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Pirates of the Somalian waters: Curse of the Filipino seafarers


MANILA, Philippines - The sea was peaceful that moonless evening of June 2006. Filipino seafarer Alfonso Constantino was on duty aboard the MV Sea Epoch, a Panamanian-flagged ship carrying coal from the Middle East to Asia. As the carrier cruised smoothly off Somalia’s coast toward the Gulf of Aden, Alfonso noticed that the ship’s radar picked up three small vessels speeding behind. “Through the telescope I could see them getting closer to the ship," Alfonso said. “At that point I said, ‘This is it, the pirates will hijack us.’" Alfonso rushed to notify the ship’s Filipino captain, who immediately gave the command to sound the vessel’s warning siren. But the pirates were undeterred. Speeding at 16 nautical miles per hour in the calm African waters, the fishing boats easily caught up with the ship. The captain told Alfonso and the rest of the predominantly Filipino crew to assemble at the end of the ship and show their full force on the pirates. “Some of us were shouting. Others waved broomsticks and thick wood slabs. The captain readied the fire hose in case one of them gets stupid and decides to board the ship," he said. An hour later, the 22-man crew managed to breathe a sigh of relief as the pirates of Somalia gave up and disappeared in the darkness. Others aren’t as lucky as Alfonso. Israel Lumpas, one of the two kidnapped seafarers on board the Japanese cargo ship MT Stolt Valor said his 62-day captivity in Somalia might have scarred him for life. “It will take years for me to get over the harrowing experience," Lumpas, told online news site Khaleej Times before his scheduled return to Manila on Tuesday (November 25) evening. Lumpas, 28, was kidnapped last September 15 when about 20 heavily-armed pirates boarded his ship and commandeered the vessel back to Somali shores. “We were all very scared. They did not harm us, but kept threatening us. They were wielding AK47 rifles and carrying dozens of grenades, looked very fearsome and mean," he said.
Pirates guard the crew of the Chinese fishing vessel FV Tianyu 8 as it sails through the Indian Ocean on Nov. 13. Three Filipino seafarers are on board the ship. US Navy
A total of 17 vessels - that range from small fishing boats to huge oil supertankers – with 208 Filipino seafarers on board have been hijacked by Somali pirates this year. Through ransom allegedly paid by ship owners, 74 of the 208 seafarers have been released. Unfortunately, 134 Filipino seafarers on board eight ships remain captive in Somalia. The numbers are not surprising as Filipinos are present in all of the world’s ships. Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs executive director Crescente Relacion said one-third of the world’s shipping manpower requirement or an estimated 350,000 seafarers are supplied by Filipinos. "This puts them at a very high risk (to abductions)," Relacion told GMANews.TV. As the number of attacks continues to climb to alarming levels, the Philippine government has seen allies in other countries to put an end to the hijackings in the Horn of Africa. But as the international community maintains to approach the issue of piracy with non-violent tactics, and the willingness of wealthy ship owners to pay millions in ransom, the Somali pirates remain to be a curse to Filipino seafarers.
Vessels with Pinoy crew members that are still with Somali pirates


MV Centauri - Hijacked last September 17 with 26 Filipinos. M/V Capt. Stephanos - Hijacked last September 21 with 17 Filipinos. MT African Sanderling – Hijacked last October 15 with 21 Filipinos. MT Stolt Strength- Hijacked last November 11 with 23 Filipinos. Tianyu No. 8 (Chinese fishing boat) - Hijacked last November 14 with 3 Filipinos. MV Sirius Star - Hijacked last November 15 with 19 Filipinos. MV Chemstar Venus - Hijacked last November 16 with 18 Filipinos. MV Delight - Hijacked last November 18 with 7 Filipinos. - Data collected by GMANews.TV
Rise of the pirates It is easy to pinpoint the problem at Somalia’s extinct central government, which in 1991 opened the floodgates of poverty, lawlessness and crime further out to the coasts. An estimated 3.8-million working Somali nationals survive with a yearly income between $195 to $291 (roughly P9,750 to P14,450), the World Bank reported in 2002. At the collapse of Somalia’s central government followed by several civil unrest, neighboring countries such as Yemen and Kenya, as well as distant nations like Pakistan, Britain, Sri Lanka, Japan and Korea began exploiting the small African country’s rich water resources, said Mahmood Noor of the Liberation of Somalia Alliance. "Illegal fishing is the cause of the problem and I think the international community should stop that," Noor told the Arab television Al-Jazeera last month. In 2006, the Kenya-based Seafarers Assistance Programme reported that hundreds of illegal fishing boats were in Somali waters at any one time. These fish robbers were engaged in a $90 million a year business, mainly in tuna, the SAP added. Aside from stealing fish, foreign vessels also reportedly dumped toxic chemicals near Somalia’s 3,300-kilometer long shoreline. Somali fishermen armed themselves to ward of fishing vessels that often had more modern facilities than the Somalis' rickety ships. The poor fishermen later discovered they could earn more by looting ships or taking seafarers hostage. The International Chamber of Commerce’s International Maritime Bureau (IMB), a nonprofit organization fighting all types of maritime crime and malpractice, said piracy attacks in Somalia climbed to 75 percent in the first nine months of the year. Between January and September, 63 of the 199 pirate attacks worldwide occurred in the waters off Somalia and the infamous Gulf of Aden. “Piracy is on the increase wherever there is no strong government order," said Captain Pottengal Mukundan, director of the IMB. "That applies currently to Nigeria and Somalia, which are currently the hotspots of piracy."
No more pirates of the Caribbean?


Despite the huge success of the film, “Pirates of the Caribbean" recent data show that piracy in these waters is becoming more like a myth. Since 2004, the International Maritime Bureau has not recorded a single incident of pirate attack in the Caribbean seas.
Somalia’s pirate boomtowns Piracy has also transformed the coastal towns of Somalia into vibrant boom towns, as ship owners willingly pay multi-million dollar ransom to bail out their ship and crew. In northern coastal towns like Harardhere, Eyl and Bossaso, the pirate economy is thriving thanks to the money pouring in from pirate ransoms that have reached $30 million this year alone, the Associated Press said in a report. "There are more shops, and business is booming because of the piracy," Sugule Dahir, who runs a clothing shop in Eyl, told the AP in a report. "Internet cafes and telephone shops have opened, and people are just happier than before." In Harardhere, residents came out in droves to celebrate as the looming oil ship came into focus this week off the country's lawless coast. Businessmen gathered cigarettes, food and cold bottles of orange soda, setting up kiosks for the pirates who come to shore to resupply almost daily. Dahir said she even started a layaway plan for them. "They always take things without paying and we put them into the book of debts," she told AP in a phone interview. "Later, when they get the ransom money, they pay us a lot." Residents make sure the pirates are well-stocked in khat, a popular narcotic leaf, and aren't afraid to gouge a bit when it comes to the pirates' deep pockets. An insider from the maritime industry said most Somali kidnappers demand between 10 to 50 million dollars for the return of all the crew members and the ship’s cargo. The ransom, however, is just a piece of cake to the ship owners since they could easily demand $80 million for a single trip of a cargo ship. Kenya's foreign minister says Somali pirates have collected more than $150 million in ransoms over the past year. A representative of ship owner Beluga Shipping, owner of the BBC Trinidad which was freed last September, admitted that the company paid ransom for the safe release of the ship, including nine Filipino seafarers. “For the ship owner, paying ransom was the only way," Capt. Tomas Awiszut said.
DFA Sec. Alberto Romulo eyed a deployment ban to Somali waters last August.
RP’s band-aid solutions? Alarmed by the spate of attacks and abductions on Filipino seafarers, the Philippine government responded by coordinating with ship owners and the manning agencies to begin negotiations with the pirates and speed up the release of the kidnapped crew. Manning agencies, such as Manila-based BSM Crew Service Centre Philippines Inc., have intensified their pre-departure orientation seminar for seafarers to prepare aspiring seamen for the risks involved when boarding a ship. “Filipino seafarers are aware of what awaits them at sea," said BSM president Narcissus Duran. “We just prepare them but they all know it." Ship officials are also required to take the ship security officers training, which tells the captain to shoot pirates with a fire hose rather than a gun; while crew members undergo a ship security awareness program. At first the DFA eyed a confusing deployment ban on Somali waters. “I suggest that we look into the contracts of the seafarers so that they won’t be allowed to board ships that will pass through dangerous areas," Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said last August. Then the government backpedaled on the proposal when the maritime industry questioned the rule. They argue that seafarers cannot simply leave the boat once it crosses waters that the Philippine government has banned for travel. Since then, the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency issued Resolution No. 4, which doubles the hazard pay of seafarers crossing “high-risk waters." Aside from this, seafarers are also given the option to step down at the nearest port before crossing the troubled Gulf. In case seafarers are abducted, Esteban Conejos Jr., DFA undersecretary for migrant workers’ affairs, said Filipino crew members could always deal with the situation through language adaptability. “We have even given our seafarers certain basic language courses in Somalia like how to say ‘no,’ ‘yes,’ ‘eat,’ and ‘water,’" Conejos said. Some ship owners too, who are often forced to shell out millions of dollars in ransom, have initiated steps to curb the expensive hijackings of their ships. For ship owner Fujio Sekiguchi, president of Koyo Kaiun, which owns the recently released tanker MT Irene that had 15 Filipino crew members, the dilemma could be avoided by just letting his ships sail through the southern tip of Africa. He said the route may be longer but passing through the Gulf of Aden could be more expensive if pirates seize his ships. Experts say the much longer journey adds 12 to 15 days to a tanker's trip at a cost of between $20,000-$30,000 a day. Instead of addressing the piracy problem on land in Somalia, the international community responded by deploying warships in African waters to combat pirates and put an end to their banditry. (To view piracy hotspots in the world click image on right) In a rare victory in the sea war against Somali pirates, an Indian warship, the INS Tabar, sank a suspected pirate "mother ship" in the Gulf of Aden and chased two attack boats last November 18. "It's about time that such a forceful action is taken. It's an action that everybody is waiting for," said Noel Choong, who heads IMB’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "If all warships do this, it will be a strong deterrent. But if it's just a rare case, then it won't work." The United Nations Security Council also issued a resolution authorizing a series of decisive measures to combat acts of piracy and armed robbery against vessels off the coast of Somalia. Under the terms of resolution 1816, Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government would allow other countries, for a period of six months, to enter the country's territorial waters and use "all necessary means" to repress acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea, in a manner consistent with relevant provisions of international law Prof. Franz Lehr, a piracy expert from the University of St. Andews in the UK, however, said the UN directive only looks good on paper “because of the strong language." “But you will only tackle the problem if you address it on land, because piracy is also a land-based problem," he told Al-Jazeera in an interview last September. Lehr said aggression should not be used toward Somali pirates who are also forced by circumstances to turn into banditry for a living. “At the moment all you can do is wait and see," he said, “And let’s be honest, drive the (ransom) price down." - with reports from AP, GMANews.TV
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