Ex-Captives Bemoan Plight of Others Held by Rebels

Four Europeans expressed a mixture of relief and sadness Saturday after being freed for ransom following four months of captivity on the southern Philippine island of Jolo. The gang of professional kidnappers that took them hostage still holds 16 people, including an American.

“I feel great, but I am feeling sorry for those left behind,” Risto Marco Vahanen, one of two Finns released, said after being taken out of the rebel stronghold by helicopter. With him were Frenchman Stephane Loisy, German Marc Wallert and Finn Seppo Juhani Franti.

The Europeans were among 21 Westerners and Asians kidnapped April 23 from Malaysia’s Sipadan island resort and taken by speedboat to Jolo, about an hour away. Some of those victims have been released over the past 10 weeks, but the Islamic gang, known as Abu Sayyaf--which says its goal is an independent homeland, not money--kidnapped others in Jolo to take their places.

The four were to be flown to Libya, which put up the money for their release, before flying home. Libya is reported to have paid $1 million each for the hostages, although the government in Tripoli insists that the money is for developmental aid in the largely Islamic southern Philippines and does not represent ransom.

“We are almost over with the crisis,” said Libyan envoy Rajab Azzarouk, who played a key negotiating role in winning the release of the four Europeans and, earlier, that of two French nationals, a South African couple and two Germans. He said he would try to gain the release of two French journalists, Jean-Jacques Le Carrec and Roland Madura, kidnapped in July, “but practically, it’s very difficult.”

Libya has balked at putting up ransom for the journalists, maintaining that their company should pay, as a German newspaper did to free one of its reporters, Andreas Lorenz, on July 27. All told, Libya may have paid Abu Sayyaf as much as $25 million over the past two months to win the release of various hostages, Manila press reports said.

In addition to the two French journalists, Abu Sayyaf is still holding captive in the jungles of Jolo island 13 Filipinos--12 of them Christian evangelists who had walked into the rebel camp on what they called a prayer mission--and the American, 24-year-old Jeffrey Schilling, a Muslim convert from Oakland. He was seized late August after entering the camp for unexplained reasons with his Philippine wife, Ivi Osani, a cousin of one of the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.

A faction of the main Abu Sayyaf group appears to have been responsible for the seizure of Schilling, who is being held separately from the others. The rebels have threatened to behead him as a CIA spy and, according to unconfirmed news reports in Manila, have demanded $25 million for his release. The U.S. government denies that he has any relationship with the CIA and has reiterated its position of not paying ransom to terrorists.

The release of the four Europeans was almost derailed at the last moment when a convoy led by the government’s contact man, Ernesto Pacuno, a retired police captain code-named Dragon, was ambushed three miles from the rebel camp. Pacuno escaped unharmed but one bodyguard was killed and eight were wounded. The group was believed to be carrying a large sum of money and was to have led the hostages to safety. Instead, the government sent in a helicopter for the captives.

Western diplomats said the ambush might have been carried out by an Abu Sayyaf faction attempting to steal the ransom money. Abu Sayyaf leaders have been divided in recent weeks over how to split up the great sums of pesos they have acquired. The group, despite its alleged ideological goals, has been in the kidnapping business for years.

German, Finnish and French politicians celebrated the release of the four hostages, but some expressed concern that the apparent payoffs to Abu Sayyaf rebels could encourage more hostage-taking to finance insurgent movements.

“Part of protecting human rights involves making sure hostage-taking does not become a peccadillo, an everyday business that can be settled with dollars,” German President Johannes Rau told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

The release of Wallert marked the end to a protracted family drama for the family from Goettingen, Germany. In July, Wallert’s ailing mother, Renate, was the first Westerner released by the rebels, and his father, Werner, was freed two weeks ago in another wave of liberation set in motion by reported payoffs.

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja also reacted to the hostage releases with a mixture of joy over his countrymen’s belated freedom and concern that ransom had been paid by Libya to bring that about.

“We don’t have any exact knowledge [of ransom payments]. If money has changed hands--and everything undoubtedly suggests that it has--we have not been asked and we have not contributed,” he said.

In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac issued a statement expressing joy over Loisy’s release and urging freedom for the two French journalists still held.

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Times staff writer Carol J. Williams in Berlin contributed to this report.