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.”

.

.

British couple back at sea despite 388 day ordeal in Somalia

Pic, www.TheVIewFromTheDartmouthOffice.com

Two years after Paul and Rachel Chandler’s terrifying ordeal at the hands of their Somali captors, the yachting couple have courageously made firm plans to finish their round the world trip aboard the same boat, and are back at sea.

The English husband and wife were taken off their yacht- the 38 foot ‘Lynn Rival’- in 2009 from near the Seychelles. Held separately in a makeshift prison on land and subject to near starvation, solitary confinement, severe beatings and worse- 57 year old Rachel survived a rape attempt and pirates threatened to starve the couple to death- they were finally released after 13 months in captivity after family, friends and Somali diaspora living in the UK collected 625,000 GBP in ransom money. Their boat was found drifting in the ocean by the Royal Navy after the pirate attack and brought back to the UK. 

The Chandlers have, since their release in 2010, been living in Dartmouth on the Devon coast, restoring the ‘Lynn Rival’ and preparing to continue their round the world voyage. They sailed out from Noses Marina last week and arrived in Falmouth the next day in obviously high spirits- a local photographer in Dartmouth said they looked ‘ecstatic’. It is believed that the Chandlers will soon be heading for Spain. Rachel revealed that there is still a little problem with the bilge pump of the boat that needs to be fixed- and there is still a bullet hole in the boom, testimony to the terror the two were subjected to three years ago.

"We would have been devastated if we hadn't been able to carry on," said 60 year old Paul, a retired engineer. "It would have been very difficult. You retire early enough, with a dream; you scrimp and save to make it possible … It's like coming home. The Lynn Rival was to be our chosen home for many years. We've been back in her a week." 

"It was wonderful still to remember how to do it. There was always that apprehension that we might not be physically up to it anymore," he added.

Rachel says she feels fantastic. “I wasn't even seasick, and I quite often am for the first two or three days." She’s not unduly troubled by the past. "We've gone through it, and it was a horrendous experience, but we were very unlucky. We can't pretend it didn't happen; it did. But we know that underneath we are still the same people. And you do have to get on with life."

The Chandlers will spend the next few months in Spain and Portugal, then sail to Morocco and then on to Brazil, where they plan to arrive by March next year.Quite obviously, they are going to avoid the East coast of Africa. "Maybe after we've been to South America and the Pacific and the Far East, say nine or 10 years down the road, perhaps it will be perfectly fine there. Who knows?” says Paul.

.

.