Sabah hostages now

Foreign hostages abducted last weekend from a resort island off the Malaysian state of Sabah are being held with a $2.63-million ransom over their heads by the Muslim fundamentalist group Abu Sayyaf in Sulu, civilian and military officials said yesterday.

"They are here," Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan told reporters.

Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado, who visited the province yesterday, said the 21 hostages had been divided into small groups and were being moved around Talipao town in Sulu, an area reportedly used by the Abu Sayyaf in previous kidnappings.

Tan said the captives were being held by Galid Andang, the commander of the Abu Sayyaf in the province.

Andang is suspected to have masterminded the kidnappings of three Hong Kong fish cannery workers in 1998 and a businessman freed in January after being held for 70 days, according to the military.

Police informants in Sulu said the kidnappers were set to free two Malaysians because the two are Muslims.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon Jr. confirmed that the hostages had been taken to Mindanao from Sabah.

"According to our sources, they are supposed to be somewhere in Mindanao," he said, adding that the Philippines was open to foreign intervention in the negotiation for the release of the captives.

Chairman Nur Misuari of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which includes Sulu, said the gunmen and some of the hostages have been spotted in the island-province.

"Only the whites (Caucasians) are there. I don't know where the others were taken," he said. "Less than 10 are in Jolo (the provincial capital)."

The kidnappings, the worst the Philippines has experienced in years, have again drawn attention to the country's long-simmering Muslim rebellion.

The $2.6-million ransom demand was relayed to the operators of the Sipadan resort, a famous diving site off Sabah which is about an hour by boat from Sulu. The operators then discussed the demand with the Malaysian police, said Roger Rodriguez, a nephew of resort worker Lucrecia Dablo who was among those kidnapped by the six armed men on Sunday night.

Rodriguez said the ransom demand was relayed by way of a mobile phone used at the resort.

Military Southern Command (Southcom) chief Maj. Gen. Diomedio Villanueva reported to acting Armed Forces chief Lt. Gen. Jose Calimlim that the kidnappers were reportedly holed up in a remote barangay in Talipao town in Sulu.

Calimlim, who also flew to Sulu yesterday, said all the hostages were safe. "They're safe. I can assure you that," he told reporters.

Tan told the Associated Press he would meet later yesterday with military officials, including Mercado, to discuss whether to negotiate for the hostages' release.

The Abu Sayyaf, the smaller and more extreme of two groups fighting for a separate Muslim state in Mindanao, is under attack at its Basilan stronghold by government troops who are attempting to rescue 27 other hostages kidnapped from two schools last March 20.

The group is accused of involvement in a number of ransom kidnappings and attacks against Christians in Mindanao, the worst of which was the raid on Ipil town in Zamboanga del Sur in April 1994 in which at least 53 people were killed and the town center razed.

Last Tuesday, Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Ahmad told a Basilan radio station that they were claiming responsibility for the abductions. Later in the day, however, he said he was uncertain whether the group was involved.

"I am not saying we are the ones responsible," Ahmad said. "Let's give the government a puzzle."

A waitress who escaped the Sipadan island abduction added weight to the belief that Filipino Muslim rebels were responsible.

Jeneth Cagaanan, 27, said "one of the pirates pointed a gun at my neck" and demanded money and jewelry. She said she replied to him in Tausug - a dialect widely spoken in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi - and the suspect understood her. But some of the gunmen spoke Malay, she added.

Cagaanan said one of the assailants wore a vest emblazoned with the initials "MNLF," an acronym for the Moro National Liberation Front.

Once Mindanao's largest Muslim rebel group, the MNLF signed a peace agreement with the government in September 1996. But some disgruntled members now belong to other Muslim rebel groups.

Mercado said Philippine authorities were still unsure whether the abductors of three Germans, two French nationals, two South Africans, two Finns, a Lebanese woman, and two Filipino and nine Malaysian resort workers were Abu Sayyaf fundamentalists.

Mercado earlier said military intelligence units were working to establish the captives' location and that their concentration was basically in the areas of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, which are close to Sabah.

"I think we're getting closer as the hours go by," he said.

"We have good cooperation with the Malaysian military largely because of the fact that we've had a border patrol agreement for a long time. The navy and the air force people know each other and they've been holding joint exercises for sometime already," Mercado said.

Meanwhile, Malaysian police chief Mamat Talib said five more people were arrested and interrogated in Sabah in connection with the abductions.

Police sources said some of those arrested were former Sipadan resort employees who were suspected of knowing the gunmen or helping them carry out the abductions.

The arrests brought to 10 the number of people under interrogation in connection with the unprecedented hostage-taking.

Malaysian Inspector General of Police Norian Mai announced yesterday that all foreign boats entering Sabah's waters, especially from the Philippines, would now be subjected to mandatory police checks.

Norian, however, said that Sabah's vast waters make it difficult for authorities to monitor all entry points.

Even before the kidnapping, many Sabah newspapers had called for enhanced cooperation between Philippine and Malaysian security forces to fight piracy in the region.

The wife of a Malaysian police officer who was among the hostages left the police station in tears yesterday as the crisis entered its fourth day with no clues to the captives' safety.

Norisah Musbaniah, the wife of Abdul Jawan Sulawat, clutched her infant son as she exited from the police station in the coastal town of Semporna in Malaysia.

A German Embassy official in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur said that two German security personnel were in Sabah's capital of Kota Kinabalu to keep abreast of developments. -