June 5th, 2008

Kidnapped French executive in Afghanistan

Seems that in Afghanistan now, getting kidnapped is no longer the fate of NGOs worker only but it even occurs with local entrepreneurs working at rebuilding the country.

A French businessman, Johan Freckhaus, was kidnapped on May 29 along with two Afghan colleagues and their chauffeur, on a road notoriously reported for ambushes and attacks connecting Moqor to Ghazni in southern Afghanistan.

Aged 37, Johan Freckhaus has been living and working in Afghanistan for 9 years, he speaks Dari, is very familiar with the country’s traditions and specificities and is very well integrated with local populations. Previously in charge of running the local operations of a large French construction corporation, he is now the head of a local joint-venture specializing in construction work.

Devoting himself to building local capacities and to the reconstruction of the country’s infrastructures, his main objective is to give the Afghans he works along some real perspectives, in a country most known for its poppy fields and endemic violence. Johan Freckhaus told his relatives lately he was fully aware of the risks he was undertaking and was then considering going back to France temporarily, the security situation worsening day after day.

French authorities believe the four will be handed to the Taliban, as it has been supposedly reported by a French News Channel.

R.J.

Not much more to say…. except that if the Taliban – or whoever – now turn into the kidnapping business as it is in Irak, i.e. targeted at common people, there will nobody left but the NATO forces working at the reconstruction of the country… And from what I understand, this is not exactly their purpose there.

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