Taiwanese to Philippine Marines: Thank You for Saving Me!

A Taiwanese tourist whose husband was killed by gunmen in a kidnapping incident at a Malaysian island resort returned to Taiwan yesterday and thanked Filipino soldiers who rescued her in southern Philippines.

Television footage showed Chang An-wei, 58, dressed in a loose T-shirt and wearing sunglasses, walking to a minibus parked at an airport near Taipei after she arrived early afternoon, waving briefly to the media and giving a thumbs-up sign.

Taiwanese media said she is expected to go to a hospital in Taipei for medical check-ups later yesterday.
Chang was found by Philippine Marines at a village near Talipao, a town on the remote island of Jolo where Abu Sayyaf Islamic militants are known to operate, and was taken to a local military hospital for a medical check-up on Friday.

“I think I just want to say I deeply appreciate the Philippine military for giving me such a big help and assistance to rescue me. Thank you very much,” Chang said in English in a pre-recorded message aired by several Taiwanese news channels yesterday.

Chang and her husband Hsu Li-min were holidaying on Pom Pom island in Sabah state, which is near the Sulu island group that includes Jolo, when gunmen attacked on Nov. 15, kidnapping her and killing her husband, according to Taiwanese officials and media.

Foreign ministry officials in Taiwan said that Hsu’s body was cremated in Malaysia and that his family brought back his ashes to Taiwan last month.

Taiwanese media said Chang’s family allegedly paid the kidnappers around $300,000 in ransom to secure her release.

“She was not abused ... the kidnappers wanted money, not her life,” Chang’s brother Chang Ta-kung said.
He declined to disclose any detail relating to the negotiations for her release.

Local authorities said the identities of Chang’s kidnappers were unknown, though Abu Sayyaf gunmen who are known to carry out kidnappings operate in the area.

A Jordanian television reporter, Bakr Atyani, walked free from a Jolo jungle earlier this month, 18 months after he was abducted by the Islamist militants. 

The Abu Sayyaf is a small Islamist movement that has been blamed for a string of terrorist attacks and kidnappings of foreigners in the Philippines.

US Special Forces have been rotating through Jolo and other parts of the southern Philippines for more than a decade to train local troops battling the group, which is on Washington’s list of “foreign terrorist organisations”.

Abu Sayyaf gunmen are believed still to hold a number of foreign as well as Filipino hostages in Jolo, including two European birdwatchers and a Japanese treasure hunter, according to local officials.
It was founded with seed money from Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network to fight for an independent Islamic state, though it later turned into a criminal gang.

Dutchman Ewold Horn and Lorenzo Vinciguerra of Switzerland were abducted in the Tawi-Tawi island group near Jolo in February last year, while Amer Mamaito Katayama of Japan was abducted on the island of Pangutaran near Jolo in July 2010.

Source

Abu Sayyaf threatens to kill hostage despite Pope's appeal

03/31/2009 | 09:15 AM

MANILA, Philippines — Al-Qaeda-linked militants in the southern Philippines said they will stick to a Tuesday deadline to behead a Red Cross hostage unless government troops withdraw from the area, raising stakes in the 10-week crisis despite appeals from Pope Benedict XVI and others to free the three captives.

"The decision of the group is to behead if there will be no pullout," Abu Sayyaf commander Abu Ali told The Associated Press in a cell phone text message Tuesday from the militant jungle stronghold on Jolo island.

"There will be no extension of the deadline for the pullout and we have no plan to release any hostage if there will be no pullout," he said.

Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno said Monday it was impossible for the government to vacate 15 Jolo villages by 2 p.m. Tuesday as demanded by the militants a day earlier. He said there was not enough time and that a wider pullout would leave the island's civilian population exposed to militant attacks.

Puno hinted the government was ready to use force if the militants harm any of the hostages. Some 120 gunmen have held the aid workers — Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba, Swiss Andreas Notter and Italian Eugenio Vagni — in a hilly jungle in Jolo's Indanan town since Jan. 15. Until a recent withdrawal, they were surrounded by more than 1,000 troops.

Conceding to earlier militant demands, the marines withdrew to their camp last week, and police and militiamen moved back from the Abu Sayyaf stronghold by six to nine miles (10-15 kilometers), hoping the group would release one hostage.

But the militants insisted the troops must pull back to two villages near the provincial capital — a demand the government says would lead to anarchy.

At the Vatican on Monday, the Pope appealed for the release of the hostages, urging that "humanitarian sense and reason win out over violence and intimidation." He called for authorities to work for a peaceful solution.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross reiterated his appeals for the hostages' freedom.

"Our message to Abu Sayyaf is: Please spare and release Mary Jean, Eugenio and Andreas," said Jakob Kellenberger. "All they were doing was helping people in need in your area. There is no ideology or religious law that could justify killing them."

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's spokesman, Cerge Remonde, also said he hoped "these bandits have a sense of humanity" and release the hostages.

The hostages were seized after visiting a water project for a jail on Jolo, about 590 miles (950 kilometers) south of Manila.

The Abu Sayyaf group has beheaded hostages in the past, including an American in 2001 as well as seven Filipinos in 2007.

The US government has placed the Abu Sayyaf, which has about 400 gunmen, on its list of terrorist organizations. - AP

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/154878/Abu-Sayyaf-threatens-to-kill-hostage-despite-Popes-appeal