Arroyo orders 'all-out war' on Abu Sayyaf rebels
Arroyo orders 'all-out war' on Abu Sayyaf rebels
MANILA (Agencies): President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered
"all-out war" on a band of Abu Sayyaf extremists on Monday, hours
after they vowed to behead a U.S. hostage to mark the leader's
birthday.
"We will pursue every one of them relentlessly," Arroyo said
in a press conference of the Abu Sayyaf group in the southern
Philippines. "We shall annihilate them. We will never, ever
negotiate with them."
The attack order comes as Arroyo prepares for peace talks with
communist rebels of the New People's Army and the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front, a larger Muslim rebel group.
Hours before Arroyo's announcement, Abu Sabaya, an Abu Sayyaf
leader, told the local Radio Mindanao Network that his men will
behead 25-year-old Oakland native Jeffrey Schilling, captive
since last August, on Thursday to mark Arroyo's 54th birthday.
Abu Sayyaf beheaded two Filipino hostages last year, on April
19, as a "birthday gift" to then-President Joseph Estrada as he
turned 63.
Sabaya has threatened several times to kill Schilling in an
effort to persuade the Philippine or the U.S. government to pay a
$10-million ransom for his release. He tried to convince
authorities Monday that he is serious this time.
"We are not joking," Sabaya added. "You better inform his
mother in the U.S. about his execution so she may talk for the
last time to her son."
In contrast to her conciliatory statement to other insurgents,
Arroyo said Monday that any Abu Sayyaf member who voluntarily
surrenders will face charges anyway. The government has offered
amnesty in the past to surrendered members of other armed groups.
"They are a money-crazed gang of criminals," Arroyo said.
"They have no ideology." Arroyo said she talked to U.S. officials
in the Philippines before ordering the assault and they backed
the action.
The U.S. government announced on Monday that the U.S. Agency
for International Development and a private group, Action against
Hunger, are to provide some $422,625 to help about 30,000 of the
Mindanao evacuees.
Arroyo said on Monday that thousands of Filipinos displaced by
a Muslim separatist rebellion are streaming back to their war-
ravaged villages in the island of Mindanao on the eve of a
ceasefire.
"As a result of the work of the Interact-Mindanao (the
government committee for rehabilitation), evacuees have started
to return to their villages, some of which are located in
Abubakar," Arroyo told a press conference.
Arroyo estimated last February, when she declared a unilateral
truce, that half of the estimated 600,000 people displaced by the
military operation had yet to return home.
The military campaign, which cost the government a billion
pesos ($20 million) to prosecute according to Arroyo aides, led
to the collapse of peace talks and a terrorist backlash of deadly
bombings of population centers in Manila and elsewhere.
After secret high-level talks brokered by Malaysia in Kuala
Lumpur last month, the MILF agreed to hold peace talks and to
declare a ceasefire.
Military Chief of Staff Diomedio Villanueva said Monday the
Abu Sayyaf has 1,200 armed members.
Abu Sayyaf, which says it is fighting for a Muslim homeland,
operates mainly on the island of Jolo, about 940 kilometers (580
miles) south of Manila.
Estrada ordered a mass assault last September, using the navy
to blockade Jolo while artillery and bomber airplanes pummeled
the island to make way for mass infantry attacks.
But the army complained the rebels drop weapons and blend in
with the civilians to escape assaults. Sporadic clashes have
continued since Estrada's one-month assault.
Arroyo's administration is also scheduled to start peace talks
April 27 with communist rebels of the New People's Army which is
fighting nationwide to overthrow the government.