Heather Bellamy spoke with Terry Waite about his years in captivity, how he survived, his understanding of suffering and the creative redemption and forgiveness that has come out of what he experienced in Beruit.



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Out Of The Silence Of His Captivity Terry Waite Brings A Voice Of Peace And Forgiveness

I arranged his first visits to China. We went to China, America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and India and all over the world. That was my principle job. But I became involved with hostages, which was not my principle job then, because needy families came to Lambeth and said they were not getting help and they needed some assurance and possibly some positive help, to try and enable the people for whom they cared to be released.

My belief has always been that, if anybody approaches the church for help, regardless of whether they have belief or not, it doesn't matter who they are, if they turn to the church for help, the church should help them. Lambeth Palace should be no exception to that. So I said I'd try and help with the Archbishop's approval.

I was able to effectively negotiate the release of hostages in Iran, Libya, and in Beirut to a certain extent. But prior to that I had experience of working in places like Africa, where I'd met with General Amin, and had to work for the freedom of people there. And in many other parts of the world, so it wasn't new to me, but it was a new experience of course for Lambeth Palace.

My view was that if you do a dangerous job like that, because it is dangerous, you have to be prepared for things to go wrong. You can either get captured or killed. You hope those two things won't happen, of course, but if you are not prepared to face that possibility, then you shouldn't take on that work at all. I always knew that there was a possibility of things going wrong and of course they went wrong in Beirut and I was captured.

Heather: Why were you taken hostage?

Terry: I was taken for political reasons.

I'd negotiated on many an occasion in the past, going back to the time when General Amin was in power and I lived in Uganda, and I negotiated directly with Amin. In those days it was quite terrible in Uganda. Ugandan people, I have to say, are lovely people, but what I experienced in those years, was when any situation breaks down, when law and order goes, then the most delightful people can behave in the most appalling ways. It doesn't matter which culture or group you belong to, we see that in the United States, just as you see it in certain other parts of the world. It was a terrible time.

It was in those years that the Church in Uganda behaved very courageously, and constantly opposed the wrong doings that were being committed by Amin and his cohorts. So much so that the African Arch Bishop of Uganda, Janani Luwom, a good friend of mine and someone that I worked with as an adviser in Africa to the Arch Bishops of Uganda, was murdered by Amin. Many of my friends were taken and thrown into prison. I there began, what one might say, my negotiating experience, which continued across the years so that I negotiated in Iran, with the Revolutionary Guards, with Colonel Gaddafi in Libya for the release of hostages, all successful, and in Beirut partially successful.

If you do this type of work, it is highly dangerous and you have to measure in your own mind whether or not you are willing to take the risk; whether you are willing to face the fact that one day something will go wrong and you might be killed or you might be captured. You hope that won't happen, and you pray that won't happen. If it does happen, you take your own responsibility and you say right, I knew what I was getting into and I take that responsibility for myself.

I was captured because the trust between myself and the captors, which is essential in all these cases, was broken, because they mistakenly thought I was an agent of government. After 12 months captivity they were convinced that I wasn't, but they didn't release me until five years went and when politically the situation changed.

Heather: Without being too graphic, where were you kept and what happened to you during your ordeal?

Terry: I was sometimes kept beneath ground and sometimes in a bombed out building, but always in a room with no natural light. Shutters were put in front of the window if I was in a bombed out building and of course beneath ground there was no natural light.

Often I had the light of a candle and often I was in the dark. I had no books or papers, and I was chained to the wall for 23 hours and 50 minutes a day, sleeping on the floor, with no contact with the outside world for over four and a half years. It was fairly austere.

In the first year I was beaten and I did have a mock execution. After that, when they were convinced that I was straight up, and in fact I was a humanitarian negotiator, there were no more beatings and no more mock executions, or anything of that kind. But, nevertheless I was still kept for almost five years in all, most of that time in solitary confinement.

Heather: How did you survive that?