The SOS signal came from Port Said where eleven Ukrainian, two Pakistani, and one Indian sailor had been waiting in vain to be paid their wages delayed for several months, as well as the repair of their vessel and departure for home. When the main engine broke down two months ago their ship got stuck on Port Said’s main sea lane awaiting help. Only when food and water supplies ran out, the crew of the Gold-1 appealed for help to the International Trade Union of Transport Workers and the embassy of Ukraine.
While the sailors were starving and their families in Sevastopol, Pakistan, and India were expecting some money to feed themselves, the Cyprus-based owner of Gold-1 Mr. P. bought a new steamer, the Sea Trader, in addition to a palace acquired from new rich Russians, three jeeps, and other assets. Not to hear persistent calls for help from the starving sailors, Mr. P. stopped communicating with the vessel and even changed the location of his office in Limassol. $80,000 in back pay, $50,000-60,000 for engine repair, debts to the Suez Canal Administration, port authorities, and the agent company – all this amounted to a tidy sum, and the ship owner thought it better to wash his hands of the ship anchored off Port Said. He waved away, like troublesome flies, the inquiries by the Ukrainian General Consulate in Nicosia and International Federation of Transport Workers, implying that his relations with the crew is none of their business. The sailors were left without pay, suffering from hunger and cold while the ship owner pocketed their money.
But this time the Cypriot ship owner had a fall. He made a slip, believing that he would be allowed to get away with it. He expected the crew to be silent, for some reason known only to himself, and all the money to go into his pocket, but he miscalculated.
Ukraine’s embassy reacted quickly to the calls for help sent out by the crew. After receiving the required passes, two Ukrainian diplomats, one of them a consul with extensive experience in maritime legislation, arrived onboard the Gold-1. The first thing they did was that embassy officials gave a small sum of money to each member of the crew, enough to last for a couple of weeks. Following this, they heard the sailors’ grievances. The crew was faced with several serious problems. First, they were well aware of their responsibility for the safety of shipping in the Suez Canal, realizing that they cannot leave their anchored ship without supervision. Since the owner had lost any interest in the vessel, why should the port authorities burden the costs and worries for the future destiny of the ship that had to be unloaded and towed to its final moorings at the ships’ graveyard, something that will cost them? On the other hand, if the port captain lets Gold-1 off the hook, the port authorities will never collect the money due them. The port authorities thought of nothing better than to keep sailors as hostages. As a just-in-case step, they denied the crew the right to go ashore. The crew was left with the only option of admiring Port Said panorama from their floating prison, with temperatures reaching 40 degrees Centigrade and their supplies of food and water shrinking every day.
That was what the Ukrainian diplomats saw when they came aboard. By that time, the families of Pakistani sailors found means needed for repatriation and, following the interference of the International Federation of Transport Workers, both Pakistani seamen left for home.
The Ukrainian members of the crew were willing to come back to their families and recount their misfortunes to representatives of law enforcement. Once back and safe in Ukraine, they intended to make public the facts about the criminal dealings of the ship owner which ended in their being held hostages in Egypt.
It all began in July and August last year. After a long period of unemployment eleven Ukrainian sailors from Sevastopol managed to sign a contract with a Cyprus-based shipping company, Global Maritime Service, and already in August they boarded the Red Sky carrying a Bolivian flag in ConstanНa, Romania. The ship carried 1980 tons of ammonium nitrate for the government of Mauritania and 650 c. m. of high-quality wood for Tunisian firms. But after the ship sailed through the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits the ship owners began to send rather unusual instructions to the ship, first to drift near the Greek Islands, then to berth near Cyprus. These strange maneuvers went on for two months, until Mr. P. came to the ship in a launch at night late October and brought new shipping documents whereby the wood was to be unloaded in one of Russia’s Black Sea ports and ammonium nitrate in Bulgaria. He also brought cargo bills of lading bearing seals of the appropriate customs houses and new documents for the ship, which now got the name Gold-1 together with the Tonga flag. In early November the cargo, much awaited in Mauritania and Tunisia, was delivered to Syria’s port of Tartus. Realizing the whole situation, the crew made a decision to keep silent while onboard and follow the instructions of the ship owner to avoid trouble. They needed to get back to Ukraine where they could disclose the whole affair. But for the failure of the ship’s engine and their forced stay in Port Said, it would have been hard to imagine what could have happened otherwise.
After their meeting with Ukrainian embassy officials, the crew cheered up, knowing that they will not be left as hostages in their floating prison. Via Ukrainian diplomats the sailors linked up with the Center for Seamen Rights Protection in New York and submitted another appeal to the International Federation of Transport Workers. In a related move, the Ukrainian embassy contacted Egypt’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Governor of Port Said. Then a representative of Norway’s state maritime service in Port Said brought the welcome news: the immigration authorities have received instructions from Cairo to allow repatriation of the Ukrainian seamen. Moreover, the port authorities offered food and drinking water as assistance.
On April 14, the ship’s chief mechanic, M. Arabadji, who was gravely ill, was flown to Simferopol. The crew spirits rose as they realized that everything was being done to ensure their return home. There is a chance that the sailors will be paid, if not now then later, especially since jointly with the Ukrainian embassy Director of the New York Center for the Protection of Sailors’ Rights Douglas Stevenson became actively involved in settling the conflict.
Incidentally, one of the center’s recent reports says that Global Maritime Service of which Mr. P. is head, is not owner of Gold-1, especially in light of a sudden emergence of the Red Sky on that October night. Moreover, it turned out that Mr. P. uses another name, P.M., and neither his Global Maritime Service or P.P. Winds Shipping Co. (another name of the former) can own the Red Sky because it is listed as property of the Bienvento Trading Co. in Lloyd’s register. The investigation goes on.
No wonder that the waves created by active protests of Ukrainian embassy and maritime organizations have reached Cyprus as one day the embassy received a telephone call from there and a person who identified himself as Captain Janson delicately hinted that the embassy walls do not guarantee absolute safety. It seems that the so-called Captain Janson and his boss Mr. P. have definitely exaggerated their power and chances to hush up their criminal dealings. Incidentally, the Romanian consignors are also aware of what happened to their ammonium nitrate and wood. There is no doubt that by joint efforts the criminal gang will be exposed and the Interpol will finally deal with it.
UKRAINIAN HOSTAGES RETURN HOME
The Ukrainian embassy in Egypt reports that, following original publication on April 20 of the story by Ambassador Veselovsky, in which the latter expressed hope that by late April the Ukrainian sailors would leave their Gold-1 floating prison, a piece of good news has come. All ten Ukrainian seamen have been flown to Ukraine by a Turkish Airlines flight on April 24, leaving only one sailor onboard, a citizen of India. The Indian embassy will take care of his repatriation. The embassy also expresses hope that Ukraine’s appropriate agencies and international investigative bodies will take a close look at the Gold-1 saga to exclude the repetition of similar incidents in the future.
