All that loose talk about ‘ransom’ is undercutting the ‘war’

The two kidnapped missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham, were very much in the headlines yesterday on the "first anniversary" of their long captivity.

Of course, we are all concerned for their safety and survival, and pray for them. On the other hand, cruel though it may sound, the fight to eradicate the threat of the ruthless Abu Sayyaf has nothing to do with the Burnhams. If we don’t succeed in "crushing" the Abus this time, there will be many more victims of abduction, torture, rape and decapitation.

The new Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Roy Cimatu, should zipper his mouth and refrain from making announcements about the Abu Sayyaf being finished "soon". At least, Cimatu should more cautiously mumble the Abus will be beaten within his "two-year term" as AFP chief. Whatever he says, sad to admit, is bound to be doubted since his credibility is close to zero. Remember, he was the gentleman who, as Southcom chief, kept on stating that the Abus would be smashed by November, then, afterwards, that the Burnhams would be freed before the end of December. Neither event took place. (Yep. Him and his sponsor, Defense Secretary Angelo T. Reyes, the Cockeyed Optimist Twins). General, stop shooting from the lip and start shooting seriously.

There’s no substitute for the Four F formula which the late President Ramon Magsaysay used in defeating the Communist Huks (Hukbong Magpapalaya ng Bayan) in the 1950s: Find ’em, Fool ’em, Fight ’em, Finish ’em!

The way things are going, we still haven’t gotten to the first "F" and, secondly, we’re the ones who’re getting fooled.

* * *

For their part, the Americans have relearned, as they discovered to their dismay in the Vietnam War, the basic frustrations of having to cope with a guerrilla foe, who knows the terrain, and swims like the proverbial "fish" of Mao Zedong in the friendly "sea" of a supportive local population. Whether out of sympathy or out of fear, many of the Muslim townsfolk and outlying villagers in Basilan "support", in varying degrees, the Abu Sayyaf. Call them bandits, kidnap-for-ransom scoundrels, or defamers of the Islamic cause, if you will, they still style themselves jihadis and, as their name indicates in Arabic, "bearers of the sword" of Islam.

Naturally, despite all their high-tech equipment, it has proven difficult for the US Special Forces "trainors" and other US personnel, to pinpoint where the Abus are hiding, or trekking. The Abus can melt into the jungle, or into local communities with equal facility. (No use, indeed, berating the Yanks for their failure. They can always remind us that their brief in coming here – as our government and media insisted – was simply to "train" our boys, not to engage in the fighting. Shucks. Why don’t we quit being uptight hypocrites and tell them to zap the Abus, wherever and whenever, if they can?)

The US military, after its triumph in "Desert Storm" and the Gulf War in 1990-91, came to believe that smart bombs, depleted plutonium-tipped bullets and shells, jet warplanes, missile-firing helicopters, Bradley fighting vehic les, and other advanced weaponry would be the decisive factors in the new kind of wars to be waged by mankind. There are, alas, no Iraqi tanks, aircraft, bunkers or rocket emplacements to be totaled in Basilan – only an enemy who creeps by night through forest and swamp, or lurks in deceptive innocence in the Lamitan, Isabela, or Galuso cafeterias.

In Mindanao, we’re back to square one in the terms of engagement. It’s just like Vietnam. The head strategist of the Viet Cong, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, in the same manner in which he had led his Viet Minh to victory over the colonial French, adopted Mao’s strategy: "Fight when you can win, run away when you cannot."

As early as 1946, "Uncle" Ho Chi Minh had himself explained the methods he would use against the French, and subsequently the Americans and the South Vietnamese: "It will be a war between a tiger and an elephant. If ever the tiger stops, the elephant will pierce him with his tusks. Only the tiger doesn’t stop. He lurks in the jungle by day and emerges only at night. He will leap onto the elephant and rip his back to shreds before disappearing into the shadows. And the elephant will die from exhaustion and loss of blood."

In this land, what we must beware of, more than loss of blood, is loss of will. In our dealings with that more deadly enemy, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), those terrorists who boast 10,000 more insurgent cadres than the puny Abu Sayyaf, this faltering of will (nicknamed Ed Ermita, Norberto Gonzales, and Jess Dureza) can already be dismayingly detected.

Sorry to have to say it: President GMA herself, although she bridles at all defeatist or "ramsom" talk, adds to the confusion by speaking from all sides of her mouth.

We have no idea for this reason, whether she’s advancing or retreating.

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One newspaper banner headlined yesterday: "$1 M Burnhams Ransom Hijacked."

In the front-page story, it was alleged that a group of agents of the National Bureau of Investigation had handed over $700,000 to an Abu emissary last March for the "freedom" of the Burnham couple, "but the money never reached the bandits."

The cash had purportedly been raised by US-based religious groups.

Another daily bannered: "NBI Lost $1 M for Abu Sayyaf." The newspaper quoted "a disillusioned NBI official" as asserting that two teams of NBI agents had gone to Zamboanga City on March 9 to arrange the ransom payment. This time, the version was that "agents of the US Interpol delivered the $1 million raised by the New Tribes Mission of which the Burnhams are members and by relatives of the missionary couple…" The report went on to state that "the agents delivered only $700,000 to Aby Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya’s negotiator, Galin Tilaob. But Tilaob — who allegedly split the remaining $300,000 with the agents, keeping for himself $150,000, or a total of P850,000 – was ambushed and killed by soldiers. The money remains missing to this day."

Sanamagan. This tale of chicanery, shady dealing, doublecross and suspicious circumstance reads like those old-fashioned dime novels. But is it credible? If the money, for instance, is now "missing", the nasty implication is that it was taken by the soldiers.

As for the NBI, whew! What felonious G-men we have, in this case, wouldn’t you say? (If, it must be added as a caveat, the fantastic claims are true.) How careless, indeed, must be our once-admired NBI. First they lost all those kilos of shabu stashed away for "evidence" in their supposedly secure "locker" cabinet. Now they’ve "lost" that million-dollar ransom payment? In $20 bills, at that, if the tale-spinners are to be believed. (Have you ever tried to lift a million bucks in twenties? Not even Arnie Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian could do that, I’ll wager.)

In the meantime, our President keeps on repeating that the government policy, without compromise, is "no ransom". GMA, surely, must be different from him, but we all recall that this is what former President Joseph Estrada also said. In the end, it turned out that "somehow", at least $20 million in ransom had been paid for the original Abu hostages from Sipadan.

All those wild and hairy stories about ransom being paid and mislaid sound screwy – but, I can only shrug in perplexity, Mindanao is the wild frontier. The poor Burnhams. Those lurid rumors only serve to make their captivity more agonizing.

* * *

In his six-day glad-handing progression through Europe, US President George W. Bush has found – I’m afraid – that he’s been encountering more enemies than friends. In fact, his only "best friend" (with the exception of England’s Tony Blair, naturally) seems to be Russia’s bare-knuckled President (and ex-KGB spook), Vladimir Putin.

The former enemy of the Cold War, the Darth Vader of the Soviet Union, has metamorphosed into a reborn Skywalker of the Jedi, and America’s almost-most-prized (but not quite) ally in the new Hot War against terrorism. Putin, it must be said, has his own reasons – he’s being bedevilled by Muslim "terrorists" from Chechnya – yet, that’s what alliances are made of. Nations pursue their own "enlightened" interests, which is a euphemism for selfish self-interest, of course.

It’s no wonder that, after his euphoric three-day visit to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Mr. Bush began to feel "jet lag" the moment he set foot in Paris. Despite the public bonhomie exhibited by France’s just re-elected President Jacques Chirac, even a down-from-the-ranch Texan like Dubya must have realized how anti-American the French are, from top to bottom, and bottom to top. (And the fact that the French have a massive, mostly North African and Jew-baiting Muslim population of more than eight million – including their champion soccer star Zidane – doesn’t help much either.)

In any event, President Bush was able to flee yesterday to Normandy’s Omaha Beach were, on D-Day, sixth of June, 1944, hundreds of thousands of American G.I.s hurled themselves ashore to begin the battle for the liberation of Europe.

Whatever brickbats may be thrown at Americans today, it was touching for Mr. Bush to be able to deliver his "Memorial Day" address from Caen, that town in Normandy, which is so meaningful for what Tom Brokaw once called, in his inspiring book, America’s "best generation." Memorial Day, which was observed yesterday all over the US and wherever Americans congregate, is the day Americans "remember" their dead who fell in all their wars from the Revolution to the present. It is traditional for US Presidents to give their expected patriotic speeches on that day from Washington DC or from some hallowed battleground like Gettysburg, etc., in the continental United States.

It was President Bush’s privilege, by coincidence, to be able to speak from Caen, France, where 10,000 American soldiers, men and women, lie to rest. This is, when all is said and done, what makes America a power — not super-technology, but the willingness of her sons and daughters to give their all in their nation’s cause. Our own forefathers understood this of our own land. This is something we must recapture and stoke back into vibrant life in our disappointing day and time.

Once upon a time, the USA mobilized ten million men and women to fight a total war against fascism and tyranny in the Atlantic and the Pacific. We pay tribute to their sacrifice and the great and gallant enterprise, which, we can say with our own sense or pride, we Filipinos shared. We, too, shed blood in freedom’s cause, and gave up those nearest and dearest to us. We lost one million of our people. It is up to us, in this generation, to prove that the price they paid was worth it all.