Last week the release of journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo sparked off controversy left, right, and centre – outside Italy. Inside Italy, apart from some opportunistic jibes from Berlusconi*, virtually all political parties supported the government’s efforts to release Mastrogiacomo, who had been held captive in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

Readers of the London Times fumed at the Italian government’s action – “As usual, the Italian government have shown their real colours with this trade off…….spineless!”¹. A view perhaps shared by Italy’s allies. Criticism came overtly from the Dutch government, whose troops are under fire in Afghanistan, while veiled messages came from the US state department threatening to spark off a diplomatic crisis.

The release of the five Taliban prisoners in exchange for Mastrogicomo, though, was only one part of a complex series of trade-offs. What critics of the Italian government’s policy failed to highlight was the complicity of the Afghan and by implication US governments. The gift of release for the Taliban prisoners was not in the hands of the Italian government to offer. The release went ahead because the Italian government requested it, and the Afghan government granted it. And can one believe that the Afghan government would take such a decision without consulting the US? The US and Afghan governments, unwillingly perhaps, backed the policy. And why? Well, today the Italian government votes on re-financing their military mission in Afghanistan.

Given that a military offensive against the Taliban is on the cards, and that the US military have more pressing concerns in Iraq, and in all likelihood in Iran, both the US and Afghan governments were, it seems, prepared to pay the price to have Italian military support in Afghanistan.

Daniele Mastrogiacomo was blessed by his nationality and the timing of his kidnapping. His Afghan interpreter Adjmal Nashkbandi, and the Afghan credited with negotiating his release, Rahmatullah Hanefi are less fortunate. Those lobbying for their liberty have no geo-political trump to play. Both Afghans, it seems, are paying the price for Mastrogiacomo’s release. Nashkbandi’s whereabouts are uncertain. Hanefi, who works for Italian aid agency Emergency, and who was a go-between in the negotiations, seems to have been picked up by the Afghan secret police. According to reports received by Emergency Hanefi is being held and tortured by the Afghan government.

The Italian government obviously bargained hard for Mastrogiacomo, gambling on its troop presence in Afghanistan. Nothing indicates that they’re willing to play the same game for Hanefi. Honour dictates that they should, though we know they won’t.

Further Info:
Deep concern for Rahmatullah Hanefi and Adjmal Nashkbandi

*Berlusconi suggested that Prodi’s government’s handling of the crisis, by bowing down to the kidnappers’ demands, had made Italy seem untrustworthy on the international stage. He didn’t, though, clarify how his own government’s payment of ransoms for various different hostages in Iraq differed. Admittedly in the Iraqi cases no prisoner swaps were reported, but the payment of millions of euro as ransom can’t have hurt jihadist aspirations.