 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The holiday gone wrong
By Nyier AbdouUnless you are a deep-sea diving fanatic, and happen to be part of an international group of jet-setters seeking the world's most pristine waters, you have probably never heard about Sipadan Island. And were it not for the 21 hostages abducted on 23 April from the small Malaysian island in the Celebes Sea, off the northeast coast of Borneo, you probably never would.
The Easter Sunday abduction was just the beginning of a long ordeal that has dragged these hostages through Philippine jungles and military fire. They may have gone to Sipadan to see sea turtles and sharks, but they ended up in a makeshift bamboo cage in the mountainous wild of a militant Islamic stronghold. More than three weeks later and after two meetings with negotiators, the crisis seems in no better state for being resolved.
The hostages were taken from a Malaysian diving resort by a motley crew of militants aligned with the Philippine Muslim separatist group Abu Sayyaf. The hostages -- 10 Malaysians, three Germans, two Finnish, two French, two South Africans, one Lebanese and one Filipina -- were transported by their captors to the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines.
At the time, a separate Abu Sayyaf group was still holding 29 Filipino hostages on nearby Basilan Island -- where they had been held hostage for over a month. After a confrontation with the Philippine army at the end of April, the rebels escaped and 15 hostages were recovered, along with the mutilated bodies of six captives, four shot execution-style and two decapitated. The remaining eight hostages were taken by their captors elsewhere on Basilan Island.
The Muslim ethnic groups of the southern Philippines, given the name Moros by Spanish colonisers, have long been a sore spot for the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines. Arab traders first brought Islam to what is now the southern Philippines in the 15th century; three centuries of Spanish rule never managed to subdue the Muslims and Christian missionaries were uniformly rebuffed. Of the 74 million people in the Philippines, Muslims now comprise five to 10 per cent -- for the most part concentrated in Mindanao, the country's second largest island. Because these communities have been historically closed off, the little interaction between Catholics and Muslims has bred distrust and racism.
A fragile peace accord was signed in 1996 between the government and the largest separatist movement, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), based in Mindanao. The agreement, which patched together a four-province semi-autonomous region, was rejected by two smaller splinter groups, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the much smaller Abu Sayyaf.
Year-long peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front broke down in late April, leading to a surge of violence in Mindanao earlier this month that left 35 people dead and 100 hostages taken. The hostages later escaped. Tensions again rose over the weekend when the MILF seized 183 people in an early-morning raid Saturday on the village of Pamantingan; all the hostages were released Sunday as the guerillas withdrew from the village.
Philippine President Joseph Estrada, now faced with the most explosive crisis of his tenure, has stood firm in his hard-line stance on the separatists, which critics blame for the recent escalation of violence. Negotiators have become disheartened, claiming that the military attacks have made it impossible to negotiate with the groups and European countries have expressed their concern over Estrada's handling of the situation, saying that the main consideration should be the safety of the hostages.
A team of negotiators, including local officials, an Islamic scholar and Rajab Azzarouq, the former Libyan ambassador to the Philippines, met with the rebels last Wednesday but failed to secure the release of the captives, CNN reported. Abu Sayyaf had demanded that a Libyan take part in the negotiations and Azzarouq, who has negotiated the release of hostages in the region before, seemed the obvious choice. Azzarouq also aided in brokering the 1996 peace deal that ostensibly ended the 24-year Muslim separatist war.
Two hostages are reported to be taken ill, with one German woman, Renate Wallert, suffering from hypertension. Hopes that Wallert would be released were dashed on Saturday when four negotiators returned from a three-hour-long meeting with Abu Sayyaf guerrillas with nothing but a list of demands, Reuters reported. Abu Sayyaf has ordered that the estimated 5,000 troops surrounding their stronghold on Jolo be removed before meeting again with negotiators, and there has been talk of combining negotiations with the Basilan Island rebels.
It may all be couched in ideological rhetoric, but the crisis still boils down to banditry and lawlessness. Abu Sayyaf's larger demands include an independent state with Islamic law and a ban on fishing by foreigners off Mindanao, but a ransom request -- quaintly referred to in these parts as "board and lodging" -- is generally expected to be coming amidst a more detailed set of demands. Were it not for the European foreigners abducted on Sipadan Island, it is unlikely that the hostage-taking -- quite common in the region -- would have assumed the international dimensions.
As the crisis moves into its fourth week, Philippine officials have been downplaying hopes of the hostages being released in the near future. President Estrada ordered the negotiators to return to Jolo on Tuesday, when Estrada was scheduled to leave for a five-day trip to China.
The situation intensified on Saturday when 13 journalists went missing in Patikul, near where the Jolo hostages are being held, sparking fears of further kidnappings. After conflicting reports, it was confirmed on Sunday that all but two of the journalists had returned to Jolo.
"After three weeks, we don't really have any physical problems," Jolo captive Sonia Wendling told French television. "But it's the mental aspect which is very pronounced, because three weeks is very long -- it's becoming very hard to cope with that."
"This is probably the most serious security problem that has confronted us since independence" in 1946, AP quoted Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Francisco Tatad as saying. For the 21 hostages on Jolo, it's certainly the worst vacation they've ever had.
