The International Committee of the Red Cross released this undated photo of Swiss Andreas Notter, who was kidnapped along with Italian Eugene Vagni and Filipino Jean Lacaba, all members of the ICRC, on Thursday, January 15, 2009 in Patikul town in Sulu, one of five provinces under the Muslim autonomous region in Mindanao. (ICRC, HO).
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Jan. 15, 2009) – Suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels abducted Thursday 3 members of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern Filipino island of Sulu, officials said.
The trio – Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipino Jean Lacaba – were seized near Patikul town, said Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan. “I have ordered police and military forces to pursue the abductors. There will be no let-up in this operation,” he said.
Tan, chairman of the local crisis management committee, said provincial guards and security forces have recovered the Red Cross vehicle on a village in Patikul. “We will not stop until we get them back safely,” said Tan, who is supervising the rescue operation in Patikul town.
Marine Lt. Gen. Nelson Allaga, chief of the Western Mindanao Command, said the ICRC team was inspecting humanitarian works in Sulu when they were seized on the road. “It must have been a chance opportunity for the abductors,” he said.
The military said it tried to stop the ICRC workers from going unescorted to Patikul, but they insisted. “They were duly advised about the security situation in the island, but being a neutral organization, had denied (military) armed escorts,” said Lt. Stefanni Cacho, a regional army spokeswoman.
Cacho said there is a probability the Abu Sayyaf was behind the abduction.
Tan had previously ordered the police and military to escort foreigners and journalists working in Sulu because of threats of kidnappings by Abu Sayyaf rebels after they snatched a Filipino television presenter Ces Drilon and her cameramen Jimmy Encarnacion and Angelo Valderama, including their guide Prof. Octavio Dinampo while on a clandestine coverage on June 8 last year.
The four were freed weeks later after private negotiators paid P20 million ransom.
The trio – Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipino Jean Lacaba – were seized near Patikul town, said Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan. “I have ordered police and military forces to pursue the abductors. There will be no let-up in this operation,” he said.
Tan, chairman of the local crisis management committee, said provincial guards and security forces have recovered the Red Cross vehicle on a village in Patikul. “We will not stop until we get them back safely,” said Tan, who is supervising the rescue operation in Patikul town.
Marine Lt. Gen. Nelson Allaga, chief of the Western Mindanao Command, said the ICRC team was inspecting humanitarian works in Sulu when they were seized on the road. “It must have been a chance opportunity for the abductors,” he said.
The military said it tried to stop the ICRC workers from going unescorted to Patikul, but they insisted. “They were duly advised about the security situation in the island, but being a neutral organization, had denied (military) armed escorts,” said Lt. Stefanni Cacho, a regional army spokeswoman.
Cacho said there is a probability the Abu Sayyaf was behind the abduction.
Tan had previously ordered the police and military to escort foreigners and journalists working in Sulu because of threats of kidnappings by Abu Sayyaf rebels after they snatched a Filipino television presenter Ces Drilon and her cameramen Jimmy Encarnacion and Angelo Valderama, including their guide Prof. Octavio Dinampo while on a clandestine coverage on June 8 last year.
The four were freed weeks later after private negotiators paid P20 million ransom.
Abu Sayyaf militants are still holding a kidnapped a Chinese trader, Xili Wu alias Peter Go, in Sulu since last month. Four militants seized the 28-year old Wu, from Fujian province, as he was closing his electronics store in Jolo town on December 13.
Police said Wu, along with five other Chinese men, arrived in Jolo in December 2007 and since then operated the Perlas Trading by using fake Filipino identities.
Authorities tagged the Abu Sayyaf group as behind the spate of kidnappings and bomb attacks across Mindanao. The Abu Sayyaf, which means "The Bearer of the Sword," has been labeled a terrorist organization by both Manila and Washington, and is believed by the US to have links with the al-Qaeda terror network. (Mindanao Examiner)
1 comment:
Money will be changing hands and those who kidnapped the IRC team, the incoming kidnap intermediaries and naturally, the moneybag men (or women) will be several million pesos or dollars richer when the transaction is over.
It is unbelievable how the Philippines manages to stay afloat despite the lawlessness that has been the nation's stamp of existence eversince Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ousted then president Joseph Estrada in a carefully planned coup d'état that she and her husband hatched for more than a year.
Without doubt and despite the nation's generally lawless environment, the nation's systematic and profitable deployment of its citizens as cheap human labour - mostly to uncharterred territories the world over bringing in billions of dollars thus greasing the wheels of the nation's mismanaged economy, has allowed the country to at least hobble on one leg. And of course, the kidnap for ransom industry in the Southern Philippines counts as profitable businesses for a certain sector.
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