Washington D.C. – The Washington Post, September 03, 2024
Tears of relief greeted three Americans and others freed last month from illegal detention in a negotiated exchange with Russia. But paying ransom to ruthless dictators makes for bad long-term policy. The United States needs to take action to break the cycle of hostage-taking for profit that it is caught up in. Fortunately, there is a way.
A lesson from history can help: On Jan. 28, 1987, Secretary of State George Shultz banned U.S. citizens from traveling to Lebanon. The move came after several years of hijackings, the bombings of U.S. military and diplomatic facilities, and the kidnappings of some two-dozen U.S. citizens — including the capture and subsequent murder of the Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Beirut and a U.S. Marine colonel serving with the United Nations in southern Lebanon. The travel ban, which lasted for more than 10 years, largely ended the spree.
But in recent decades, kidnappings of Americans and U.S. residents have accelerated around the world. This month, three Americans — Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan, Radio Free Europe reporter Alsu Kurmasheva — and one permanent resident, Russian opposition figure and Post contributing columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza, were released by the Kremlin in exchange for a group of Russian criminals. Other Americans continue to be held in Russia, Iran, Gaza and elsewhere.
It’s a vicious cycle — quite literally. To turn the tide, the United States should follow Shultz’s example and ban travel to countries that kidnap Americans.
With the release of Gershkovich and others from Russia, the list of Americans held overseas has shrunk. But many remain. In Gaza, Hamas is holding five Americans hostage, along with the bodies of three others. Post contributor Austin Tice, kidnapped 12 years ago, is believed to be held by the Syrian government. Ksenia Karelina, a dual Russian American citizen, was just sentenced to 12 years in Russia on charges of treason. Ryan Corbett is being held without charge in Afghanistan. Dozens more remain wrongfully detained in Russia, China, Iran, Nigeria and elsewhere.
If the list of those still detained is long, the roster of those released is longer. In most of those cases, a high price was paid to secure their freedom.
The group liberated this month came at the cost of eight Russian criminals and arms dealers, most notably Vadim Krasikov, convicted in Germany of the contract killing of a Chechen dissident, reportedly under instruction from the Kremlin. Xiyue Wang, a doctoral student at Princeton, was held by Iran for 40 months until his 2019 release; the price was an Iranian citizen imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations. WNBA star Brittney Griner was held by the Putin government for almost a year until she was exchanged for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout. To secure the freedom of Siamak Namazi and four others from Iran in 2023, the Biden administration released $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
Donald Trump has heavily criticized the payoffs that recently secured the release of Americans detained in Russia, but he, too, exchanged Iranian, Taliban and Houthi terrorists to free U.S. hostages.
The reality is that Americans are kidnapped for a reason: They are almost never liberated without a cost.
Travel bans are deeply unpopular; there is only one in place right now, for North Korea. The United States warns citizens not to travel to Russia, Syria, Iran and other nations, but it does not explicitly forbid travel to them. It is unsustainable to allow the cycle of kidnapping and ransom to go on, however. To solve the issue, the secretary of state should place a travel ban on any country that systematically kidnaps Americans. Would that hinder U.S. journalists from working in those countries? Yes. But that’s a price worth paying to end the trade in U.S. hostages.
