The Double Victimization of Hostage Families
By Eric Lebson and Andrew Ricci
“Fixers” are hot in pop culture right now. Viewers love the rush of suspense and intrigue as these specialists help their clients out of tricky situations where their lives or reputations are on the line. Shows like Scandal capitalize on this fascination, glamorizing the crisis business and providing their fans with a glimpse into the inner workings of crisis management professionals.
Like with any show, those of us who are actually in the crisis business have a different take on the issue, and especially when it concerns hostage communications — the subspecialty of the crisis business. We work on behalf of hostages through their families while their loved one is held in captivity abroad.
This is a more common occurrence than most realize as many hostages do not enjoy the virtue or perks of being a household name. According to statistics compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, more than 2,990 people were kidnapped or taken hostage by terrorist groups worldwide in 2013 alone.
Having provided communications and other counsel on several of these cases, we understand the challenges that these families face — both the psychological anxiety of not knowing whether their loved one is being treated humanely, receiving a proper amount of care, or, in some cases, is even still alive. One would think that families would receive direct support from the US government, but hostage families often tell a very different story.
Unlike in many of the TV portrayals, these are most often ordinary American families. They have little experience navigating the federal bureaucracy. They are not Washington insiders who know the intricacies of national security decision-making and they do not have a lobbyist’s understanding of how to strategically navigate Congress and the Executive Branch. They have little media experience, if any, and do not know how to have the greatest impact on national news shows or how to triage the flood of lesser-known news outlets clamoring for their story. They have never had to barter with foreign embassies and engage with multi-lateral organizations.
In short, while they are desperate for any information, they don’t have the connections they need to get it and few levers by which they can spur agencies with the ability to take action to do so. What they do get from agencies is often inconsistent or even conflicting, but in some cases they get no support from the US Government whatsoever. This is not reassuring to a family who is spending sleepless nights worrying about the safety of their loved one and trying to get any confirmation of the whereabouts, status, or proof of life of their husband, mother, father, wife, or child.
Lost in the Bureaucratic Labyrinth
In some ways, these challenges reflect the ever-changing nature of some of our adversaries. The US Government has various ways to address international hostage situations, but these tactics all rely heavily on diplomatic engagement, intelligence collection, and military action. While these strategies can help to secure the release of hostages held by foreign governments or organized groups with clearly-appointed leaders, they are more limited when the group holding an American abroad is a terrorist organization like the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, or ISIS. These groups have no clear command structure and questionable international legitimacy, and with no authorized representative to coordinate a release or convey grievances that need redress, with whom do you negotiate?
Families of abductees want to do everything possible to secure the return of their loved one — many of whom were working abroad in service to the United States or their host country. David Rhode, Austin Tice, and Daniel Pearl were journalists. Bowe Bergdahl was a member of the military. Warren Weinstein was a private citizen working for a company who contracted with USAID. In all of these roles, their families understand the notion of public service and the unwavering commitment it demands.
They also, however, believe that in return for their family member’s public service, they should be able to expect their government to make the hostage’s release and safe return a priority. This is easier said than done. As has been noted by decades of politicians, the federal bureaucracy is vast and complex, and when it comes to hostage recovery, multiple disparate agencies each work on different elements of the situation. Each has unique jurisdiction over a different piece of the overall puzzle, and in many cases challenges arise when these agencies refuse to let the others know what pieces they have and how much of the puzzle they have completed. Where interagency collaboration might make significant progress, hostage families often find only quiet siloes.
The FBI is the lead from a law enforcement perspective, using the justice tools of enforcement and prosecution. The State Department oversees diplomacy, working with foreign governments and multi-lateral organizations to leverage their cooperation. The Department of Defense has military resources that can stage a rescue if conditions warrant. The Intelligence Community has the ability to collect and analyze information about the kidnappers and the whereabouts of the hostage. But with no single point person within the government tasked solely with bringing these different entities together, promoting the sharing of information, and encouraging interagency collaboration and coordination, hostage families often find frustration in efforts which are not always consistent or coordinated.
Double Victimization: “We Are Doing Everything Possible”
Replacing this coordination, families find a web of agencies insisting that “we are doing everything possible” to secure the hostage’s release, but with such a wide network of agencies and branches supposedly working on the case, “everything possible” is often as much specificity as the family receives.
Instead, hostage families are frequently stonewalled by government entities claiming a need for secrecy and confidentiality in the name of counterterrorism. As a result, even though they do not seek access to classified information, they are never taken into confidence to understand what the US Government is actually doing.
This lack of greater insight into what actions are actually being taken can be an additional source of distress and frustration for an already-distressed family. In some ways, this lack of trust takes a family that has already been victimized by the kidnappers and victimizes them again as their relationship with the US Government yields no answers and little substantial information.
Instead, they are left with few options but to trust and wait, hoping that “everything possible” means leveraging every element of national power and praying that it will be enough to bring their loved one home.
The Choice
Many hostage families report that the US Government initially advises them to maintain a low profile and not raise awareness of their loved one’s situation. This, the government says, will only make their loved one more valuable to the kidnappers.
While that may serve government purposes — and deprive the kidnappers of the publicity they seek from an abduction — it also deprives the family of natural allies that may have influence over the situation. Families face an intolerable choice at the outset of a kidnapping when their anxiety is highest — the lack of control they feel over the situation is juxtaposed against the intensely personal consequences of a misstep.
They must choose between a ‘high strategy’ and a ‘low strategy’ — raise public awareness about their plight to build support and pressure those in power to take action or keep a ‘no comment’ posture so back-office negotiations can resolve the situation without criticism or outside commentary. Both have major pros and cons and neither is a particularly easy choice to make.
The high strategy — and the outside support that comes with it — can be more emotionally fulfilling as families feel supportive voices from all around the world encouraging them to stay strong. However, it runs the risk of creating avenues for the family to openly vent their frustration about the government agencies they have been dealing with, alienating the family from those with information and the power to act. The low strategy, however, mandates that families stay quiet and trust in the “everything possible” reassurances.
In many cases, a tougher decision to make is when to switch strategies. A family starting with a low strategy on the premise that they do not want to raise the captive’s value might continue it for several months in the hopes it will yield results. Finding no movement and still running into frustrations and roadblocks from the government, they might then accept that it has not worked and raise the profile in hopes of building public support and increasing pressure on the government agencies to show action and demonstrate results.
Ongoing Challenges
In addition to facing a bureaucratic labyrinth and the frustrating uncertainty of an “everything possible” assurance, many hostage families — especially those whose loved one has been taken by a modern terrorist organization — also face media-savvy captors. For example, ISIS’ beheading and manipulating of hostages in their possession has been as much a media tactic as a terror one. It has redefined how Americans think about hostages much like how the events of September 11, 2001 changed the way we view hijackings. The ordinary families who find their loved ones pleading for the government to take action on internationally-televised hostage tapes have a new sense of urgency, and they have few options but to hope their relatives are freed before a more tragic video — potentially the final one — surfaces.
Most of these families are unskilled in navigating the governmental maze, but in the distressed state of knowing a family member is being held by a group with a reputation for brutalism and savagery, family members may be understandably hesitant to work with an outsider. However, they need the outside perspective of someone who can speak directly, clearly, and frankly about the hard truths, consequences, and risks involved with the decisions they decide to either take or not take. While the decisions are the family’s and the family’s alone, they must trust that an outside voice will give them the best possible advice and counsel.
The family must quickly develop a comprehensive understanding of the timeline and related individuals, getting up to speed on the important geopolitical context that will influence their loved one’s fate. They have to understand the overt and nuanced differences between terrorist groups — including how they operate and what motivates them, nations where kidnappings occur, and political conflicts that they have to delicately navigate.
They have to make decisions as a family. The double victimization that they experience can foment a great deal of insecurity and stagnation in their decision-making. All too often, family members are not on the same page regarding strategy, and the anxiety of the moment can exacerbate these disagreements.
If they choose a public-facing strategy, they need infrastructure — a website to serve as a reference point for media and those seeking to support the family. This also helps to humanize the captive to his or her kidnappers, potentially making it slightly harder to treat him or her as a commodity. They should establish a social media presence to build a following of supporters who can be leveraged to support a specific action by the US or another government when necessary.
They must quickly learn the primary parties who can impact the outcome in a favorable way. This is most often the US Government and the host government where the kidnapping occurred, but this is not always the case. Charting who in each entity is involved narrows the focus on outreach into productive directions. For example, within the US Government, each victim has at least two Senators and one representative, in addition to the members and staff of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees. The National Security Council has a Deputy National Security Advisor for Counter-Terrorism and a Senior Director for the regional area of relevance. Similarly, the State Department has a Special Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism and an Assistant Secretary of State for the regional area.
From the Government’s perspective, while each of these officials and committees has some jurisdiction over the hostage recovery efforts, it is long past time to have a single government representative coordinating interagency efforts and focused exclusively on the release of Americans held abroad against their will. In our experience, this would make a tremendous difference toward providing reassurances to the family and giving some meaning to the phrase “we are doing everything possible.”
This week, the White House will be releasing the results of the hostage policy review ordered by President Obama last year. We hope that this review will create clear avenues to increase lines of communication for the families who are looking for any news or information, so that they may find some faith in efforts of their government and hopefully see their loved ones again.
Eric Lebson and Andrew Ricci both work at LEVICK, a public relations firm that has direct experience providing pro bono support to hostage families. Eric Lebson previously served in positions at the Pentagon and National Security Council, and Andrew Ricci was a communications aide to two Members of Congress.
