Negotiators consulting with Estrada on talks to free Philippines hostages

Jim Gomez

Sunday, May 21, 2000 | 10:48 a.m.

JOLO, Philippines - Negotiators were in Manila on Sunday to consult with President Joseph Estrada before finally beginning talks on freeing a group of Western and Asian hostages kidnapped by Muslim guerrillas 29 days ago.

Once the president agrees, negotiations could begin as soon as Monday on the island of Jolo, in the southern Philippines, where the 21 hostages were taken after they were snatched from a Malaysian diving resort.

Formal talks have been delayed by skirmishes between the rebels and troops, frequent changes in the government negotiating team, and disputes over security arrangements for negotiations.

Police Chief Candido Casimiro was awaiting orders to secure the area where talks are to take place, near the mountain hide-out where the Abu Sayyaf rebels are holding three Germans, two French, two Finns, two South Africans, a Lebanese, nine Malaysians and two Filipinos kidnapped on April 23.

All the negotiators and all five members of the rebel leadership are expected at the meeting, chief negotiator Robert Aventajado said Saturday.

He and Libyan envoy Abdul Rajab Azzarouq were in Manila to talk with Estrada on Sunday, and planned to return to Jolo on Monday. Talks could begin upon their arrival.

Meanwhile, Malaysia on Sunday defended a meeting between its ambassador and the rebels that had been criticized as threatening to disrupt negotiations for talks.

"The Malaysian ambassador was given no mandate to conduct any negotiations with the abductors," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said in a statement Sunday. "The meeting was only held to listen to the true reasons behind their actions and not to start negotiations."

Malaysian Ambassador Manzoor Hussein Arshad met with the rebels on Thursday.

At their hoped for meeting, Aventajado expects the rebels to submit a document outlining their demands, and a response to the government's request that they free an ill German hostage as a show of good will.

The Abu Sayyaf, the smaller and more radical of two guerrilla groups fighting for an Islamic state in the impoverished southern Philippines, brought world attention to a rebellion that has simmered for decades when they kidnapped the group of tourists and employees from the Malaysian island of Sipadan and brought them to the jungle on Jolo, about an hour away.

More than 200,000 people have been displaced by rising violence in the region since last month, when the military attacked a 10-mile stretch of highway held for five years by the larger rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The MILF walked out of peace talks as a result, but is considering the government's offer to return to the table on May 30.

The Abu Sayyaf is also holding about eight Filipino hostages on the island of Basilan, near Jolo.

Though fighting and most bomb attacks are limited to scattered areas of the region, home to the mostly Christian country's Muslim minority, police and troops are on alert nationwide.

Grenade attacks and a bomb in the busy markets in Jolo and the city of Zamboanga, on the nearby island of Mindanao, killed eight people on Thursday and wounded 55 more.

A day earlier, a three-to-five pound bomb exploded in an upscale Manila shopping center, wounding at least 13 people.

No immediate link was announced to the Muslim rebels threatening to bring the war to the cities, but authorities are sending fragments of the bomb to the United States for testing.

The Abu Sayyaf's preliminary demands have ranged from money to the creation of an Islamic state.

Once they receive a written list, negotiators hope to find common ground with the rebels by focusing on demands that can be met quickly, and lead to the release of the hostages.

Political goals are more complicated. The government has already refused to grant an independent state.