Side Bar ARTICLE

March 2005

Journalists Taught How To Survive Kidnapping

Harold Kennedy

The gunfire began shortly after the bus forded the Shenandoah River in the backwoods of northwestern Virginia. As the bus came to a halt, five armed, black-masked gunmen swarmed aboard.

Suddenly, the 15 passengers—journalists from the United States and Latin America—were hostages. Hoods were pulled over their heads. With pistols prodding the backs of their heads, they were forced off the bus, pushed roughly to the ground and relieved of their valuables and identification. They then were marched, silently and still hooded, into the woods.

In 2004, 1,146 journalists and their fixers—local assistants, drivers, translators, technicians and security staff—were attacked or threatened while doing their jobs around the world, according to a report released in January by Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based media watchdog group. Fifty-three journalists and 15 of their assistants were killed.

And it’s not just journalists. Business executives, aid workers, diplomats and others who must travel in war zones are also at risk. This is especially evident in Iraq, where insurgents have kidnapped and murdered a number of foreigners, notably Margaret Hassan, the head of the Iraqi division of CARE, the international humanitarian agency.

The Shenandoah hostage taking is illustrative of this brand of terrorism. The “kidnap victims” were participating in a one-week class offered by Centurion Risk Assessment Services Ltd., based in the United Kingdom.

The class “is designed specifically for companies and individuals who operate worldwide, particularly in areas where there may be concerns for personal health and safety,” explained Paul Rees, Centurion’s managing director.

The course costs about $3,000 for a week of training, he said.

A company with 50 employees, Centurion conducts classes both in the United Kingdom and the United States. Its instructors are former British Royal Marine commandos.

“Our course aims to teach people how to identify and correctly assess risks to safety and security while living and working in areas that may be volatile, because of warfare, political unrest, unfriendly governments, diseases, harsh climatic conditions or a variety of other reasons,” Rees said.

Kidnapping is a serious risk both in Iraq and other hotspots, said instructor Al Burke. An estimated 3,000 kidnappings take place each year in Colombia alone. For this reason, the class starts off with a make-believe ambush. To make the experience as realistic as possible, students aren’t told about it in advance.

“The idea is to put them through the shock of being captured,” said Burke, whose longish hair, mustache and single gold earring helped provide authenticity for his role. “It helps them learn to control themselves, if it should ever happen to them.”

The technique was quite effective, said one of the students, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, co-anchor of CNBC’s Morning Call business-news program. “I was taken completely by surprise,” she said. “Even though I knew it was fake, there was something very physical about having that hood placed over my head. I thought, ‘They can do anything they want with me.’”

Although the students may have thought it would never end, the “kidnapping” is soon over, the hoods removed and their valuables returned. The students then gather with the instructors in the camp’s austere classroom to review the lessons learned from the incident.

During an exercise, instructors displayed a wide range of military weapons that civilians are likely to encounter on the battlefield, including U.S. M-16 and Russian AK-47 rifles, .45 caliber and 9 mm pistols, and hand-thrown and rifle-propelled grenades.

“When you’re around the military, you have to very, very careful when you lift a camera,” Keith noted. “Two TV cameramen were killed in Iraq recently because their cameras were mistaken for RPGs,” he said.

In the afternoon, Burke hiked the class through a simulated battlefield, requiring the students to react to such hazards as sniper fire, booby traps, minefields and incoming artillery rounds.

“You’ve got to look at what’s going on around you,” Burke said. “Don’t talk to each other, and don’t look at the leaves or the river. Your lives may depend on it. This is not a walk in the park.”

At the end of the day, the bus returned the students, cold, dirty and tired, to their motel in town. Awaiting them tomorrow was “Big Blood Day,” when they would learn how to deal with major wounds from gunshots and explosions, followed during the rest of the week by classes in such subjects as civil disorders, natural disasters, hostile vehicle checkpoints and border crossings.

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