Hostage Terror: Adbucted by the Abu Sayaff

185 Pages·2009·1.94 MB·English

by  Werner Wallert

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WERNER WALLERT
ABDUCTED BY THE ABU SAYYAF
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Cover design by Lock Hong Liang
© 2009 Werner Wallert & Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd
Photo credits: Photolibrary (photograph of the M16 rifl e used on the cover), Henning Scheffen (photograph
at the bottom of page 91) and Göettinger Tageblatt (photographs on pages 92 & 93, and at the top of page
96). All other photographs are by the author.
Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
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National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Wallert, Werner, 1943 –.
Hostage terror : abducted by the Abu Sayaff / Werner Wallert. – Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions,
c2009.
p. cm.
ISBN-13 : 978-981-4276-39-9 (pbk.)

1. Wallert, Werner, 1943– – Captivity, 2000. 2. Hostages – Philippines –Biography. 3. Hostages
– Germany – Biography. 4. Political kidnapping – Philippines. 5. Terrorism – Philippines.
6. Abu Sayyaf (Organization) 7. Philippines – Politics and government – 1986-
I. Title.
HV6604
364.154092—dc22 OCN432604752
Printed in Singapore by Fabulous Printers Pte Ltd
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INTRODUCTION
I am a dedicated geographer. There are two places where I enjoy life most.
One is the fi rst fl oor of our two-storey detached house. Here I use three
rooms for my small fi lm production business that I started only two years
ago at the age of sixty-four. One room is the Internet room where I do all
the research work. The second is my little home cinema with an 8-foot-wide
screen. Here I present my documentaries and underwater videos to friends.
But I also love to watch documentaries on DVD. And I do all the editing
in this room on a special computer. The third room is a cosy study, the
walls covered with souvenirs and artefacts I have brought home from my
journeys. The main elements in this room are the big TV screen—I watch
three to four TV documentaries a week to learn from my colleagues—and a
big map of the world with pins for all the places I have been to.
This map shows the second place where I enjoy life: the world. I love
travelling. I love to see awesome natural landscapes, indulge in the great
variety of cultures on Earth and the man-made landscapes they have
produced, learn about the strategies people use to make their living, despite
natural disadvantages, and fi nd out why people destroy the natural resources
they depend on. This is what geography is about.
The world map displays pins in 50 countries on six continents. My
favourite pins are the big red ones marking the places where I have fi lmed
documentaries I was able to sell: two short fi lms on the Galapagos Islands
and in Tunisia, and four fi lms for the FWU Institut für Film und Bild that
supplies all German schools with media for geography instruction. I sold
the institute one fi lm about rural India (2007) and three fi lms about Japan
(2008). I have another upcoming project for them which is a fi lm about
Singapore.
Prior to my fi lm business, I taught geography at a Göttingen High
School from 1969 to 2008. I also worked as an author and editor of
geography textbooks and media for a leading German publisher. From
1996 to 2008 I acted as a specialist adviser in Geography to the school
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6
authorities in Braunschweig and the Ministry of Education in Hanover. I
retired in January 2008.
I have been married since 1966. Renate and I have two sons, a daughter-
in-law and a wonderful grandson of two years. Both sons live in Göttingen,
too. Renate has joined me on most of my travels. She worked as a music
teacher at a primary school close to our home. As we were both teachers we
could travel during our school holidays. Dirk, our elder son, came along
until he was 18. He is now 39 and he owns an insurance agency. Marc
is 36. He has worked in Luxemburg for PriceWaterhouseCoopers and in
Cologne for the Renault-Nissan group. He now works in the headquarters
of a global company near Göttingen. Marc accompanied us more frequently
on our travels.
Despite all our past travels, I still get excited when I start planning
another journey to a country I haven’t yet visited. All my journeys are in a
way unforgettable, but some are really outstanding:
• The People’s Republic of China in 1978. Years before tourists were
allowed into the country, a group of German geographers were allowed to
travel from south to north visiting state farms, factories, schools, hospitals
in villages and big cities and also some of the tourist sights. When crossing
the border from Hong Kong, which then was still British, you felt as if you
were landing on a different planet. Two years after Mao’s death there was no
Western infl uence whatsoever. Maoist China was still completely secluded.
• Tanzania in 1981. For a school textbook project, I travelled the country
off the beaten track. I was shown round Ujamaa villages, which were
Nyerere’s vain attempt to introduce socialism to Africa. I also enjoyed the
natural beauty of Mount Kilimanjaro, Ngorongoro Crater and the small
islands of Mafi a and Chole in the Indian Ocean.
• Madagascar in 1991. It was the year of our silver wedding anniversary and
Marc’s 18th birthday, so he was given the choice of where to travel. Upon
landing in Faradofay, in the south of Madagascar, we found out we had
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WERNER WALLERT 7
arrived in a country on general strike. All domestic fl ights were cancelled
because the country’s only refi nery was on strike, too. For four weeks we
had to make our way around the island, hiring cars that still had petrol.
On the tourist island of Nosy Be we were the only foreigners. We did a full
day trip on a small outrigger boat and hired a catamaran for one day. The
owner introduced us to scuba diving which then became our second hobby.
It added a completely new dimension: the underwater world.
Since then we have enjoyed 25 dive trips taking us to the Red Sea,
the Maldives, the Caribbean, the Galapagos Islands, Indonesia, Melanesia,
Micronesia and Polynesia. Underwater photography has fascinated me
since I bought the fi rst housing for my camera in 2004.
The most exceptional of all our journeys was defi nitely the one in 2000.
The reason is that most of our “travelling” in 2000 was done involuntarily.
We had booked two weeks of diving on the island of Sipadan, Malaysia,
during our Easter holidays. Sipadan is a popular destination among divers
because, unlike the Maldives, it’s not on an atoll but an isolated island with
a steep 600-metre drop on all sides from the edge of its reef, allowing divers
to see species of fi sh normally found in the open sea. We are taken three
times a day in fast boats from the jetty to the diving sites on the reef. If we
are lucky, we can see gigantic shoals of barracuda and jackfi sh. We also come
across beautiful shoals of batfi sh. Yet another attraction are the numerous
turtles we see on every dive. Five or six of these creatures can be observed
at a time. They display no fear because it is drummed into divers that they
must not under any circumstances touch these quite slow-moving turtles.
But it was not the underwater adventures that made this journey a
unique experience for our family and others. We were abducted on Sipadan
and did not return to Germany for three-and-a-half to fi ve months after
our departure from Göttingen. Here is the story.
Werner Wallert
September, 2009
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8 pinea RALIA
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01
Easter Sunday, April 23, 2000. Time: 19.50. A warm breeze wafts up
from the sea towards us. We are enjoying a tranquil evening after a
superb day of our holiday. From our recliners on the sunset deck of the
Malaysian tropical island of Sipadan, a few kilometres from the north-
eastern corner of Borneo, we gaze into a brilliantly clear starry sky, hoping
to see a shooting star. This is what we call “televiewing” during our diving
holiday in tropical regions.
Sipadan is only a few hectares in size. During the late afternoon
on this Easter Sunday, we strolled right around the little island in a
20-minute walk. After supper, it’s time for a sundowner, a drink over
which the intense colours of the tropical sky can be enjoyed after sunset
as it transforms, almost imperceptibly, into the awesome starry heavens.
We sit with our backs to the restaurant.
“Don’t you just feel thankful you can experience such a wonderful
Easter Sunday?” I say to Renate and Marc, without really expecting a
reply. Without question, it’s a perfect holiday evening.
Seconds later everything changes. With no warning whatever, a sinister
fi gure appears beside us, threatening us with an automatic weapon.
“Police!” he shouts and the same word is printed on his T-shirt.
Yesterday, a Malaysian police launch had been cruising off the island.
They swept the island with fi eld glasses. They do this from time to
time in order to check on the number of tourists because, for ecological
reasons, there is a limit of 80 divers on Sipadan. Sometimes they are said
to land unexpectedly and make a proper head-count. That is my fi rst
thought—but I am surprised at his rough manner. It occurs to me that
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