Gazette - Chaos in Mumbai

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Principles of hostage negotiation hold true in worst circumstances

by Joseph Scanlon

Horrific as they were, the November 2008 events in Mumbai — where armed terrorists took over the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, the Oberoi Trident hotel, a Jewish outreach centre and several other buildings — were a reminder that the techniques and principles of response to a hostage situation remain valid even in the most severe cases.

In a hostage incident, a team of people familiar with the typical patterns of hostage situations must respond appropriately. Their tasks include establishing an inner and outer perimeter, negotiating with those involved, gathering intelligence, assembling an assault team, and monitoring communications and the media.

The hostage-taking in Mumbai provided a lesson in two specific principles of hostage response: first, always separate what leads up to an incident from the actual standoff that develops, and second, assume that the media will reveal everything they know about the incident.

The first principle was taught by Dr. Harvey Schlossberg, the New York Police Department detective who pioneered hostage negotiation and also taught at the Canadian Police College. Schlossberg stressed that one must separate the events leading up to a hostage incident from the actions that follow, but why?

The answer is that just because a terrorist kills when an incident begins does not mean he will keep killing. Schlossberg and others have observed that, as time passes, a bond can develop between the hostage takers and hostages. It is difficult to kill someone you get to know. This bond was first identified during a bank hostage incident in Sweden and is called the Stockholm syndrome.

Even if hostages are being tortured, as was the case in Mumbai, it is still worth negotiating with the hostage takers. Only if hostage takers kill on schedule does one have to assume they will keep taking lives. Only then is an assault required — as in 1980, when the United Kingdom Special Air Service conducted an assault of the Iranian Embassy in London, where 26 hostages were held for six days. In this case, the hijackers carried through with their threats to kill hostages at specific times.

The second principle is based on research into media behaviour during hostage incidents in the United States and Canada. It implies that the media will often report on hostage incidents without considering the possible impacts of the coverage.

In the past, media reports have led to hostages being tortured or killed. During one prison hostage incident in Canada, the media incorrectly reported that one of the hostage takers was a known child killer. In actual fact, this individual was a hostage, not a hostage taker. But the real hostage takers were so upset at being associated with such an individual that they tortured the man until the media report was corrected. This type of violent reaction could easily have occurred in Mumbai, where the media were filming and reporting live images and, in doing so, putting hostages’ lives at risk.

When the Mumbai incidents began, scores of guests were trapped in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. Hotel staff — acting quickly and courageously — called guests and told them to stay in their rooms, barricade their doors and make no sound. However, the media persisted in showing visuals of guests looking out the hotel windows. Anyone with a television — including the hostage takers themselves — could have determined where in the hotel those guests were hiding.

Similarly, at the Jewish centre in Mumbai, the media showed live coverage of a military assault team descending from helicopters onto the roof. That real-time coverage could have provided enough time for the terrorists to kill the remaining hostages before the assault team entered the building.

Were the terrorists at the Taj Mahal hotel and the Jewish centre watching television? Since only one terrorist survived, we will probably never know. But evidence from past hostage incidents shows that terrorists are mesmerized by the media, and what they see and hear affects their behaviour.

Since telephone lines in hostage incidents are usually controlled by police, hostage takers are cut off from other sources of information — and they become avid watchers of television. During one incident in a prison, those monitoring events could hear the hostage takers calling out numbers. They later figured out that the hostage takers were calling out the channels of television stations that were carrying media reports of the incident.

It is clear that the media can be significant players during a terrorist incident, and this reality must be considered when planning a response. Using the media to communicate with hostages and advise them what to do is not an option if such an action might alert terrorists to the hostages’ presence or location in a building.

The incidents in Mumbai also highlight the problems that can arise in drawnout incidents — especially with the mass media present. The Mumbai situation did not last for seconds, minutes or even hours, but for days.

Confrontations between armed hostage takers and rescuers — whether police or military — are high drama. Those holding the hostages are threatening to kill unless demands are met. The authorities are trying to find some sort of compromise. The result can be a television spectacular, but one that can put the lives of innocent people at risk when too much information is made public.

Recently, the CBC along with Canadian officials persuaded all news media to keep secret the fact that a CBC reporter had been kidnapped in Afghanistan. CBC officials later said that news coverage would have put the reporter’s life at risk. News coverage during hostage standoffs can easily have the same effect. All incidents involving hostage demands, negotiation and re sponse call for discretion.

From scores of past incidents, we know that the media will call hostage takers and will talk to them for as long as the authorities allow such communications. We know that in those conversations, they will ask, “What are your demands?” We also know that hostage takers who did not start with specific demands will soon come up with some.

Today, everything that is broadcast over radio, television or the Internet will be listened to and watched by hostage takers and will affect what they do.

Much of what happened in Mumbai reinforces what we already know from less high-profile Canadian events — it’s just easy to forget those principles when the incident is so dramatic and unfolds in a country so far away.

Joseph Scanlon is professor emeritus and director of the Emergency Com munications Research Unit at Carleton University. He has written several articles on the impact of media on hostage rescue and taught for many years on the Incident Commanders–Hostage/Barricaded Persons course at the Canadian Police College in Ottawa.

Handling media during a hostage situation

Here are a few guidelines for police on how to deal with the media during hostage-taking incidents:

1. Remind the media on-site and off-site of the implications of reporting certain information. This applies not just to reporters at the hostage site but also to off-site editors who decide what gets shown. During a four-day incident in Oak Lake, Manitoba, the editors at one media outlet censored their on-site reporter’s material because they did not trust the discretion of his reporting. Most media can be sensitized to the potential harm their coverage can cause if they are approached in a polite way.
2. Establish whether the hostage takers are paying attention to the media and, if so, which media. Once it is known which specific station or channel the hostage takers are listening to or watching, it is possible to alert these stations that their broadcasts are of particular importance.
3. Control media access to the site, especially during a critical moment such as an assault. This may mean cutting power so that hostage takers can’t see what is being telecast, or it may mean making a deal with journalists such that they can film events but not broadcast them until the incident is over.
4. Ensure that every police spokesperson understands that anything he or she says is likely to be heard and seen by the hostages and the hostage takers, and may affect their behaviour. In fact, anyone making public statements during an incident should consider the possible impact of his or her words.

— Joseph Scanlon