Durban - A key Yemeni negotiator, involved in talks for the release of the Korkies in Yemen, is in South Africa to share his experiences with negotiators working to free another South African being held hostage abroad.
Pietermaritzburg-based aid organisation, Gift of the Givers, employs Anas al Hamati as the head of its office in Yemen.
He has now joined a working group in Johannesburg to share his knowledge with negotiators trying to secure the release of Stephen McGowan, held hostage in Mali for the past three years.
Hamati, 30, said there was little difference between the negotiators he talked to in Yemen in an effort to free Pierre and Yolande Korkie and the ones in Mali, because both were al-Qaeda and shared the same ideology.
He said negotiators should ensure they stayed calm and kept an open mind during the negotiations.
Hamati said the main reasons organisations such as al-Qaeda took hostages was because they needed money to finance their operations.
He said they hoped Gift of the Givers would be able to secure McGowan’s release, but said there was no guarantee things would go well.
He said peaceful negotiations took a long time. He said when they started talking to al-Qaeda in Yemen they had nothing to offer. “We negotiate with empty hands,” Hamati said.
On the Korkies’ hostage drama, he said he did the best he could for the release of Pierre and felt sad for Pierre’s wife, Yolande, whose freedom he helped secure.
The Korkies settled in Yemen in December 2009, where Pierre worked as a teacher and Yolande volunteered at a local hospital.
They were kidnapped in May 2013 and Yolande was released after negotiations by the Gift of the Givers in January last year.
Pierre was killed during a US drone strike in December, just as the negotiations were on the verge of a breakthrough.
“I was very close. It was a matter of hours,” before they could secure Pierre’s release. The good reputation that Gift of the Givers had in Yemen also made it easier to negotiate with the Korkies’ captors and it was this good reputation that he used to track them down, talking to tribes in the area to find out their whereabouts.
But, after the death of Pierre, al-Qaeda attacked some tribes in the country and Hamati received death threats from the tribes and al-Qaeda.
Hamati, who has been with the Gift of the Givers for three years, said he left the country with his wife and two children and lived in Dubai and Egypt before arriving in South Africa last week. He said he still missed his home country.
Daily News