giving in to terror - philippines

The Dangerous
Implications of
Giving In to Terror

By DONALD KIRK
July 15, 2004

BAGHDAD -- The apparent decision of the Philippines government to cave in to the demands of the terrorists holding truck driver Angelo de la Cruz hostage greatly increases the dangers facing all foreigners in Iraq. Not just the 160,000 soldiers in the U.S.-led coalition, but also the thousands of contractors helping rebuild the war-torn country. That includes large numbers of Filipinos, upward of 4,000 of whom are employed on foreign bases in Iraq, mainly to provide janitorial, cleaning and laundry services.

All of them are at greater risk now that Manila has shown that kidnapping can yield results by agreeing to the immediate withdrawal of its troops from Iraq in order to save the life of hostage Angelo de la Cruz. On Tuesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Rafael Seguis said in an al Jazeera broadcast that the 51-strong contingent, originally scheduled to stay until August 20, would be withdrawn "as soon as possible." And yesterday the foreign ministry confirmed the pullout had already begun, with the number of troops in Iraq now down to 43.

Some might argue that the Philippines' commitment is so small that the government is conceding very little by intimating its willingness to fold up its tents and leave. But that simplistic view ignores not only the increased risk posed to those who remain in Iraq but also the dangerous implications for Manila in the domestic arena.

Hostage taking is nothing new for the Philippines. In recent years, a succession of governments has had to contend with hundreds of kidnappings of Filipinos and foreigners by its own citizens on its own soil.

The most notorious such terrorists have been the Abu Sayyaf, the hard-core band in the southern Philippines, mainly on the island of Basilan and the Sulu Island chain off the southwestern tip of Mindanao. The degree of government firmness has varied widely. In some cases there have been military raids to free hostages, while others have ended with officially sanctioned payoffs. Elsewhere in the Philippines, kidnapping has also become commonplace with demands for enormous ransom payments, sometimes even after the victim has been killed.

All of this should have been lesson enough for Ms. Arroyo and her aides in the dangers of giving in to terrorists. But instead they were caught up in the tide of popular emotion over Mr. de la Cruz's fate. The government's precipitous, premature response reflects the president's need for public support after an election campaign that she won by a vote so close that it's not likely her foe, the movie actor Fernando Poe, will ever gracefully concede that he lost.

Ms. Arroyo sees freedom for Mr. de la Cruz as a political card that she hopes will buttress her domestic popularity.

For such short-term gain, she's prepared to sacrifice her government's long-term interests, from the struggle against Islamic rebels in the southern Philippines to the need to be a reliable ally of the U.S., not to mention the interests and welfare of hundreds of thousands of Philippine workers throughout the Middle East. What will be her response if Filipinos in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are now threatened by terrorists emboldened by the Iraqi example?

It's not as if there wasn't a better example for her to have followed. Although Korean diplomats were undoubtedly slow to respond to the first indications that interpreter Kim Sun Il had gone missing in Iraq, Seoul showed it was no pasty for the terrorist by refusing to cave to his kidnappers' demands. To its credit, Korea never flinched in its resolve to send another 3,000 troops to Iraq. Nor have there been any further kidnappings of Koreans since then.

The conflict in Iraq, as Ms. Arroyo should be the first to know, is not just an isolated one in which the Philippines accepted a minor role. It's part of a global fight against terror with implications for the Philippines' own fight against home-grown terrorists. The decision to put the Philippine troops on the next plane out of Iraq shows that her government doesn't realize that the need to stand firm is not just matter of pleasing the U.S. Rather, it is in her country's own urgent interest.

Mr. Kirk is a writer based in Seoul.