GENERAL SANTOS: A Japanese embassy official denied yesterday that guerrillas had demanded a ransom for two former World War II soldiers reported to be hiding near this southern Philippines city.
“We have no such information on guerrillas,” the Japanese embassy’s press attache, Shuhei Ogawa, told reporters when questioned about a report in a Tokyo newspaper.
Asked if any money had been requested in return for the two soldiers, Ogawa said, “No, nothing”.
He was commenting after Mainichi Shimbun reported yesterday that Philippine rebels are demanding $232,000 ransom in exchange for “delivering” the two men to Japanese authorities.
Mainichi cited a Japanese businessman who reported their presence.
The newspaper did not say if the pair were being held against their will and did not identify the rebel group.
On Saturday Ogawa said Philippines national police had warned Japanese diplomats, who are in this Mindanao island city to try to confirm reports about the old soldiers, not to go into the mountains because of the rebel threat.
The area is home to both the communist New People’s Army and the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and other Muslim extremist groups. Muslim rebels are known to have conducted kidnappings for ransom.
But the MILF on Sunday said it had information on where the old soldiers were and offered to act as a go-between for the Japanese government.
“We would like to know what help the Japanese government want: Do they want us to assist in locating the men or assistance to bring them down from the mountains?” Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman, told AFP in nearby Cotobato city where the MILF is holding a major conference on the future of peace talks with the Philippine government.
Kabalu said an MILF commander has information on the whereabouts of the two old soldiers but cannot provide details such as their names. One of the men was living on the tiny island of Balut off Saranggani Province near the Indonesian border and another is living somewhere in Mount Matutum in South Cotabato Province, he said.
Hundreds of journalists have descended on this city, 1,300km south of Manila on Mindanao island, since the reports emerged on Friday. Diplomats have warned Japanese correspondents not to accept offers from people claiming to know the location of the “stragglers” and offering to guide them into the mountains.
Japan’s Kyodo news agency, citing government sources, earlier named the men and said they were in their 80s.
But the two old soldiers have not been seen.
An officer of the Japanese welfare and labour ministry, Suminori Arima, was expected to arrive in the southern Philippines to try to meet with the old soldiers. He left Tokyo on Saturday.
The welfare and labor ministry, which handles veterans’ affairs, said Friday it had heard from Japanese people in Mindanao about possible former soldiers on Mindanao who wanted to return to Japan.
Ogawa said the embassy delegation in General Santos had been in contact with a Japanese businessman identified as “Asano,” who has been their contact person in attempting to find the two soldiers.
He declined to give details on their discussions with Asano, saying only that the emergence of the two Japanese from the jungle had been prolonged because “there are things we have to work out.”
On Saturday Ogawa downplayed reports that the two old men may be hiding in mountains near this port city, unaware that World War II ended 60 years ago.
“You must understand that we get these reports all the time,” he said.
Japan attacked the Philippines, then a US colony, hours after its 1941 air raid on Pearl Harbor, leading to a brutal occupation before US-led forces recaptured the islands.
Japan was stunned in 1974 when former imperial Japanese army intelligence officer Hiroo Onoda was found living in the jungle on the Philippine island of Lubang. He did not know of Japan’s surrender 29 years earlier.-AFP |
