Four Ukrainian sailors, together with nine crewmen from Burma and one each from Estonia and Russia, were kept hostage from May 28 to July 8 by 30 “Somalia Soldier” sea pirates on board the German ship Lehmann Timber owned by KW Bereederungs & Co KG. Although this incident is a first for the 21st century, it is too early to brush piracy aside as the preserve of literature and cinema.
Perhaps Ukraine and the world were destined to have this close encounter with piracy in order to understand that life is precious and the contemporary world has not only a highly-developed civilization but also some centuries-old practices, including the slave trade.
Another terrible practice is indifference, like when people are left in the lurch to face certain death. In this case, it is moral degeneration. “We had never been treated so inhumanely. The representatives of the German company that hired us told us bluntly that they could not help us. Do as you please...” said the ship’s electrician and mechanic Serhii Alimov, 24, from Kherson, who flew to Kyiv on July 23. Being abandoned by their employer was as bad as being held captive by pirates in the Indian Ocean’s Gulf of Aden.
The ship’s captain Valentyn Bartashov, 43, is convinced that they could have been rescued in the first five days after being captured, even without paying the Somalis the ransom they wanted. “Once we were captured, we brought into play all the instruments that furnish information about the ship’s position in the ocean every 20 minutes. Since the ship’s board was high, the pirates were always trying to climb up and they were firing their guns time and again. But there were only eight of them at the time. Once there were 30 of them, this was no longer possible,” the captain explained.
At first the pirates demanded a three million dollar ransom. Since the German side was in no hurry to pay and continued to bargain, this only enraged the pirates, who took it out on the 15 hostages. They tormented them the captives with hunger and thirst, giving them only one dry biscuit a day and a mouthful of non-potable water. The pirates finally agreed to accept 600,000 dollars.
When the pirates abandoned the Lehmann Timber on July 8, the freed captives faced a second ordeal — a force-nine storm, during which the ship’s engine broke down. Once again the ship’s owner duped the sailors by reneging on his promise to send out a tugboat. The crew waited in vain for several days while water spilled into the hull and the food ran out. An SOS signal was received by a US cruiser, which provided technical assistance as well as food and water. The rescue operation did not begin until April 15, when the ship was towed away by the Dubai Moon sent from the United Arab Emirates.
According to Captain Bartashov, the German company that hired them wanted to intercept the tugboat so that it would not reach the Lehmann Timber .
“Frankly, when I arrived with the group of Ukrainian doctors, lawyers, and experts from the emergencies ministry at the port of Salala, Oman, where the Ukrainian seamen had been brought, I expected them to be in worse shape,” said psychologist Vitalii Khrystenko, senior associate at the Research Laboratory of Extreme and Crisis Psychology of the Ukrainian University of Civil Defense in Kharkiv.
“They all had — and still have — post-traumatic stress disorder, and they were in a state of extreme physical and psychological exhaustion. But what had helped a lot was their team spirit. Their spirits were much stronger than the Myanmar sailors’, who had sat quietly, psyching themselves up for death. I must say that, much to the credit of our seamen, there were times during the hostage ordeal when the Somali pirates were afraid of them. When is one man afraid of another? When he feels his psychological advantage. So our boys were often head and shoulders above the others. Good for them! As for the stress disorder, this can be remedied. The main thing is that our seamen are winners,” Dr. Khrystenko said.
While psychologists are helping the Ukrainian sailors with their psychological rehabilitation, Nina Karpachova, Human Rights Ombudsperson of the Ukrainian parliament, will be asking the German company to pay compensation for moral and other damages. The amount sought is 100,000 euros for each victim. There may be problems here, too, because the sailors say that when they were leaving Salala on an IL-62 chartered flight back to Kyiv funded by the Ukrainian government, representatives of the German company said they could only pay wages. But Ukraine’s ombudsperson is taking an uncompromising stand: “We decided to continue fighting for the honor and dignity of the Ukrainian and other seamen, and we will be defending their rights in a court of law.”
COMMENTAR
Yurii SAIENKO , head of the department of social expert examination at the Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine:
“It is possible to eradicate international piracy or at least take some correct and civilized steps in this direction. There are powerful programs that are bringing together various countries in order to combat terrorism. The same applies to piracy. Vessels that sail in dangerous waters should be escorted by ships with specially-trained military personnel. In other words, we should make political, civic, democratic, economic, and other efforts, not just military ones, to organize international convoying in such areas. After this incident involving our seamen, I think Ukraine should make the following proposal: let us join forces and find a solution. NATO could also do this because European countries are also on the receiving end (and most European countries are NATO members). This should also be done through the UN security service: the international community already has some powerful international organizations that only need to be more active in this matter. We must not turn a blind eye to what happened to the Ukrainian seamen. We must not allow the same to happen to somebody else, nor should we spend so much money every time on this. We must understand once and for all that the lack of proper security elements only encourages bandits to engage in piracy.”
