Hostages By Negotiation and by the Sword

By Michael S. Serrill

In Beirut the ordeal of the three French hostages ended as abruptly as it had begun. Last Wednesday evening a Mercedes roared up to the Summerland Hotel, carrying Diplomats Marcel Carton and Marcel Fontaine and Journalist Jean-Paul Kauffmann, who had been held captive since 1985. Syrian security forces hustled the men to Beirut International Airport, and by the next morning they arrived in Paris for a joyous reunion with their families.

Almost simultaneously with the release in the Middle East, the quiet of a South Pacific dawn in Ouvea, New Caledonia, was broken by the dull thud of smoke bombs and the crackle of small-arms fire. Some 300 elite French troops and gendarmes had launched an operation to rescue 23 Frenchmen from a cave where they had been held by Melanesian separatists. In the 7 1/2-hour gun battle that ensued, two gendarmes and 19 militants died.

Acting at locations thousands of miles apart, the government of Premier Jacques Chirac had suddenly decided to free its citizens. Though Paris maintained that the timing was an accident, the twin rescues could hardly help but give a badly needed boost to Candidate Chirac's presidential campaign against Incumbent Francois Mitterrand.

For the Lebanese hostages, liberation was the end of a nightmare that began with their capture by the terror group Islamic Jihad. "We didn't live," said Kauffmann in Paris. "We survived." The captives were kept in chains for months at a time and were repeatedly moved, sometimes in sealed coffins. But their American counterparts came in for worse treatment. Kauffmann was reported to have said last week that when he was briefly imprisoned with American Educator Frank Reed, his fellow captive was so badly beaten, perhaps after an escape attempt, that he was unable to rise from the floor.

How much had France paid for its citizens' freedom, both to Iran, which brokered the release, and to Islamic Jihad? Interior Minister Charles Pasqua insisted that "not a franc, not a dollar, not a deutsche mark" was rendered. But another French official said the Iranians were interested in re- establishing diplomatic relations, which were broken last summer. They also wanted repayment of a $1 billion loan made to France in 1974, which they argue has appreciated considerably because of accrued interest. France has so far paid back $660 million.

Outside France, feelings were less euphoric. There are now 16 foreign hostages in Lebanon, including nine Americans and three Britons. The French deal raised fears that freeing those still held would be more difficult and that the release might even encourage more kidnapings. Pounding her hand in the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared, "We will not pay ransom!" In Washington, State Department Spokesman Charles Redman expressed the same view.

The French assault on the New Caledonian rebels provoked almost as much controversy. But Overseas Territories Minister Bernard Pons insisted that he took action only because "we believed that at any moment there would be a massacre" of the hostages. Leaders of New Caledonia's secessionists accused . the French of staging the assault to gain votes. Declared the rebels in a statement: "This has created a legacy of blood and fire that will increase our resolve."

With reporting by William Dowell/Paris and John Dunn/Melbourne