Australian Kidnapped

[Bundy]

I figured wrong thinking his girl friends family had done him in.

Not necessarily so since I have found that the Philippine grapevine works amazingly fast and it happened right after his wife left him. One quote from the story above makes me wonder, so why is it they cannot contact the family, surely the husband knows his wife's phone number, maybe they just do not wish to answer the calls. Lets just say I know of people in our family who I believe might have contacts with some rebel groups, so it would not be a stretch of the imagination that people in many other families also know someone who knows someone etc.

He said Barahama Alih, a notorious man linked to Abu Sayyaf, was the one holding the foreigner."They recently attempted to establish communication with Rodwell's relatives but they failed," he said,

Could it be that they were trying to contact relatives in Australia?. I'm sure they would be thinking " that's where the REAL money is"?

[Jollygoodfellow]

I dont know my wife's number or my own without looking it up,I do remember my land line and one mobile/cell phone but work cell and cell with a smart sim,nope.

[Mugs]

http://globalnation....2%80%94militaryWarren Rodwell, age 53 lived in Green Meadow Subdivision in the village of Lower Pangi of Ipil City(about 100 miles north of Zamboanga) was taken by force from his home.Jake

shocking these types of things go on.

[Mr Lee]

Aussie's kidnappers send proof of life So at least luckily he is probably still alive, for now.MANILA, Philippines - The kidnappers of an Australian national seized in Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay last Dec. 5 have sent “proof of life” to his Filipino wife, a security official said yesterday.The security official, who asked not to be named as he is not authorized to talk about the case, said the kidnappers, believed to have links with the Abu Sayyaf, also contacted Miraflor Gutang, wife of Australian Warren Richard Rodwell, and informed her of her husband’s situation.The kidnappers, according to the official, established contact last Dec. 20, saying they would send the proof of life via a commercial freight forwarder.The package turned out to contain a memory card that had four pictures of Rodwell, one of them showing him with a wound on the right hand.

[Mr Lee]

Police: Ransom demanded for AustralianThe kidnappers mailed four pictures of 53-year-old Warren Richard Rodwell before Christmas to his Filipino wife then called her to demand an initial ransom of $23,000 (1 million pesos). Rodwell appeared to have been wounded in the hand by gunfire in one picture but looked well, police Senior Superintendent Ruben Cariaga said.Rodwell, a former university teacher in Shanghai, was taken at gunpoint by about six men on Dec. 5 in southern Ipil town in Zamboanga Sibugay province. It was the latest abduction of a foreigner in the country's volatile south where several kidnappings for ransom have been blamed on the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group.No group has claimed responsibility for Rodwell's kidnapping, but officials suspect the Abu Sayyaf and its allied gunmen may have been responsible.Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said that her government had established a task force to investigate the kidnapping.Rodwell married his wife, whom he met via the Internet, in June, police said.Cariaga said Rodwell's wife told him there was no way she could raise the ransom, "She told me she could not pay because she even finds it hard to raise money to feed herself," he said.

[Fred & Mimi]

Here is a recent update to this ongoing drama;http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-05/video-released-of-kidnapped-australian/3759164Sorry if this has already been posted.

[Bundy]

The ABC is currently running this story here on TV. The amount now being demanded is $2 million dollars. Now despite what 99.9% of Filipinos may think, i am damn sure there wouldn't be too many Australian households who would be able to raise that kind of money and so all the talk here is whether or not the government can help.I already stated in an earlier post that the Australian government has a NO RANSOM policy and WILL NOT negotiate with terrorists. So this is now a very bad situation. Some may say that our government is being harsh but geez, can you imagine what would happen if a ransom was paid? If it did happen, then i would be saying to all you Aussies not just in the Philippines, but in EVERY other country in the world.........you better get out of there FAST because you would be a "sitting duck".It has been stated that a "negotiating team" was sent from here, that's bull, so far only a couple of fed police were sent. As Warren is an ex military serviceman, i'm wondering whether or not the army will get involved in this.For sure a couple of our SAS soldiers would do the job but will they be sent? I doubt it.Instead i think this lame arse government will eventually issue a statement saying something like " we will give full support to the local authorities"This all begs the question, "why do people still insist on going into these hotspot areas in the first place?" Ok ok some of you are gunna jump down my throat telling me that Mindanao is safe and you've never had any problem etc etc but the fact remains that not just Australia but sh&tloads of countries repeatedly issue travel warnings to certain parts of Mindanao..........they don't do that just for the hell of it!

[Mr Lee]

This all begs the question, "why do people still insist on going into these hotspot areas in the first place?" Ok ok some of you are gunna jump down my throat telling me that Mindanao is safe and you've never had any problem etc etc but the fact remains that not just Australia but sh&tloads of countries repeatedly issue travel warnings to certain parts of Mindanao..........they don't do that just for the hell of it!

I will not get into the other issues you posted about kidnapping, since kidnapping is a no win situation, so there is probably no correct or wrong, except IMO to go in there and kill those who hold a kidnapped person, so they will never be able to do it again.As for Mindanao, foreigners who go into any of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao put themselves more at risk than those who visit the rest of Mindanao, yet lets face it, we all put ourselves at risk when we decide to spend a lot of time in any third world country, be it due to possible substandard medical care if we should have an emergency need to have it, to lower standards of food preparation due to less refrigeration and unsanitary handling of foods from start to just before in our hands, or before eaten at restaurants, to poor roads and poor state of repairs of modes of transportation, to poor people sometimes desperately needing money and possibly finding us the easier and likely targets, to etc etc etc, so while I agree with you that any of us who enter Mindanao or any other place where there has been travel warnings put ourselves at risk, yet since we are our own masters of our own fate, if and when we take these chances, we do so at our own peril.I am sure if the many foreigners who had been killed in the Philippines over the years had it to do over again, or could say something to those of us foreigners who go to the Philippines, then they would probably be telling us all to never set foot in the Philippines at all, or to at least use a heck of a lot more caution and be much more security minded than they were.The biggest problem with life is that many people think it will not happen to them, so they refuse to at least have an open mind and therefore listen to anyone who might know more than they do. We stand out, so we stand out even more when we buy or rent an expensive house in a province area, or we go to the ATM and quite possibly one of few ATM's in smaller towns or go to the bank to get our monthly checks. If we use caution and do our best to fit in, then we will be a little safer but probably never as safe as we can be in our home countries or other countries or other first world countries where we blend in rather than stand out.There is no direct science to this except foreigner (usually) equals bigger money and few chances they will have a gun to protect themselves, whereas most locals equal smaller amounts of money, and rich locals equals more money but with good chance they have guns, alarms with cameras, or possibly even body guards, so who would you think they will rob or kidnap if they want larger amounts of money. Edited January 5, 2012 by Mr. Lee

[Bruce]

From www.manilastandardtoday.com Read all the way down, I am not a geek, so I can't copy and pastAussie’s captors demand $2-m ransom, police say A FORMER Australian soldier kidnapped in Mindanao is seen pleading for his life in a video sent to his family and urging Manila and Canberra to raise a $2-million ransom being demanded by his captors. The video of 53-year-old Warren Richard Rodwell, along with four photographs showing him in handcuffs and apparently wounded in the right hand, were mailed to his Filipino wife before Christmas, police said. The Associated Press saw a copy of the video and pictures Thursday. Wearing a sweater and appearing to read from a piece of paper, Rodwell tried to clear his throat as he spoke in the brief video, which was given by his family to police investigators. Looking haggard and unshaven, he squinted his eyes at times and stood in front of a blue tarpaulin covering a backdrop of vegetation. One of the photos showed a silver handcuff and its chain dangling from his left wrist. The side of his right palm appeared to be wounded. Rodwell, who also previously worked as a university teacher in Shanghai, was taken at gunpoint by about six men on Dec. 5 in Ipil town in Zamboanga Sibugay province. AP

[Jake]

Latest news article, dated Jan 26, 2012: http://globalnation....live-police-say