Carlsbad-Based Relief Workers Seized in Africa

Seven members of a Carlsbad-based humanitarian aid group were taken captive by government forces in Mozambique while delivering medical aid to refugees in the African country, a spokesman for the group said Friday.

David Courson, president of the Christian Emergency Relief Team, a politically conservative aid organization, said the abducted group consisted of six Americans and a South African, including a Southern Baptist minister from San Diego who was leading the party.

He said group members were “forcibly abducted” sometime Tuesday night and taken to the town of Tete, in a northwestern salient of the country, between the countries of Malawi and Zimbabwe.

“We don’t know if they were on foot or traveling by vehicle,” he said. “I do know that they had a sizable amount of medical and humanitarian aid with them when they were abducted sometime Tuesday afternoon or evening.”

The team consisted of a surgeon, a dentist and paramedics and was led by Dr. Ken Daugherty, a minister from San Diego who had participated in several previous ventures with the nonprofit group, which supplies aid to war-torn countries through volunteers.

Courson said he had few details of the abduction. He received word at 4 a.m. Friday from a contact in South Africa that the seven were being held in a government stockade in an unknown location.

Four hours later, about 7:45 a.m., Courson said, he received a call from the State Department in Washington confirming the abduction “but not telling us anything we didn’t already know.”

“We have reason to believe that they’re all together, and they’re all alive, but that hasn’t been confirmed,” he said. “We do know they’re being held in a stockade and I’m using that term very loosely. . . . I have to be very careful . . . wherever it is, it’s not pretty.”

Along with Daugherty, group members included surgeon Dr. Fred Leist and his wife, Lucille, from Seattle; Dr. John Cannon, a dentist, from Davenport, Iowa; Steven Sherrill, a paramedic from Stroudsburg, Pa., and Carol Roberts, another paramedic, from Syracuse, N.Y.

The South African was identified as Peter Hammond, but Courson would not elaborate on his role in the group. “We’re very concerned for his life right now,” he said. “He’s not an American citizen.”

Mozambique, a former Portuguese dependency on the southeastern coast of Africa, has been torn for years by a right-wing insurgency that has ravaged the countryside and inflicted terrible suffering on the people. An estimated 20,000 guerrillas of the Mozambique National Resistance, reportedly relying on financial aid from Portuguese expatriates and military supplies from neighboring South Africa, have operated mainly in rural areas, disrupting transportation, sabotaging food production and forcing thousands to flee Mozambique for neighboring countries.

The MNR has been widely condemned for its indiscriminate killing and mutilation of civilians and has generally failed to gain much popular support. But it has presented a military challenge to the Marxist government of Mozambique, and has made travel hazardous in much of the country.

The Americans took a flight from London together to Africa. Such emergency medical forays usually last about two weeks, and members pay their own transportation and other expenses, Courson said.

“We’ve been sending humanitarian aid into war-torn areas of the world since 1974, into such places as Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Lebanon,” Courson said. “We go to countries where no one else will go.

“In 15 years, we’ve been lucky that none of our group members have been shot or killed. This is the first such incident we’ve experienced.”

Courson said the group had a “contingency plan” in the case of such an abduction, but he would not discuss details.

State Department sources said the region where the abduction took place is notorious for atrocities, generally attributed to the rightist MNR rebels.

Earlier on Friday, U.S. embassy officials in the neighboring country of Malawi were denied permission to visit the captives.

However, later Friday, U.S. Embassy officials in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, were informed they would be allowed to see the hostages.

“We understand they’re in the hands of Frelimo (the ruling party) forces, which are not on friendly terms with the U.S. government,” Courson said. “In the past, they got lots of military aid from the Soviet Union but lately have had their hands out to the U.S. for assistance. “We hope that, by alerting the forces in Mozambique that the U.S. is aware of their actions, they’ll think twice about committing any more atrocities.”

Courson said several congressmen have been in touch with the State Department to offer their services, including Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) and Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad).

“Their help is probably not as valuable as most people think,” Courson said. “Congressmen pack a lot of clout in this country but not in foreign lands.”

Barbara Daugherty said Friday that her 52-year-old husband had led several other expeditions into foreign countries--three times to Honduras and once to the Philippines--but that this was his first foray into Africa.

“I know there’s a certain amount of risk,” she said. “But the places where CERT goes are usually safe. I mean they take lay people on these expeditions, anyone who wants to go and help people in need.

“With that in mind, I knew there were communists in the area, but I thought they were safe, being that they were there to help people.”

She described her husband as a seminary graduate with a doctorate degree in special ministries. The couple has two children, ages 5 and 3.

“All I’m doing is praying right now. And waiting,” she said. “That’s all I can do.”

In a 1987 Times article on the Carlsbad-based group, Courson said CERT operated on a shoestring budget and has sponsored 15 trips into war-torn Nicaragua through the volunteer efforts.

Doctors and high school principals, housewives and pastors, the volunteers have delivered everything from food and medicine to more than 100,000 pounds of “Shoe Boxes for Liberty”--small, unadorned packages that have been stuffed by donors with everyday essentials such as soap, toothbrushes or needle and thread.

Courson said the thrust of his group was to help victims of the atrocities of war but said the agency’s efforts have mostly keyed on assisting victims of anti-communist regimes.

“We were there to help the civilian population of Mozambique, many of whom are fleeing a communist regime that has been supported by the Soviet Union,” he said.

However, the group has engendered its share of controversy. Many private groups providing humanitarian aid throughout the world attempt to avoid taking sides in military and political disputes.

Courson said that his nonprofit organization does not discriminate while handing out aid, and that the team traveled in Nicaragua with armed contra guards as escorts and has trained members of a rebel faction in paramedic skills.

“The posture of our ministry is that we are providing assistance to our suffering brothers and sisters in Christ,” he told The Times.

“If they happen to be fighting against a Godless regime, then we are committed to assisting them with humanitarian aid. . . . We’re not involved in any violation of the United States law. We do not assist in any way in procuring or transportation of weapons.”

But he acknowledged the danger associated with the cause.

“We try to be responsible in evaluating the risk,” Courson said. “Still, there’s not a time when I (don’t) leave home and wonder if it’s worth it, wonder if I’ll be coming back to knock on someone’s door and say, ‘Sorry ma’am, your husband has been killed.’ ”