April 28, 2000, New York Times, Abduction at Malaysia Resort Reverberates Across Southeast Asia : Fears of Islamic Extremism Grow, by Michael Richardson,

April 28, 2000, New York Times, Abduction at Malaysia Resort Reverberates Across Southeast Asia : Fears of Islamic Extremism Grow, by Michael Richardson, 

SINGAPORE— The armed abduction this week of 21 people, including 10 foreign tourists, from a Malaysian diving resort by Muslim rebels based in the southern Philippines has intensified concerns about the rise of Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia.

As the Philippine government on Thursday sought talks with the gunmen holding the hostages, officials and analysts said that the cross-border kidnapping was a sensitive issue for Indonesia and Malaysia as well as for the Philippines because radical Muslim groups have recently stepped up their activities in all three countries.

"Islamic politics, and relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, are particularly sensitive at present," said a Southeast Asian diplomat in Jakarta referring to the situation in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. "An incident of this kind in one country can easily inflame tensions in the other countries."

The Philippines, the only Asian nation with a Christian majority, has a substantial Muslim minority. Neighboring Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, but also significant numbers of non-Muslims, including Christians. Malaysia, a majority Muslim country, also has a large non-Muslim minority.

In the Philippines, which is predominantly Roman Catholic, the government hopes to resume peace talks Tuesday with the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, even though the Philippine military has been engaged in recent clashes with the front's fighters in central Mindanao, the largest of the southern Philippine islands, which the Muslim minority claims as an ancestral homeland.

If an accord with the front can be reached, and its estimated 10,000 fighters lay down their arms and accept autonomy instead of independence, it would help consolidate peace in a region where sectarian strife in the past few decades has cost tens of thousands of lives.

It would also help to marginalize the much smaller Abu Sayyaf separatist group. Philippine officials say the group regularly resorts to terrorist acts and played a key role in the kidnapping Sunday of the 21 people from Sipadan Island, a diving resort off the coast of the Malaysian state of Sabah.

A spokesman for Joseph Estrada, the Philippine president, said Thursday that the government had accepted an offer from the former Muslim guerrilla leader Nur Misuari to negotiate the release of the hostages. Officials said that the hostages were being held on the southern Philippine island of Jolo in the Sulu Sea, a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf rebels.

Mr. Misuari led a long separatist struggle by the Moro National Liberation Front in the southern Philippines until the group signed a peace agreement with the government in 1996. He is now governor of a semi-autonomous Muslim region comprising four southern provinces, including Jolo.

Many people in the area complain, however, that the development they hoped would result from self-government has fallen far short of their expectations.

Presidential palace sources in Manila said the Abu Sayyaf abductors were demanding a big ransom for their captives.

The Philippine military, in a secret briefing paper, said that Abu Sayyaf — which is thought to have up to 1,000 armed fighters — has well-established links with Islamic militant groups in the Middle East and elsewhere, Agence France-Presse reported from Manila.

Those links, according to the military, include money from the fugitive Saudi financier Osama bin Laden. He is wanted by the United States for allegedly masterminding the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The military briefing paper also reportedly said that the Abu Sayyaf rebels give foreign Islamic militants "sanctuary and other forms of assistance apparently in return for training, logistics, expertise and access to the international terrorist network."

The Indonesian president, Abdurrahman Wahid, a moderate Muslim scholar, offered shortly after his election in October to help bring peace to the Philippines by mediating between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Manila declined the offer after critics in the Philippines accused Mr. Wahid of trying to interfere in the country's internal affairs.

Since then, Mr. Wahid has had to concentrate on damping down independence demands of armed Muslim guerrillas in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh, while conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Moluccas in eastern Indonesia that has claimed at least 3,000 lives in the past year.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of Singapore praised Mr. Wahid recently for being committed to an inclusive and pluralistic vision for Indonesia. He also warned of the dangers involved.

"He is trying to secure the support of the armed forces and get the military to accept civilian leadership, while balancing off some of the very forces that put him into office but who do not share his vision for Indonesia," Mr. Goh told Hong Kong business executives. "If the president fails, Indonesia may unravel. The consequence for the entire region will be horrendous."

That view is shared by the government of Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad in Malaysia, officials said.

They said that Kuala Lumpur had recently intensified measures to prevent Malaysia from being used as a support base for the Aceh separatist movement, and would seek closer cooperation with the Philippine government to deter cross-border activity by extremists.