The dramatic 24-person prisoner swap between Russia, the United States and a number of other countries this month drew the world’s attention again to the vexing issue of so-called “hostage diplomacy” – that sadly growing phenomenon by which authoritarian regimes unjustly imprison foreigners for leverage.
Democratic countries, whose governments are held accountable over the fate of their citizens (and are thus seen as vulnerable because of it), are the usual targets of the practice. Russia’s role as a serial abductor is the current focus, but China, Iran, North Korea, Türkiye and Venezuela are also prolific perpetrators. The fate of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza conflict with Israel has also brought attention to the challenge.
Australia numbers among the countries whose citizens have been the victims of hostage diplomacy. I was one such hostage, in my case of the military regime in Myanmar. Kylie Moore-Gilbert and Cheng Lei were prominent hostages of Iran and China respectively. Together the three of us have formed the Australian Wrongfully and Arbitrarily Detained Alliance (AWADA) to draw attention to the scourge of hostage taking, and to contribute to the conversation on how countries such as Australia might respond to it.
In a mix of good timing as well as good planning, this conversation is about to be turned up a notch here via a Senate inquiry into the wrongful detention of Australians overseas. Chaired by Tasmanian Senator Claire Chandler, the inquiry is taking public submissions up to the end of this month.
The terms of reference for the hearings are broad, but the issues the inquiry needs to consider include:
- How to deter hostage diplomacy in the first place.
- How to secure the return of hostages as quickly as possible, while avoiding creating incentives for future hostage taking.
- How to appropriately classify Australians wrongfully detained (as distinct from citizens who do commit real crimes overseas).
When I was a prisoner in Myanmar, I was sometimes assured by fellow prisoners that I would be OK in the end since I came “from a powerful country”. At the time, this seemed to me an odd comment.
- How to support hostages and their loved ones back home.
- How to insulate, to the extent possible, issues around hostage release from Australia’s broader strategic or diplomatic relations.
With no formal policy framework for responding to hostage diplomacy applying in Australia, the practices of other countries should be instructive to the Senate inquiry. The phenomenon is conspicuously global and of urgent concern to many countries.
The United States has declared the issue a “national emergency”. In 2015, it created the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA), which is devoted solely to the task of helping hostages and their families, in theory free from other concerns. SPEHA has been especially effective in its hostage/family support role, while it has enjoyed some success in securing the release of hostages from Venezuela and other places.
Even more relevant for Australia perhaps, given the similar constitutional arrangements, are recent initiatives from Canada. In February 2021 Canada issued a Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations and created an international panel of jurists to come up with some international norms over the issue. This was driven by the experience of high-profile hostage taking by China in the so-called “two Michaels” case, which saw two Canadian citizens detained in retaliation for Canada’s role in the arrest and potential extradition to the United States of a senior executive of controversial Chinese telco, Huawei. More than 70 countries have since endorsed the Declaration, including Australia, with the report of the jurists due in June 2025.
Meanwhile, to give some teeth to all of this, legislation currently before the Canadian parliament empowers the government to impose sanctions, including the seizure of assets, on foreign states and nationals that engage “or are complicit in” the hostage taking of Canadian citizens. The legislation also requires the Canadian government to provide greater and more consistent support to affected families, especially in relation to mental health and access to information.
When I was a prisoner in Myanmar, I was sometimes assured by fellow prisoners that I would be OK in the end since I came “from a powerful country”. At the time, this seemed to me an odd comment. Australia was not that powerful, was it? For sure, we are a relatively rich country, and arguably punch above our weight in sport, pop music and at various multilateral forums. I’d heard about AUKUS while I was a captive, but I knew our defence force was tiny, and we didn’t really project force in any traditional sense.
But what my Myanmar friends meant was something different. In this peculiar situation, what they understood, and what they wanted to reassure me with, was that I came from a country that genuinely did seek to look after its own.
At present, these efforts to help are institutionally unformed, inconsistent, and at times compromised to other national interests. But the central principle, of a government compelled and accountable to bring its people home, was something my friends suffering under a very different political compact saw as truly powerful – a critical component that I have come to understand of our soft power projection, especially into our region. One not to be taken lightly. One to be got right. And one to give hope to those people still trapped by this cynical practice of holding prisoners for leverage.
Roll in those submissions.
Sean Turnell’s Lowy Institute Paper Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of Reform in Aung San Suu Kyi’s Myanmar, published by Penguin Books, launched this week.