EU wins RP assurance on safety of hostages

EU wins RP assurance on safety of hostages

MANILA (AFP): European Union envoy Javier Solana said on Tuesday he won a guarantee from President Joseph Estrada that the Philippines will seek a peaceful solution to a 16-day old international hostage crisis involving seven Europeans and 14 other captives.

The former NATO secretary general said he told Estrada that the EU "trusts the way the government is facing the problem." Estrada told the EU delegation during a meeting at the presidential palace that Manila will "continue this line and try to find a negotiated solution to this crisis which affects citizens of the European Union," said Solana, the EU's security and foreign policy advisor for the last seven months.

"We received the guarantee of the president and the members of the cabinet," he added.

Abu Sayyaf rebels in the southern island of Jolo are holding three Germans, a French couple, two Finns, two South Africans, a Lebanese, nine Malaysians and two Filipinos who were seized from a cross-border raid on Sipadan island off Malaysian Borneo on April 23.

The governments of EU nations decided to send Solana here amid reports that one of the hostages, German Renate Wallert, is seriously ill and risked a stroke.

Estrada's chief aide, Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora told reporters the government was "quite hopeful in the next few days there will be a number of breakthroughs, especially with regard to the German woman."

He said Rajab Azzarouk, a former Libyan ambassador to the Philippines who has helped negotiate the release of western missionaries kidnapped by Muslim rebels here in the past, had flown to Jolo and volunteered his help.

"He was the one who volunteered. We did not ask him," Zamora said.

Solana said he delivered a "message of thanks for the way he's handling this delicate and complicated situation."

"We trust the way the government is facing the problem," he added. "I didn't come here to give advice to the president of your country."

He stressed that the government "will be the one to choose the negotiator" and that he did not come here to negotiate with the kidnappers.

Solana said he also discussed with Estrada the possibility of having "channels of humanitarian aid" for the hostages.

Zamora said the government was trying to arrange for a delegation from the Malaysian Red Crescent to take medical and other supplies to the hostages.

A military report said earlier on Tuesday that the rebels have broken through a military cordon surrounding their jungle hideout in the southern Philippines taking three of their 21 hostages with them.

The hostages were not identified and there was no word on what happened to the other 18 mostly foreign captives.

"Operating units involved in the rescue operations revealed that they saw Abu Sayyaf terrorists with three Caucasian-looking hostages, one male and two females,"the military report said.

They broke out on Sunday afternoon throgh cordon manned by former guerrillas who are helping government forces surround the rebels on Jolo island.

The former guerrillas of the Moro National Liberation Front "did not take appropriate actions or put up resistance against the Abu Sayyaf, allowing the latter to escape from the cordon/dragnet put up by the government forces," the report said.