(23/11/09) Our reporter asks some questions about the hijacking of the tuna ship “Alakrana”. Questions that remain in the air but that are in mouth of most of the Spaniards and that have not arrived to the mass media. They give a deeper vision of this complicated issue.

    I don’t usually write serious articles, as you know…, but these days in which I have been bombed in newsreel, newspapers and chats with the famous hijacking, I have been thinking about these questions about what most of the journalists and people talking on the issue have not wonder.

    Regarding politicians, “our” politicians: I have only listened to criticisms to the Government (by PP, families, journalists and part of the society) because of their mediation efforts; and criticisms to PP because of their trying to get votes with misfortunes. But little criticisms to “Alakrana” company, affected people and families. It is wrong to talk about what one thinks in these cases.

    Why a tuna ship from the North of Spain goes to fish to such far fishing grounds in the Indian Ocean? Surely, because tuna in the Atlantic is used up and catches are little profitable. But who has used it up until extinction in the past? Surely Spanish fleet is has great fault, especially the North one, which is who sent many ships to that issue.

    Why was the “Alakrana” out of the area with military protection, called Atalanta, which costs to our country more than 6 million euros per month? Because surely out of that area, with less ships fishing and/ or richer in fishes, the possibility of better catches (more money) was high.

    Did the shipowner, the captain and the crew know the risk they faced when they voluntarily went far from the military protected area? Obviously they did, because the number of hijackings in the area is vox populi, and more among the people of the trade. And it seems that they had been tried to be hijacked on September 3, 2009.

    Why, despite that, did they take the risk? There is only one answer: money. The first guilty is the shipowner, who stays safe in the harbour, but then the captain and the sailors are also guilty. (Yes, I know it is tough times and we cannot choose our jobs or destination as we all would like to, but not all the tuna ships took the risk, and I suppose that at the end of the month they earn a fixed percentage more plus a commission based on the tons of catch to be shared among the crew).

    I have another question related to that: the rest of the crew neither from the Basque Country nor from Galicia, have the same salary conditions? (Spanish sailors earn an average of 5,000 €/month).

    Why in Somalia? Maybe because that country, due to its internal chaos, is not member of the CTOI (Commission of the Indian Ocean Tuna) and there is no control in this country about how much is fished and what the size of its waters is?

    Would the gear they used be allowed by the EU? I don’t have the answer, because I am guided only by what I have heard and read, and much information can be corrupted.

    If I and a group of contributors decide, for example, to go to North Yemen to write a report against the recommendations of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and we are kidnapped, is it reasonable that my Government spends time and money from the exchequer to solve my problem? Or, if I decide to go to ski despite the warning signs of avalanche risk and I have an accident, have my neighbours to cover it…? (Surely that if we are not a big group, or we are members of a lobby, or family of someone who is some kind of celebrity, the Government did not do so much as in the analyzed case). I understand that, in principle, they must help me, but in the end of the story will have to give me the invoice for reckless.

    I hope that the ransom has not been paid with money from exchequer, direct or indirectly (also, it would be illegal), and that it has been paid by the shipowner, who is who played with fire and got burnt.

    How will the pirates spend the millions dollars, apart from in whores, SUV cars and drugs? Surely in more weapons, faster and more powerful ships to be able to hijack other fishing ships, or what is worse, confused or irresponsible tourists like the British couple. The poison of the scorpion (“Alakrana” in Basque) would serve to kill or kidnap other “innocent”.

    I understand the anxiety of the families, but… who was responsible for the situation of their family? The Spanish Government? The nonexistent Somali Government? Tuna and it migratory “mania”? The answer is different. Money, and it has to be quite a lot, since despite the happening, in short, a new crew will sail to Somali coasts in the same ship.

    What was the height for me was that the families were offered to use the conditioned military plane to go to the Seychelles to pick up the kidnapped to receive them there (by the way, Basque fishers’ families declined the offer due to political? reasons, although they try to disguise it. They are the same people that have organized demonstrations to press the Spanish Government to “pay” the ransom. I it is me who says so, a nationalist. Couldn’t they wait another single day for them to arrive to Spain? And, apart from the ransom, how much has the case “Alakrana” cost to all of us?

    I know that many of the things I have written are not “politically correct”, but it is what I think. The same I predicted when the affected of the Forum Filatélico cried out against the Government for having got ruined when trusting some companies that offered “everything” for their savings. The rest of us, who earned half the interests for having our money in traditional banks, were dumb and they were very clever… They ended this way.

    And despite all the previous thoughts, more ink and saliva has been spent by politicians in discussing if they have shot from the helicopter or no. Who cares? When the next sushi- soap opera?

Text: Carlos Virgili Ribé