Gotal hostage standoff

"Do you think bloodshed could have been avoided in the Gotal hostage standoff?"

- A HoloNet News "Quick Poll"

The Gotal hostage standoff, one of the conflicts in the Separatist Crisis, took place on Atzerri in 22 BBY.

Background
After the Battle of Antar 4, hundreds of Gotals fled their homeworld of Antar 4 for the nearby planet Atzerri. Among them were fugitive members of the Roshu Sune, a radical splinter group of the Gotal Assembly for Separation. Due to the lax security at Atzerri's spaceports, these wanted criminals had little trouble hiding on the busy trading planet.

When Emissary Nathanjo Nirrelz, a Gotal diplomat from Antar 4, visited Atzerri on a mission to secure bacta supplies, he was followed by Roshu Sune agents after his arrival at the Skreeka spaceport. After he boarded a commuter hopper to the Atzerri city of Talos, five Gotals hijacked the vessel and forced it to land in a nearby swamp. The hostage takers demanded that the Gotal government sign the Roshu Sune's articles of secession in exchange for Nirrelz and the other hostages.

The Gotal government tried to stop outsiders from interfering with what they saw as an internal affair. Gotal Foreign Affairs Commune leader Shagrad Loset later described the standoff as "a Gotal issue, best handled by Gotal." Despite this, the Jedi Council sent a six-Jedi team, led by Jedi Knight Sarrissa Jeng, to resolve the situation. According to Jedi Master Shaak Ti, the Jedi were there to negotiate a peaceful solution.

The confrontation
The Jedi team arrived in the Atzerri swamps, and began to negotiate with the Roshu Sune. The negotiations were cut short when unknown parties in the nearby swamps began to fire their blasters. Meanwhile, the Roshu Sune agents inside the hopper, apparently in a state on panic, started to fire on their hostages. Two Jedi, Antyard-Wo Shissan and Kaloor Cofi, were killed in the crossfire.

The remaining Jedi stormed the hopper, in an attempt to save the surviving hostages. Although one of the guerillas set off a thermite gel bomb which set the hopper aflame, the Jedi managed to rescue thirteen hostages. They were, however, forced to kill the hostage takers.

Aftermath
The wounded hostages, most of whome suffered from burns and smoke inhalation, were rushed to hospitals in Skreeka and Talos. The bodies of the slain Jedi were taken to the Jedi chapter house on Aleen for their funerals.

Sarrissa Jeng, a Mon Calamari Jedi, and two other Jedi survived the standoff. Nathanjo Nirrelz and twelve other hostages (including Palhra Wavren, a Bothan, and a Bith) also survived. While a grateful Wavren said it was a "miracle" that half of the hostages survived, Shagrad Loset criticized the Jedi's handling of the crisis, describing it as "lightsaber diplomacy." The incident was controversial with the rest of the Galaxy, with 36% of those responding to a HoloNet News poll expressing the opinion that bloodshed could have been avoided.