Author:
Publication: The News International
Date: October 19, 2001
PAGADIAN: Security forces on Thursday
mounted a land, air and sea search in the southern Philippines for a gang
of rogue Muslim rebels thought to be behind the kidnapping of an Italian
Roman Catholic missionary, officials said.
Gunmen snatched Giuseppi Pierantoni
on Wednesday night as the 44-year-old from Bologna said mass in the parish
church of Dimataling town. Bishop Zacarias Jimenez of Pagadian told Catholic-run
DXMS radio that a man calling himself "Commander Ramsy" called up the bishop's
residence here and offered himself as an intermediary.
The caller sought 3,000 pesos (58
dollars) up front as a "mobilization budget", but the bishop rejected the
offer because the church did not pay ransom demands. Officials said rogue
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) units could be behind the second snatching
in three years of an Italian priest in rebellion-torn Mindanao island,
home of the mainly Catholic southeast Asian nation's 3.5 million-strong
Muslim minority.
But armed forces chief of staff
General Diomedio Villanueva said the authorities were also looking into
a possible role by the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim rebel group how holding two
American missionaries and nine Filipinos in the southern island of Basilan.
The bishop downplayed links between the abduction and threats by Islamists
of retaliation for the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan. Officials
say the Abu Sayyaf is allied with Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in
last month's deadly terrorist attacks in the United States.
"This is purely a kidnap for ransom
case, but perhaps later on this could be used by other groups in relation
to the Afghanistan and Basilan situations," Jimenez said. The MILF on Thursday
offered to help rescue Pierantoni as part of "confidence-building measures"
amid peace talks with the Philippine government being held this week in
Malaysia.
"The MILF is not involved. It's
probably ordinary bandits," MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said. He recalled
that the 12,500-member MILF had helped negotiate the release of Italian
Catholic priest Luciano Benedetti from another gang in the Lanao region
of Mindanao in 1999. Southern Philippines military chief Lieutenant General
Roy Cimatu said the suspects in the latest kidnapping were a gang led by
Akiddin Abdusalam, who military sources said is an MILF guerrilla leader
in the area.
The military later announced that
Abdusalam and two of his men were arrested at a roadblock near Dimataling
about seven hours before Pierantoni's abduction. Commander Ramsy, the man
who offered to negotiate with the kidnappers, is in fact a member of Abdusalam's
gang, Cimatu said.
He said Abdusalam's group murdered
Irish Catholic priest Rufus Halley in the Lanao region in August. Another
armed gang is holding a Chinese hostage in the Cotabato region of Mindanao.
"We are looking into the angle of bandits who may have escaped toward Malabang,"
Cimatu told reporters. "We have also dispatched aircraft to conduct an
air search in the hope that the pumpboat they used might encounter engine
problems."
Marines and police are searching
the Malabang coast in Lanao del Sur province, east of Dimataling. General
Villanueva said the authorities were looking into links between the MILF
"lost command" holding the priest and the Abu Sayyaf, which has sustained
heavy casualties in Basilan. "It's possible they want (the military operation
in Basilan) to ease up, but we will not allow it." Pierantoni, a member
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus mission, ran an "interfaith dialogue" that
sought to foster understanding between the Christian and Muslim sects.
