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April 29, 2000, The Philippine Star, Editorial, Reduce them to ashes

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genocidal rhetoric

April 29, 2000, The Philippine Star, EditorialReduce them to ashes


He might reduce the Abu Sayyaf to ashes, President Estrada warned yesterday in a local pun on the Tagalog word for ash. If he knows what's good for this country, the President would make good his threat. The Abu Sayyaf, which represents the extreme form of the Muslim cause in Mindanao, has put the country in the international spotlight for the past few days, all for the wrong reasons. The group's terrorist activities, while confined only to a small part of Mindanao, has given the impression that the entire island is Asia's Kosovo.
Because of travel advisories issued to foreign travelers, some people abroad may have the impression that even Metro Manila suffers from the same lawlessness.

Violence in any form must be condemned, but it has been said that war is sometimes necessary to bring peace. In this sense, we cheer on the soldiers who finally penetrated yesterday the Abu Sayyaf's main camp in the hinterlands of Basilan. Other governments whose nationals are among the Abu Sayyaf's hostages
have offered to go after the rebels, and Philippine troops are under pressure to prove that they can resolve this by themselves, thank you.

In reducing the Abu Sayyaf to ashes, it would help if Armed Forces chief Angelo Reyes and national police chief Panfilo Lacson would defer their chit-chat with Americans in Hawaii and concentrate on the crisis in their own backyard. Malaysia, from whose resort island 21 hostages were taken by pirates, is
sending its police chief to Mindanao. Legislators can also do their part by passing laws imposing stiff penalties on persons who abet terrorism, including those who serve as couriers and lookouts for kidnappers. A report yesterday said ransom kidnapping has become one of the few growth industries in Sulu.

As for the handful of radicals now marching in Manila to protest the military offensive, their better option is to distance themselves as far as possible from the violence and terrorism of the Abu Sayyaf. Since its organization, this group has given Islam no-thing but a black eye before the world. In whatever religion, extremism has no place.

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