Editorial: Innocent NZ hostage inevitable

An air of inevitability attends the news that a New Zealand resident is among the latest Westerners to be taken captive by insurgents in Iraq. It was always likely that this country would be caught up like others in the recriminations for the American occupation. And just as likely that the hostage would not be a soldier or any other official representative of the country, but somebody who went there in a private capacity, a construction worker perhaps, or a volunteer who hoped to do some good.

Harmeet Singh Sooden, African-born with Indian parentage, Canadian citizenship and New Zealand residency, sympathises with Arab resentment of Israel and the occupation of Iraq. When he finished the year's study at Auckland University a few weeks ago, he went to join a Christian organisation working inside Iraq. According to New Zealand relatives, he wanted to see what was happening there first-hand. He linked up with an organisation called Christian Peacemaking Teams, one of the few humanitarian organisations that did not retreat after the murder of British aid worker Margaret Hussein last year to the relative safety of the "green zone" maintained by coalition forces in Baghdad.

The Saturday before last, November 26, Mr Sooden and fellow peace activist Norman Kember, a retired British professor of medicine, were with members of the Christian team in a Sunni area of Baghdad when their car was stopped. They were seized along with American Tom Fox and their Canadian guide, James Loney. Four days later pictures of them sitting cross-legged and bound were screened by al-Jazeera television. They were said to be captives of an outfit called the Swords of the Righteous Brigade, which regarded them as spies and threatened to execute them unless all prisoners in Iraq and United States detention centres were released by Thursday.

The fate of previous Western hostages in the hands of bands such as this makes the threat deadly serious. At the same time, the unwavering stand of the United States and British Governments makes it equally clear there will be no dealing with their demand and there has been no suggestion from the other countries concerned, Canada and New Zealand, that any compromises should be made. The best that anybody can do for these men is to make it clear to Arabs everywhere that these captives are on the side of their captors. As pacifists the hostages would not condone violent resistance to the Iraqi occupation, but they sympathise with the cause. They have made it their mission to check the condition of the coalition's detainees and are credited with helping expose the abuses in Abu Ghraib prison.

All New Zealanders will share the desperate hope of Harmeet Sooden's family here that this message will get through. It is being supported by appeals from some of the most prominent anti-war voices in the United States, notably the left-wing thinker Noam Chomsky and consumer activist Ralph Nader. But nobody should be under any illusions that Western sympathy is necessarily welcome on the extremes of Islamic nationalism or credible to militant minds. It may be their captors' view that nobody from the West would be brave or foolhardy enough to operate outside the green zone unless they were spying.

The only hope for Mr Sooden and the others is that Islamic militants are concerned at the reported decline in popular support in the Middle East for acts of terrorism, especially since the latest outrage in Jordan. This misbegotten jihad has killed far more Muslims than Western citizens since it began. But these four men, and their families at home, are in the hands of people who do not normally exhibit political judgment or common humanity. We can only add our appeal to the rest and hope for the best.