MARIE DEDIEU, a once prominent feminist from France who was kidnapped from her vacation home on the island of Manda off Kenya on Oct. 1, has died in captivity, French authorities announced today. Dedieu was disabled, confined to a wheelchair for years, and had cancer. Her captors did not take her wheelchair or medication from her home when she was abducted.

Dedieu, 66, was with her live-in African boyfriend, John Lepapa, 39, when kidnapped by armed Somalians. He was left unharmed. Lepapa told The Daily Mail, ‘My girlfriend pleaded with them and told them to take whatever they wanted from the house, including the money and to spare her life, but they would not listen.’

What was a 66-year-old woman in a wheelchair doing on an African island, 60 miles from Somalia, with a 39-year-old African boyfriend? Perhaps the answer can be found in her political beliefs. Dedieu was a founder of France’s Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF) in the 1960s. An English woman on vacation and two Spanish aid workers were also abducted recently by Somalians in Kenya.

                                                                          — Comments —

Fred Owens writes:

It’s all about money. A European woman, regardless of her age or appearance or behavior, can find a willing African man to “look after her.” She has the money and he does not.

Having said that, I doubt her abduction and subsequent treatment at the hands of Somali pirates had anything to do with her prior life in politics. I suspect that the average Somali pirate or terrorist or guerrilla could care less about those fine distinctions. They kidnapped her because she had the money, but her African boyfriend was not worth kidnapping.

Likewise, a European man would be treated in a similar manner. He can have the wife of his choosing in Africa, and he would be subject to kidnapping as well.

Laura writes:

I did not mean to suggest that her abduction had anything to do with her feminism. She was abducted because she was a Western woman.

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