Puntland Elders plan to travel to high sea to end the standoff between the Americans and the Pirates.
Wallahi Puntland Elders got balls.
Puntland elders plan mediation mission for U.S. hostage
Sat Apr 11, 2009 7:24am BST
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Puntland elders and relatives of pirates holding a U.S. hostage on the high seas are planning a mediation mission to secure his release and safe passage home for the gang, a regional maritime group said Saturday.
The group has traveled from inland Somalia to the coast and is preparing to travel by boat to where pirates are holding American Richard Phillips on a lifeboat, said Andrew Mwangura, of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program.
"They want to resolve this in the traditional Somali way of negotiations," he told Reuters. "They are just looking to arrange safe passage for the pirates, no ransom. They are hoping for a letter of guarantee from the U.S. navy." clap
(Reporting by Andrew Cawthorne, editing by Tim Pearce)
Last edited by Somalian_Boqor on Sat Apr 11, 2009 7:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Twisted_Logic wrote:Bomb these terrorists of the high seas. No negotiations with these terrorists
The terrorists are in Mogadishu inadeer iyo the rest of South Somalia. These boys are heros
The Pirates are a little network that has caught the imagination of the World without looting Somali's, raping Somali's sending suicide bombings and so on.
Unclebin- wrote:The odayaal have left garacad. They are going to bring our troops home.
My uncle lives in Garacad I wonder if he is part of the Elders that went out, plus he speaks almost perfect english as he as lived in the west for 20 years.
[quote="Somalian_Boqor"][quote="Unclebin-"]The odayaal have left garacad. They are going to bring our troops home. [/quote]
My uncle lives in Garacad I wonder if he is part of the Elders that went out, plus he speaks almost perfect english as he as lived in the west for 20 years.[/quote]
Negotiations over the American captain taken hostage by Somali pirates broke down on Saturday, according to Somali officials, after American officials insisted that the pirates be arrested and a group of elders representing the pirates refused.
Somali officials said the American captain, Richard Phillips, and the four heavily armed pirates holding him hostage remained in a covered lifeboat floating in the Indian Ocean about 30 miles off Gara’ad, a notorious pirate den in northeastern Somalia.
The negotiations broke down hours after the pirates fired on a small United States Navy vessel that had tried to approach the lifeboat not long after sunrise Saturday in the Indian Ocean.
It was the first such approach since the standoff began on Wednesday, and the vessel returned to a nearby Navy destroyer, the Bainbridge, after the pirates fired warning shots in the air, according to an American military official.
The American boat did not return fire and “did not want to escalate the situation,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The developments surrounding the fate of the captain came as his ship, the Maersk Alabama, a 17,000-ton cargo vessel, pulled into port at 8:30 Saturday evening in Mombasa, Kenya, with its 19 remaining American crew members.
In Norfolk, Va., John Reinhart, the chief executive of Maersk Line Limited, said at a televised news conference: “The crew is relieved, obviously. It’s been harrowing for them.”
He added, “They won’t consider it done until the captain comes back.”
Mr. Reinhart also noted that the crew was not allowed to leave the ship because the F.B.I. — whose New York office has been charged with investigating the seizure — considered the vessel a crime scene.
Crew members indicated in brief, shouted exchanges with reporters that Captain Phillips, 53, had given himself up in order to save the crew, which was able to regain control of the Alabama.
“He saved our lives!” said Second Mate Ken Quinn, of Bradenton, Fla., as the ship was docking, according to The Associated Press. “He’s a hero.”
In Captain Phillips’s hometown of Underhill, Vt., just outside Burlington, yellow ribbons adorned fences and trees as residents of this town of about 3,000 reacted with dismay when they heard that talks had broken down.
Michael Willard, who is also a merchant seaman and is a friend of the Phillips family, said: “It’s obviously of concern because we are not trained for being kept captive for hostage situations.”
He added, “He is their safety card.”
Not far from the Phillips home, at the Wells Corner Market, an owner, Laura Wells, said: “If the Navy is going to do something, they better do it now, because they cannot let him get to shore. Once he gets to shore, he is lost, because we don’t know where he would be taken.”
The pirates — demanding $2 million in ransom — seized Captain Phillips on Wednesday and escaped the cargo ship in a motorized lifeboat. According to a senior military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing talks, Captain Phillips is still alive, and the pirates have put him on the phone roughly once a day.
On Saturday, a group of Somali elders from Gara’ad, mediating on behalf of the pirates, spoke by satellite phone to American officials, according to Abdul Aziz Aw Mahamoud, a district commissioner in the semiautonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia. The elders proposed a deal in which the pirates would release Captain Phillips, with no ransom paid, and that the pirates would then be allowed to escape.
But Mr. Abdul Aziz said that the Americans insisted that the pirates be handed over to Puntland authorities, and the elders refused. By noon local time, the Americans cut off communications with the elders, he said.
Puntland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamed Faroole, said that he was working closely with American officials to free the captain and “we’re really concerned about the recent attacks.’’
“We’re committed to reorganizing our security forces,’’ he said. "We want to do more to crack down on piracy.’’
Mr. Abdirahman also said that the pirates holding the captain hostage were not headed for Puntland but for farther south on the Somali shore.
The four pirates, according to the district commissioner, were split between two clans, one from southern Somalia and one from Puntland.
Mr. Abdul Aziz said he had heard reports that when the attack on the Alabama took place, the pirates were coming from another ship that they had hijacked.
The pirates saw the American ship nearby and sent one of their small dinghies to commandeer it, which may explain why there were only four pirates aboard the Alabama. In previous hijackings, pirates have swarmed merchant ships with four to five boats.
Captain Phillips is one of about 250 hostages being held by Somali pirates.
Although the Gulf of Aden is heavily patrolled by a international fleet, pirates hijacked another ship on Saturday. Maritime officials in Kenya said that pirates seized an Italian flagged tugboat, the Buccaneer, with 16 crew members. The foreign ministry in Rome confirmed that 10 of the tugboat’s 16 crew members were Italian citizens.
Reporting was contributed by Serge F. Kovaleski from Underhill, Vt.; Mark Mazzetti from Washington; Liz Robbins from New York; and employees of The New York Times from Somalia.
