Negotiations are under way in the Philippines to secure the release of an Irish Columban priest kidnapped by rebels on Monday. Officials seeking to secure the priest's release met the rebels in a remote mountain region yesterday evening, but the outcome of the meeting is not as yet known.
Members of the Moro Liberation Army, a Muslim group, seized Monsignor Des Hartford, saying they would not release him until they were given livelihood grants promised by the government in return for laying down their arms.
Mgr Hartford, who is in his late 50s and originally from Lusk, Co Dublin, has been in the Philippines since 1968. He is an apostolic administrator or ordinary - an unordained bishop - in the prelature of Marawi, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.
He and a Filipino priest met the rebels on Monday to discuss their grievance over the non-payment of the grants, which had been promised as part of an amnesty.
The rebels took Mgr Hartford captive and told the Filipino priest to take a message to Archbishop Cappella of Davao. They said the Irish priest would not be released until the grants were paid. Archbishop Cappella is in charge of Muslim/Christian dialogue in the Philippines.
Yesterday a hand written note written by Mgr Hartford on Tuesday morning arrived at Columban headquarters in the Philippines. It was delivered to a priest in a small town at the bottom of the mountains where Mgr Hartford is being held.
"I am being treated well here and I am in good health and spirits. Tell them not to worry but to pray for my peace and safety," he wrote. "Those holding me have no claims against me. I am being used by them to highlight their demands with the government. Hopefully this can be solved peacefully in as short a time as possible, without the involvement of the military. Kind regards, Des Hartford."
Mgr Hartford is being held in a mountainous rainforest area. "It is a Muslim area with a lot of tension and injustice," said Columban Vicar General Father Noel Connolly, in Dublin. A number of the rebels who took Mgr Hartford captive are known to him. "His last words to the Filipino priest were `here is my brother's number, tell him I am in good hands'," Father Connolly said.
"We are not over-worried, because these are people we have helped," Father Connolly said. "They know Father Des is on their side."
On Tuesday, the Columban order managed to get a letter to the President of the Philippines, Mr Fidel Ramos. The Irish Embassy in Beijing contacted the President's office. The Papal Nuncio in the Philippines contacted the Vatican, which in turn contacted the Philippines embassy in Rome.
It is known that a meeting of the Philippines presidential cabinet has discussed the issue. President Ramos was at the meeting.
A special team was established to negotiate with the rebels. It is under the direction of a Filipino diplomat, ambassador Manuel T. Yan. Representatives of the group met the rebels in their mountain stronghold yesterday afternoon. It is not yet known what the outcome of the meeting has been. "We are hopeful," said Father Connolly.
Mindanao is one of the largest islands in the Philippines. It was predominantly Muslim until a large number of Christians migrated there this century. There is a lot of friction between the two populations. Muslims, who once owned 75 per cent of the land, now own 25 per cent.
In an interview with The Far East magazine in December 1995, Mgr Hartford was asked if he had been personally affected by conflict on the island. "I have vivid memories of some particular incidents," he said. "The first was an attempted kidnap of me in Marawi in 1987. I was meeting some people in a small restaurant to discuss a family problem. As I left to drive away three armed men surrounded me and one put a gun to my head. I thought he was going to shoot me."
Mgr Hartford shouted and the would-be kidnappers ran away. In August of this year a grenade was thrown on the roof of the house where he lives. "I wasn't there at the time but one of our workers, Lydia Macas, a young woman who had been working on Muslim/ Christian dialogue for about 12 years, was killed."
Two nuns, 10 lay workers and one other priest in the region have been kidnapped at different times, he said. The policy is not to pay ransom. Mgr Hartford is the only foreign Christian living in his area.
Mgr Hartford said a fundamental part of his role in Marawi was to promote Muslim/Christian dialogue. Mindanao was "a bit like the Northern Ireland situation. There has been a negative history and yet the only way forward is together and in peace."
Mgr Hartford said the fact that religious had been kidnapped and attacked had "brought preaching and practice of the vision closer together".
