Indians lured into the jaws of
terror By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Tension over the fate of seven truck
drivers taken hostage in Iraq almost two weeks ago has
been ratcheted up with conflicting reports over their
release - or not. While Kenyan government officials
claimed that the hostages had been freed and were in the
Kenyan Embassy in Baghdad, the hostages' employer and
the Indian government announced that talks were still on
to secure their release.
The
truck drivers, including three Indians, three Kenyans and
an Egyptian, are employees of Kuwait Gulf Link (KGL), a
Kuwaiti firm that transports supplies to US troops in Iraq.
A hitherto unheard-of group that calls itself the Holders
of the Black Banners is holding the drivers hostage.
Sheikh Hizham al-Dulami, a tribal leader, is mediating
with the kidnappers.
The mood over the fate of
the seven hostages has not been helped by the release of
a videotape showing a masked gunman shooting a
blindfolded Turkish hostage three times in the head.
Soon after the video was discovered on Monday, Turkish
truckers announced that they would stop hauling goods
for US forces in hopes of saving two other Turkish
captives.
Negotiations over the seven truckers
have been tortuous and tough for several reasons. One is
that little is known of the Black Banners. Their initial
demand that India, Kenya and Egypt pull out their troops
from Iraq - none of the three countries have sent troops
there - indicated that the abductors knew little of the
situation on the ground, pointing to the possibility
that they were just a criminal gang kidnapping for
ransom. Subsequent demands include halting all KGL
operations in Iraq, paying compensation to victims in
Fallujah and the release of Iraqi prisoners in Kuwait.
The stepping-up of demands, some almost
impossible to meet, especially the Kuwait one, makes it
difficult to predict the outcome of the negotiations.
But whichever way this hostage drama plays out, India's
problem with its citizens being taken hostage in Iraq is
unlikely to end soon.
India neither supported
the US invasion of Iraq nor has it sent its troops to
"restore normalcy" in that country. Having consistently
called for a lifting of the sanctions imposed on Iraq in
the early 1990s, India is generally seen in Iraq as a
friend of the Iraqi people. This contributed to a flawed
assumption in government circles that Indian nationals
were safe in the country.
With
the security situation in Iraq worsening, the Indian
government has stopped people from working in Iraq.
It prohibited retired military personnel from taking up
employment in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, as these
countries are being used as transit points to go to
Iraq. It has suspended emigration clearances to its
nationals going to Iraq or to Jordan, Kuwait and the
UAE, and has also instructed its missions in the Persian Gulf
countries, particularly in Iraq, to extend all possible
assistance to workers who were interested in returning
to India.
Despite these steps,
at least 5,000 Indians are still working in Iraq. Many
work as cooks, kitchen helpers and cleaners on US
bases. Several are employees of firms based in Iraq's
neighbors, Kuwait and Jordan for instance. They have been sent to
Iraq on work by their employers.
This is
the case with the three Indian truck drivers -
Antaryami, Tilak Raj and Sukhdev Singh - taken hostage in
Iraq. They were taken not because they are Indians,
but because they are employees of a company that
provides logistical support to US forces. What is more, the
company they work for is Kuwaiti.
Despite the
Indian government's efforts over the past several months
to stop Indian nationals from going to Iraq, the stream
continues. For many, the lure of a well-paying job -
even if it is in strife-torn Iraq - is too attractive to
resist. The wages a driver would earn for driving a
truck carrying supplies into Iraq is almost 10 times
what he might earn in India - that is, if he even had a
job in his home country.
Several of those who
are braving abductions, bombs and bullets to ferry in
supplies to the Americans are people who left their
villages in India expecting to work in Kuwait or Jordan.
Agents and middlemen in India promised them jobs there.
Many of those who are in Iraq today are from rural
India. They raised loans or sold their small plots of
land to get these jobs that have put their lives in
grave danger.
This is
the case with Sukhdev Singh, one of the
seven hostages. His family had two acres (just under a
hectare) of land with which to support a large family, hardly
enough to ensure even a minimum survival. His parents
sold an acre of land to raise some of the money that
was needed to send him to Kuwait. They spent more than
US$1,700 to get him the job with KGL. When KGL asked him
to go to Iraq, he would have had no option but to agree.
The burden of debt, of losing the job and returning to
unemployment in India would have persuaded him to risk
the bullets in Iraq.
Antaryami left for Kuwait
to take up a driver's job about eight months ago. All
three of the Indian hostages are from villages in
northern India, young men who went abroad hoping to earn
enough to send money for their families back home.
Even before the abduction, there were reports of
Indian workers being ill-treated and subjected to
intimidation by the Americans and the Iraqis. But these
stories did not deter young men from villages from
taking the risk.
The abduction of the
three Indians and the unfolding of the horrifying drama
on television, as well as accounts of Indians
returning from Iraq, have triggered a wave of anxiety
across villages in India. "Watching Iraq" has now become
the major obsession in the villages of Punjab. Dinar
dreams have overnight turned into nervy nightmares,
and promises of a better future a perilous web of lies.
"The villagers of Punjab now know the terrifying truth:
their relatives who had obtained work permits and visas
for Kuwait, the UAE and Jordan have been lured to
the killing fields of Iraq," writes Chander Suta Dogra
in the Indian newsmagazine Outlook.
And yet the number
of young men desperate to go work in the Middle East,
even if it is in Iraq, is not declining. More would
go if they had the funds or could raise the money required
to pay the shadowy recruitment agents based in Mumbai
who liaise for Middle Eastern firms seeking
skilled labor.
The Indian Express
reports: "Despite restrictions placed by the
government, estimates suggest that over 1,500 applications
for Kuwait and Iraq are screened every month by a handful
of agencies in Mumbai alone." After the government's
crackdown on agencies hiring ex-military personnel for
work in Iraq, these agencies have now re-emerged with
new names and addresses.
The Indian government
is under tremendous pressure from the families of the
hostages and people from their villages, the media and
the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to get the
hostages released. The mass protests and blocking of
roads in the northern Indian states of Punjab and
Himachal Pradesh, while partly spontaneous, are being
engineered by the BJP and its affiliates.
But for
the occasional editorial, such as the one in the Indian
Express that called on the government not to appease
terrorists by giving in to the kidnappers' demands,
public opinion is in favor of getting the hostages
freed, whatever the cost. For the government the
decision is a difficult one.
On the one hand
there is public opinion to consider, on the other India
has paid a heavy price for meeting demands of hostage
takers in the past. How India deals with the present
hostage crisis will impact on possible future abductions
in Iraq. Buckling to the abductors now would encourage
other militants and criminal gangs to strike again.
The sizable presence of Indians in
Iraq provides militants with many opportunities to
strike again. India's decision not to send its troops to
Iraq has protected its troops from being at the receiving
end of Iraqi insurgent fire. But its civilian citizens
there remain vulnerable. Being a "friend of the Iraqis",
it seems, is not enough to protect one from the rage
and resentment that are sweeping across Iraq.
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