AFP: Burnham’s book actually vindicates us

Former American hostage Gracia Burnham’s newly released book appears to vindicate the military rather than accuse it of colluding with the Abu Sayyaf, a senior military officer accused of conniving with the bandits said yesterday.

After reading the book "In the Presence of My Enemies," Maj. Gen. Romeo Dominguez said Burnham stated clearly that she did not have first-hand knowledge of any collusion.

"The former hostage victim mentioned how the terrorists told her how they were supposedly in touch with the military and was negotiating with an unnamed general," Dominguez said.

In her most stinging revelation, Burnham claimed in her book that Filipino soldiers once brought food to the hostages and the guerrillas because an unidentified general was trying to arrange a 50 percent share of any ransom.

Negotiations by the general in the region — done partly with the help of a local radio station - eventually fell through because the gunmen were only willing to give up 20 percent, according to the book.

In her only interview with a Philippine newspaper since the book’s publication, Burnham told The STAR last week she had no personal knowledge of any wrongdoing by the military and was merely relaying what she heard from or was told by the gunmen.

"If there was collusion between the military and the Abu Sayyaf, God is the righteous judge and someday that will be made right," she later said in a statement.

Considered a top target in Washington’s global war against terrorism, the Abu Sayyaf reportedly has ties with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network.

It claims to be a rebel group fighting for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao but its activities center on kidnapping-for-ransom.

Dominguez and two other senior officers, Gen. Jovenal Narcise and Maj. Eliseo Campued, face possible court martial for allegedly letting an Abu Sayyaf band escape in June 2001 in exchange for bribes.

A Roman Catholic parish priest in the Basilan provincial town of Lamitan, Fr. Cirilo Nacorda, accused them of collusion shortly after the gunmen — with their hostages in tow, including Burnham and her husband, Martin — escaped a military cordon during a siege on the town’s hospital where the bandits were holed up.

Dominguez once headed the army’s 1st Infantry Division in Basilan and is now the commander of military forces in Northern Luzon.

Narcise’s former unit, the 103rd Infantry Battalion, was involved in operations against the Abu Sayyaf band that kidnapped Burnham and her husband, Martin.

Narcise now commands the 702nd Infantry Brigade, based in Bongabon town, Nueva Ecija province. Campued is an executive officer of the 18th Infantry Battalion.

After examining the charges against them, a military panel will determine if the evidence warrants a court martial.

Army chief Lt. Gen. Gregorio Camiling, commander of the southern Philippines in the early weeks of the abduction, yesterday denied any collusion between the rebels and the military. He suggested Burnham and the other captives may have been tricked.

The Burnhams, longtime Christian missionaries in the Philippines, were kidnapped from a beach resort in Palawan on May 27, 2001, a day after they arrived to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary.

The bandits also grabbed another American and 17 Filipinos, spiriting them away across 480 kilometers (300 miles) of sea to their hideout in Basilan.

Burnham’s 377-day ordeal ended with a bloody army rescue on June 7 last year that left her husband and Filipino nurse Edibora Yap dead.

The kidnappings prompted the United States last year to deploy American forces to help Filipino troops crush the guerrillas and rescue the hostages.

Washington also put up a $5 million bounty for the capture of the Abu Sayyaf’s top leaders, who were indicted in a US court that year. – With James Mananghaya, Benjie Villa