Hostages exchanged for cash and guns
Abu Sayyaf Muslim
extremists who have kidnapped dozens of people in recent months have been paid cash and
guns in exchange for some of the freed hostages, intelligence sources said yesterday.
Abdusakur Tan, Governor of the
southern province of Sulu which includes Jolo, confirmed that cash had changed hands and
complained that the Abu Sayyaf gunmen had raised enough money to "buy tanks and
airplanes".
Sources said two Filipino
broadcasters from the ABS-CBN network were redeemed for five million pesos (HK$875,000) in
cash and firearms worth one million pesos, including five M203 rifle-grenade launchers and
five M16 assault rifles.
The network has issued daily
denials that ransoms were paid since the two were freed.
The Abu Sayyaf also received
five M16 rifles, five M203s and one M60 machine-gun as well as an unspecified amount of
money for the release last month of two Filipino teachers and a schoolboy kidnapped from
the nearby island of Basilan, the sources said.
France, which has citizens
among the remaining 17 mostly foreign hostages, insisted it refused to pay a ransom and
warned that doing so would set a dangerous precedent.
"We have never paid a
ransom for any hostage," French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said in Paris on
Monday.
He said "paying a ransom
would endanger all French people who travel in troubled parts of the world".
The Abu Sayyaf, which styles
itself as a pro-independence guerilla movement, still holds six French citizens including
a Franco-Lebanese, as well as three Malaysians, two Finns, two Germans, two South Africans
and two Filipinos.
Suspected Abu Sayyaf men set
off a homemade bomb outside the Roman Catholic cathedral of Mount Carmel in downtown Jolo
late on Monday, injuring one person, police said.
In a radio interview in Manila,
Mr Tan warned the Abu Sayyaf would cause more havoc with their new weapons after the
hostage crisis ended.
The Governor had been one of
the negotiators of the three-month-old hostage drama until last month, when President
Joseph Estrada ordered him to concentrate on maintaining a humanitarian corridor through
which to funnel food and medicines to the hostages.
Mr Tan said that after the Abu
Sayyaf released 13 of their hostages in recent weeks, there had been reports they were
handing out new, crisp 1,000 peso bills and buying weapons in and around Jolo including
Zamboanga city, northwest of the island.
A stronger, better-armed Abu
Sayyaf emerging from the hostage crisis "is going to be my problem", he said.
"If they have money and start buying guns, they will have many more resources and
there will be much more work to do."
The Abu Sayyaf seized 21
foreign and local hostages from Sidapan Island, a Malaysian diving resort, and took them
to Jolo on April 23.
The rebels and allied gangs
later snatched other hostages in Jolo, including foreign and local journalists.
There have been consistent
intelligence reports that US$4 million (HK$31 million) in ransom was paid for the six
Malaysians and US$1 million each for two Germans, who have been freed so far along with
five Filipinos.
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