Manado warns travel warning retracted

MANADO, North Sulawesi (JP): 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.

He said he would be happy to see the U.S. Embassy assign some of its people to check the actual situation in the province.

While it is true that North Sulawesi's Minggas island in Sangihe Talaud district shares a border with the Philippines, the area is virtually free from the influence of the Abu Sayyaf and the MNLF as the border area is invariably tightly patrolled by local police and the Navy, he noted.

In 2000, police raided the island and seized 20 rifles smuggled in from the Philippines, he said, adding that the rifles had no connection whatsoever to any Philippine terrorist group. In Cebu in the south of the Philippines, for example, guns are widely made as household products and smuggled to many places, he said.

Meanwhile, the Philippine consul general for Manado, Ronaldo Martines, was unavailable for comment on the matter. (48)