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May 9, 2000, Los Angeles Times / Seattle Times, Politics aside, Philippine kidnapping is for money, by David Lamb,

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May 9, 2000, Los Angeles Times / Seattle Times, Politics aside, Philippine kidnapping is for money, by David Lamb

JOLO, Philippines - Nur Mutalib has been through this before. In fact, he has negotiated so many releases of hostages over the years that he's lost track. But one thing he knows for sure - the captives' release always comes down to one issue: money.

Once again, the Libyan-trained former guerrilla has been called on by the government to negotiate the end to a hostage crisis.

Eleven miles southeast of here, on fog-shrouded Mount Daho, near a coconut plantation in the town of Talipao, 20 foreign hostages snatched April 23 from a Malaysian resort are being held by Islamic rebels known as Abu Sayyaf - a group that has no political agenda and no practiced ideology but calls for the creation of a Muslim state.

"If the army does not try to invade, the rebels will not kill the hostages. That's definite," Mutalib, 49, who heads the government's nine-member front-line negotiating team, said yesterday. "We can negotiate a peaceful conclusion. But if the army attacks, then there's a problem.

"This case with the foreigners is different from others I've dealt with for two reasons," Mutalib said. "First, you've got the army in a threatening posture in the area. And second, many of these hostages are Europeans, and the rebels may assume they're rich."

Mutalib said his representatives visited the hostages yesterday and brought in a Jeep-load of food and medicine. Negotiations began May 1 but were suspended the next day when rebels skirmished with government troops ringing the stronghold. Talks had not resumed because Abu Sayyaf had not stated its demands.

Unlike a splinter group, Abu Sayyaf Basilan, which has tortured and beheaded captives on the nearby island of Basilan, the group on Jolo, known as Abu Sayyaf Sulu, never has killed a hostage. But negotiations Mutalib has led in the past often have dragged on for months, and he has no reason to believe these will be any shorter.

On Sunday, for instance, Abu Sayyaf released a Philippine bank clerk, Patrick Viray, whose father is American. Viray was kidnapped Feb. 5 while bicycling and held for a while with the group of foreign hostages at Talipao. He had been captured by freelance kidnappers and sold to Abu Sayyaf, which originally requested $40,000 for his release but after two months of talks settled for the going rate, about $5,000.

Mutalib said that when negotiations resume for the release of the foreigners - 10 Malaysians, a German family of three, a South African couple, two French nationals, two Finnish men and a Lebanese, being held along with a Filipina - his first move will be to try to persuade the rebels to free two ailing hostages. They are a Frenchman and a 57-year-old German woman with a heart problem.

Abu Sayyaf, which means "Sword of the Father," had only about 200 armed and trained men when it kidnapped 27 schoolchildren, teachers and a priest March 20 on the adjacent island of Basilan, where the Philippine government responded by attacking the rebels' base camp. Since then, Philippine intelligence sources say, the group has recruited about 400 more young fighters by giving each a $500 bonus and promising a share of the ransom the release of the foreigners could bring.

Philippine President Joseph Estrada, under international pressure to solve the crisis peacefully, has promised that his troops will not risk the hostages' lives by launching an attack, and has reiterated the government policy of not paying ransom. But virtually every kidnapping in the Philippines is resolved in secret monetarily - sometimes with stacks of pesos concealed in bags of rice that rebels have demanded for the poor.

About 2,000 Philippine troops have established a loose cordon around Talipao.

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