This breaking news about the pullout of government forces surrounding the Abu Sayyaf encampment in Sulu is welcome news but the 10 weel-old crisis is really far from over.
Malacanang earlier today rejected the ASG demand for a military pull-out.
It took a rare appeal from the president of the Inteenational Committee of the Red Cross for the government to blink
http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/philippines-news-270309?opendocument
Abu Sayyaf chieftain Albader Parad has not really withdrawn his threat to behead in the next 36 hours, but at least a window will be created to allow fuller negotiations to proceed.
Mary Grace Lacaba, Andreas Notter and Eugenio Vagni’s lives still hang in the balance.
Just this morning Philippine National Red Cross Secretary Genera’ Cora Alma De Leon told me how desperate the situation was getting.
We spoke on the sidelines of a blood donation session organized jointly in Quezon City by the PNRC and ScoutAreaOnLine (http://scoutareaonline.com/frontpage.html).
“Our humanitarian work in Sulu has sadly been affected by this hostage crisis even as our volunteers there are committed to continue their work in the area of conflict,” De Leon, former Social Welfare Secretary said.
“We urge the public to join us in praying for the safe release of the three ICRC workers with the government heeding calls for restraint, the PNRC secretary general said.
From the blood donation activity the PNRC official had to rush to EDSA Shrine for the interfaith prayer rally for the ICRC hostages.
Well that call has been heard.
The 15-kilometer “humanitarian corridor” that Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno says is designed allow the release of at least one of the hostages, Mary Jane, but the crisis’ resolution is not yet at hand.
The question is how and when the male Swiss and Italian captives will next be freed.
Addendum:
I am quoting in full the Ageance France Presse dispatch on this continuing story:
The Philippines has agreed to move troops from a southern jungle area in a bid to save three kidnapped Red Cross workers threatened with beheading, an official said on Saturday.
Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno said the troop withdrawal demanded by the kidnappers should be completed within 36 hours, clearing the path for one of the three International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) staff to be freed.
Puno said about 600 to 800 police and pro-government militiamen who have cordoned off the jungle area where the hostages are believed to be would pull back to allow the kidnappers to release them.
“We have decided to remove the portion of the cordon surrounding them,” he told reporters in the southern city of Zamboanga, adding that the pull-out would begin later on Saturday.
“I think we are more than bending over backwards in order that the kidnappers will not feel threatened.”
“This is a very, very dramatic and important concession being made by the government,” he said. “This is a very difficult step for us to take.”
Members of the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic militant group the Abu Sayyaf seized Filipina Mary Jean Lacaba, Swiss national Andreas Notter and Italian Eugenio Vagni on the southern island of Jolo on January 15.
Abu Sayyaf leader Albader Parad has threatened to behead one of them unless the military withdraws from the area by Monday, but said one would go free if the demand was met.
Puno said Jolo’s governor Abdusakur Tan spoke to Parad to inform of the decision, and the rebel leader responded by saying he knew exactly how many policemen were in the area and he would be closely watching.
Saturday’s announcement represents a major turnaround for the government, coming just a day after Puno himself declared there was “no possibility” it would give in to the rebels’ demands.
Hours later, the head of the ICRC issued a rare public appeal for the gunmen to unconditionally free the hostages.
The aid organisation rarely speaks out on political issues for fear of jeopardising its neutrality.
“I am asking for their safe, unconditional and immediate release,” the head of the ICRC Jakob Kellenberger said in a statement late on Friday.
“It is impossible to understand what the kidnappers could possibly achieve by hurting them.”
On Friday, local television station ABS-CBN television broadcast fresh footage of the hostages looking haggard. It was not clear when the images were filmed, but the broadcaster said it was proof that the three remained alive.
Puno said on Saturday the police officers would return to barracks some 15 kilometres (10 miles) away from the jungle area, while the Marines had already been repositioned. He said this would also create “an area of non-aggression that is about 120 to 140 square kilometres.”
“We are also asking them (the kidnappers) to comply with their earlier promise as a sign of good faith,” he said.
The interior secretary stressed that troops would not leave the island altogether, but would continue to secure towns and villages there.
Parad’s group tried to break through the cordon early this month, triggering clashes that left three Marines dead and 19 others wounded.
The militant leader was also wounded in the clashes, although he has defiantly taunted the troops in calls to radio and television stations the past week.
Founded in the 1990s by Afghan-trained firebrand Abubakar Abdurajak Janjalani to fight for an independent Islamic state, the Abu Sayyaf is the smallest, but most radical of Muslim groups in the southern Philippines.
Abdurajak was killed in a clash with police in 1998 and the group degenerated into a terrorist organisation specialising in bombings, extortion and high profile kidnappings.
It is blamed for the country’s worst terrorist attacks, and is believed to have established links with the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group. The group has been known to behead its captives.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i6IM_soE1Rf7pZdFDdobeHmLiB4A
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Well Ding, you just preempted my further rant in DJB’ thread. :)
I dunno. When blogging, journalists should discard their newsman’s hats. Blogging is about exchange of views, not news. :)
Hope this drama ends peacefully.
You know, it’s really bad form to be embedding text in an image file…
Pinas bank-robbery syndicates should take note, because the message is Filipinos will always surrender “…once you get a hostage any hostage.”
We are playing into the hands of the Terrorists. Sounds like in
Fallujah, Iraq during the Al Queda reign in the Iraq province.
Next will be beheading on TV.
what can you expect from forces of evil? honor? goof faith? mercy?
the government has been taken for a fool again. instead of capitulation, albeit temporarily, it should have flooded the region with all the force at its command (and recruited more, if necessary) to obliterate all these cold-blooded criminals cum rebels. if, in the process, the hostages lose their lives, then they should be honored and remembered as heroes and martyrs to the cause of peace, law and order, and general weal, like countless others before them in the course of human history.
The situation is sadly going from bad to worse. HBow many times before that military authorities tagged the ASG as “having been decimated, its leadership practically eliminated or it being just a rag tag group.
Now thugs like Albader Parad can thump his chest as having forced Manila to cede back a part of Sulu had already taken control of.
Phil ~Manila, blogging is, well, blogging :)
Remember the origin? Web log :)
Not all journalists blog. Bloggera are not all journalists.
What? Si Parad, napa-atras ang pwersa ng gobierno? Eh, mukhang may sipon pa sa ilong ang batang iyon sa picture.
Bert,
Kung iyong maalala, ang isang malungkot na katotohanan ay maging sa Afghanistan at Iraq ang ‘jihadists ay taktika na gumamit ng mga kabataang mandirigma. Si Parad ay malinaw na datihan nang guerilla at bihasa.
May mga ulat ring tumukoy na siya’y aral sa Islamic fundamentalism?
Ding,
Usually when one side “blinks” in a struggle, that side loses because it was actually just bluffing or always knew it was in the wrong. “To blink” is an admission of that bluff or dissimulation.
Did you intend such an interpretation in this case?
Yes.
The Abu Sayyaf had said it is not demanding ransom but only the withdrawal of government forces for the release of Lacaba, Notter and Vagni. – Philippine Daily Inquirer
In this crisis, maybe one crucial step to take is to know who is really the brain behind the kidnapping of these ICRC workers. Until the mastermind is known, how can the crisis committee deal with the real demand? Is this case a plain Kidnap-For-Ransom (KFR) or is it a move to force the GRP back to the negotiating table very soon? Or is it both?
Because of partial news block-out about this matter, we are left with different speculations from various sources. Sometimes partial information is misleading.
Considering the length of days this problem has already taken, don’t we think the authorities already know all there is to know about this crisis and what appropriate actions they need to take? Or perhaps they are playing some kind of a game?
What about the ever interested “foreign meddlers”? What are their involvements? Who is really calling the shots? To pay or not to pay.
Further, Manong DLB,
Sec. Puno, the tactician that he is,knows that caving in to a “bandit group” is a signal that this government backs down with a gun pointed to its head. Even the ICRC knows this.
This is not to say there is dishonor in giving paramount value to life. Never.
But this truly is a dangerous game.
It is still playing out. As the hours pass, the ASG is already tallying the bill for ‘board of lodging’ it will send Ronnie Puno.
Non-malignant,
The ASG, despite its posturings as a solo-standing unit continues as may be necessary from time to time to operate parallel its ideological soul mate, the MILF, while having the mantle of deniability.
As Gen. Douglas McArthur has stated in his doctrine during the
Korean War: “There is no substitute for victory.” This is from
a battle tested Warrior and General.
Ding,
As bloggers we are basically literary critics. It is actually quite rare that bloggers themselves make news, and Bambee makes the perfect example of the rare exception.
However, I must say that “Manila Blinks in Sulu Crisis” is an attempt at following the news around and putting a particular opinionated spin upon it.
“To blink” in a deadly life and death struggle is to admit a kind of moral defeat, which you now seem to be urging us to accept as fact in this case.
It simply is not. The govt has not “blinked” but has been forced into the only thing that could perhaps save the lives of those three hostages.
You seem to be taking the side of the Abu Sayyaf in fact, by making this entirely unwarranted opinion about a still breaking news event.
I completely disagree with this portrayal of events. We do not know what the purpose or even the true nature is of govt troop movements, rescue efforts, negotiations, plans or orther arrangements.
To say that the govt has blinked in unwarranted innuendo.
Well you are certainly welcome to your point of view Dean, but asserting that I am siding with the terrorists is quite overblown.
I stand by mine.
Incidentally, do you think the Philippines would not be “the beheading capital” as you yourself noted had Manila not blinked in many instances past?
You know where the ASG sources its weapons? Check your news network.
Incidentally among the conversations I had yesterday were with Filipino Muslims from Maguindanao. Care to join us for coffee soon along with Halal food, of course?
“blench”
It’s a never-ending story.
The protagonists:
-the Government
-mnlf/milf/asg/lost command-(one body with many characters/names)
-the victims
Plots of the story: a mystery/a conspiracy/a thriller/a love story/a drama
Pattern of the story: kidnap-ransom-behead/killings-sometimes release
kidnap-ransom-behead/killings-sometimes release
kidnap-ransom-behead/killings-sometimes release
repeat, repeat, repeat…………………….
Ending: No ending
Lesson of the story: inutil ang gobierno natin, natutulog sa pansitan.
By the way, here’s something from MSM:
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/nation/regions/03/28/09/govt-blinks-pulls-out-troops-asg-lair
Enroll now at HRT school in beautiful chilly Quantico VA. Then TNT ka.
Allah hakkia habibi. So we all look forward to a stop of more Parad like characters. Insha-allah.
Gets worst when the younger ones take over command does it?
Parad. Thats one mean ‘motha’ with bad beheading habits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49LBrMmJU4c