What is the Dutch government’s complaint against MSF?
At the end of July, 2004, four months after Arjan Erkel was freed, the Dutch Government filed a case against the Swiss section of MSF in a civil court requesting that the money they paid for the release of their citizen be reimbursed. To be crystal clear, MSF never borrowed any money from the Dutch government and in addition, the Dutch government negotiated, on its own, the terms and conditions for Arjan’s release, only informing MSF at the last minute. In fact, since March 2004, following a public information campaign led by MSF in order to get Arjan released, to which they objected, the Dutch government had severed all relations with MSF. What do you feel is the true basis of this case? Officially, states don’t pay ransom to release hostages. More realistically, they don’t want to be seen to pay ransoms. We see this court case as an attempt to cover up that payment – in effect “passing the buck” to MSF. The premise of this case is completely false, and seems like a smokescreen to sav
