“A special command unit of the U.S. forces is said to have freed a U.S. citizen and a Danish national kidnapped in Somalia. A security officer in the region confirmed that U.S. helicopters took off from the city of Galkayo and freed the 32-year old woman and the 60-year old man. During the operation, eight kidnappers were said to be killed, and it appears that prisoners were also taken. The Danish aid organization, for which the two kidnapping victims had been working, also confirmed their rescue.”
So far the announcement on the German television news show, Tagesschau.
The two hostages, Jessica Buchanan and Poul Thisted, were kidnapped in Galkayo in the Mudug Region of Somalia on 25 October.
Like in hundreds of piracy cases in the Horn of Africa, here, too, the release of the two employees of the aid organization was negotiated in a negotiation cell of the crisis staff.
Negotiations in kidnappings are among the most difficult negotiation situations overall. They typically take a high emotional toll on the negotiation group involved because even small mistakes can have deadly consequences.
Interestingly, the negotiation of the Somalis is very professional in spite of the kidnappers' criminal biographies.
As in all blackmail situations, there is the paradox situation that the other party makes a demand although it is not negotiating for this demand. The actual goal of the kidnappers is always the maximum goal.
This causes the negotiation to keep going for as long as the opposing party believes that they can get even more money. One of the levers that the Somali kidnappers are using is time—as if they wanted to say, “You’ve got the watches, we’ve got time.”
So far, the kidnappers had indeed all the time they wanted. For the first time since the UN intervention in the nineties, we witnessed a successful rescue on Somali soil. In addition to the “usual” threats expressed by the Somali kidnappers, namely to harm or kill the hostages, the media-savvy Somalis like to work with the press, for instance by publishing notices on “Somalia Report” which are used and distributed by many press institutions worldwide. False reporting on the state of the negotiations, on the health of the hostages, or their whereabouts is also part of the repertory, just like false announcements about an agreement—including a freely invented ransom.
In kidnappings, the so-called “offer pyramid” has proven to be effective. It is the only opportunity for the opposing party to communicate their “end of the rope”.
The “Golden Rule” is to offer a smaller increase each time. In an “opening offer” a high price is offered; it assigns the human life such a high “financial” value that the kidnappers will be all but unwilling to subsequently kill the hostage. Now it depends on the strategy to implement the invariable negotiation goal of the crisis staff—to rescue the hostages as quickly as possible and unharmed. It is also the strategy that defines the tactic.
The implementation is a pure matter of nerves! Rational, deliberate moves, constant “HUMINT” (gathering information from an unknown opponent) and sensitivity for emotional peaks on the other side.
The same principle applies to all crisis staffs in comparable blackmail situations—we have more power than we think. We have the “power” over what the kidnappers want! We must have the courage to take this position!