North American Counterparts: The Canadian Cases

Abstract

Although the vast majority of the diplomatic kidnappings have taken place in the unsettled political atmosphere of Latin America, North America has also had to deal with its own counterparts. Of particular note were the abduction of James Cross, a senior British consular officer in Quebec, Canada, and the kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte, Quebec’s Labor Minister, both of which occurred in October, 1970. The first attempts at diplonapping in North America, these Canadian cases, like their Latin American prototypes, unfolded against a backdrop of political discontent and revolutionary terrorism. Though Laporte, as a Canadian government official, did not actually fit the “diplonapping” category, his abduction was so clearly related to the terrorist technique of utilizing innocent individuals as the tools of political blackmail and persuasion, that his case will be considered here along with that of Cross.