[R-G] AFGHANISTAN: South Korea Pleads with US to Save Hostages

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Note that "Mr. [Hamid] Karzai was severely criticized by the United
States and European governments after he approved a deal in March in
which five Taliban fighters were freed in exchange for the release of
an Italian journalist. He called the trade a one-time deal." -- Yoshie

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/asia/31cnd-hostage.html>
July 31, 2007
Police Find Body of 2nd South Korean
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea, July 31 — Shocked by the killing of a second South
Korean hostage in Afghanistan and weary of the 13-day-old crisis,
South Korea urged the United States and Afghan governments on Tuesday
to show "flexibility" over Taliban demands to exchange the remaining
21 Christian aid workers from South Korea for imprisoned militants.

But a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said that Washington's
longstanding policy against dealing with hostage takers had not
changed, and that despite American concern for those being held, "I
don't see any indication that we're going to be changing that any time
soon."

"We certainly have great sympathy for South Korea and for the people
that are involved in this incident. It's a terrible incident. They
should be let go," he said.

But Mr. Casey added, "In this instance, the burden, just like in other
hostage-taking instances, is on those who've done this in the Taliban
to release them and to let them go."

The South Korean government's appeal — coupled with a growing
frustration in Seoul over what officials here perceive as a lack of
cooperation from the United States in resolving the crisis — came
hours after the Afghan police found the bullet-ridden body of a second
South Korean hostage slain by the Taliban.

A purported Taliban spokesman said the man was killed on Monday
because the Afghan government had not released the Taliban prisoners.
The South Korean government identified the victim as Shim Sung Min, a
29-year-old former information technology worker.

"The government is well aware of how the international community deals
with these kinds of abduction cases," Cheon Ho Seon, a spokesman for
President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"But it also believes that it would be worthwhile to use flexibility
in the cause of saving the precious lives of those still in captivity,
and is appealing to the international community to do so."

Ever since the Taliban kidnapped the 23 South Korean aid workers on
July 19, Mr. Roh's government has been caught between two
uncompromising forces. The Taliban has been insisting on a
hostage-and-prisoner swap, while the American-backed Afghan government
counters that bowing to the militants' demands will only lead to more
kidnappings.

"We shouldn't encourage kidnapping by actually accepting their
demands," Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai of
Afghanistan, told reporters on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who describes himself as a Taliban spokesman, said
that the militants would kill more hostages if the Afghanistan
government does not release prisoners by noon on Wednesday.

"It might be a man or a woman," he told The Associated Press. "It
might be one. It might be two, four. It might be all of them." He said
the Taliban had killed the second South Korean hostage because "the
Kabul and Korean governments are lying and cheating."

"We cannot contain our anger at this merciless killing and strongly
condemn this," said Cho Hee Yong, a spokesman for the South Korean
foreign ministry.

But the South Korean government also expressed frustration over the
deadlock in negotiations. The Taliban "demand is not within the power
of the Korean government because it doesn't have any effective means
to influence decisions of the Afghan government," said Mr. Cheon, the
presidential spokesman.

"The Korean government strongly condemns and urges an immediate end to
these heinous acts of killing innocent people in order to press for
demands that it can't meet," he said.

Grief, anger and a growing sense of helplessness gripped South Koreans
on Tuesday after the government confirmed that the body of the
bespectacled man dumped on a clover field beside a road in southern
Afghanistan was that of Mr. Shim, who had volunteered for a South
Korean church group's aid mission to the war-torn country.

The body of the group's leader, Bae Hyung Kyu, who had also been shot
to death, was found last Wednesday.

"We appeal for support from the people of the United States and around
the world for resolving this crisis as early as possible," Kim Kyong
Ja, the mother of one of the South Korean captives, said Tuesday,
reading a statement from the family while grieving relatives standing
behind her fought back tears.

"Especially, the families want the United States to disregard
political interests and give more active support to save the 21
innocent lives," she said. "We sustain ourselves through this ordeal
anxiety with a belief that they can return home alive," she said. "So
please help us."

Mr. Shim's father, Shim Chin Pyo, told reporters of his son: "He had a
good heart and did a lot of volunteer work. My son also wanted to help
the poor and disabled."

The Taliban kidnapped the 23 South Koreans, most of whom are women and
in their 20s and 30s, while they were on a bus traveling from Kabul to
the southern city of Kandahar on July 19.

They were the largest group of foreign hostages taken prisoner in
Afghanistan since the American-led invasion in 2001.

The South Korean appeal for flexibility came ahead of a meeting
scheduled for Sunday between Mr. Karzai and President Bush at Camp
David.

Mr. Karzai was severely criticized by the United States and European
governments after he approved a deal in March in which five Taliban
fighters were freed in exchange for the release of an Italian
journalist. He called the trade a one-time deal.

Paik Jin Hyun, an associate dean at the Graduate School of
International Studies of Seoul National University, said that if the
hostage crisis did not conclude satisfactorily, anti-American groups
in South Korea might use it to promote anti-American sentiments in the
country.

The People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a major civic
group based in Seoul, issued a statement on Tuesday accusing
Washington of watching the hostage crisis "as if it were a fire across
the river."

"As everyone knows, the Taliban's demand is something the U.S.
government can help resolve, not the Afghan or South Korean
government," it said. "The South Korean government, citing its
alliance with the United States, dispatched troops for the U.S. war
against terrorism," it added. "Now why can't it use the spirit of the
alliance to help persuade the U.S. administration and save its own
people?"

Brian Knowlton contributed reporting from Washington.

--
Yoshie