Background ¦ Your reaction

The Background:

After the signing of the recent peace accord in Lome, between the government of President Kabbah and the rebel alliance, it was hoped Sierra Leone might return to some semblance of normality.

Part of the implementation called for the release of children being held captive by rebels. But when a group of journalists, ECOMOG soldiers and United Nations monitors travelled to rebel-held areas to free the children, they themselves were taken hostage.

The rebels demanded food, medicines and the release of colleagues they believed were held by rivals.

The kidnappers said they were from the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) - former members of the government army who rebelled and took control of the country in a military coup in 1997.

The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) which had fought alongside the AFRC - was given a role in government under the agreement.

So, is hostage taking ever justified? How would you have dealt with the situation? And what can be done to free the thousands of children?

Tell us what you think.

Background ¦ Your reaction

Your Reaction:

This is a very difficult question. Of course there is a moral dilemma - however frequently there are several social, economic and further moral dilemmas which should be considered alongside the primary concern, the taking of hostages. It is not right, but it can be justified - of that I have no doubt. Whether I personally agree with any of the justifications is another matter altogether.
Joyce, London, England

The taking of hostages can never be right but it can be understood, if not justified. Supposing you live in an area in which there are major problems: violations of human rights, environmental pollution on a massive scale, yet nothing is ever done about it. A local group then kidnaps someone and shows them the problem, holds them for a week or so, in order to attract their country's or the world's media attention, then releases the 'hostages' with a plea for them to 'tell their story'. Justified? Perhaps not but certainly understandable.
Mark Headey, UK

How can anyone justify holding men against their will let alone women and children. What have they done except be unfortunate enough to live in a country where they have no rights. Holding people as hostages has no benefit to anyone, what will it achieve???
Rachel, Australia

While no sane person can justify hostage taking, the fact that that question is only asked now after western hostages have been taken in West Africa explains the double standard many western media and government display when it comes to Africa. Although thousands of people have been kidnapped by by rebels in Sierra Leone for years, it was not until after westerners were seized that many western journalists gave detailed coverage of the situation in Sierra Leone. So while it is repugnant for innocent people to be taken as hostages in many situations, sometimes it is the only way for the hostage takers to get the publicity they need. The soldiers in Sierra Leone did get the publicity they wanted!
Jacob Conteh, United States of America

The United States and their allies hold nations and entire populations hostage to their will, with the indifference or tacit support of the vast majority of American population and the populations of their allied countries. POWER is never held accountable for their acts of evil and inhumanity.
Nels, USA

No, there is no logical reason for involving innocent individuals in a military conflict.
Foday Harris, USA (Liberian)

Hostage-taking is a means that can easily be justified provided it has a worthy foreseeable end. War is Hell and should be avoided at all costs, but when conflicts do occur, so must suffering. The fact that hostage -taking is met with so much international hostility is telling since the governments of the world frequently use much more horrible means for more cynical ends, with near unanimous praise. I hardly need to bring up the kind of terrorist tactics used in the Balkan conflict by the NATO powers, which even in rhetoric amounted to bare-faced terrorism.
R. Farrell, United States

NO. There's no way hostage taking can be justified. Hostage taking can only be carried out by wimps parading as soldiers or rebels with no motive, agenda or ideology who resort to hostage taking to show the world that they are somebody.
Cillaty Daboh, USA

While hostage taking can be an effective means of extracting an agreement of securing a beneficial action, it can never justified. It in variably puts the hostages themselves at risk.
Foday F Kenneh, USA

There is no such thing as a war without civilian casualties. If you accept that war is sometimes justified, then you must accept that all methods of war, including kidnapping, are justifiable. It is easy to criticise the efforts of the unrepresented in desperately poor societies from a perspective of comfort and security. The wealthy and the powerful can afford lofty moral posturing. As for those who cite MLK Jr and Gandhi, I think it's important to remember that those two men enjoyed limited success only because other movements in those countries were threatening to use violence against the established order.
Aaron Perry, U.S.A.

No, most of the hostages do not and may not understand the problem that resulted in them being hostages. It is worse if they are children.
Akum A, Gambia

Hostage taking is never justified and I don't even know why such a question must be raised at a crucial point like this for Sierra Leone? Instead why not ask the question whether it was justified for the so called international committee to ignore the human rights abuses that where committed in Sierra Leone? If the western world cared so much about democracy, why did deliberately turned a blind eye when a peacefully democratically elected government was under fire for such a long time?
Malik Jalloh, USA

Holding all else constant, it is wrong to hold children hostage to a war they do not understand. On the question of foreign hostage, if the purpose is to draw world attention to a very serious issue, I reserve my vote, as different people choose different ways of making a point. In this case I can only talk about Sierra Leone. For quite some time some of us have been questioning the disparity of in the distribution of assistance to the different regions in Sierra Leone. Until the AFRC combatants kidnapped these foreigners, we were told that the north was a no-go-area. This was after Foday Sankoh guaranteed the safety of humanitarians work that step foot in areas under AFRC/RUF control. Finally, to those who see the peace accord as a bad thing to them I would ask: have you ever tried to live in a war zone? The life you live outside Sierra Leone is not the reality for the majority of our people.
Safroko, Washington, DC _ USA

Superpowers and former colonial powers who seldom have to fight on their own soil would of course condemn this form of "terrorism". I do not know the situation in Sierra Leone but in response to the question, the answer is yes. Imagine that you live in a tiny country being invaded by a larger and militarily superior aggressor. Your country may fall any day now and your back is to the wall....To me, this justifies taking enemy hostages, even if they are children. And what's more, to hell with the Geneva Convention, POWs should be tortured to death if necessary to obtain any essential information regarding the enemy. I would rather do this and more to the enemy than let the enemy decimate my own people.
Siow Tian Rui, Singapore

No, hostage taking can never be justified. It is one of the most cowardly things to do. It is not a proper way to get attention for your cause. It only angers everyone and makes you more enemies. If someone wanted help this is not the way to ask, as it will most likely lead to your death.
Jared Necaise, USA

Hostage taking like any other sort of terrorist threat is bound to fail. Governments and organisations will not give into this type of threat. So at the end of the day there is no positive outcome from hostage taking. Can anyone think of an incident where it has worked as I cannot
Peter Bret-Orrin, United Kingdom

No matter what your cause, creating that much fear and suffering can not be justified. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi didn't believe in using violence, I think the same logic should be applied.
WS, UK

No, taking hostages is not an acceptable way to draw attention to a cause. Direct action is fine, but it should be non-violent and should not involve hostage taking.
Barry Tregear, England

The hostage taking started a long time ago, publicity was only given to it now because some American and British citizens were taken hostage.
D Tunks, U.S.A

There can never be any justification for the taking of hostages, especially children. There should be an automatic death penalty for the kidnapping or hostage taking of children. I find the peace accord in Sierra Leone especially repulsive because it is rewarding the brutes with a share in the government and control of the mineral wealth.... they should have been rewarded with the business end of a hangman's rope. The US has shown total moral bankruptcy in not leading an effort to bring these monsters to justice.
Faraz Battakh, Pakistan

As long as a militarily strong nation or alliance can declare war on a weaker group or nation, the weaker group or nation has all the justification to take hostages. All is fair in love & war.
Abhijit, India

How can anyone justify the killing of innocent people. Anyone who does so is the greatest coward alive. Whether a "freedom fighter" or not, he is still a criminal and does not deserve to live. Furthermore, if the world would refrain from even negotiating with these terrorists, the problem would stop immediately. By giving in to terrorists demands you are only causing them to do it AGAIN. If the world took a stronger line towards these criminals - as they have already begun to do - taking hostages and practising other forms of terror would no longer be profitable.
Mark , USA

Only a coward hides behind the innocence of children. Any group of individuals who would threaten a child for any reason or cause deserve nothing less then public execution.
Cheryl, USA

No one can justify the abduction, rape and killing of civilians in a war, particularly in Sierra Leone. Most times those innocent civilians do not even understand the reason(s) behind the war.
Dwight Jusu, USA

The hostage taking situation is not difficult to understand. In West Africa it is directly linked to the sale of arms. Arms salesmen from Europe, particularly Britain, offer to procure arms for these rebels and advise them on how to meet the cost. One such advice is taking hostages and demanding heavy ransoms. I hope in condemning hostage taking we would be bold enough to clamour for a complete and absolute ban on the issue of export licences for arms. The western world prefers to ignore the fact that they contribute significantly to these hostage situations through the greed of a few so-called business tycoons. So long as these tycoons are allowed to freely supply arms to anybody for profit, more and more hostages will be taken.
K Amoako, Britain

YES!!! it is indeed justified base on the situation on the ground.
1. If the person entering the country is said to be on espionage.
2. There is a country threatening the other, and it happens a member of the security enters the country without request from the Government.
3. During the conventional war, the POW (prisoner of WAR).
This can happen to enable the two side come to a good understanding and open a way for peace.
Fomba V. Sannoh, Liberia

Governments take hostages and call them prisoners. They judge them according to the particular cultural and political framework in which the law operates. Given that taking a hostage from certain key countries carries with it the promise of far more publicity than killing a few thousand 'local' people, I wonder why it is not more fashionable.
Graham, Uganda

No, they do it because they can, who is going to stop them?
Rabon Zollo, USA

I deplore the act of hostage taking to the fullest. What I want to point out is that these rebels had no means of letting the world/the Sierra Leone government know about their grievances i.e. being left out of the peace process. Hostage taking happens all the time (5000) during the war but this time it involved the white man. The rebels figured if they take a white man the world will know. Everyone now knows that there should have been three parties to the peace accord and not two. They made their point so the hostages were released. I just hope that the international community and the government work with both ARFC and RUF to ensure the release of all 5000 hostages.
Leonard, USA

No of course not, but governments do it all the time. Have you been to China lately?
Chan Dai Man, China

Of course it can be justified, but that doesn't make it right. Just as apartheid, slavery and ethnic cleansing have been justified in the twisted logic of the perpetrators. None of these evils, kidnapping included, should happen but they continue to be.
Epie, USA

Remember please that 605 Kuwaiti plus third-national hostages and POWs are being illegally held in Iraq by Saddam, since 1990 - 1991. The British Foreign Office 1998 - 1999 confirms "sanctions cannot be lifted until this issue is resolved" - that means despite past, present or future political activists' events in America as well as these nine years of media and press speculation on sanctions, plus people focussing on Iraq's non-compliance of weapons inspections .... therefore marginalising the human face of this tragedy as well as the plight of the awaited 605 detainees, including blood relatives of residents in Scotland, Wales and England.
Moonirah Allen, UK

Only cowards like the RUF/AFRC resort to kidnap tactics. They have ruined the lives of a whole generation of Sierra Leoneans who may never recover from the trauma of gang rape, bondage and general abuse. These animals need to be held accountable.
Hadi Bah, USA

Taking of hostages as the only means available to voice out your concerns is immoral, but understandable. What is not comprehensible is the terrorising a populations of weaker nations by economic starvation or embargoes as is the case of Cuba, Iraq, Serbia, Libya and the endless debate on debt relief of the most impoverished nations.
J. Ruku, Canada

The idea that it may be justified is rubbish. It is unfortunately the media that tends to portray some of these criminals as downtrodden that even brings this question up.
Steve Mathews, Kuwait

Hardly a month passes without hostage stories in the Niger Delta. So far the endings have been peaceful but for how much longer. There is no acceptable reason for taking hostages but the reaction of Shell and other oil companies demonstrated by continued operation in these areas implies that they are willing to risk lives to make obscene profit.
The people in the Niger Delta do not have jobs, and they don't have electricity or anything that reminds one that this is the end of the 20th century. On the other hand Nigerian government officials and Oil Company executives can boast some of the most modern luxuries of life. I think that these cases of kidnapping are avoidable. Shell and other oil companies should tell their Nigerian government hosts to clean up their act or lose business.
Emeka, UK

Hostage taking can never be justified. It is just like adding pepper into the wound If you are fighting a war for a justifiable cause, fight it genuinely with all types of weapons and even with pen by writing propaganda statement to persuade people but not to make people suffer in any way whatsoever. The war in Sierra Leone has made innocent people to suffer and on top of that adding pepper into the wound to increase the suffering by taking those dignitaries hostages to justify their cause.
It is not the right way to pursue a cause. If the rebels had written to the government or the international community had come to their aid, there could have been a better way out. I have never seen a hostage holder go free. But I don't know whether these hostage holders will be brought to justice.
Mohamed L. Conteh, Sierra Leone

Sometimes smaller militant groups feel the need to take hostages. The more well organised of these groups have realised that it is counter-productive to harm their hostages. Thankfully we have elite counter-terrorist groups like the Italian GIS and our very own SAS who (most times) can bring hostage situations to speedy and successful conclusion. It's very important never to give in to hostage taker's demands as this will be seen as a green light to those who wish to follow the aggressor's path.
Mark, Northern Ireland

Never can the taking of another's rights be justified when used to free another's. The law of human nature should not be abused in such a manner
Taz Poole, UK

This is a cowardly act that has no place in modern society. It is a way for other unpopular leaders, or renegade warlords to gain publicity and financing of their evil acts respectively. The solution lies partially with arm manufacturers. If the international world could get a mechanism to barn arm sales to the potentially volatile and dangerous areas around the globe, I think, the rate of abductions could be minimised.
Michael Mondi Lopidia, UK

Hostage taking as a tool of persuasion defeats the object, rather than include others within the debate it isolates them through fear. Disagreement needs to be resolved by intellectual debate and negotiations. Humility needs to be demonstrated by both parties in order to establish a climate that others may live in. Recent events in Sierra Leonne demonstrates that officials wish to seize power at any cost rather than improve living conditions.
Lemwell Johnson, England

I am an American helicopter pilot who was held hostage by the Nigerian mafia and Ijaw mercenaries earlier this year. As long as companies like Dutch Shell Oil are willing to pay hefty ransoms, kidnappings will continue. It IS justified, from the criminal's perspective, as long as financial rewards are paid by multinational companies.
David M. Jarrett, USA

In understanding Sierra Leonean problem it is very important to realise that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes have had their consciences de-sensitised; either by design or by default. Anything is justifiable if they believe that they could do no wrong. Kidnapping is child's play for a group of persons who believe that rampant arson, pillage and maiming are credible means to whatever end they have in mind. Only despicable cowards resort to hiding behind children.
Kwabecca Guilliame, Cote d'Ivoire

It is sad to see the people who have brought much suffering to our country are now taking hostages those people who are there to help reduce the hardship on the innocent ones. These guys are not freedom fighters but COWARDS who hide behind women, children and the defenceless. These thugs and bandits need to understand that the people of that small country have suffered enough, they need help and that help can only come from outside the country and if they(rebels) think that their needs will receive more sympathy than those of the people they have decimated, then they are more stupid than any of us ever thought. Enough is enough. Let the suffering people start rebuilding their shattered lives in peace. If the rebels wanted food, they would not have been raping and maiming the villagers who do the farming, and they would have been able to get food from these areas to feed themselves.
Sheka Kamara, USA /Sierra Leone

Of course it is legitimate. When people are fighting for freedom, then this is just one of the tools to help. I would certainly endorse the Palestinians doing the same for their freedom and democracy.
Tom, UK

Certainly, if your hostage happens to be an ageing South American dictator guilty of alleged crimes in his own country, just ask the British government!!
Martin Bicknell, UK

I'm sure hostage taking seems completely justified to those taking hostages.
Gideon Stargrave, USA

Never. Why have we not heard from any of the 18% who voted yes?
Chris Klein, UK

There is no difference between holding children hostage with a gun directly at their head, or flying a bomber 15,000 feet over their head. When NATO dropped cluster bombs on civilians, they were just as immoral.
John Bria, USA

No - its immoral. I'm surprised this question has even been asked!
Alister McClure, UK

It's not fair for innocent people to always pay the price whenever there is conflict. All conflicts must be solved around the table. The people of Sierra Leone have had enough.
Pat, Norway

YES!!! Especially if you are fighting a war. Think of the advantages:
1. psychologically it will weaken your opponents
2. economically you will profit from the ransom
3. socially it will destabilise the surrounding area as all will live in fear and uncertainty
4. you can always threaten to intensify up the hostage taking activities to force a truce in the conflict
Patriot, Malaysia

Hostage taking is the final bastion of the desperate and cowardly. It could be easily eradicated by governments not giving in. Of course hostage taking is justified if you win , as some people view the ends justifying the means as a valid pretext to an action. In Britain, hostage taking and kidnapping is incredibly rare, due policy of not giving in. Mind you if you are very desperate to achieve something, and hostage taking has been seen to bring rewards in the past, then you are going to do it, if you want something badly enough. A murderer or rapist is worse than a hostage taker.
Jon Harford, Belgium

Hostages are nearly always innocent outsiders, too often women and children. Violent is not ever justified.
Saija, Finland

Giving into demands for the release of hostages sets a bad precedent as any group could kidnap someone and demand things in return for their release. Its catch 22 as the kidnappers MUST be dealt with harshly and at the same time the hostages can't be harmed!!!
Matt, Ireland

The only decent, civilised answer to this question is also the most elegantly simple: no.
Rath Andor, USA

It's sinking to the lowest of the low! Hostage taking spells COWARD with a capital C. It's despicable to think 21% feel its justified!
Omar Vasnaik, Virginia, USA but Indian citizen

NO!!! Any group that feels the need to take hostages to help promote their causes are likely to never gain any respect from the public. It is a true sign of being a coward when you hold women and children as hostages. I hope the 20% who feel that it is okay to take hostages, either put their responses in the wrong box or are trying to be funny.
Vickie L. Reeves, USA

I do NOT think taking hostage can ever be justified. Especially in this case, I think it is inhuman to do this to children who can do very little to even try and protect themselves. I don't think there can be even a single reason which can justify children (or for that matter anyone) being put through an ordeal like this. It is very difficult to even try and imagine what these children and their families must be going through. How all this will affect the victims psychologically is another critical question. Something effective should be done about this and very soon.
Vidisha VAIDYA, Australia

Fighting police and soldiers is one thing, but attacking the defenceless and innocent...
Joel Stanley, USA

Hostage taking is just another form of cowardice. Honest people, and people with courage don't take hostages.
Richard T. Ketchum, USA

Never can such a cruel practice be justified. This is a cowardly and hopeless practice., Kidnapping or harming in any way non-combatants and/ or civilians can not be justified. Enslaving people, or the forceful taking of children and women to serve as soldiers, valets, for ransom, sex slaves or human shields should be taken as a serious matter and simply be globally eradicated by all means.
Shyamba, Rwanda

Can hostage taking ever be justified?

Final Votes:

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			Yes: <% =percentyes %>%		No: <% =percentno %>%