The Malaysian foreign minister, Dato' Seri Syed Hamid Albar, irrevocably sidelined in this saga of kidnapped tourists from Sipadan islet, off the Sabah town of Semporna, believes the Philippines Muslim separatist group, Abu Sayyaf, must uphold Islam and show compassion to them. He, with Malaysian ministers, run around in circles, caught in an inflexible bind, unable to do anything. Now, he does not even understand the Abu Sayyaf breakaway faction of the Mindanao separatists, is no more than a spoiler amongst Muslim irredentist movements in the region. Its leaders gained their experience in Afghanistan, returned to create havoc in their own country, but without a political goal, one which makes them dangerous especially when cornered as they now appear to be. Indeed, several breakaway factions of the Abu Sayyaf group all operating under the same name, that there is doubt if the two separate groups holding Filipino and the Malaysian hostages work are the same group or even work in tandem. That aside, what worries is Malaysia's petulantly irrelevant and irreverent comments that suggest a distaste at how the Philippines manages the crisis. And Malaysia suddenly loses interest in the affair. Malaysia is sidelined because the islet from which the foreign tourists and Malaysian staff were kidnapped is contested, the matter before the International Court of Justice at the Hague.

Malaysia loses interest in this kidnapping. The mainstream media relegates it into its inside pages, the fate of the kidnappers no more in the official worldview. The foreign minister, therefore, make offhand statements that redound on Malaysia, as if he and it could dictate the course of the negotiations with the kidnappers by rising above their station. But surely calling on the Abu Sayyaf faction, one of several, to uphold Islam gives the Philippines authorities, if nothing else, a doubt about Malaysia's intention in an already contentious confrontation. The European community and other governments with citizens amongst the hostages stomach their well-grizzled refusal to pay ransom hostages not their citizens, have no qualms when they are. Malaysia is ambivalent about paying ransom to rescue the hostages. I expect Malaysian disinterest if the foreign tourists are released but the Malaysians remain in custody. The Malaysians detained have rated little official support or interest, the official Malaysian and Sabah state worry more about foreign tourists deserting these islands and safety of the tourist trade than of the fate of the kidnapped tourists.

This disinterest, and the hidden incidents, unreported, point to a disturbing callousness and taunting which upped the ante, with suggestions of a self-interest that led to, for instance, the removal of Nur Misuari, the Mindanao governor, as negotiator. On 3 April, Malaysian troops shot dead four pirates, which led to other pirates to raid one offshort tourist spot a week later. The government upped the ante by expelling about 2,000 illegal immigrants from the Philippines which included, I am told, relatives of Nur Misuari. So, when the pirates struck Sipadan islet on 23 April, there was more to the kidnap than met the eye. Since the Abu Sayyaf groups hire local gangsters and guns-for-hire to rob banks and kidnap people, the probability that the Sipadan kidnap was the work of one such cannot be ruled out. The reporting of the kidnap, with foreign and local reporters allowed into the kidnappers' lair, with the variety of viewpoints that often contradict one another, confuses. The monolithic unanimity presumed in the Abu Sayyaf group could well be fiction. Which is why confusion abounds and frightens.

Whatever the compulsions, the Abu Sayyaf group behaves as a rogue army, more interested in violence, blood and gore than in any interest in an Islamic state. This is what make them so dangerous. Death holds no terror. One could argue this publicity ensure the ransom they clearly want before releasing the hostages. Having the hostages talk into their television stations back home in Europe and elsewhere raises local concern; the kidnappers' Islamic inorientation raises the temperature, the ransom more likely payable than have their citizens' throats cut. The accompanying stories of how they behead their victims are calculated to pressure than to show how bloodthirsty they are. Into this scene the Malaysian foreign minister steps into, with idiosyncratic idiotic statements as he professes from time to time. But these ad hoc statements are not enough. Malaysia must move with diplomatic finesse, that a crisis committee should already plan its contingencies, and the foreign minister despatched to Jakarta and Manila to help Manila rescue the kidnapped Sipadan tourists or have them return safe and sound. The complicating public hostility in the Philippines, mainly by deliberately, but falsely, equating the MNLF's breakaway Moro Islamic Liberation Front of a Nur Misuari enemy, Hashim Salamat, with the Abu Sayyaf's faction, accentuates the military confrontation for the Philippines government. That cannot be reversed by a clueless foreign minister in Kuala Lumpur who daydreams of Islamic compassion releasing hostages.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my