Stalling for Time

by Gary Noesner

  The results the FBI had begun to achieve in the 1990s, with skilled negotiation being applied in crisis situations, brought us significant international attention over the years. The purview of FBI negotiators was now global, with increasing levels of work outside the boundaries of the United States. Particularly challenging were cases in which American citizens were kidnapped abroad. In all, we would work on more than 120 international kidnappings, in addition to other incidents, often painfully aware that outside the United States we had far less control over how the situation would be handled. And outside the United States, the lessons learned by the FBI had not necessarily penetrated to all of the foreign governments involved.

  The longest siege of my career began on December 17, 1996, when fourteen members of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) invaded the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, Peru, during a party honoring the sixty-third birthday of Emperor Akihito.

  The guest list meant that they took as hostages six hundred high-level diplomats, government officials, military leaders, and business executives, as well as Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori’s mother and sister. The United States ambassador to Peru, Dennis Jett, had left the function just before the terrorists gained entry, but seven other U.S. diplomats were not as lucky.

  When news of the incident reached Washington I was immediately deployed to Lima aboard a U.S. military aircraft along with other representatives of the multiagency Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST). On the long plane ride to Lima, I discussed the dangerousness of the situation with Alanna Lavelle, one of the experienced negotiators assigned to my team at Quantico. In addition to being a great negotiator, Alanna also spoke fluent Spanish. Only a few months earlier, during a kidnap case in Ecuador, she had posed as a family friend and expertly stretched out the telephone calls with the kidnappers. This allowed the Ecuadorian authorities to trace the calls, locate the kidnappers, and then rescue the victim, John Heidema, a fifty-four-year-old American computer scientist. He had been taken hostage while vacationing in the rain forest with his daughter, who smartly feigned an asthma attack, which convinced the kidnappers to leave her behind. Her father was held for over thirty days in difficult conditions before he was rescued.

  When Alanna and I arrived in Lima we met with Ambassador Jett, who expressed grave concern about the Americans and other hostages due to the MRTA’s violent history and instructed me to make an assessment of the situation and keep him informed.

  As I was leaving his office I received a message that someone from the British Embassy wanted to see me. It turned out to be Mike Dixon, the head of Scotland Yard’s negotiation team, a good friend with whom I’d worked on other cases. We were soon joined by Dale McKelvey from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who, like Mike, had attended my negotiation course. We would form a kind of ad hoc team, sharing information and making strategy recommendations to our respective governments, to be passed along further to President Fujimori. We would meet daily in my hotel room to exchange information about what we had learned and what recommendations we would make.

  The MRTA’s primary demand was the release of four hundred of their members being held in Peruvian jails. Another major problem we faced was that President Fujimori had risen to power on his tough stance against the MRTA and the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). These were both Marxist terrorist groups whose actions had led to thousands of deaths over the years. Mindful of his domestic constituency, President Fujimori refused to communicate with the terrorists, despite the fact that several hostages had been unilaterally released with messages saying the MRTA wanted to talk with the government.

  Fujimori’s apparent refusal to open a dialogue with the MRTA demonstrated that he had not heard of the concept of verbal containment. He was taking a serious risk by not attempting to open such a dialogue, as the MRTA might begin executing some of their hostages at any time to force the issue.

  From what we could gather, there was no clear command structure controlling the various government elements surrounding the residence. To make matters worse, President Fujimori made frequent bellicose statements to the press that merely served to agitate the terrorists inside.

  Also, the government’s failure to control the perimeter around the Japanese ambassador’s residence would cost us an opportunity to gain vital information. Just a few days into the crisis, the MRTA unilaterally released large numbers of hostages. When the hostages emerged from the residence, the multiple Peruvian police units surrounding the residence simply sent them home. No one intercepted them to conduct a debriefing. We lost a chance to find out how many terrorists were inside, what weapons they had, what they were saying about their intentions, and how they were treating the hostages. Management of this siege was turning into a three-ring circus, with Fujimori as the inept ringmaster.

  Luckily, one of the released hostages was Anthony Vincent, the Canadian ambassador. He volunteered to become an intermediary between the terrorists and the Peruvian government. Working through the RCMP, our ad hoc international negotiation team was able to rely on the ambassador to inject our assessment and advice into the process.

  The head of the Peruvian office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Michel Minnig, was also released. Acting more on his own than under guidance from Fujimori, he returned to the residence to deliver food and water to those still being held. He would return every day to bring more food and take out the trash, and he soon began to carry messages directly from the terrorists to the government. When I learned that he was doing this without guidance from the government, I set up a meeting with him in order to find out more about what he was doing. While his insights were interesting, he made it clear that his role with the ICRC prevented him from playing any role other than a humanitarian one.

  While Fujimori allowed this contact to take place, he still distanced himself from direct involvement. Leaving the ICRC to operate on its own was hardly the ideal way to manage contact with terrorists during a siege, but it was the best thing we had going.

  Through this ICRC effort, and partially because of space restrictions within the residence, the terrorists began to release additional hostages, including all the women. This allowed them to better manage the one hundred or so captives who remained. They were not physically abusive to the hostages, but toilets began to overflow, and in spite of Minnig’s efforts, food and fresh water were in short supply.

  After the first week, the MRTA released more hostages, including all the remaining American diplomats. We were delighted, but we recognized that this was, in fact, a smart strategic move on the part of the MRTA. By releasing all the American victims, they hoped to eliminate the potential for the United States to use its own tactical forces to conduct a rescue mission.

  During the second week Monsignor Juan Luis Cipriani joined Ambassador Vincent in an attempt to mediate the crisis. Ambassador Jett made an appointment for me to meet with Cipriani to provide him with some ideas on how he might enhance his efforts as an intermediary. At my meeting with Cipriani, I stressed the importance of patience and keeping the dialogue open. I recommended that he always set the next meeting time with the MRTA before ending the current contact. I thought he also might be able to explore creative ways to address the MRTA’s demands for prisoner release, such as sending some to a third country. As I discussed these and other suggestions, he and his assistant furiously scribbled down every single word. When I was done, he put his pen down, looked up at me, and said haughtily that he had already thought of all of these things.

  With the American hostages released, I returned home just in time for Christmas, but kept in daily contact with other deployed FBI, RCMP, and Scotland Yard negotiators for the remainder of the ordeal. Monsignor Cipriani’s efforts yielded little, and I soon became convinced that President Fujimori wasn’t seriously pursuing a peaceful resolution, supporting limited negotiation contacts only as a means to buy time while preparing his commandos for a tactical assault. And in fact engineers were
already at work, excavating tunnels that led underneath the street and into the residence.

  Several of the hostages later commented that the MRTA could hear that tunnels were being dug—they just didn’t know what to do about it. As a diversion meant to mask the sounds, Fujimori ordered loud military parades with marching bands to roll by on the street in front of the residence. During one of the parades a soldier riding in an armored vehicle stuck his middle finger in the air aimed directly at the terrorists. In response, an irritated MRTA terrorist cranked off a round from his AK-47, the first shot fired since the residence was taken over. A news videotape shows a bullet striking and ricocheting off an armored personnel carrier just inches away from the gesturing soldier. Everyone ducked for cover, and the parade quickly came to an end. Had that soldier been hit, the shot might have prompted an immediate assault with significant loss of life.

  Through all of this the MRTA remained firm in its demands for the release of incarcerated terrorists, something Fujimori resolutely refused to consider. We were lucky that the MRTA did not start executing hostages to press their demands.

  The FBI’s advisory role expanded into a new arena—garbage collection. One of our agents suggested that we start to examine all the trash being carried out by the ICRC after each food delivery, looking for messages as well as any other clues to what might be going on inside. This job was extremely unpleasant and ended up being something the Peruvians didn’t seem much interested in doing. So highly skilled FBI agents donned gloves and masks and did the job for them, finding a number of important handwritten notes from hostages, including one asking the government to acknowledge receipt of their notes by having the military band play a certain song. After many days, they were able to make this happen to let the hostages know their messages were being received.

  In addition, one of the Peruvian hostages had been able to keep his cell phone hidden, and he periodically transmitted information. Further insight came through several hidden microphones that were secretly introduced into the residence. The single most salient fact picked up through these efforts was that every day at a certain time most of the young MRTA terrorists played a game of indoor soccer in a residence living room that had been cleared of furniture.

  Weeks and then months passed with little progress. It was taking a long time to dig the tunnels. Finally, on April 22, 1997, 126 days after the siege had begun, military commandos placed a large charge of explosives inside a tunnel directly underneath the living room. They detonated it as the daily MRTA soccer match was in full swing, instantly killing many of the terrorists. Peruvian commandos then stormed the residence from multiple points of entry, killing the remaining terrorists and freeing the hostages.

  Although one hostage, two commandos, and all of the terrorists died in this rescue, seventy-seven hostages were rescued. Time purchased through delays, more by luck than design, had enabled the commandos to devise and execute their plan with precision—another testament to the value of stalling for time.

  Later, critics of the government made the accusation that several terrorists were summarily executed after surrendering, but that was never proven, and in any event there was no sympathy for them among the Peruvian public. The whole nation rightfully took pride in what they saw as a brilliant rescue. Fujimori was the hero, and he was videotaped in the news triumphantly touring the just-cleared residence, looking down at the bodies of terrorists.

  I worried that other governments would examine this incident only from the narrow perspective of the successful outcome. My main complaint about Fujimori was that he placed all his eggs in one basket—the tactical rescue. Without ongoing negotiations to keep a lid on the tension, the MRTA might have initiated violence at any time. Had they done so, there would have been no way to quickly and safely intervene to save hostages. Fujimori and his followers saw him as a masterly tactician. Perhaps, but he had also been very, very lucky. It would be foolish to expect other terrorists to be so patient.

  Could meaningful negotiations have resolved this situation without any loss of life? It’s hard to say. However, I know that there will always be terrorists who, when given an option, will choose life over death. It’s the job of the negotiation team not only to buy time but also to genuinely attempt to convince those wavering extremists to pursue a course of action in which they and their hostages can survive. While we always prepare for the worst, we still try to pursue the best outcome we can.

  One positive outcome of the Peruvian incident was that Canadian, British, and American negotiation teams agreed to come together to conduct an after-action review at a conference I organized in Alexandria, Virginia. This led to an agreement to continue working together on other international negotiation matters. Our core group continued to meet annually, and I eventually expanded the group to create the International Negotiation Working Group (INWG), which now includes more than fifteen countries from around the world. This group, in turn, inspired me to try to enhance further the FBI’s level of support for domestic police negotiation teams throughout the country. With that goal in mind, in 1999 I invited seven experienced police negotiation colleagues to the FBI academy for a conference. This gave rise to a national coordinating body, the National Council of Negotiation Associations (NCNA), to assist the various regional organizations around the country already serving police negotiators.

  One of the early achievements of the newly formed NCNA was to ratify a set of negotiation guidelines that I drafted. With minor modifications these NCNA guidelines became, and remain today, the national standard. Endorsed by the NCNA member organizations representing several thousand law enforcement and correctional negotiators in the United States and Canada, they have codified the underlying philosophy and recommended negotiation approaches for all types of hostage, barricade, and suicide incidents.

  Now for the first time, negotiation teams could provide their incident managers with nationally approved written guidance on handling critical events. This ability empowered and supported negotiation teams by allowing them to argue to incident commanders that their departments’ handling of any situation would be assessed according to how well they followed the NCNA guidelines. I’m pleased that these same guidelines have been used to successfully defend police departments during several wrongful death lawsuits around the country.

  In April 1998, the FBI elevated the FBI negotiation program and established the Crisis Negotiation Unit (CNU), with me named its first unit chief. More important, this promotion elevated me to the same rank as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the HRT. With ten full-time negotiation supervisory special agents and three support staff, we managed the training and deployment of more than 350 negotiators assigned to FBI field offices around the country, responding to law enforcement negotiation needs at home and abroad.

  Our two-week negotiation training course was now known as the National Crisis Negotiation Course (NCNC). Police officers from around the globe continued to request opportunities to attend this prestigious program. We could only conduct a few classes each year, so we never had enough slots to satisfy the requests for attendance.

  Unfortunately, I had to fight internal budget wars each year in an attempt to maintain funding. CNU had raised the profile of the negotiation program around the world, but within the FBI, getting the necessary budget dollars for training, or even finding available classroom space at the FBI academy, was never easy. I don’t think that FBI officials at the highest levels ever fully appreciated or understood the significant national and international goodwill this training program brought to us, a situation I’m afraid persists to this day.

  Over the last several years of my FBI career, overseas kidnappings of American citizens increasingly demanded a significant amount of my time and energy. There was rarely a time that my FBI negotiation team was not actively deployed abroad. In 1990 I had flown to Zaire on one of the FBI’s first overseas kidnap cases and helped secure the release of American Brent Swan from the terrorist group FLEC-PM. In the first
years of the new millennium, we were engaged in trying to resolve the kidnapping of oil-field workers by Ecuadorian guerrillas, as well as an incident in the Philippines in which the victim was a young man traveling to meet a young woman he had met online, whose relatives turned out to be terrorists who saw the young American as an opportunity for revenue. In another Philippine incident, the kidnap victims were missionaries.

  On May 27, 2001, missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham were celebrating their eighteenth wedding anniversary at the upscale Dos Palmas resort on Palawan Island, having saved just enough for a one-night stay. Terrorists from the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), Islamic separatists who operated primarily in the southern Philippines, chose that same night to travel across the sea by speedboat from their base on Basilan Island to gather up hostages at the resort.

  Martin and Gracia were part of a group of eighteen people seized that night and whisked back to the ASG stronghold. The group included another American who had been on vacation when captured, Guillermo Sobrero. He was reportedly wounded during an early skirmish between the ASG and the Philippine military. After one month, unable to keep up with the frequent movement and forced marches dictated by the ASG in order to avoid Philippine military actions, he was beheaded. Most of the other hostages were eventually ransomed by their families. However, to protect its missionaries from kidnapping, the Burnhams’ sponsoring organization steadfastly refused, as a matter of policy, to pay the $1 million ransom the kidnappers were demanding for the couple.

  The ASG was ideologically aligned with Osama bin Laden, so I was deeply concerned about the fate that awaited Martin and Gracia. I quickly deployed a team of negotiators to the Philippines. For many months we tried to develop and maintain contact with the band of terrorists holding them. We eventually exchanged several text messages with the kidnappers. The U.S. military was also providing significant assistance to the Philippine military in support of their search efforts. Teams of FBI negotiators rotated in and out of the Philippines every three weeks.