Honoured in the breach
Sir: Charles Glass writes (`The hostage market', 5 December) that, in bargaining for the release of French hostages in Beirut, M. Jacques Chirac followed 'the honoured Lebanese custom' of trading a life for a life. The sentence on your contents page refers to this as the 'honour- able' Lebanese custom. There is a distinc- tion; and it is a pity that Mr Glass's article fails to make the distinction sufficiently clear.
According to Mr Glass, the interpreter from the Iranian embassy was kept in Paris as a hostage, and not as a genuine suspect. In that case, the best that can be said of the French government is that it demeaned itself to the level of the terrorists' be- haviour and, in doing so, abused the processes of .justice an the conventions of civilised international relations.
At all events, the impression which has been given to the rest of the world is that France makes concessions to kidnappers. This can only encourage terrorists to take more French hostages. To use Mr Glass's device: 'If (in consequence) you are a hostage, or the child of one . . .' you will bitterly regret that your country's govern- ment ever got involved in the whole murky business.
Michael Grenfell 51a St Peter's Street,
London N1
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