August 21, 2007
Three South Koreans held in Afghanistan by Taliban militants have gone on hunger strike to demand that all 19 remaining hostages be held together rather than in separate groups, South Korean state news agency Yonhap reported yesterday.The latest round of negotiations between the Taliban and the South Korean government has come to a standstill (no surprise there) and Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said that further talks are pointless:Citing an informed source speaking on condition of anonymity, Yonhap said one male and two female hostages went on hunger strike from Sunday morning.
The hostages are reported to have been split into as many as five groups and are being detained at different locations in Ghazni province in central Afghanistan, where they were taken hostage on July 19.
Further talks would be "a waste of time," Ahmadi said, saying that the Taliban's leadership council would now consider the further fate of the remaining 19 South Korean hostages.I'm not really sure how effective a hunger strike is going to be against the Taliban since the basic premise is that the striker is more valuable to the captor alive than dead. When used against civilized countries like the U.S. or Britain, it is a powerful weapon of non-violent resistance. Against a barbaric enemy like the Taliban, I'm afraid it's more like throwing appetizers to a hungry crocodile. However, maybe it will steel the resolve of the Koreans and Afghans to go for a rescue mission, such as the one which liberated German hostage Christina Meier on Sunday. The Jawa's complete Korean Hostage archiveA source involved in mediation between the Taliban and the South Korean officials said the Koreans yesterday sent a delegation of tribal chiefs to persuade the Taliban into a solution.
"The Koreans sent a delegation to the Taliban to ask them what they want other than a prisoner exchange," the source said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
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