In spite of spending almost five years as a hostage, Terry Waite still is involved in the dangerous task of hostage negotiations, most recently in Colombia. 

Speaking at Boise State University in Idaho, he claimed the situation in Colombia is particularly difficult because companies have been paying ransoms to gain the release of hostages.  Never pay ransoms, Waite said, because they encourage further hostage taking.

In the 1980s, Terry Waite negotiated the release of hostages in Tehran, Libya, and Beirut. However, in January 1987, while trying to gain the release of the remaining hostages in Lebanon, Waite was taken prisoner, remaining in solitary confinement for four years, and held for another year in the company of Western hostages Terry Anderson, John McCarthy, and Tom Sutherland. 

Early in his captivity he determined that he would have no regrets, no self-pity, nor over sentimentality.  Although at times he was afraid and felt isolated, he maintained hope because, although his captors might have his body and mind, they never would possess his soul. During his captivity, which lasted 1,763 days, he wrote his autobiography in his mind and remembered excerpts from books, poems and prayers he had memorized as a youth.  His autobiography was published in 1993, entitled Taken on Trust (Harcourt Brace, 1993). A later book, Footfalls in Memory (Doubleday, 1997) includes excerpts from books Waite had memorized as a youth and other books he was able to obtain later in captivity from his guards. 

In hostage negotiations, Waite follows three guidelines: find a point of entry, make face-to-face contact with the hostage-takers, and explore possible face-saving solutions that are win-win. These guidelines assisted him in Iran and Libya, but in Beirut, at the point where he was beginning face-to-face negotiations, he himself was taken hostage.  He feels part of the reason for his being taken hostage was that his captors thought they might benefit from something similar to the U.S. government's Iran-Contra arms deal. 

In a year after being taken prisoner, Waite's captors realized he was telling the truth and that his motives truly were humanitarian.  At the point where he was about to be released, outside factors again intervened, this time in the form of the publication of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, which angered the Muslim world.

Outside factors are an unknown variable in any hostage negotiations.  For example, Waite indicated the mass media have a great effect on hostage-taking and negotiations.  Occasionally the media will help, but there is "no moral consistency" in the media.  Their main concern is getting the story. 

Hostage takers "use  the media for their own ends" and there is "no way this can be stopped."  Hopefully, public pressure can be put on the media to behave responsibly. However, this is the only control there should be on the media.  "I would prefer an open media rather than a controlled media," Waite said.

Upon gaining his release, Waite's hostage-takers told him, "We don't believe we have achieved much by keeping you."  However, Waite feels no bitterness nor does he feel his time was completely wasted. Also, he does not feel his situation was unique.  "I learned to live from within much like people who suffer strokes.  They also have to learn to live from within."

"We don't live in a fair or just world," he said.  What is important is that people do not add to the suffering that already exists.

Links:

Footfalls in Memory by Terry Waite 
http://www.parklanepress.com/catalog/search/38548862.html

Fellow at Cambridge University
http://www.cam.net.uk/content/specials/eop/noframes/van27.html

Copyright John Fisher April 10, 2001