And still, he remains forgotten.

Dr Ken Elliott, a Perth missionary doctor held captive by ‘Emirate of the Sahara’, a branch of Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda, should have been an Australian of the Year by now. Instead, he is receiving the Raoul Wallenberg treatment.

The former do-nothing-say-nothing Foreign Minister Senator Marise Payne has been emulated by the Albanese government, which has shown the same contemptible indifference to Elliott’s situation.

Enquiries at the office of Minister of Veteran Affairs and Defence Support, Matt Keogh, regarding the plight of Ken Elliott are met with the usual perfunctory reply by a DFA bureaucratic functionary. The silence is deafening from our elected representatives.

The fact that the opening statement must be clarified is testimony enough to the indifference of Western liberals towards real heroes, past and present, and to the inert craven attitudes of Western governments, including Australia.

Raoul Wallenberg was arguably the greatest hero of the second world war, yet remarkably he was a diplomat from a neutral country (Sweden). Due to his efforts, probably 100,000 Hungarian Jews were saved from the clutches of SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann and the local fascists of the Arrow Cross.

What was Wallenberg’s ‘reward’? To be incarcerated for the rest of his life by Stalin’s NKVD thugs after the Red Army swept into Budapest, seizing him on January 17, 1945, despite his diplomatic immunity.

Being made an American citizen by Ronald Reagan and an Australian citizen by Julia Gillard was a form of belated recognition given to the great Swede, who was deserted by his homeland. Canada, Hungary, and Israel are the other nations to honour him with posthumous citizenship.

Is this the treatment Dr Elliott deserves? Is he simply going to be forgotten until it is too late?

Captured on January 16, 2016, with his wife Jocelyn (who was quickly released), the Australian missionary doctor (87) has now been held for over six years in Mali.

Last September a female Swiss missionary, Beatrice Stockli, who had been also captured in January 2016, was executed by Islamist terrorists. This has strengthened the attitude of those calling for a diplomatic ‘don’t rock the boat’ approach to a ‘sensitive matter’.

Indeed that ‘do little’ approach by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade may have meant that Dr Elliott’s release was not secured last October when the release of four captives went ahead.

While then Foreign Minister, Senator Marise Payne, harboured a political reticence that made her almost invisible with a Department that prided itself on ‘quiet diplomacy’, Clive Williams (visitor ANU College of Law) notes that it was quite possible Australia was not even made aware of the negotiations in the release of the four captives, either through our High Commission in Ghana, (the post that is responsible for Mali) or the Australian embassy in Paris. France, the former colonial ruler, still has influence in this region (The Strategist, 23.10.20)

Ken and Jocelyn Elliott, who have been career missionaries since 1972, were originally taken from neighboring Burkina Faso where they ran a 120-bed clinic in the province of Soum.

Dr Elliott was referred to as the Doctor of the Poor for giving free treatment to his patients. Since being taken captive, the clinic has ceased to operate while patients now must travel hundreds of miles to the capital, Ouagadougou, causing great distress. There in a nutshell is the difference between good and evil, the difference between a lifetime of service to others and those who terrorise others for a lifetime; the difference between Christian practice and Islamist extremist criminality.

Unlike in his homeland, Dr Elliott has not been forgotten by the small West African nation, being declared a citizen of Burkina Faso, in November 2016.

Dr Elliott is now being held in Mali by a group now known as Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM). According to Clive Williams, he is under a guard of about 20 and constantly being moved because of concerns over recovery raids by French and American special forces. These terrorists should be made to be afraid, as should political wallflowers who have achieved little to assist the plight of the victims.

Islamist factions, poor communications, and infrastructure, plus political intrigues within Mali, all make it difficult to extricate Dr Elliott. Regardless, there needs to be a redoubling of efforts to rescue him, Colombian nun Gloria Argoti, and the Romanian Julian Ghergut. South Africa’s Christo Bothma was also on that list, but he has since died in captivity.

Dr Elliott’s value to the terrorists is obvious: his medical skills and value as a trainer in his profession. His value to us should be just as obvious and indeed is recorded by the One he has served so faithfully on the mission field, in 1 Samuel 2:30, ‘He that honours Me, I shall honour.’

A pity the Australian government and people are not so adamant in attempting to fulfil those words on earth.

The words of the former Liberal Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, like those of the current Labor one, Penny Wong, are cold comfort to Australians.

Wong’s recent claims ‘that government agencies are working hard to resolve Dr Elliott’s case by staying in close contact with other governments’ and ‘being concerned about Dr Elliott’s safety and wellbeing’ are replies that would be expected from Jim Hacker!

Democratic nations have special forces for security reasons, including to kill terrorists and to attempt rescue missions.

Lest We Forget.

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