Copyright 1991 Jerusalem Post
Jerusalem Post
October 2, 1991
HEADLINE: HOSTAGE RETURN 'COULD TAKE 20 YEARS'
BYLINE: David Rudge
ROSH HANIKRA - A solution to the hostage and MIAs issue could
take 10 to 20 years to be reached, Hizbullah's leader said yesterday.
He also told a Beirut news conference his organization was not yet
ready to return "even one corpse" of missing IDF servicemen to Israel.
Abbas Musawi, general secretary of the radical fundamentalist
Moslem group, said the issue was still at the stage of exchanging
information.
"The issue of the hostages and the prisoners is heading toward a
solution, but things are in the initial stage. There are
complications and counter-complications, conditions and
counter-conditions," Musawi said at Hizbullah's headquarters in
Beirut's southern slum suburb of Bir el-Abed.
"It is a real battle and all the means of a real battle will be
deployed in it until we manage to close this file, even after 10 or 20
years," the black-turbaned Musawi added.
He told news agency reporters that the factions holding hostages
and prisoners had to set conditions and ensure that a "price" was paid
for every stage in the process, even for the release of "minor
information."
He reportedly charged that the recent release of 51 Lebanese
prisoners from the El-Khiyam jail inside the security zone in south
Lebanon and the return by Israel of the bodies of nine Hizbullah
gunmen was insufficient.
The detainees were freed and the bodies returned to Lebanon in
exchange for information relayed to Israel via UN Secretary-General
Javier Perez de Cuellar which provided conculsive proof that one of
the missing servicemen Rahamim Alsheikh was dead.
Israel has accused Iran of reneging on commitments to de-Cuellar,
who is heading the international efforts to solve the hostages and
MIA's affair, to supply irrefutable details regarding the fate of
another soldier Yossi Fink. He was captured along with Alsheikh in a
Hizbullah ambush inside the security zone in 1986.
Israel is also still awaiting information about the fate of IAF
navigator Ron Arad who ejected from his plane over Lebanon later the
same year (1986).
Musawi's comments yesterday appeared to be in response to
Israel's charge that the ball was in the Iranian/Hizbullah court and
that Israel, although ready and willing, would not make any further
gestures until it received the promised information about Fink, as
well as missing South Lebanese Army soldiers.
Musawi was asked by reporters at the Beirut press conference
yesterday whether Fink was still alive. The leader of the pro-Iranian
fundamentalist Shi'ite organization replied that he was not prepared
to disclose any information via the media.
Musawi also indicated that the Hizbullah wanted hundreds of
Palestinians and pro-Syrian Palestinians detained by Israel for
intifada offences to be included in any future package deal.