Libyan intermediaries have given the Philippines government an ultimatum: if their army does not pull back from the area surrounding the Abu Sayyaf rebel camp on the southern island of Jolo by tonight, and if Filipino officers do not drop their demands for a share of the booty, Libya will cease attempts to obtain the freedom of 28 hostages held by Abu Sayyaf, including six French, two Finns, two Germans, two South Africans and 16 Filipinos.
Tripoli's threat to cease its role as intermediary sparked panic in Paris, Helsinki and Johannesburg, for the Libyan connection represents the only hope of liberating the hostages - and staving off a dangerous Philippine army assault.
How did a disgraced, but oil-rich, North African dictatorship come to play such a crucial - and ambiguous - role in a crisis thousands of miles away? Col Moamar Gadafy began meddling in the region soon after he seized power in a coup in 1969. He provided money and weapons to the Moro Liberation Front. (Moro is the word for Filipino Muslims, who represent two-thirds of the population in the south). And, when the front signed an autonomy agreement with Manila in 1976, Col Gadafy was on hand to witness the occasion.
A part of the front rejected the accord, splitting off to form the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a fragment of which became the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers. Not by chance, Abu Sayyaf publicly called for the lifting of UN sanctions against Libya in 1995.
Now the group says it wants self-government of the kind enjoyed by southern Muslims before the Spanish arrived 600 years ago. The Philippine government claims its goals are purely venal - an allegation given credence by Abu Sayyaf's demand for $1 million per hostage liberated plus safe passage to Libya for its leaders, Galib Andag (alias Comdt Robot) and Mujib Susukan.
On April 23rd, Abu Sayyaf staged a commando raid on an island resort off Malaysia and Indonesia, kidnapping 21 people. The group has freed hostages in dribs and drabs, replacing those liberated with French and German journalists who ventured to Jolo.
Soon after the April 23rd raid, a former Libyan ambassador to Manila, Mr Rajab Azzarouk, offered his services - initially to the family of the Franco-Lebanese nurse Mar ie Moarbes. The Europeans swallowed the bait, and the head of French intelligence, Mr Jean-Claude Cousserand, met his Libyan counterpart in Paris in June. At the beginning of this month, the French foreign ministry dispatched its director for North Africa, Mr Yves Aubin de la Messuziere, to Tripoli to strike a deal.
COL GADAFY has one goal in Jolo: to regain the respectability he lost through alleged Libyan involvement in the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie and the downing of a French UTA jet over Niger the following year. Col Gadafy desperately wants to be invited as a full participant - not just an observer - to the EU-Mediterranean summit in Marseille in November. According to the investigative newspaper Canard Encha ine, which broke the story of France's dealings with Libya, Col Gadafy would also like Paris to act as its advocate in the UN, rein in the "anti-terrorist" Judge Bruguiere who is handling the UTA case, and perhaps supply a few parts for Libya's Mirage jets.
One of the more curious twists is the emergence of Col Gadafy's 26-year-old son, Saif al-Islam ("Sword of Islam"), described as the Libyan dictator's anointed heir, not unlike President Bachar al-Assad in Syria or President Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Saif al-Islam is the head of a previously unknown organisation called "Charity", which has offered $25 million in "development assistance" to the southern Philippines. With oil at $30 a barrel and UN sanctions eased since last year, Tripoli is feeling flush.
A Libyan jet flew to the Philippines on August 14th to await the liberation of the Western hostages and take them to Tripoli. Officially, Col Gadafy's only condition for Libya's "humanitarian mission" was a joint press conference with the hostages and the French and German foreign ministers. The Germans have angered the French by buying out some of their captives. Paris insists it never pays ransom.
But French commentators have not forgotten that the $1 billion "Eurodif" dispute was settled in Iran's favour after French hostages in Lebanon were freed. Asking Tripoli to buy French hostages out of Jolo will have a political price.
