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WE HAVE YOUR CEO. HAND OVER $50 MILLION
RANSOM It's not just Mexico--kidnappings are up worldwide, with as many as 20,000 to 30,000 people being taken hostage each year in the 1990s. And today, a new group is exposed to risk: global travelers, from adventure-seeking tourists to execs scouting new markets. The end of the cold war opened up lands that had been shut to investment and tourism. But many countries lack law enforcement and suffer political unrest that receives little publicity outside their borders. Layoffs of cops in Mexico and the shrinking of armies and secret police in Eastern Europe also contribute to the violence. In Colombia, the crackdown on cocaine trafficking nudged thugs into hostage-taking, a $120 million-a-year industry by the mid-1990s. A riveting account of the dramatic growth in global abductions can be found in Ransom: The Untold Story of International Kidnapping by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ann Hagedorn Auerbach. Focusing on kidnappings that took place between 1995 and 1997, the well-researched book is filled with colorful anecdotes from former hostages, family members, and globe-trotting kidnap negotiators. In some chapters, a mind-numbing barrage of statistics on kidnapping prompted me to skip ahead a bit to the next hostage story. But editing lapses aside, Ransom is well worth reading. Auerbach's starting point is July, 1995, when six Westerners trekking in the Himalayas were captured by rebels fighting for Pakistani control of Kashmir and for the release of jailed comrades. Auerbach describes the agonizing powerlessness of family members and foreign governments in dealing with Indian authorities, who refused to make any concessions to the rebels. One hostage escaped, but Auerbach describes how the kidnappers murdered and decapitated a Norwegian captive. Amid the author's discussion of other kidnappings from Colombia to Papua New Guinea, she periodically refers back to this Kashmir case, reminding the reader that three years have elapsed and that the remaining hostages are still somewhere--dead or alive--in the Himalayas. Auerbach persuaded victims' relatives to open their hearts--and their diaries--to her. Thus the reader learns of the wrenching despair of Jane Schelly, a Spokane (Wash.) schoolteacher whose husband, physician Donald Hutchings, was among those seized. Although many kidnappings are politically motivated, Auerbach says that a growing number are simply fund-raising exercises by guerrillas or common criminals. When a new rebel group, the Popular Revolutionary Army, surfaced in Mexico in 1996, experts surmised that the group financed itself through kidnappings carried out over the previous two years, she says. Rich locals are often the first victims: In the Third World, billions in foreign investment, while marginally bettering the lot of the poor, have kindled resentment against elites who snagged much of the wealth. And there's increasing risk for tourists and expatriate executives, particularly for Americans, who are perceived as rich even when they are not. Their sheer numbers--3.2 million living overseas and 50 million traveling there each year--have left Americans more imperiled than citizens of other countries. What happens when someone is kidnapped abroad? That depends on the victim's clout. If an executive's company has kidnap insurance, then a private negotiator often comes to help win his release. Ransom is larded with fascinating tales told by these cloak-and-dagger intermediaries. Former CIA agent Mike Ackerman relates his efforts to rescue a victim in early-1990s, war-torn El Salvador: ''I was thinking how I couldn't wait to get out of there, and then suddenly I saw a busload of elderly tourists pull up and I thought, What the hell are they doing here in the middle of a civil war?'' Not everyone, however, can afford kidnap-negotiation services. Many families must deal with the kidnappers on their own or rely on embassy personnel, who may call in the FBI's special unit on overseas kidnapping. Auerbach describes the case of Thomas Hargrove, a Texas science writer working in Colombia, who was held for 334 days--until his wife, frustrated by his company's refusal to pay a ransom, hired her own negotiators. For $500,000, they got him out. If Auerbach can be faulted, it is for giving the impression that international kidnapping is rampant--some readers may even be inclined to swear off overseas travel. Most travelers, of course, will have uneventful trips. Still, Ransom should be required reading at any company with employees based abroad--especially for the legions of small and midsize companies sending executives overseas for the first time. They should know that Washington often tones down travel advisories, lest they ruin the tourism prospects of the host country or scuttle complex diplomatic relations. They must make sure adequate protection is in place, whether it's kidnap insurance, security-trained drivers, or armed guards at an employee's residence. Otherwise, Auerbach suggests, they may face retribution: Hargrove, for example, sued a kidnap-negotiation firm, an insurance company, and his employer for $100 million, contending they failed to win his speedy release. (The suit was settled last year for an undisclosed sum.) Auerbach argues that as globalization makes the world seem smaller, ever more hostage-taking is likely. Better be prepared.
By GERI SMITH RELATED ITEMS
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Updated July 30, 1998 by bwwebmaster
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