| Philippine
kidnappers set to hightail it to Sabah: officials MANILA, Aug 28 (AFP) - Abu Sayyaf
kidnappers will hightail it to the neighbouring Malaysian state of Sabah to escape a
looming military assault after freeing all their hostages, Philippine and Malaysian
officials warned Monday.
The large Malaysian state,
half-an-hour's boat ride from the southern tip of the Philippines and teeming with
Filipino illegal immigrants, is a favorite sanctuary of Muslim guerrillas, bandits and
dissidents running from the clutches of Filipino authorities.
The Abu Sayyaf Muslim
extremists sparked the hostage crisis with a daring Easter Sunday raid on the Malaysian
tourist resort of Sipadan off Sabah, allegedly with the aid of their relatives and friends
there.
Libya, which helped negotiate
the release Sunday of five of the 12 western hostages held on the southern Philippine
island of Jolo, blocked at least one exit route when its ambassador to Manila, Salem Adam
declared "we will not give anybody an asylum."
President Joseph Estrada's
government, already under fire for its handling of the 128 day-old crisis, had angrily
rejected reports that it would consider allowing the gunmen to seek sanctuary abroad.
But the Abu Sayyaf, a
self-styled Muslim separatist guerrilla group, had made it clear that the freedom of the
remaining 24 hostages, including 17 Filipinos, relied on the collection of ransom payments
and the safety of its members.
Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a
retired marine general and armed forces chief of staff, who spent the bulk of his military
career fighting Muslim separatists in the south, said the idea of any country giving the
kidnappers asylum was so repugnant that it "should not even be discussed."
While insisting that asylum had
not been put on the table, Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon said that "when
negotiating, everything is possible."
"In all hostage
negotiations, you always look at the exit. Otherwise, you have no solution."
Biazon said the kidnappers'
only practical option would be to flee to Sabah and hope to avoid the attention of the
Malaysian authorities.
It would not be an
unprecedented move. Usman Sali, a Muslim separatist guerrilla leader who massacred a
Filipino general and his party while they travelled to Jolo to negotiate the rebels'
supposed surrender, left the island for Sabah in 1977 and has never been brought to
justice.
Military officials said rogue
policeman, Rizal Ali, whose band took hostage and later murdered a police general in the
city of Zamboanga in 1989, also fled to Sabah after miraculously surviving a military
assault.
"If we are looking for any
help that could be extended by Malaysia, I would say the best thing they could do is close
that sanctuary," Biazon said.
The Abu Sayyaf will have ample
time to fashion an exit as they continue to release the remaining hostages in batches.
Chief Philippines hostage
negotiator Roberto Aventajado told the BBC on Sunday that the Philippine military
"would just have to step back while these things are going on," and would
"probably not be able to do anything for some time after the release of the last
hostages."
Malaysian opposition
politicians said there was no foolproof way of stopping Muslim rebels in the southern
Philippines from returning by boat to seize more lucrative captives.
The eastern state is notorious
for its pirate-infested waters, despite joint Filipino-Malaysian border patrols.
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