Manado wants travel warning retracted

MANADO, North Sulawesi: Provincial police chief Brig. Gen. Erald Dotulong wants the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta to retract its travel warning which advises American citizens against visiting the province on the grounds of alleged threats posed by the Philippine Abu Sayyaf guerrilla group.

The travel warning, as reported by local daily Manado Post last week, advises U.S. citizens not to visit Maluku, Irian Jaya or Central Sulawesi for security reasons. It also warns U.S. citizens against visiting North Sulawesi, an Indonesian province that shares a border with the Philippines, where the Abu Sayyaf group has subjected U.S. citizens to abduction and intimidation.

Dotulong regretted the issuance of the travel warning, dismissing it as groundless as the province had never been of any interest to Abu Sayyaf terrorists or Moro separatists under the Mindanao National Liberation Front (MNLF).

"I hope the U.S. Embassy will review and perhaps retract its incorrect statement about North Sulawesi," he said, adding that despite several attempts, he had yet to get through to the U.S. Embassy to clarify the matter. (48)