DATE=5/5/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=PHILIPPINES HOSTAGE-TAKERS
NUMBER=5-46267
BYLINE=AMY BICKERS
DATELINE=MANILA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A double hostage crisis, one involving foreign
tourists, has focused worldwide attention on the
little-known Muslim separatist movement in the
Philippines and on a radical group called the Abu
Sayyaf. V-O-A's Amy Bickers reports from Manila, the
Islamic minority struggle for independence in the
southern part of the country has long plagued the
Philippines.
TEXT: The abduction of 21 hostages from a Malaysian
diving resort forced the captives into the middle of a
conflict many of them had never heard about. It was
the second kidnapping by Philippine rebels in six
weeks, and part of a four-hundred year-old struggle
between Muslims who inhabit the Southern Philippines
and the country's Roman Catholic majority.
At the center of the hostage crisis is the Abu Sayyaf,
a group of perhaps 200 to 600 Islamic rebels so
violent and ruthless that other independence-seeking
groups in the country shun it.
The main guerilla group, the 20-thousand strong Moro
Islamic Liberation Front, the M-I-L-F, has been
fighting a more conventional guerilla war, whose
origins go back to the early 1970's. The M-I-L-F
continued to fight after other Philippine Muslim
separatists signed a peace agreement with the
government in 1996. That deal was based on a cease-
fire in return for limited self-rule.
The M-I-L-F was involved in fierce fighting with the
Philippine military in the past week, even as the Abu
Sayyef hostage crisis flared.
The name Abu Sayyaf is Arabic for Bearer of the Sword.
The group, founded in 1991 soon made many enemies
because of its tactics: kidnapping Catholic priests
and nuns for ransom and lobbing hand grenades into
churches and movie theaters.
Manila-based analyst Alex Magno explains that violence
continues to figure strongly in the Abu Sayyaf
ideology.
/// MAGNO ACT ///
They see the gun and the use of force as the means for
acquiring anything. The same ideology is sometimes
disguised as Islamic fundamentalism, and sometimes as
plain banditry, but at the core the essential
proposition is the same. At the core you have
desperate, marginalized communities who see the gun
and the use of violence as the only way to emerge from
marginalization.
/// END ACT ///
The group is comprised of a rag-tag but dangerous
force of rebels, pirates and religious zealots. Many
come from the dirt-poor region of Mindanao, home to
much of the Philippine Muslim minority.
Experts say the group's tactics, which include murder
and torture, are an attempt to capture attention, so
that they can secure funds from overseas Islamic
militants.
While members of the Abu Sayyef claim that the
government in Manila has withheld funding from their
province, Mr. Magno says Mindanao has received more
government aid in the last two decades than many other
Philippine provinces.
He says the money woes that plague the region and fuel
the Abu Sayyaf's radical agenda stem from local
corruption.
/// MAGNO ACT ///
You have a culturally distinct community that has been
betrayed by its own elite for generations. Whatever
support the central government sends to that area is
stolen by the local Muslim politicians. There has been
no effective
governance for decades in this community and there is
an ideology of despair that has evolved.
/// END ACT ///
It is that very despair, Mr. Magno says, which has
allowed the Abu Sayyaf to build up a following among
some of the local population.
The Philippine government says it will negotiate with
the Abu Sayyef, but Manila insists it will not pay
ransom, no matter what the sum.
Still there is concern that the attack on the resort
in Malaysia and the holding of foreign hostages will
give this group just what it wants:
international renown that will help it gain the
support of fundamentalist patrons from around the
world. (SIGNED)
NEB/AB/FC/PLM
05-May-2000 06:49 AM EDT (05-May-2000 1049 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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