Former UK hostage Terry Waite returns to Beirut for first time

Описание: (17 Feb 2004)
1. Night shot of Terry Waite''s plane taxiing on runway
2. Waite walking through airport
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Terry Waite, former hostage:
"There are always people who will put blame on others. The thing is we take our own responsibility for our own actions. I came back in good faith on behalf of people who were in difficulty. It so happened that I was taken hostage and spent five years here. They were difficult years and they were years of suffering but one always have to remember this: that the suffering of people in the Lebanon went on for longer than five years."
4. Waite talking to press
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Terry Waite, former hostage:
Q: "If you had the chance would you like to meet with your captors?"
A: "Oh I wouldn''t mind meeting with them at all. I am sure that they have changed, you know, that they have grown and developed just as much as I have, but I am not making any attempt to do that."
Q: "Your first field trip will be tomorrow to the Palestinian camps in northern Lebanon. What can you tell us about this trip?"
A: "This trip has for me two purposes: It''s really a fact- finding trip to see what is being done, to see the scale of the need and secondly to, having seen the scale of the need, to give a little support to the people who work here. It''s very hard work as you know, trying to keep programmes going and looking after people who are refugees. it''s very difficult work and they need encouragement. So it''s to find facts and to give encouragement."
6. Various of Waite leaving airport

STORYLINE:

Terry Waite, a Briton who was held hostage in Lebanon for nearly five years, returned on Monday to the Lebanese capital for the first time since his release more than 12 years ago.

"I''m very glad to be back in Lebanon," a beaming, white-bearded Waite told reporters at Beirut International Airport.

Waite was trying to negotiate the release of Western hostages in his capacity as a special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury when he was taken hostage in January 1987.

He was released in September 1991 after 1,760 days in captivity.

He returned to Beirut on behalf of Y Care International, the YMCA''s development agency which he helped found 20 years ago.

He said his was a fact-finding trip to see what is being done and to bring a little support to the people that were doing the work.

Waite said he had no particular concerns about being back in Lebanon and would not mind meeting his former captors.

"I wouldn''t mind meeting with them at all. I''m sure that they have changed. They have grown and developed just as much as I have," he said. Waite, however, said he was not making any attempts to arrange such a meeting.

Of his years in captivity, Waite said "they were difficult years and they were years of suffering. But one always has to remember this ... that my suffering doesn''t compare much to what other people have gone through."

He said he held no grudges against anyone.

As president of Y Care, Waite plans to visit Palestinian refugee camps in northern Lebanon.

He also hopes to visit Gaza.

Waite was one of dozens of foreigners kidnapped in Lebanon in the 1980s by Lebanese Shiite Muslim fundamentalists and other militant groups.

The captives included Terry Anderson, then the chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press. Anderson was freed after spending nearly seven years in captivity.

Waite''s return comes a month after that of former British hostage John McCarthy, who returned to Lebanon on January 13 for the first time since his release in 1991.


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