RP hostage crisis enters 2nd week in deadlock

RP hostage crisis enters 2nd week in deadlock

JOLO, Philippines (Agencies): A multinational hostage crisis
entered its second week on Sunday without a breakthrough in sight
as separatist militants repeated their warning to behead the 21
people seized from Sipadan, an island resort currently being
disputed by Indonesia and Malaysia.

Chief government negotiator Nur Misuari has yet to hold face-
to-face talks with the kidnappers and is only able to communicate
through intermediaries, Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said.

He added that Misuari is still trying to clarify the gunmen's
demands and their chain of command.

Malaysia has sent its police chief to the southern Philippine
island, President Joseph Estrada's office confirmed, adding that
tropical disease medicines reached Zamboanga on Sunday from the
Malaysian port of Sandakan.

The Finnish, French and German embassies in the Philippine
capital Manila were planning an airlift of provisions for their
kidnapped nationals, the French foreign ministry said in Paris.
The captives also include nationals from South Africa, Lebanon
and the Philippines.

They were snatched from the dive resort of Sipadan on Easter
Sunday by the Abu Sayyaf, a small rebel group waging a guerrilla
campaign for a separate Islamic state in the southern third of
the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.

A rebel spokesman has demanded that Manila bring envoys from
the United Nations and Organization of the Islamic Conference for
talks to free the hostages.

However the Philippines government has rejected their demand.
"We are a sovereign state here and we will not allow the
situation to turn into a circus," Mercado said,

"Unless he (Misuari) is replaced by President Joseph Estrada,
he would stay as the chief government negotiator," Mercado added.
Misuari, a former Muslim rebel leader who now heads an autonomous
Muslim region that includes Jolo, demanded Sunday that the rebels
name their representative for talks and put down their demands in
a signed document "so there is no way for them to change."

"There should be unanimity in their leadership to accept my
mission," Misuari said in nearby Zamboanga city, "or else I will
not proceed with the negotiations."

A rebel spokesman said the group did not want to deal with
Misuari and threatened to behead some of the foreign hostages
unless he was replaced with government representatives of the
foreign hostages.

Their spokesman told a Johannesburg radio station on Saturday
that some hostages would be executed in the next two or three
days unless the military lifted its siege of another Abu Sayyaf
unit on nearby Basilan island, where a second group of at least
27 Filipino hostages are held.

Philippine forces prepared Sunday to spray tear gas into a
tunnel in a sprawling rebel stronghold where the 27 hostages have
been held for six weeks, officials said.

Troops were guarding the entries to the tunnel, where some
rebels fled after the military overran the densely forested Abu
Sayyaf stronghold on southern Basilan island, Col. Ernesto de
Guzman said.

Fighting also continued in other areas deep in the jungle,
with stiff resistance from the fleeing rebels, he said.

About 1,500 troops began attacking the rebel camp on Mount
Ponoh Mahajid eight days ago to rescue the hostages, mostly
children seized from two schools on March 20.

Networks of tunnels, foxholes and bunkers crisscross the camp,
and soldiers are unsure how many hostages and rebels may be
inside the tunnel they plan to gas, de Guzman said.

Asked if children would be harmed by the tear gas, he replied:
"They will just be stunned."

The government said Sunday that the Basilan camp had been
overrun, though they found no trace of the hostages and their
captors.

On Saturday, Filipino journalist Arlyn de la Cruz was taken by
the kidnappers to the Jolo camp to speak to the 21 foreign
hostages, who were crammed into a single bamboo hut with no
toilet and guarded by about 250 armed rebels.

Guarded by around 250 rebels and crammed into a single bamboo
hut without a toilet, she said the hostages were hungry and
dehydrated after suffering diarrhea caused by drinking
contaminated water.

Their feet were bruised from hours of walking and they were
now "too weak to move," she said, adding that some of the
captives were wearing only the bathing suits they were dressed in
when they were abducted off the Borneo coast a week ago.