Dealing with Kidnappers

As we watch the current drama with the kidnapped South Korean play out, people need to keep a couple of things in mind.

No one but the kidnappers is responsible for the welfare of the hostage. Not the government, not the family, no one. The perpetrators will try all kinds of dodges to place the responsibility elsewhere but they have the corpus and they have the responsibility. They are not bound be any convention to do anything that they themselves do not want to do. There is no good faith. Holding the hostage gives them power only to the degree that other parties fail to recognize that fact.

The hostage is better off being considered as already dead and the kidnappers already guilty of murder. Therein lies the only incentive for them to prove themselves to be otherwise. This is the reality of the situation. The only price that is at risk is the kidnappers' own skins. Unless they want to save themselves there is no basis for negotiation. This is the only way to deter this kind of activity. When the perpetrators learn that kidnapping gets them nothing but trouble it will stop but probably not before.