2 Women Are Kidnapped From a Resort in Malaysia
By KIRK SEMPLE and FLOYD WHALEY

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Gunmen kidnapped a Chinese tourist and a Filipino hotel worker, both women, from a beach resort on an island off the coast of Malaysian Borneo, the Chinese and Malaysian authorities said Thursday, spurring an international manhunt.

The abductions, which occurred late Wednesday, appeared to be the work of insurgents from the nearby islands of the southern Philippines who have been fighting the Philippine government for years, security experts said. The kidnapping risked complicating ties between China and Malaysia, already strained over the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The women were taken from the Singamata Reef Resort, a diving and snorkeling retreat built on stilts on Singamata Island off the coast of Sabah, a state on Borneo, in eastern Malaysia.

Chinese tourists at the resort told a Chinese newspaper, The Huaxi Metropolitan Daily, that they had heard gunshots as a group of gunmen stormed the hotel, seized the victims and spirited them away on speedboats. Photos posted on the newspaper’s website and reportedly taken during the attack show guests crouching behind upturned tables. There were about 60 Chinese guests at the hotel at the time, the paper said.

Various armed groups, including Muslim separatist factions fighting to establish an independent state, operate throughout the southern Philippines and use kidnappings for ransom to help finance their operations. Some of these groups operate with near impunity in the Sulu Archipelago of the southern Philippines, close to eastern Malaysia.

While no group immediately claimed responsibility for the kidnappings, security experts suspected Abu Sayyaf, a particularly violent group that has been linked to Al Qaeda.

Mars S. Buan, senior analyst with Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a risk assessment firm in Manila, said the kidnappers were believed to be operating under the command of Murphy Ladja, an insurgent in the Philippine province of Sulu, who was also implicated in the kidnapping of foreigners and resort workers from Sipadan Island in Malaysia in 2000.

The Philippines Foreign Affairs Department said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that the country’s maritime forces and anti-kidnapping teams were “actively and closely coordinating with their Malaysian counterparts in exchanging information and in working toward the speedy resolution of the case.”

An employee at the hotel who answered the telephone on Thursday confirmed the kidnapping but declined to provide further information.

Kidnappings in the Muslim-dominated parts of the southern Philippines, especially in the Sulu Archipelago, have become more frequent, Ms. Buan said. Kidnappings in Malaysia by Filipino armed groups are much rarer, about once a year in recent years.

Last November, Abu Sayyaf militants abducted a Taiwanese businesswoman from a resort in Semporna, Malaysia, and killed the woman’s husband when he tried to stop them. She was released the next month.

The kidnapping of a Chinese citizen on Malaysian territory on Wednesday presented yet another diplomatic problem for China and Malaysia, which have been locked in a complicated pas de deux — equal parts antagonism and collaboration — since the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane on March 8.

Most of the passengers on the plane were Chinese, and their relatives as well as Chinese officials have been critical of Malaysia’s handling of the investigation.

But Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said that he had spoken with a Chinese consular official in Malaysia on Thursday, and that “apparently both the Malaysian and Chinese sides are trying to downplay this event while showing their concerns.”

馬來西亞沙巴 又傳遊客被綁架

馬來西亞東部沙巴州仙本那的度假村二日發生疑似菲律賓南部武裝份子綁架遊客事件，被綁者有兩人，一是廿九歲上海女遊客高華贇、一是四十歲菲律賓籍女員工瑪茜達亞萬。去年十一月，台灣旅客許立民、張安薇才在沙巴州的邦邦島一遭槍殺一遭綁架，幸而張安薇安然返台。

二日出事的是仙本那鎮外二點二海里的辛加馬塔（Singamata）海上度假村，六名持槍綁匪搭機動小艇接近度假村，上岸綁人後朝加雅島方向駛去，歷時數分鐘。

高華贇春節期間即訂好機票，沒有因馬航事件取消行程。同行友人說，她在房間外的浴室洗完澡回到房間，發現高華贇失蹤，手機也不見。

綁匪在內有百名以上旅客及員工的度假村犯案，也在許多目擊者面前綁人。大陸「華西都市報」記者李雪也在當地旅遊，以手機拍下在場者躲進木桌後擋子彈的畫面。

馬航MH370班機失蹤事件還沒結束，沙巴又發生五個月內第二次綁架案，對馬國旅遊業無疑是雪上加霜。

馬國總理納吉說，已與菲律賓政府聯絡，涉及擄人的據信綁匪是恐怖組織阿布沙耶夫（Abu Sayyaf）成員，且不排除有人企圖在MH370事件期間，拉高大陸民眾對馬國的抱怨。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/opinion/krugman-jobs-and-skills-and-zombies.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/asia-pacific/20140404/c04malaysia/zh-hant/

2014-04-04．聯合報．A17．國際．新加坡記者林以君