Philippines to Stress Talks Over Force in Bid to Free American

Authorities will negotiate with Communist rebels rather than use military force to try to gain the release of a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer, a provincial official said Monday.

Timothy Swanson, 26, of Cheyenne, Wyo., was kidnaped June 13 from his home in the village of Patag on the central island of Negros. He was taken by four to eight New People’s Army guerrillas, who told his Filipino wife that they were just “borrowing” him.

Daniel Lacson, governor of Negros Occidental province, said he met Monday with U.S. officials, who gave him authority to work for Swanson’s release.

“No military operation unless we exhaust political means,” Lacson said. He said he will form a committee to negotiate with the rebels.

“The bottom line is to get Swanson alive,” Lacson stressed.

However, Lacson said it could be two to three months before the guerrillas free Swanson and a Japanese aid worker who also has been abducted.

“They would pay a terrible price if they killed these aid workers,” Lacson told a news conference.

Area army commander Brig. Gen. Raymundo Jarque said, however, that should negotiations fail, the government is ready to consider military action.

Jarque said he does not believe the rebels will kill Swanson but that they might hold him for some time.

“It might take two to three months before Swanson is released,” he said.

Philippine presidential press secretary Tomas Gomez was asked Monday whether--given reports that Swanson was friendly with the rebels--he might have gone with them freely.

Gomez labeled the question as “speculative” but added, “Of course, the telltale marks are there.” He did not elaborate.

Swanson’s father, Leonard, said his son knew rebels in the area, but that he never considered them a threat. “He tried to be friendly with all the folks in the village and all he encountered,” Swanson’s father said in an interview in Cheyenne.

Swanson was among seven Peace Corps volunteers assigned to Negros, where he worked in a nursery project.

The U.S. Embassy said it learned of the abduction only Saturday because the rebels warned Swanson’s wife, a rural schoolteacher, not to report the incident.

She did so only after U.S. officials ordered the 261 Peace Corps volunteers to leave the Philippines because intelligence reports indicated that rebels might try to kill or kidnap them.