American Missionary Released Unharmed After Six Days In Captivity

MARAWI, Philippines (AP) _ Clutching an automatic rifle, a kidnapped American missionary rode to safety today aboard a motorized outrigger canoe with 10 of the armed men who held him captive for six days.

Brian Lawrence appeared slightly shaken as he climbed from the canoe on Lanao Lake, and had suffered numerous insect bites in the forest where he was held. He immediately asked for a drink of cold water.

″I feel very happy. I have to say my kidnappers always treated me well,″ the 30-year-old Presbyterian evangelist said. ″There were times I was threatened - you know how people are when they try to scare you. They said that if the military would conduct operations against them, I would be killed.″

However, ″From the beginning, I knew that their intention was to release me and not to harm me,″ Lawrence told a news conference after being taken from the lake to Marawi, about 510 miles south of Manila on Mindanao Island.

The Madison, Wis., missionary was abducted by armed men last Saturday from his apartment in Marawi. He said the kidnappers made no demands for ransom and local Moslem leaders who negotiated his release said nothing was paid.

His captors brought him in a canoe today from the island of Balut Masla in Lake Lanao to the village of Lilod, about 18 miles from Marawi. The gave him the automatic rifle to hold during the canoe ride, he said.

In Lilod, Lawrence was handed over to businessman Binasing Macarambon, a representative of the Moslem negotiators who secured his freedom.

The tall, bearded missionary was reunited in Marawi with his pregnant wife, Carol Ann, who burst into tears and clutched his hand. Lawrence saved her from the kidnappers by pushing her into a cabinet as the armed men broke into their apartment.

Tarhata Alonto Lucman, a Moslem princess who helped negotiate Lawrence’s release, said it was delayed by rumors that the military planned to try to rescue the missionary by force. Maj. Gen. Jose Magno, chief of the southern command, said he assured the princess there would be no military intervention.

On Thursday, another Moslem group released 10 Filipino Roman Catholic nuns who had been abducted from a convent near Marawi on July 11. Military officials said their kidnappers were led by a disgrunted former government employee who wanted his job back, and that no ransom was paid.

Lawrence said in a taped message released Wednesday that his captors wanted independence for Mindanao, home to most of this mainly Roman Catholic country’s Moslem minority and the scene of a bloody revolt beginning in 1972.

He said today, ″What the commander (of the kidnappers) said and what the men said are different. The commander said they were for the independence of Mindanao, but the young men said they just wanted their jobs back.″

He was referring to complaints from some of the captors that they had been fired as security guards at Mindanao State University without severance pay.

Military officials have said they believe Lawrence’s captors were members of the Barracudas, a private army linked to local Moslem leader Ali Dimaparo, a supporter of ousted President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Officials said the group only uses the independence issue to give itself glamour.

They said they believe Dimaporo’s nephew, Ismael, led the kidnappers and also was responsible for kidnapping a French priest who was released recently. The younger Dimaporo has denied involvement in the kidnappings.

Princess Tarhata, the widow of a sultan, did not identify the kidnappers. She said no money was paid for Lawrence’s release.

Her political rival, Saidamen Pangarungan, the governor of Lanao del Sur province, said the kidnappers had demanded $5,000 but that official emissaries told the captors the governor had no money.

In Manila, U.S. Embassy charge d’affaires Philip Kaplan issued a statement thanking President Corazon Aquino for her ″concern and personal efforts″ in securing Lawrence’s release.

Kaplan also thanked Filipino military officials and civilians for their aid.

It was not clear why Lawrence was targeted. He said his kidnappers did not know his name or nationality when they abducted him.

The night of the kidnapping was a ″frightening time,″ he said.

″We heard dogs barking. My wife went to the window, and we could see men hiding in the bushes,″ Lawrence said.

″We tried to make so much noise, but no one came (to help),″ he said. ″They (the kidnappers) broke down my door. ... There was no use resisting.″

Lawrence said he was guarded most of the time by about 20 armed men. He wrote in a letter to his wife released Thursday that he was held in a small hut and was fed plenty of rice, fish and bread. He said he was given a mattress, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and was allowed to bathe.