Saturday - April 11, 2009

PIRATE UPDATE Somali clan elders try to mediate in pirate stand-off.

PIRATE UPDATE

Well now who’d a thought this new wrinkle?
Could it be a ruse?  Doesn’t seem like it.

Somali elders were preparing to sail on Saturday to where pirates were holding an American cargo ship captain hostage in an ongoing high-seas hostage crisis.

By Mike Pflanz in Mombasa
Last Updated: 10:19AM BST 11 Apr 2009

The team of men from the pirates’ home town plan to “calm” the gunmen holding Richard Phillips and arrange for his hand-over to US forces, according to a Kenyan maritime official.

“They are just onshore waiting for permission from the US Navy, and then they will go,” said Andrew Mwangura, head of the Seafarers’ Assistance Programme in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa.

“They want to calm the people holding Phillips, then arrange to give him to the Americans on the agreement that the pirates will not be harassed.”

A back-up force of pirates aboard a hijacked German boat had threatened to sail to reinforce their colleagues, perhaps using their 24 foreign hostages as a human shield.

But they were forced to turn back on Saturday, saying they had failed to locate the scene of the hijack, some 400 miles north-east of Mogadishu.

Mr Phillips, 55, has been held in a small lifeboat adrift in the Indian Ocean since a botched attempt to seize his ship, the US-flagged, Danish-owned Maersk Alabama, on Wednesday.

He tried to escape early on Friday by slipping overboard under cover of darkness, but was immediately recaptured when at least one of the four armed men holding him jumped into the sea after him.

He is said to be unharmed. The lifeboat has enough supplies for 34 people for ten days.

The US Navy has sent three warships and a surveillance aircraft to the area to try to force the pirates to capitulate and give up their hostage, but the tense stand-off entered its fourth day on Saturday.

The gang is understood to have demanded a $2 million ransom for the safe release of Mr Phillips , and have threatened to kill him if it is not paid.

Abdi Garad, a pirate commander in the Somali town of Eyl, said on Saturday that there were plans to move Mr Phillips to another, larger ship because “there are not any developments on the standoff with the American officials”.

“I’m afraid this matter is likely to create disaster because it’s taking too long and we are getting information that the Americans are planning rescue tricks like the French commandos did,” he said.

Florent Lemacon, a Frenchman whose yacht was hijacked last week, died on Friday when French commandos mounted a raid to free him with his wife and three-year-old son and another couple.

The other hostages were rescued safely. Two pirates also died and three more were captured during the operation, which was ordered by France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

His office defended the mission, saying that France was determined ‘not to give in to blackmail, and to defeat the pirates’.

But the commando raid illustrates the dangers faced by the Americans as they consider their options for releasing Mr Phillips.

The Pentagon, the White House and other US officials have stressed that they are doing all they can to secure a peaceful, negotiated outcome.

The Maersk Alabama was due to arrive in Mombasa later on Saturday. Its remaining 19 crew members, all Americans, are safely aboard.

Posted by peiper     on 04/11/2009 at 08:11 AM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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