Kidnaping is on the rise in widely scattered corners of the world. For urban guerrillas, it has proved an effective method of springing fellow terrorists from prison, or of collecting huge ransoms with which to fatten revolutionary war chests.
IN TURKEY, an ambitious plot was carried out by kidnapers who identified themselves as members of the Turkish People’s Liberation Army—a previously unknown group probably related to a Maoist student organization called the Dev-genc (TIME, March 1). The kidnapers seized four U.S. servicemen near Ankara and demanded $400,000: otherwise, they said, their American prisoners would be executed by a firing squad.
Afraid that the latest incident could bring down his shaky government, Premier Süleyman Demirel ordered troops to raid Middle East Technical University outside Ankara, a center of leftist student activity. Students threw sticks of dynamite and fired pistols from dormitory roofs: one student and one soldier were killed. Disturbances erupted elsewhere in Ankara as college and high school students went on a rampage, and Demirel reluctantly considered imposing martial law. The reason he hesitated was that his Justice Party has a narrow margin in Parliament (225 to 220), and its rejection of a proposal to proclaim martial law would be tantamount to a vote of no confidence. At week’s end the fate of the airmen was still unknown.
IN VENEZUELA, Banker Enrique Dao was ransomed last week for $440,000. In a separate incident. Department Store Owner Jacobo Taurel paid $900,000 to a terrorist group for the release of his 13-year-old son León. Police later captured eight alleged kidnapers and recovered Taurel’s money. Only 14 months ago, Taurel paid $150,000 to a different group of guerrillas in exchange for León’s life.
IN URUGUAY, two weeks ago, Tupamaro guerrillas released Brazilian Consul General Aloysio Mares Dias Gomide after his wife paid them some $250,000, which she collected during a fund-raising tour of Brazil. Last week the Tupamaros surrendered another of their victims—without charge. After seven months in the Tupamaros’ “people’s prison,” Dr. Claude Fly, 65, an American agronomist, was left outside a Montevideo hospital, his eyes taped over and two electrocardiograms at his side, along with a clinical report indicating that he had suffered a heart attack eight days earlier.
Apparently worried that Fly might die, the Tupamaros seized an Uruguayan cardiologist and ordered him to examine their captive. Then, abandoning their demands for $1,000,000 in ransom, they released Fly. Still in Tupamaros’ hands is British Ambassador Geoffrey Jackson, who also has a coronary condition.
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