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Lord Carey and Canon White call for release of ‘forgotten’ British hostages
From The Times. I had not forgotten these men.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury has broken a year-long government news blackout to appeal directly to the group holding five “forgotten” British hostages who were abducted in Baghdad last May.
Lord Carey of Clifton released a video statement through The Times in which he greeted the hostage-takers as “honourable men” and “men of faith”.
The former Archbishop recorded his address yesterday at the House of Lords, accompanied by Canon Andrew White, his former Middle East envoy and now Anglican chaplain to Iraq. Canon White has devoted much of the past year to working with Iraqi religious and tribal leaders to try to open lines of communication and engage in dialogue with the hostage-takers.
He addressed the kidnappers on camera, speaking in English and Arabic, and emphasised that the men held captive were devoted to the rebuilding and restoration of Iraq.
The hostages, four security guards and the IT consultant they were protecting, were abducted at the Iraqi Ministry of Finance on May 29 last year. They were taken by a large group of armed men, many of whom were wearing Iraqi police uniforms. The five hostages are reportedly being held in Iran.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that work was going on behind the scenes and asked news organisations not to publish details of the men’s identities. It also urged the missing men’s relatives not to speak publicly.
In a video released by the kidnappers in December 2007, one of the hostages said: “I feel like we have been forgotten.”
The Times has chosen not to report certain details of the hostages’ current plight because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Canon White said: “We are working hard to make serious contacts. There are positive developments and we really hope we can get our people back. We are told that they are all OK, that they are good.
“It is really difficult, really painful for their families. It is a year now and they wonder when are they going to get their people back –
“What we are doing is separate from everything the Foreign Office, the Government of Iraq and the embassy is trying to do. We are working as religious leaders.”
The captors are understood to be seeking the release of two members of a breakaway Shia faction currently being held in Iraq by US forces.
Lord Carey, 73, is patron of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East of which Canon White is president. The former Archbishop spent more than a year in Iraq when he did his National Service in the 1950s.
He said he hoped that the captors “share with me a belief in God who is all-compassionate – this is one of the great values of God in Islamic faith”.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “We are doing everything that we can to try and secure the safe return of the hostages. We welcome the support being provided to back up those efforts and we remain in close contact with members of all the men’s families.”
Muslims do keep telling us that Allah is “All compassionate” – no harm in challenging them to live up to it.
