Mexican authorities arrested
Yanira Maldonado, a U.S. citizen, right, on May 22, for alleged drug
possession. She and her husband, Gary, were traveling from Mexico back
to the United States when their bus was stopped and searched. She was
released on Friday, May 31 and is back in the U.S.
HIDE CAPTION
Americans detained abroad
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Frida Ghitis: Dennis Rodman's plea on Kenneth Bae reminds us of Americans held abroad
- She says a number of U.S. citizens are languishing in prisons as geopolitical pawns
- She says they're held on trumped-up, dubious charges in Cuba, Iran and beyond
- Ghitis: We must let families take lead on reaction but be ready to raise voice for captives' return
Editor's note: Frida
Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World
Politics Review. A former CNN producer and correspondent, she is the
author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live
Television." Follow her on Twitter: @FridaGColumns.
(CNN) -- The drama of an American woman who
unexpectedly found herself in a Mexican prison has just had a happy
ending. But the plight of many other U.S. citizens kept against their
will in foreign prisons continues, as anxious relatives desperately seek
for a way to gain their release,
Yanira Maldonado's sudden
arrest on by Mexican authorities -- who alleged she was transporting
drugs, a charge she and her family vehemently denied -- sparked a
national outcry. It helped her case that Mexico has good relations with
the U.S. Other captives, by contrast, have become the victims of
complicated political and diplomatic battles between the U.S. and its
foes.
Today, there are a number
of American citizens languishing in prisons, some of them off the map,
their survival at the mercy of powerful players with intricate agendas
of geopolitical blackmail. For their families, the ordeal is emotionally
devastating and becomes incalculably complicated as they try to figure
out whose advice they can trust, how to avoid saying the wrong thing and
how best to proceed to gain their loved ones' freedom.
Kenneth Bae, the
Korean-American owner of a tour company, was just sentenced to 15 years
of hard labor, convicted for "hostile acts" against North Korea. His
sister, Terri Chung, said he was in North Korea as part of his job. "We
just pray" she said, asking "leaders of both nations to please, just see
him as one man, caught in between."
If Chung has reason for
concern seeing her brother in the hands of a regime with little
international accountability, the family of Robert Levinson, who
disappeared in Iran six years ago, is not even sure who is holding him.
Levinson, a retired FBI
agent, was working as a private investigator on a cigarette smuggling
case when he traveled to the Iranian resort island Kish in March 2007.
Almost immediately, he vanished.
With tensions running
high between Washington and Tehran, the U.S. government believed Iranian
intelligence took him as a potential bargaining chip. But Iran denies
knowing his whereabouts. For years, there were no signs of life; many
thought he'd died. Then more than three years after his kidnapping, the
family received a wrenching video
of the emaciated father of seven, his voice breaking, asking the U.S.
government to acquiesce to his captors' demands: "Please help me get
home."
His wife and son posted their own video, describing Levinson as a loving father and grandfather, begging his captors, "Please tell us what you want."
Six years after the kidnapping, Secretary of State John Kerry called on Iran and other international partners to help, even though during a 2011 congressional hearing, Sen. Bill Nelson said, "We think he is being held by the government of Iran in a secret prison."
Another American, Alan
Gross, was arrested by Cuba in 2009 while working as a subcontractor for
the U.S. government, bringing equipment to allow Internet access to
members of Cuba's Jewish community. Diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks show the arrest came during times of heightened tensions between Havana and Washington.
Havana accused him of
working for U.S. intelligence. He was convicted of "acts against the
independence and integrity of the state" and sentenced to 15 years in
prison.
A Cuban Foreign Ministry official explained
that "(t)o demand that Cuba unilaterally release Mr. Alan Gross is not
realistic." Clearly, Gross was a trading commodity. Havana wants to
exchange him for five Cuban agents convicted in Miami in 2001, one of
them in connection with an incident that ended in the deaths of four
Cuban-Americans pilots shot down by the Cuban military.
The United States rejects the idea. Kerry declared that "Alan Gross is wrongly imprisoned, and we're not going to trade as if it's a spy for a spy."
Gross' family says Washington is not doing enough to help. The family has sued
the contractor he worked for and the State Department, charging they
sent him on his job without proper preparation, training or protection.
It's difficult for
families to know how much to rely on the government's help and how much
to reveal to the public. The family of James Foley, a freelance
journalist captured in Syria in November, initially requested a blackout on the news.
The fear is that raising
a captive's profile can make him seem more valuable to his captors and
harder to free. That is a risk, especially in a kidnapping for ransom by
nonstate groups.
But GlobalPost, Foley's employer, now says it is convinced that Foley was taken by the Syrian government's Shabiha militia and is being held by Bashar al-Assad's forces.
Also in government hands now is a California filmmaker, Timothy Tracy, arrested
by Venezuelan authorities. His family says he was making a documentary
about Venezuelan politics. The government says he was instigating unrest
against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
President Barack Obama, during his recent visit to Latin America, called the accusations, "ridiculous."
When a government is
involved, a number of possible avenues of release emerge. In fact, the
release can be used as a sign of respect for humanitarian norms or of
good will, aimed at easing diplomatic tensions without losing face.
These and other family
ordeals continue, with little public attention focused on the struggle
of people held against their will, pawns in a game in which they wield
no influence.
For those wanting to
help, the best approach is to listen to families' wishes. If they want
silence, that should be respected. Otherwise, we should all Tweet, post,
write and talk more loudly about the ordeals of Americans held prisoner
for political reasons.
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