Bordeaux- Four French hostages who were kidnapped by Al Qaeda 3 years ago were freed last week. 3 days after their release amid ransom speculation, 2 French journalists were abducted and killed in Northern Mali.
Bordeaux- Four French hostages who were kidnapped by Al Qaeda 3 years ago were freed last week. 3 days after their release amid ransom speculation, 2 French journalists were abducted and killed in Northern Mali.
Like the US, French officials insist that the state “does not negociate with terrorists” and has paid no ransom to secure the men’s release. It is, however, not a secret that payments were indeed made, most likely through intermediaries. According to Agence France-Presse and French newspaper Le Monde, as much as 20 million euros might have been paid to the jihadists and intermediaries involved in the transaction. Areva, the French nuclear company the hostages worked for in Niger, said it has not given any money.
The argument against negotiating with terrorists is well known: Democracies, because they are supposedly peaceful, must never kneel down before violence, and terrorists must never be rewarded for using it. Terrorists gain legitimacy through negotiations, they are given an important role and they dictate the game. Agreeing to their rules undermines actors who pursue political change through peaceful means. Others argue that it is the prime responsibility of the state to protect its citizens and that, therefore, everything has to be done to ensure their security.
The recent events are awful. Whether or not the French government has paid a ransom to get the hostages does, however, bring several problems. If terrorists know France will pay for hostages, then it makes French citizens very interesting targets.
Various groups, knowing they can potentially exchange the captives for huge amounts of money, will not hesitate to aim their attacks at French workers and even tourists. Furthermore, by paying ransoms, countries indirectly contribute to the financing of terrorism. The money given to Al Qaeda will enable the terrorist group to acquire weapons and gain power.
According to Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center of the Atlantic Council, “ransoms have been a major source of its survival and the fact that it was able to take over northern Mali last year was in large part because of the reserves it had built up over the years because of various criminal rackets.”
France is, therefore, engaging in a dangerous vicious cycle that other terrorist groups could see as an opportunity, exposing French citizens to even greater risk.
Last summer, an analysis by a private US intelligence firm of jihadist messages released by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in 2013 showed that France ranked second as the main Western focus of the group’s jihadist propaganda, after the US.
Of the seven French citizens still captive abroad, four are in Syria, two in the Sahara, and one in Nigeria.
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