Kerala Chief Minister wants pirate- hostage swap

Kerala’s Chief Minister Oommen Chandy wants Somali pirates held in India to be released in exchange for up to seven Indian crew of the ‘Asphalt Venture’ that have been held hostage on land in Somalia for the last two years. Media reports say that Chandy has spoken to Minister of Shipping GK Vasan and the newly appointed External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid about the issue. He has also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Chidambaram, and is reported to have disclosed that the ‘top leadership’ of the government is ready for a swap deal.

The vessel was taken in September 2010 and held with fifteen crew. Seven months later, she was released on the payment of a reported $3.5 million dollar ransom; however, seven Indian crewmembers were held back and moved to land near Harardheere. Amongst them, two residents of Kerala. 

The State’s Chief Minister has now ‘expressed anguish’ over the Centre’s delay in exchanging some of the more than hundred Somali pirates apprehended by India and incarcerated in prison in Mumbai. Their compatriots in Somalia want them released in exchange for the Indian hostages- two of whom the pirates say have died in their custody. 

“I don’t think there is no other way out to save the lives of Indians who have been held hostages since September 28, 2010. What is the use in keeping these pirates in our jails?” Oommen Chandy said last week.

Chandy indicated that the Maharashtra government was against the swap, and wants the pirates to be put on trial before any decision is made. He says he will write to Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan; Chandy has already asked the Centre to expedite these court cases so that the Indian hostages could be released soon. 

“Immediate action is needed to end the agony of the families of hostages. It is a humanitarian issue,” he said.

Amidst deadlines, threats and pleas, seafarers wait for deliverance from pirates

                                                 Chief Engineer Bahadur Singh pleading for help

Mumbai, October 10 For one reason or another, the last two weeks have seen a spate of news about seafarers held hostage by Somali pirates. These include the seven ill-fated Indian members of the crew of the Asphalt Venture, who have been held for two years, even after their ship and the rest of the crew were released. A recent YouTube video shows a bunch of emaciated Indian seamen, including the Chief Engineer, pleading to the Government of India and other functionaries for help.

In other connected news, Somali pirates issued a two-week deadline for the payment of a 700,000 dollar ransom for seven Bangladeshi mariners taken in 2010 when their ship ‘Albedo’ was hijacked. The pirates threatened that they would start killing the seamen one by one thereafter. Family members say that pirates contact them regularly to try to pressurise them. The crew is surviving on just two pieces of bread and a litre of unpurified drinking water- hands and legs tied- in an undisclosed location in Somalia. At a press conference in Chittagong, the father of the kidnapped Aminul Islam revealed that pirates had called him the previous day, saying that they would kill his son unless the ransom was paid; the Indian hostage is believed to have been killed some time ago. The families of the hostage Bangladeshi’s are now pleading to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for help. 

The Indian hostages from the Asphalt Venture appear pathetic in the video, appealing to political leaders across the spectrum. “Our condition is very bad. I don’t know what action the government is taking. We have been here for a very long time now. We are fed up and mentally tensed. Our health is not good. So we are requesting the honourable President of India, honourable Prime Minister, UPA President Mrs Sonia Gandhi and opposition leader Mrs Sushma Swaraj to please save us. Save our life. We want our release. Please help us,” appeals Chief Engineer Bahadur Singh, who, along with the others, was taken hostage in September 2010. 

"We want our lives, please help us, please save us," he says.

Eight of the crew were released along with the ship in April 2011, but seven Indians were taken ashore. Somali pirates said at the time that they would be set free only if about a hundred Somali pirates held in India were released. The vessel’s Second Officer Unnikrishnan is reported to be diabetic and in urgent need of medicines.

Meanwhile, families of four South Korean sailor hostages of the tanker ‘Gemini’ are pleading with their government to do something to secure their freedom. Captured in April 2011, most of the crew were released after a ransom of $6 million was paid. However, in a development quite akin to that of the Asphalt Venture, the Korean crew were retained, allegedly because of South Korean action after the Samho Jewellery hijack, when that ship was boarded by Korean commandos who reportedly shot dead 8 Somali pirates.

A failed rescue attempt of the Koreans in November was blacked out by the media on Korean government insistence, and it is only now that their plight has become better known. The wife of the tanker’s Chief Officer, Kim Jeong-Sook, said, “We tried to hold this kind of news conference before, but the government and the company told us to stay quiet and just wait. So we trusted the company and the government and just waited.”

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Pirate leaders protected by Somali President and local governments, says UN

Kingpins "Virtually guaranteed 'impunity'"

At least one pirate kingpin seems to be under the protection of Somalia's President , who has issued him a diplomatic passport to save him from arrest; a United Nations investigation says that there are others, and has lambasted the climate of "impunity" that prevails in the country that protects pirate overlords in Somalia and abroad.

Reporting to the UN Security Council, the Monitoring Group on Somalia said that "senior pirate leaders were benefitting from high level protection from Somali authorities and were not being sufficiently targeted for arrest or sanction by international authorities," according to Reuters. The UN report quotes the case of Mohamed Abdi Hassan "Afweyne", a notorious pirate boss, who presented a diplomatic passport to suspicious Malaysian authorities in April; the document had been issued "with the authorisation of Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed," and stated, somewhat disingenuously, that Afweyne was involved in counter-piracy operations. 

In a remarkable counter-offensive, President Ahmed claimed that the UN Monitoring Group report was one sided, and Afweyne's diplomatic passport was just "one of several inducements" offered to the pirate kingpin in return for stopping piracy and disbanding his group of criminals. Ahmed told the UN in a letter that its report "seems hell bent on soiling the good names of private members of the Somali people by throwing at them unsubstantiated allegations".

The protection of pirate bosses is apparently not restricted to President Ahmed's administration.  The Monitoring Group also criticised the Puntland government for failing to arrest powerful pirate leaders and instead concentrating on the arrest of low-level pirates.  In connected developments, a spotlight was thrown on semi autonomous Puntland's much hyped anti piracy force- the Puntland Marine Police Force (PMPF) - that was shut down after its Middle Eastern sponsors pulled the plug on finances. Hundreds of trained and armed soldiers were left stranded with no cash for food, salaries or anything else. Millions of dollars worth of equipment, aircraft, vehicles, arms and ammunition seems to have been 'abandoned' in Puntland in the process; analysts wonder where it will end up.

The UN has wanted to shut down the PMPF for quite some time, because of suspicion of Puntland President Farole's involvement with piracy. The true motives of its sponsors, connected foreign mercenaries- and their backers, who many say are in the West- were also viewed with great suspicion, analysts say. Meanwhile, piracy has almost halved off Somalia in the last year, thanks to more and more shipowners- and insurers- insisted on armed guards aboard vessels transiting the region.

The U.N. report said pirates are exploring "new types of criminal activity" in Somalia, like the kidnapping of tourists and foreign aid workers, besides "selling services as counter-piracy experts and consultants" in ransom negotiations. "This evolution of the piracy business model is being driven largely by members of the Somali diaspora, whose foreign language skills and bank accounts are all valuable assets," the report said, referring to a British businessman of Somali origin who is part of a piracy ring but who also runs a counter-piracy business.

"As a result, the international community is investing enormous resources to pursue and punish those at the bottom of the piracy pyramid ... while virtually guaranteeing impunity for those at the top of the piracy pyramid who bear the greatest responsibility and profit the most," the report said.