Introduction
I'm not a specialist on practical hostage situations,
as are the gentlemen around me. So, aside from hostage taking and liberation
techniques, I will remain on the academic side of the question. I will try
and propose a conceptual global framework for this touchy subject of hostage
situations,
and I will briefly suggest some ways of thinking for intellectual behavior
when confronted with such situations.
First of all, ladies and gentlemen, I believe
that today, we are all hostages and I will try and explain it.
Terrorism and hostage situations are linked
from their beginning: it appears that through different means "terror" can
be summarized as taking hostages and killing. This statement is maybe a little
succinct, but I will try to demonstrate what I mean.
So, hostage situations can be divided into two
main trends, an explicit one and an implicit one. However, they are mixed together
and coexist with killing actions that may, of course, occur without a preliminary
hostage situation.