Just one last little niggle....
According to the French, President Estrada's bold clampdown on Abu Sayyaf proved to be, after all, just the right method to deal with a gang of hardcore kidnappers entrenched in the jungle.... So, tell me why the same storming strategy has never been applied before? UN peacekeeping personnel are routinely targeted as prime patsies --whether in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor or.... Sierra Leone:
...Taylor said the 139 captives had been held in Sierra Leone's eastern Kailahun district, but did not specify exactly where.
Taylor, the Revolutionary United Front rebels' closest ally in the region, had been asked by West African leaders to mediate for the U.N. captives' release.
The Liberian leader said the United States had refused air transport to evacuate the freed captives. The men were forced to trek through jungle for nearly three days after their truck got stuck on bad roads following what he called a "successful mediation effort" by a team of Liberian officials.
Comment was not immediately available from American officials in the Liberian capital. Taylor has long had strained relations with the United States and other Western nations. Aid to the Liberian leader has been withheld because of alleged corruption.
Taylor also warned that continued attacks by Sierra Leone's government forces and its allies against the rebels "threaten the lives" of the remaining U.N. captives, adding he was trying to obtain their release.
Wimhurst, the U.N. spokesman in Sierra Leone, announced Sunday that 18 additional U.N. peacekeepers and military observers had been allowed to return to an Indian U.N. contingent in Kailahun town, the regional capital of the district with the same name.
The commander of the U.N. force, Vijay Jetley, said the captives - 11 Indian troops and seven unarmed military observers of various nationalities - were in good physical condition and had not been harmed. However, their safety was far from assured because Kailahun remained surrounded by rebels.
Wimhurst said the observers released Sunday in Sierra Leone were from Bangladesh, Britain, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Pakistan, Russia, Tanzania and Zambia.
In their eight-year campaign against various governments, the RUF rebels have killed tens of thousands and mutilated and dismembered many more in a bid to gain power through intimidation.
[snip]
Excerpted from:
timesofindia.com
Why should western countries waste their time haggling with rogue, disorganized kidnappers who'd just light out as soon as they feel your SWAT teams' breath on their necks?? Don't waste your time! Go for it! Do like General Estrada --rip into the bastards and allow a coupla middle-aged hostages to run their flight of a lifetime! |
