Libya’s gambit

Rajab Azzarouq, a former Libyan ambassador to Manila, is old and talks with a cane, but the elderly soft-spoken diplomat is one of the key personalities many governments are counting on to end a hostage crisis that has gripped the Philippines for nearly four months.

Azzarouq is one of four men picked by Philippine President Joseph Estrada to negotiate with Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, who have held scores of Western and Asian captives in a jungle in the country’s southern island of Jolo. The rebels originally took 21 mostly foreign tourists from the picturesque diving haven of Sipadan in Malaysia and brought the captives by boat to Jolo’s central mountains, where they have been kept in primitive conditions.

More hostages, including journalists and a group of Christian preachers, were later taken. After initial skirmishes between the rebels and local troops, followed by weeks of difficult negotiations, six Malaysians and one sickly German woman were separately freed.
There have been widespread reports that Malaysian and Philippine emissaries paid a huge ransom for the releases. Philippine military chief Gen. Angelo Reyes disclosed the total money paid to ransom the seven hostages along with other captives reached 245 million pesos, or about 5.5 million dollars, enough to buy an arsenal that could bring down the whole military and police force in Jolo.

The Abu Sayyaf, a loose collection of several hundred rebels fighting for an independent Islamic state in the Philippines’ impoverished southern region, has demanded at least 1 million dollars for the freedom of each of the original Sipadan hostages. It has asked for lower ransoms for other captives.

After the initial releases, a stalemate appeared to have blocked further negotiations because the governments of Germany, France and Finland did not want to shell out even a single cent to the kidnappers mainly because of international treaties and domestic laws that bar them from doing so.

In the middle of the impasse, Libya came to the rescue.

Azzarouq, who was largely on the sidelines in the negotiations that resulted in the releases of the initial batch of Malaysians and the German woman, took his cane starting early this week and again climbed up the mountain in Jolo where the Abu Sayyaf and its hostages have camped in.

Azzarouq’s single-handed intervention paid off and a breakthrough was reached. The release of what could be the biggest batch of captives was initially scheduled last Wednesday, but was delayed by minor hitches and bad weather.
Officials say they expect the hostages, numbering over a dozen, to be freed later this week.

There are widespread beliefs that Libya paid a fortune to ransom the hostages from countries considered her former foes. One newspaper in Beirut reported that oil-rich Libya offered as much as 25 million dollars to the Abu Sayyaf for all the hostages’ freedom. Azzarouq strongly denied that Libya paid ransom, saying Libya instead offered development projects for the Jolo communities where the guerrillas and their families reside.

Libya also foot the bill for most of the preparations for the releases. It chartered an Ilyushin plane to ferry the freed European and South African hostages from the Philippines to Tripoli, Libya, where the hostages are to say their profuse thank yous to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi before heading home. Libya also chartered another plane to shuttle diplomats from Manila to southern Zamboanga city near Jolo where the freed hostages were turned over to their respective ambassadors.

Whatever, the ending is one of the greatest public relations coup by Libya, which has been trying in recent years to erase the image, largely painted by the United States and its European allies, that it is a pariah state which sponsors terrorism worldwide.

Wait till you see how Gadhafi would flash his smile that would expose his trademark immaculately white teeth when the freed foreign hostages from the Philippines pay their courtesies to him in Tripoli and say their thank yous in a chorus.

Gadhafi has been projecting himself as an statesman and great troubleshooter of foreign conflicts and problems in recent years to woo back the world’s sympathy. After the United Nations lifted its economic sanctions last year, he has been busy seeking foreign businessmen to invest in Libya’s underdeveloped oil-based economy.

The U.N. lifted the sanctions after Libya handed over two intelligence agents for trial in the Netherlands in connection with the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. Using Libya’s oil money, Gadhafi is also helping eradicate diseases in Africa and has helped pursue peace efforts to halt civil wars in Congo and Sudan.