August 31, 2000
AUTHOR SEES KIDNAPPING OF AMERICAN THROUGH THE EYES OF THE REBELS
STORY: U.S. officials are calling for a Philippine Muslim rebel group to release a 24-year-old American hostage, Jeffery Schilling, saying that he's seriously ill and needs medication. Schilling is being held by a hard-line faction of the rebel group Abu Sayyaf.
"This is the most extreme faction of an extremist group," says University of Alabama at Birmingham anthropologist Thomas McKenna, Ph.D., author of the book "Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines," (1998, University of California Press). The book examines the Islamic solidarity and social disparity in the Southern Philippines. "They have already executed a host of people, including a Catholic priest. If we can go by the group's past actions, the rebels will not let him go unless their demands are met."
WHAT: Abu Sayyaf is a small, militant Muslim group fighting for an independent Muslim state in the southern Philippines. In recent months Abu Sayyaf has kidnapped 33 people. Six hostages were released this past weekend after Libya agreed to pay some $6 million to the rebels. Wire service accounts have said that Schilling had converted to Islam several years ago. If true, said McKenna, killing him would be outrageous because they would be killing a fellow Muslim.
WHO: Thomas M. McKenna, Ph.D., is an associate professor of anthropology at UAB. His research yielded the first contemporary anthropological account of the Magindanaon, a major Filipino Muslim ethnic group and the first depiction of the 15-year-old Filipino Muslim, or "Moro," insurgency from the point of view of ordinary rebel fighters and supporters. McKenna was conducting research in the Philippines earlier this year.
CALL: Gail Short, Media Relations, 205-934-8931/[email protected]
NOTE: We are the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Please use UAB on second reference. We are not to be confused with the University of Alabama, which is a separate, independent campus.
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