Conflicts, guns, misery spawn kidnappings
MANILA — The recent abductions of three Westerners and a Filipina from a southern Philippine resort are the latest reminder of the longrunning security problems that have hounded a region with bountiful resources and promises, but hamstrung by stark poverty and an array of insurgents and outlaws.
While authorities have not identified the abductors with certainty, there is one usual suspect: the Abu Sayyaf group, a brutal al Qaedalinked organization that has pulled off mass kidnappings for ransom in the last 15 years in the south and in neighboring Malaysia.
“The primary suspect is ASG,” regional military commander Lt. Gen. Aurelio Baladad said Thursday. He added, however, that there have been no conclusive findings on the kidnappers’ identities.
Under cover of darkness, at least 11 men armed with two rifles and pistols barged into the Holiday Ocean View Samal Resort on southern Samal Island shortly before midnight on Sunday and then headed toward yachts docked at a marina, according to the military and police.
In less than 20 minutes, the kidnappers herded at gunpoint Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, the resort’s marina manager, and Filipino Teresita Flor, to two motor boats.
An American and his Japanese female companion fought back and were injured, but escaped by jumping off their yacht, said Senior Superintendent Samuel Gadingan, the police chief of Davao del Norte province, where Samal is located, about 600 miles southeast of the capital, Manila.
Aside from the Abu Sayyaf, investigators have considered the possible involvement of a small extortion gang of former Muslim and communist guerrillas, who have an active presence in the vast Davao region. The latter, however, have in the past publicly declared their abductions, mostly of government troops, within days of seizing them, according to Gadingan.
It remains uncertain which group is behind the latest abduction, but the conditions that foster such crimes are much clearer: a volatile mix of poverty, weak law enforcement and access to thousands of unlicensed firearms in the south, said Julkipli Wadi, dean of the Institute for Islamic Studies at the state-run University of the Philippines.
It’s very likely, too, that those deep-seated social ills would not be solved anytime soon and kidnappings will continue, he said.
“These are generational problems that are difficult to be solved by presidents who are restricted to six-year terms and often lack political will,” Wadi said.
Kidnappings for ransom have preceded the Abu Sayyaf. But the group started an alarming trend of large-scale abductions after it emerged in the early 2000s as an offshoot of the decades-long separatist rebellion by minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation’s south.
The rewards for Abu Sayyaf kidnappers have been relatively huge. Aside from the money, kidnap victims have been used as human shields to preempt government offensives. High-profile abductions also have allowed the militants to capture the attention of foreign terrorist networks, a confidential government security assessment report said.
Last year, the militants were estimated to have pocketed more than $6 million in ransom from the kidnappings of 59 people, said the report. .