RP emissaries in fresh bid to end hostage crisis

RP emissaries in fresh bid to end hostage crisis

JOLO, Philippines (AFP): Government emissaries are returning
to this southern Philippines island in a fresh bid to win the
freedom of at least some of the 12 Westerners held by Muslim
guerrillas, sources said on Wednesday.

Negotiator Farouk Hussein spent the night in the Abu Sayyaf
jungle hideout on Tuesday, while two other emissaries will follow
his tracks on Thursday, a government source said.

Sources close to the talks said the visits increased the
chances that some of the Westerners could be freed within a week.
Hussein returned from the visit on Wednesday with news that Abu
Sayyaf leaders would prefer to free the four women among their
Western captives -- Sonia Wendling and Maryse Burgot of France,
Franco-Lebanese Marie Moarbes and South African Monique Strydom
-- ahead of the eight men.

Aside from the women they also hold 25 other hostages -- three
Frenchmen, two Germans, two Finns, a South African and 17
Filipinos.

"They cannot release hostages simultaneously for fear of
military operations" and insist "on a staggered basis", Hussein
told AFP.

Philippine officials have acknowledged the Muslim guerrilla
kidnappers had to have some guarantee for their personal safety
for the crisis to end.

President Joseph Estrada's spokesman Ricardo Puno said on
Tuesday that while Manila wished that all the Western hostages
are freed together, the chief hostage negotiator was authorized
"to go ahead and make decisions on the ground."

Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon has raised the idea of
foreign asylum, but chief government negotiator Roberto
Aventajado insisted on Wednesday that the pronouncement was
"theoretical in nature" and nothing has been put on the table.

Hussein also stressed that there had been "no request of that
whatsoever," and that in any case, they were unlikely to accept
it.

Libya has also denied making an asylum offer.

The gunmen on Wednesday freed a construction worker abducted
in Jolo on August 1.

But, following a recurring pattern throughout the 123-day old
crisis, they swiftly replaced him with a woman school teacher and
a 16 year-old girl from separate abductions in nearby Talipao
town.

Local officials said the women were likely to become captive
brides. Suspected Abu Sayyaf men also tossed a grenade at a Jolo
cinema on Wednesday, but there were no casualties and damage was
minimal.

A Libyan charity's offer of development aid worth millions of
dollars to Jolo and other Muslim areas of the largely Roman
Catholic Philippines has driven Manila's recent efforts to crack
the hostage crisis.

The offer was rejected at the 11th hour on Saturday,
ostensibly due to fears of military movements but privately due
to a disagreement over ransom, according to government sources.
Press reports said Libya has since agreed to fork out a 12
million-dollar cash ransom to sweeten the deal.

Aventajado insisted on Wednesday that the figure is "not
accurate, it's not part of what we're discussing." He declined to
discuss details but said he was "still optimistic that we will be
able to win the release of the hostages very shortly."

Mohamed Ismail, an official of the Libyan charity headed by a
son of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Qaddafi echoed this theme.
"They (Abu Sayyaf) have to come to a solution at one point. They
cannot keep the hostages forever," Ismail told AFP.

The charity is keeping a passenger jet on standby at a central
Philippines air force base "until we have the hostages," he
added.

Qaddafi wants to fly the western hostages to Tripoli, where
they would be released to their government representatives as
part of efforts to burnish the image of a country accused by the
United States of promoting terrorism.

The crisis began when Abu Sayyaf gunmen launched a raid across
the border in nearby Malaysia on April 23 and abducted tourists
and resort staff whom they shipped across the sea border to Jolo.