German-owned Cargo Ship MV PATRIOT has been Released

The German-owned cargo ship MV PATRIOT with 17 mostly Ukrainian crew members including a Polish captain.has been released, Germany's Foreign Ministry finally confirmed only Tuesday.

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said in Berlin that the Maltese-flagged MV Patriot was released already Friday and that no Germans were on board. She spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, citing department policy, and said she could offer no further details.

Pirates captured the Maltese-flagged MV PATRIOT on 25th April in the Gulf of Aden about 150 nautical miles (280 kilometers) southeast of the coastal Yemeni city of Al-Mukalla.

Local reports spoke already over the weekend that a ransom had been received by the pirates and the vessel owned by PATRIOT SCHIFFAHRTS GmbH of Germany with all crew unharmed was released near Eyl. Why the German authorities did not inform the public earlier remains unknown, but with more and more secrecacy covering the operations of naval forces in the waters around the Horn of Africa it is feared that not only many armed interactions go unreported, where Somalis are killed and others get wounded and are hidden away in hospitals without informing their kin, but now even releases of merchant ships are kept hidden from the media and the public eye. Likewise the concerned seafarers are often whisked away and/or contracted to silence about the truth of their experience.

The sick games around the Horn of Africa become more and more hidden and thereby deadly, because voices of reason can no longer interfere in many cases. It will only be a question of time until something so serious will happen that it can no longer be brushed under the carpet of state secrecy (or is it sea-crazy?) - and one has the feeling that it is actually such an incident which is wished for in order to get the agenda of total mobilization through, which also the last meeting of nations - for good reasons - did not approve. Transparency as pre-requisite in conflict resolution can only be achieved if transparency is provided for by all sides in a conflict.

Source:Ecoterra, May 20, 2009

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