GAM gives assurance on Fery

INDONESIA: The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) commander for Pereulak, Ishak Daud, stressed on Saturday that the rebels would release TV station RCTI cameraman Fery Santoro and other civilian hostages on May 13.

"We expect the safety to be guaranteed of those who transport the hostages to the location where they will be freed, of the hostages and of those who pick the hostages up," Ishak said in a telephone conversation with International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) secretary-general Aiden White on Saturday.

Dauk said GAM would not attack the TNI from May 10 through May 14 and asked the latter not to cary out military patrols around the ranch of PT Bumi Flora, Pidie Rayeuk, East Aceh, from April 12 through April 14.

Fery was abducted by GAM on June 29 last year while on assignment in Langsa, along with colleague Sory Ersa Siregar, their driver and the wives of two Air Force officers.

Ersa was subsequently killed by TNI personnel in a gunfight with GAM on Dec. 29; the driver escaped late last year and the women were released in February.

-- JP