Efforts on to locate hostages

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, APRIL 25. The hostage crisis, sparked by the abduction of eight nationals of Malaysia and a dozen foreign tourists at a diving resort off the Sabah coast, dragged on for a second day, even as Kuala Lumpur acted in concert with neighbouring Philippines in evolving a rescue strategy.

The Malaysian Defence Minister, Mr. Najib Tun Razak, said in Kuala Lumpur today that the 20 hostages were now outside Malaysian territorial waters. But he would not say whether the kidnappers - suspected pirates with presumptive links to the Abu Sayyaf group of anti-Manila Islamist rebels - had taken their captives to their land sanctuaries in the Philippines. Meanwhile, the Filipino military offensive against the Abu Sayyaf group continued for yet another day. Mr. Najib said the Malaysian authorities were aware of the whereabouts of the abductors.

The Malaysian armed forces had deployed a maritime patrol aircraft and a naval boat to scout for the hostages, Mr. Najib said, without going into details of the actual rescue mission and the scope of the joint efforts by Kuala Lumpur and Manila in this regard. He only said that they were hopeful of some `positive developments' soon.

This hope was shared by the Philippines, whose Defence Secretary, Mr. Orlando Mercado, indicated that Manila was looking at the possibility that the suspected pirates and their captives were somewhere in the southern part of the Filipino territory. He said that Manila was assessing the possibility, too, that the Abu Sayyaf group might have engineered the abduction at Sipadan island off the Sabah coast so as to divert the attention of the Filipino armed forces which had now laid `siege' around this rebel outfit's strongholds. The group itself allowed the guessing game about its suspected involvement in the pirate-action to persist. The prime focus in the Filipino strategy of collaborating with the Malaysian authorities was the perceived need to fight terrorism as a `global' phenomenon.

On a different plane, stung by the potential impact of the Sipadan incident on Malaysia's image, the Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, said today `it will affect tourism in Sabah.' But `the rest of the country is not affected by this.' Malaysia, he asserted, `is very safe for tourists.'

He said `we don't get this kind of things happening in Malaysia very often.'

On the identity of the abductors, Dr. Mahathir said he did not want to accuse anyone as investigations were on. As a country with a Muslim-majority, Malaysia needs to weigh the legitimate aspirations, as distinct from militant tactics, of Islamic groups in other parts of South-East Asia such as the Philippines. Indonesia, which had played a role in the past in helping Manila in regard to its Muslim `insurgency' issues, is another key player in regional politics of this kind, and Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur share a maritime neighbourhood where some territorial delineations in the Sipadan area are of mutual interest.

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