Abu Sayyaf Group beheads hostages: Full text
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Military officials in the Philippines on April 19, 2007, announced that rebels from the Islamic militant Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) had decapitated seven hostages and then ordered civilians to deliver their severed heads to two army bases on the island of Jolo, in south-western Sulu province. The seven hostages (six Christian construction workers and a 16-year-old Christian boy) were kidnapped at gunpoint during two separate incidents on April 16, near the town of Parang, on Jolo. It was widely reported that the hostages were killed after the company which employed the six construction workers had refused to pay a 5 million peso (US$1.00= 48.053 pesos as at April 16, 2007) ransom for their release.
Immediate Context
The Philippine army had been conducting its latest offensive against ASG militants since August 2006 and claimed to be close to destroying the group. In January 2007, military officials announced that DNA testing had confirmed that human remains disinterred in December 2006 on Jolo were those of Khadafy Janjalani, the ASG’s leader, a position which he assumed after the death in 1998 of his elder brother Abdurazak Janjalani . It was thought that Khadafy Janjalani had been killed during fierce clashes with the army in September 2006. In January 2007 Abu Sulaiman, described as the "brains" of the ASG, was killed during an army attack on a rebel camp near the town of Patikul on Jolo.
ASG militants had been responsible for a campaign of kidnappings, murders, and bombings, including the abduction in April 2000 of 21 people (including 10 foreign tourists) from the resort island of Sipadan, off the north-east coast of Malaysia's Sabah state, on the island of Borneo. In October 2004, six ASG rebels were charged with planting a bomb that caused a fire in February on the Superferry 14 passenger ship, during which at least 116 people died. In August 2004, 17 ASG militants were sentenced to death for their role in a series of kidnappings in 2002. Two of their hostages, US missionary Martin Burnham and Filipina nurse Deborah Yap, were killed in crossfire in June 2002 when the army launched a rescue operation.
Reaction and outlook
In a statement released on April 20, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said that the beheadings had "once again" demonstrated the "ruthlessness" of ASG rebels, adding that the killings had strengthened her "resolve to neutralise" the group, which would not "go unpunished". Major Gen. Ruben Rafael, the Philippines military commander on Jolo island, claimed that the beheadings were "a retaliation" for the killing by government troops of an ASG commander, describing that April 20 killings as "a terrorist act that should be condemned by all''.
Historical context
The population of the Philippines was over 90 million people, some 90 per cent of whom were Christians, whilst around 5 per cent were Muslims. The USA assumed control of the Philippines after victory in the US-Spanish war, forcing Spain to cede the territory, under the Treaty of Paris, in December 1898. Former US President Franklin Roosevelt in 1934 signed the "Philippines Bill" http://www.keesings.com/search?kssp_a_id=1171n02phl&kssp_selected_tab=article , granting the country its independence within 10-12 years, before approving its newly created constitution in March 1935 and terminating US rule over the country, by installing a transitional government in November 1935. Plans for the country to become fully independent were, however, interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, when Japan attacked and occupied the Philippines in December 1941. US forces began to recapture areas of the Philippines in October 1944, before the Japanese surrendered in 1945. The Philippines finally achieved its independence in July 1946, under a new government led by Brig. Gen. Manuel Roxas, who won presidential elections contested in April 1946.
President Ferdinand Marcos, who was first elected in 1965 and ruled until 1986, suspended civil rights in 1971, after a bomb attack in Manila (the capital) on an opposition Liberal Party rally, in which seven people were killed and almost 100 others were injured. During the period of Marcos’s dictatorial rule, martial law was imposed in September 1972 and a new constitution was introduced in January 1973, under which the president was granted unlimited powers for an indefinite period. He consolidated his rule in four referendums between July 1973 and December 1977. Although martial law was lifted in January 1981, Marcos retained wide-ranging powers, but, in the face of overwhelming civilian and military opposition (known as the "people power revolution"), he left office in February 1986.
The Abu Sayyaf (meaning the "Bearer of the Sword") Group was formed in the early 1990s, with the stated aim of establishing an independent Islamic state in areas of southern Thailand, the island of Borneo, and the south-western province of Sulu and the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines. The group was the smallest of several Muslim separatist organisations operating in the southern Philippines, with an estimated 300 fighters, but also the most radical and ruthless, and the only one to have held no ceasefire negotiations with the government. It had also offered no political programme to underpin its protracted campaign of fear and violence. The government in September 1996 signed an historic peace agreement with the Muslim secessionist Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), ending 24 years of conflict between the two sides on Mindanao. In August 2001 the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) also signed a peace accord with the government, but the ceasefire collapsed in February 2003. A further peace agreement with the MILF was signed in July 2003.
