attacks
HMMM nothing about the women bein repeated raped by these creeps.I wonder why??
these, being and repeatedly(post correction)
The error here is only in the appeasement, not in the missionaries' presence, the bravery that prompted it, the principle that prompted it, nor the sacrifice it entailed. When entire civilizations clash and justice needs to be dispensed and taught, it involves effort and danger, costs and loss. That's the world, nobody can make it any easier by running away and pretending it doesn't have to be done.
I don't.
And you will not convince Muslims as such that their religion is bad by murdering lots of them, you will only convince them that they need weapons as big as yours. If you try to compete with them in moral depravity or simply in ruthlessness, they will win every time. In technology, you can have a passing lead for a while, but it will be passing. Do you think the world can go another 150 years without any new states getting nuclear technology? Without any of them being Muslim? When every barrel of oil has turned into money and been spent on something, do you expect those who live where it was pumped to be as poor as they were before it was found? Look at their weapons and technology today, and compare it to the start of the previous century.
By all means let's win current wars. But in case nobody noticed, the only way you get lasting victory out of doing so is by ruling those misruled before, better in the future. And that is done by justice and a generous peace after victory, not by ruthlessness. George Marshall for Europe and MacArthur for Japan, made transient victories lasting. If they hadn't, the result would have been every bit as sterile a generation later as WW I was.
The unjust men we are fighting need to be disarmed and defeated, yes, but after and above all, they need to be shown just conduct and better ways of life. Morally better. When they see how western soldiers conduct themselves they learn a piece of that. When they see how western religious men behave, they learn another piece of that. When they see how western scholars behave, when they see how western business operates, etc.
In all of these potential lessons, the moral ones are the only decisive ones in the long run. Yes, military victory and real justice on the ground, enforced, are essential to any of the other lessons. But alone, that teaches them only to seek victory for their own unjust cause. Tell a man that if victorious he can do whatever he likes and the most likely result will not be that he gives up any prospect of victory. Tell him it depends only on technology and the weapons one possesses and he will not give up seeking superior weapons.
But instead show him that the only real use of victory is to establish a justice he can have without it, for the asking, and you may change his world. Only "may", because it is entirely up to him whether he accepts any of that. Men are free and therefore free to be bastards. When they act like bastards we have to take their power away. But we can't teach them not to act like bastards by being bastards, but only by showing them there is something better.
These so naive missionaries have a better idea what will actually change the Muslim world than you do, and their strategy for going about it is much more likely to actually work. Not on its own, certainly. But without the like attempted and accomplished, whatever it costs and however long it takes, force is utterly sterile.
Christianity apparently spreads fastest while under persecution. Remember in the early centuries the church missionaries, Paul and others, had great success spreading the Gospel and establishing churches. In the recent century the persecuted church in Africa and Asia has been doing the same.
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