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CNN Live At Daybreak

Philippines Terrorist Group Routine Engages in Kidnappings

Aired June 13, 2001 - 07:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the rebel group holding Sobero and some two dozen others is called Abu Sayyaf. They are the same rebels that kidnapped American Jeffrey Schilling. He was held captive for 228 days. Schilling was finally rescued when 5,000 Philippine marines invaded a rebel camp. What happened next is still a bit of a mystery, but he managed to escape and he told his story to writer George Foy, who writes about it in "Men's Journal."

Foy also has done extensive research on Abu Sayyaf and spent time in the group's stronghold, and we welcome him this morning. Good morning, Mr. Foy.

GEORGE FOY, "MEN'S JOURNAL": Good morning.

LIN: I love the first line of your story because it really captures the mood of what happens next. You write, "Jeffrey Schilling went to the Philippines looking for a few friends, a good woman, and the chance to build an Islamic utopia. What he found were cranky guerrillas who chained him to a tree for 228 days and promised to cut off his head."

How early did those threats start in all of the seven months of captivity?

FOY: They started right away, Carol. He was -- he went into the camp of his own volition for personal reasons. The next day he was informed by the guerrillas that first of all he was a CIA agent, on absolutely no evidence, and then that he was to be a hostage and that the penalty if his -- their Abu Sayyaf ransom demands weren't met was that his head would be cut off.

LIN: Well, after seven months of being told that his head would be cut off, what was his reaction? Was he still afraid?

FOY: Well, he grew fairly contentious of the rebels actually. He considered them a bunch of bandits and out for the money. This is partially true. They're also -- I think, there was evidence available to him that, in fact, these people were capable of things, and the group's leader, Khadafi Janjalani, he is respected, in a sense as being very cold and able to commit cold-blooded murder. He believed he had killed a cleric friend of his and possibly also a friend of his among the guerrillas for no other reason than that they were allies of Jeff Schilling. LIN: And, yet, you describe in your article a scene that I can't even imagine if I was being chained to a tree and threatened. You say that the rebels leaders, Abu Sabaya, had walked over to him and said, "I am going to cut off your head." To which Schilling's response after a few months of threats was, "Yeah, sure, whatever."

FOY: Well, again, there was an element of the gang that couldn't shoot straight to these rebels. There were -- they're mostly kids. Jeff Schilling compares them to gang members in his native San Francisco. They're a product of poverty and disorientation culturally, and to a large extent the band is made up of kids armed with M-16's.

On the other hand, one shouldn't underestimate the fact that this is a very complex area with 500-plus years of history of resistance to Filipinos, Spaniards, Japanese, Americans. And they are used to fighting and they're -- they certainly believe in Islam and they want to have an Islamic state in the southern Philippines.

LIN: Well, very specifically, what did Jeffrey Schilling tell you that Abu Sabaya, the rebel leader, wanted?

FOY: Abu Sabaya wanted, first of all, money. There'd been another command of the Abu Sayyaf had kidnapped hostages from a Malaysian island and had gotten 10 1/2 million dollars, according to most reports, from the Libyans to free them. So Abu Sabaya figured that Jeff Schilling, as an American, was worth also $10 million, these others were just Europeans.

He also wanted liberation of the -- of Ramsi Yousef who is the World Trade Center bomber and also -- and various other demands. He wanted to be -- to have a feature film starring himselfm for example.

LIN: He wanted -- he wanted a role in a Hollywood film?

FOY: He wanted -- maybe not Hollywood, but certainly a Filipino feature.

LIN: All right, well, this tells us a little bit about the man. So, during this whole time did Jeffrey Schilling think to -- ever think to himself, look, I'm an American. How seriously can they mean when they say that they're going to cut off my head? I mean, do they understand, if anything, the implications of that?

FOY: This is a very remote area, you have to understand. It's -- the island -- the chain of islands extends to a few miles off Borneo. It's about as far away from America as you can get culturally and geographically, and America is a very distant, very mythical thing. And that worked both to his advantage and disadvantage: to his advantage in the sense that there, you know, there is a respect for America as this great, Christian power, in this case; and there's also a disrespect in that they're very far away and at the same time there's -- the inhabitants of the islands had a long and successful history of fighting off the Americans.

LIN: So given what you know about this rebel group, what do you think the fate of Guillermo Sobero is today if he is still alive?

FOY: It's very complex and this is pure speculation. As you mentioned, they had supposedly beheaded two teachers, Filipino teachers that they kidnapped in March of 2000. It turned out that, in fact, two people had been beheaded but it may not have been the teachers themselves. And as a matter of fact, the heads, the bodies were only found by the Filipino military and they're not always the most trustworthy source.

There's two things happening here. One is that the American is their ticket to a ransom, supposedly Sobero is, and so that would work in favor of his being kept alive. Then again, he is an American. America is the enemy, perceived as the enemy of Islam, and if they have to kill somebody to prove that they're serious, they will do it. They wouldn't have any compunction about it. They would kill their meal ticket but they would also make their point. I suspect that he's still alive at this point.

LIN: All right. Well, certainly his family does hope so. Thank you very much. . .

FOY: I certainly hope so. Thank you.

LIN: ... George Foy. And Jeffrey Schilling back safe and sound in California these days.

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