At the end of the 1980s, Beirut was called “The Mecca of kidnappers.” In my building on Comodore Street, then called the Saad building, two neighbors, Roger Auque, from the second, and Charles Grass, from the fifth, the first French and the second British, were hostages of pro-Iranian Palestinian terrorist groups, who roamed freely. in that dangerous and lawless west of Beirut.
The kidnappings of Western citizens were carried out mainly on the airport road, close to the Shiite suburbs, held by Hizbullah, and in some places in the Muslim area such as pubs and restaurants frequented by foreigners. Its objective was then primarily political. It was about getting, as one of the prices of liberation, that the governments of Western powers such as the United States, Great Britain or France stop arming the army of Rai Saddam Hussein, then an ally of the West in his war with the Islamic Republic. of Iran.
In west Beirut it was easy to kidnap. Pronouncing the name of the Munnie family almost provoked terror, because one of its prominent members was the brain of this then common political practice. There were, however, some rules. For example, women were never kidnapped.
A handful of foreigners lived then in west Beirut. Terror scared away embassies, international information agencies, and press correspondents who had to move to the safer Christian area. After the kidnapping of my neighbors, the management of my newspaper and my friend, Ambassador Pedro de Aristegui, begged me to leave my apartment. I lived as a refugee for a few weeks in the residence of the Spanish embassy. I was the last Spaniard who, in the spring of 1986, in the midst of growing threats, left my neighborhood of Hamra. In any case, since Spain was not involved in the international intrigues in the Middle East, there were fewer dangers than those suffered by other Western residents.
But shortly after, Ambassador Aristegui, two officials from the diplomatic missions, the Asad brothers and a police officer were held hostage by the Rahal family clan, who had kidnapped them to obtain the freedom of one of their relatives, who had attacked the embassy. Gaddafi's Libya in Madrid. Mohamad Rahal visited me to warn Aristegui of his imminent kidnapping if his family were not released. He was a kind, well-mannered young man.
Most of the hostages, despite haggling and negotiations in which Hafez el Assad's Baathist regime in Damascus was somehow present, emerged alive. And although there were several victims, such as the journalist Alec Colette, they regained their freedom. The dean of the hostages was Terry Anderson, director of the Associated Press bureau, around the corner from my house.
The Iranian government directed and financed the kidnapping, but there were various groups with different local leaders with whom it was necessary to negotiate, with their own demands when it came to the great political and monetary bargains. States always denied that they had to pay ransoms, and it was not easy to know what the price had been.
Later there were new cases of Westerners kidnapped, among them a group of Spanish journalists in the Syrian and Iraq wars in the hands of radical Islamic groups. The US government refused to pay the ransoms they demanded for their hostages, who were mercilessly murdered.
My neighbor Roger Auque wrote in Hostage in Beirut that for the guerrillas who captured him it was a means of making a living. And the emphatic phrases against imperialism, against the American and French Great Satan, about the fight against Israel, left them a little perplexed. “To me – commented one of his goalkeepers – I don't give a damn about the politics of the Middle East, what I want is to travel, go abroad, marry a beautiful woman, have a house and a job.”
I remember in those years the hasty entry of the Agence France-Presse orderlies into the Beirut editorial office with the release of the hostages.
The local Arab victims of Islamic terrorism and kidnappings have always been forgotten. They are a plague on these people and are not only political or ideological in nature, but also financial.
At that time I published a chronicle titled No, they won't kidnap me. “I go on foot, at a brisk pace, with books and newspapers in my hand. I always pass by the same place, I see the same faces: some street vendors offering contraband tobacco or incredible bouquets of withered flowers. Sometimes fear hits me, it hits my heart for a few moments. When I see the lights on in my house, I feel safe. No, they will not kidnap me.”
