Sayyaf to release ailing German

Muslim rebels holding 21 Asian and Western hostages have agreed to make the first topic of negotiations the freedom for an ailing German woman, an Abu Sayyaf leader said yesterday.

Abu Escobar told The Associated Press that the guerrillas are willing to discuss the quick release of Renate Wallert, 57, who has high blood pressure, but her freedom depends on the government meeting certain conditions.

Those conditions are still being discussed among Abu Sayyaf leaders, he told Robert Aventajado, the presidential adviser on flagship projects who was designated by Mr. Estrada as an overseer of the negotiations.

Aventajado said Monday that the government has identified about five leaders of the splintered Abu Sayyaf. They must reach agreement on unified demands for the release of the hostages and present a written list to the government, he said.

That list is expected today, when formal negotiations are expected to begin. Aventajado and another negotiator, Libyan envoy Abdul Rajab Azzarouq, returned to Jolo where the captives are being held. They flew to Manila on Sunday to consult with President Estrada.

Discussions so far have been informal, with preliminary requests ranging from money to the creation of an Islamic state and the imposition of Islamic law. The government says that the former is an option but the latter two are not. Formal negotiations could take months, Aventajado said.

The Abu Sayyaf, the smaller and more extreme of two Muslim rebel groups in Mindanao, seized the 21 hostages on April 23 from Sipadan Island, a Malaysian diving resort, and took them to Jolo, about an hour away by boat.

The hostages consist of two South Africans, two Finns, a Lebanese, three Germans, two French citizens, nine Malaysians and two Filipinos.

The Abu Sayyaf is also holding about eight Filipino hostages on the nearby island of Basilan out of an original group of around 50, including many children, taken from two schools on March 20. Some of those hostages were released, 15 were rescued and six were killed.

Violence has been on the rise in Mindanao since last month, when the Army attacked a 15-kilometer stretch of the Narciso Ramos Highway held by the MILF, the larger and more moderate rebel group. The MILF pulled out of peace talks in response to the attack.

More than 250,000 people have been displaced by scattered fighting and explosions around Mindanao, home of the Muslim minority.

On Monday, the MILF said it would withdraw from the highway, which borders its main camp, so that talks could resume.

The government was studying the offer and wanted more details, Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said Tuesday. In the meantime, military operations continue.

In Jolo, the military has pulled back 30 percent of troops surrounding the Abu Sayyaf camp where the 21 hostages are held, Armed Forces spokesman Col. Rafael Romero said.

The soldiers were pulled back to camp to comply with a request from the negotiators, he said.

The hostages have begged the military to pull back, and the Abu Sayyaf made a pullback one of its preliminary demands. Negotiators expecting the release of the German woman last week were disappointed after the rebels were spooked by troop movements nearby.

The Jolo hostages were being kept in two groups when four journalists who returned from the hideout Monday saw them, with the Westerners in a hut and the Asians in an open shed.

Wallert lay in a hammock hung in the hut, said Cyril Bayen of French RTL Radio. She looked ill and was mumbling incoherently, but the others looked fine, he said.

"She was all the time lying in the hammock," Bayen said. "Sometimes she's saying she's back in Germany."

Judging from informal discussions with the Abu Sayyaf, their demands are likely to include some that are "very, very meetable," Azzarouq said, including development aid for the region.

Azzarouq, a former ambassador to the Philippines with extensive personal contacts among the Muslims of Mindanao, is officially an envoy of the International Gadhafy Foundation, which has a number of community development projects in the region.

"You have to find a way to attend to the needs of the people here" if the violence is to end, Azzarouq said.