Is the US funding, aiding and abetting terroists through ransom payments?
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Forwarded to you by BuzzFlash:
U.S. Tied to Ransom Deal with Bin Laden Allies
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=4&cid=578&u=/nm/20020412/ts_nm/philippines_hostages_usa_dc_6
Fri Apr 12, 4:00 AM ET
By Raju Gopalakrishnan
MANILA (Reuters) - A senior U.S. official said Washington helped pay ransom last month
to Muslim guerrillas in the Philippines linked to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites),
but the Manila government said on Friday that no such incident took place.
Residents on the southern Philippine island of Basilan, where the Abu Sayyaf
guerrillas are holed up, said the reports of the payment of $300,000 for the release
of two American missionaries were true.
The missionaries -- Martin and Gracia Burnham -- are still in the custody of the
guerrillas. They were kidnapped over 10 months ago and have been held since on
Basilan, a remote, mountainous and forested island.
A U.S. official told Reuters in Washington that the ransom was handed over to an
intermediary of the Abu Sayyaf several weeks ago and confirmed television reports that
the government helped arrange the payment.
Washington has previously linked the Abu Sayyaf to the al Qaeda network of Saudi-born
militant Osama bin Laden, who it blames for the September 11 attacks on the United
States.
Over 650 American troops, including some 150 elite special forces, are in the southern
Philippines for joint exercises with the local military to help vanquish the Abu
Sayyaf. All the special forces and thousands of local troops are fanned out across
Basilan.
Brigadier Donald Wurster -- special forces chief for the U.S. Pacific Command -- told
Reuters in nearby Zamboanga City that the six-month time-frame of the exercises, which
ends in June, could be extended and the number of U.S. forces could be increased.
However, details were still being worked out, he said.
Wurster refused to comment on the ransom payment report.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Manila said he would not like to comment on
individual reports, but U.S. policy was not to give in to demands from kidnappers.
Provincial officials in Basilan said they had heard the money was handed over to
intermediaries late last month, but that either the money had not reached the Abu
Sayyaf or was deemed insufficient.
"Maybe the money went to the wrong people," said one official. "Or the Abu Sayyaf will
not release them until some more money comes in."
MANILA DENIAL
Philippine National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said the reports from Washington were
incorrect.
"The story has no basis and is apparently not true," he told Reuters. "Ransom is
against U.S. and Philippine government policy."
Philippine military spokesman Brigadier Generoso Senga said some private parties may
be involved in ransom negotiations with the guerrillas.
"It's possible that some private individuals acting on their own outside of government
could be attempting to negotiate for their release," he said. "As far as both
governments are concerned, we have a no-negotiation no-ransom policy."
According to local media reports, the Abu Sayyaf has been demanding $2 million for the
Burnhams.
U.S. television networks NBC and ABC, citing unnamed sources, reported that the U.S.
government helped arrange a ransom payment of $300,000 in private money that was given
to an individual about a month ago.
The reports said U.S. officials had not been able to verify whether the money had been
passed on to Abu Sayyaf.
Asked to comment on the reports, State Department spokeswoman Eliza Koch said: "The
United States continues to work closely with the government of the Philippines in its
effort to secure the safe release of the hostages and to bring the kidnappers to
justice."
Abu Sayyaf is a rag-tag group of gunmen who nominally claim they are fighting for an
independent Muslim state in the south of the Roman Catholic Philippines.
They sprang to notoriety two years ago after kidnapping over a dozen Western tourists
from a beach resort in neighboring Malaysia and later made about $20 million in
ransom.
The group kidnapped the Burnhams and 18 others from another beach resort in the
western Philippines in May last year. Most of hostages have been released in exchange
for ransom, but another American and some others have been executed.
Other bandit gangs are also heavily involved in kidnapping in the lawless southern
Philippines and ransom is involved in almost all the cases where victims are safely
released.
Giuseppe Pierantoni, an Italian priest who was freed from the custody of a bandit gang
earlier this week after five months in captivity, denied government claims that police
had raided the hideout of his captors and rescued him.
"We walked for about 12 hours from the interior to near the coast," Pierantoni told
Reuters on Friday, describing how he was set free.
"We got maybe 200 meters from the highway and then we waited. The commander (of the
gunmen) talked many times with somebody else on a mobile phone. Finally an ambulance
belonging to the security forces came. The commander accompanied me to the ambulance
and handed me over."
He said the bandits told him that a ransom agreement had been reached, but that he had
no knowledge of whether that was true.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=4&cid=578&u=/nm/20020412/ts_nm/philippines_hostages_usa_dc_6
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