1
2009
Al Jazeera – Philippines hostage deadline passes
An article by 
Excerpts from the article:
A state of emergency has been declared on the southern Philippines island of Jolo after a deadline imposed by kidnappers holding three aid workers hostage expired.
The Abu Sayyaf group had threatened to behead one of three Red Cross workers held hostage if the military did not pull back its forces from their stronghold by 1400 local time (0600 GMT) on Tuesday.
There has been no word from the group since the deadline passed, although they had earlier warned there would be no extensions.
The government has indicated it is prepared order an all out military offensive against the group if any of the hostages are harmed or in imminent danger.
Shortly after the deadline expired on Tuesday the governor of Jolo declared a state of emergency on the island authorising him to order an attack on the kidnappers.
It was not immediately clear however if an attack was imminent.
The three aid workers – Mary Jean Lacaba, a Filipino national, Andreas Notter, a from Switzerland and Eugenio Vagni, from Italy – were seized on January 15.
Abu Sayyaf commanders had demanded the government withdraw its forces well away from their stronghold and pull back to two villages near the provincial capital.
However, government officials said the demand was “physically impossible”, and that the troops cannot be moved within the 24 hours they have been given.
Al Jazeera’s Marga Ortigas, reporting from Manila, said that both sides appeared to have given up on reaching a compromise.
…With concern mounting for the fate of the hostages on Monday the Pope urged the Abu Sayyaf to free the three aid workers.
The Vatican said in a communiqué on Monday that Pope Benedict XVI “wants to raise his voice and urge that humanitarian sensibility and reason prevail over violence and intimidation.”
“The Holy Father … asks for their release and calls on the authorities to favour a peaceful outcome to the tragic situation.”
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reiterated appeals for the hostages’ freedom.
“Our message to Abu Sayyaf is: Please spare and release Mary Jean, Eugenio and Andreas,” Jakob Kellenberger told the Associated Press.
“All they were doing was helping people in need in your area. There is no ideology or religious law that could justify killing them.”
via Al Jazeera English – Asia-Pacific – Philippines hostage deadline passes.
This is a very concerning situation. When working for aid organisations connected to people working on the ground amongst the poor, it is always a concern when you hear about workers from other organisations ending up in such dire circumstances. These workers from the Red Cross were simply trying to help. More and more, aid workers are being used as tools to exert manipulative force by groups who view those workers lives as worth bartering with. Our heart is with those Red Cross workers at this time.
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About the Author: Frank Ritchie
Frank is the Education and Advocacy Manager for TEAR Fund NZ. Frank is a licensed Minister in the Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand and has a keen interest in biblical perspectives of Justice and how this connects to service to, with and for the poor, disadvantaged and marginalized people of the world.
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The soldiers should go in and kill every last one of the terrorists.
My prayer is that a solution is found that does not involve any loss of life. If lives must be lost, then may it be kept to a minimum.
:squint:
If the terrorists get caught alive they should be summarily executed. Why would you want to keep them alive? So they can sit in jail and be heroes for others to try and emulate?
Ezekiel 13 sums things up well:
19 And will you profane Me among My people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, killing people who should not die, and keeping people alive who should not live, by your lying to My people who listen to lies?”
Well .. perhaps not summarily. They should have a fair trial … and then be executed.
I saw a book today (that I didn’t buy – sigh, sticking to budget!) written by a young man who used to be a ‘chauffeur’ for Arafat & also worked as a PLO sniper. I only glimpsed the back cover, but it spoke of a story of a young man who had done horrendous wrong, converted to Christianity and used his story to try to educate etc.
If we execute people, while my gut has the same reaction as you Grant and I can certainly empathise with the sentiment behind it, stories like that make me hope for different outcomes.
Flendolyn – if societies executed terrorists very few people would choose to be terrorists. A decent justice system protects innocent people in many ways.
Grant, I wonder where the high regard paid to martyrs comes in. Remember, these aren’t simply people who for the heck of it decided to put their lives on the line against the state… these are people who are fighting (wrongly in my view) for a cause they believe in.
Execution of such people often fuels a perceived cause. Martyrdom fueled Christianity. It also fuels extremist Islam. Executing them, whilst also being a questionable response, gives fuel to the fire fo extremism… it doesn’t squash it.
I don’t know what the answer is to deal with the desires of Abu Sayyaf and their fight for a separate state within the current state of the Philippines, but I don’t believe execution is the answer.
I would be saying the same if these were aid workers directly connected to TEAR Fund.
That’s a very good point, Frank. Execution will stop someone from doing something again but won’t necessarily be enough to dissuade others from following suit. Especially when fanaticism is involved and where heavenly rewards are looked forward to.
I have no idea where to start on the problem of terrorism except perhaps with the possibility of encouraging good childhood education rather than indoctrination. Where all children are actively encouraged to question the core beliefs of their family, culture and religion. That’s pretty long term but I can’t think of any other ‘magic bullets’ as it were.
More jaw-jaw, less war-war.
Damian, it’s a tough one. Working with children is huge, not necessarily to destabalise their connection to their culture, but to reduce and even negate the circumstances that lead to this agression.
Poverty is often a common factor. The specific group in this article has been born out of a poorer part of the Philippines. There is no simplistic answer (as you have noted), but restoring dignity, choice, value and access to economic stability to people groups can drastically alter the far too common recourse to violence.
Being able to instil that dignity, value, choice and economic stability at a young age most often does determine a much better outcome as a person’s life progresses.
Poor communities are breeding grounds for extremism (of many types). Desperate people do desperate things.
The sad thing with many of these extremist groups is that once they resort to violence, they often find strong funding sources. Those funds could be used much more constructively, but the money is supplied specifically for violence and often the hatred is so ingrained that it’s hard for them to see any other way to “fight”.
Reaching children, as a long term strategy for societal transformation is more than significant.
True. I often forget about the many negative flow-on effects of poverty.
I wonder, though, whether it’s more a question of freedom rather than poverty per se? Obviously a lack of freedom often comes with poverty especially because when you are impoverished others find it easier to control your freedom.
Do you guys have a kind of a priority hit-list of issues that you can tackle? And, if so, what kind of research informs this list?
Great thought on the freedom issue.
In terms of our priorities and the research that goes into what we do, you’d have to talk to our programmes department about that (the team that directly works with our partners overseas) to get the details.
There are a lot of different factors in play in terms of what we fund and what we don’t. We work with a variety of different indigenous programme partners around the world. Alot of it has to do with “capacity” – both ours and theirs and projected and proven effectiveness.
The scrutiny for a programme overseas to get funds is immense.
I could well imagine. It must be difficult to identify which areas would get the ‘biggest bang for your buck’ (i.e. education, medicine, protection, etc) knowing that in order to do so other areas and/or people may be neglected.
Let’s just say that I’m glad I don’t head up our programmes department… I’d want to help with everything… but we can’t.
It isn’t martyrdom! It’s justice!
And how is it that you know justice better than God?
Ezekiel 13:19 “And will you profane Me among My people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, killing people who should not die, and keeping people alive who should not live, by your lying to My people who listen to lies?”
The justice of God included the death of Jesus for the sins of others. The justice of God looking through the Bible cannot easily be defined by isolating specific verses, but must be grasped (as far as we can) through the whole story of scripture.
If justice is to be served according to the holiness of God then you and I deserve death as well. That point is made very early in the scriptures and carries all the way through. We live by the grace of God and the acts of Jesus were the ultimate expression of that grace… part of the justice of God.
I would be interested in your thoughts on the other stuff mentioned.
What does that mean? We should sit back and just hope that the terrorists see reason?
If you want the whole story we could go through the whole bible and see what happens to those that reject God.
Or we could just read your vague dismissal of my understanding and disregard the plain reading I posted in favour of something nicer.
Why would I want to comment on anything else when you ignore what I say about the most important items?
Grant, sorry you misunderstood me. In no way was I implying that “We should sit back and just hope that the terrorists see reason?” I’m not sure how you got that out of what I said. It seems to be a misunderstanding you are carrying through with a collection of my thoughts… the same misgiving was present in your response to my thoughts on Christian peacemaking in an earlier post.
I also was not proposing a vague dismissal of the one verse you quoted in favour of something “nicer”, nor have I ignored what you have said. I did the exact opposite, I commented on exactly what you said.
I find it confusing that you would view the questioning of execution and talk about long term strategies for dealing with extremism as being “nicer”. Execution would be a quick option that would deal with the problem in the short term. What I was putting forth was a question about whether it would deal with it in the long term and my thoughts are that it would not. What I was proposing was a much tougher, longer, more arduous, less satisfying approach to solving the problem of extremism – one that does not placate my desire for a judgment of death in this situation.
The state will do what the state does and it will take the best course of action it deems necessary to solve this immediate crisis. At the time of writing this comment, one of the hostages has been freed, so I watch with keen interest and prayers for the situation, to see how it unfolds. But alongside that, I am interested in strategies to solve this issue in the long term and I am not convinced that execution is the answer, though it is the natural and normal human response to desire it and a certain amount of anger would be placated by it.
Let’s discuss justice and judgment as they are integral to this discussion.
What you are pointing to is a facet of the enactment of justice – judgment. Justice and judgment are not the same thing. Judgment is one part of justice, but does not represent the whole. Judgment (in this instance) is the passing of a verdict. Judgment is represented in the Hebrew Scriptures by the words mishpâṭ (this is the most commonly used word) and shepheṭ. Both of these words represent one possible end point of justice – the passing of a verdict most commonly in line with a law, whether that law is divine or human.
Justice is much broader than judgment. Justice is represented by a number of words in the Hebrew Scriptures (I am using the words in the Hebrew Scriptures because that is where you went with the verse from Ezekiel). They are tsedâqâh, tsâdaq, tsedeq and in a couple of cases mishpâṭ (judgment) gets curiously translated as “justice” in a couple of English translations. I would question that translation.
Each of these words points to the concept of “rightness” and making things “right”. There is a sense of “restoration” in these words. There is the idea that things aren’t “right”. Justice is about making things “right”, restoring things to as they should be. Judgment in the Hebrew Scriptures, where judgment is the passing of a verdict in line with a law, human or divine, represents one tool for doing that, but it is not the whole.
By calling for execution and by noting passages where execution is promoted in the Hebrew Scriptures, you are rightly pointing out one tool of justice, but that is not the whole of justice. If we examine the scriptures throughout, we can find many instances where this tool was used to pursue justice, but it does not represent every tool. If execution in the face of rejection of God is the only means of justice, then God himself falls short of his own means on many occasions. If, on the other hand, justice is about making things right and pursuing restoration towards “rightness” then God is absolutely consistent in the enacting of justice. We are talking here simply in present terms, what happens after death is a whole other discussion.
There are a couple of examples I can think of off the top of my head to represent what I am talking about, each of them involves the passing of a judgment, but not the absolute deserved judgment.
The story of Adam and Eve represents an instance of rejection of God was decreed to carry a consequence of death on the day that they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A judgment was passed, but they did not die on that day. God graciously allowed them to live out a long life. There are many arguments within that story about what “death” actually is, but the illustration serves the point at this time.
Cain and Abel is the next instance. By God’s holiness, Cain “deserved” execution for the killing of Abel, his brother over what was a small matter indeed – one of jealousy. God passed a judgment, but it was not a judgment of death and he also afforded Cain protection in the face of his crime.
David should have been killed for his actions that lead to the death of Uriah, Bethsheba’s husband – a man he had killed simply so he could sleep with his wife. God passed a judgment, but it was not the judgment that absolutely fit the crime.
Israel time and time again rejected God yet God continually sought to restore that relationship when the absolute judgment could have been much worse.
I don’t note these examples to deny a harsher side of justice; judgment that results in death, but rather to point out a wider sense of justice. Justice is about making things “right”, restoring things. God is in the business of restoration. Where execution is deemed to be the best pursuit of this, execution is carried out. Indeed it was this sense of making things right and restoring things that is inherent in the decree to Noah in Genesis 9:6 and it is this sense that is evident in the judgments of execution in the law given to Moses – judgments that were not always carried out in the face of crimes committed.
But God’s actions of making things right extends beyond the absolute passing of divine judgment and goes to the heart of whatever is needed to bring about justice (rightness and restoration). God’s justice also involves grace, forgiveness and self sacrifice. It is evidenced throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. It is evidenced in the life of Jesus and the death of him as an innocent man so that you and I would not have need to face that which we rightly deserve in the face of God’s holiness, the final judgment of death. It is evidenced in the call to be peacemakers and to turn the other cheek (whatever level you believe that carries through to, whether it be individually, collectively or both). It is evidenced in the call to forgiveness. It is evidenced in the call to love one another. It is evidenced in the call to forgiveness. It is evidenced in the call to self sacrifice.
All of the above are tools to bring about the justice of God. If we relegate justice to simply being the harshest possible judgment in the face of a crime, then we have missed the breadth of God’s justice.
The perpetrator of a crime may well deserve death, but God demonstrates that death is not always the answer that best serves justice in this life.
When I look at the situation in the Philippines, I am not dismissing the tool of justice you point to, nor am I calling for a “nicer” answer, I am recognising a broader sense of justice and looking to what will best make right in the situation and what will best lead to full and complete restoration – it is within that thinking that I aligned myself with a process that involves generations and a much harder job that addresses much deeper and more systemic causes related to the current situation.
Damian, this quote from Baroness Caroline Cox who was recently in New Zealand and is one of the leading voices in the world against human trafficking solidifies your point about freedom extremely well:
Well said.
I want to go off on one about how freedom of thought precedes all other types of freedom but I haven’t given it enough thought.
So I wont.
ooops, wont = won’t
(makes quite a difference, that little apostrophe)
If you think executing criminals is a useless measure then you are rejecting the word of God.
Grant, thank you for your thought.
[comment deleted due to the inflammatory nature of what was written]
Now there’s an extreme position
Yip, which is why it’s going…
i have not taken time to read all the reply’s. but i will tell everyone this. as a human being. we cannot accept or can we condone any organization or political movement to take hostages. We as a people , no matter what nationality, should show that if you harm a human being you will be in return, harmed yourself. War and general human actions has shown us over time. The only way to deal with force is with force. I am a American, living in the Philippines. I say that let the Islamic people live the way they want to. Let them do what ever they want to do. But when they decide to take another human life into the equation. Then they should pay the price of whatever they decide to do with that human life. People, now matter what nationality you are. we have to stop this. If it means killing all the Islamic people. then so be it. do Americans, do Filipinos, do British, take hostages. NO THEY DO NOT. I was once told, a Muslim is not a terrorist, but all terrorist are Muslim. Lets meet force with force, lets stop all the needless be headings, killings, and blackmail and lets start stopping these factions which cause this and hide behind a religion. They are an embarrassment and a disgrace to the Islamic people. If it means killing them, or destroying their way of live, why should us decent, and god fearing and loving people complain. I am ashamed of this world and ashamed of politics and stand by and let innocent people be killed, be headed, for only money. Money is the evil here. Not people. Dam this world and all we live in. Lets change it before its to late.
Philip, may I suggest thinking very hard about the things you are saying. This blog is not a space to call for anyone to be killed. Amongst other things, the following comment is not acceptable:
If you wish to comment here, choose your words very carefully. This blog will not be a haven for the expression of angry sentiment.
I am on holiday at the moment so will not respond to your comment in full, needless to say I have some large disagreements with it.
I trust you will think about your words more carefully in the future. You may support the execution of those who specifically engage in violent acts, but I will not allow a sentiment that expresses the support of wiping out whole people groups. This is not a place to be flippant with your thoughts.
May I also suggest reading all the comments of any post you wish to comment on, you may find some of your thoughts covered and it will give you the chance to offer thoughts of more value to the conversation.
sorry frank if i offended you. i quess i should have clarified more my statment. i meant all the bad ones.
but give me credit that i did say no all Muslim are bad. i just want honest answer that can you give me in your opinion, of all the terrorist activity in the entire world. Islamic / Muslim compared to all the other world factions.
i would give 95% to 5%. well thank you for your comments, i think that is what makes this a great world, so many persons with so many different thoughts and feelings. I think everyone’s thoughts are valuable, even if they dont agree with your or my own, they are valuable for themselves and for persons who think like them. thanks for the advice, i will take that and try harder to fit around what you want this website and its users to be like.