It's been 50 days since the caper of the Danish freighter Danica White was boarded by Somali pirates in international waters off the coast of Somalia.
The five Danish crew members where forced to sail the vessel into Somali waters, where they have been held hostage ever since.
It has now been published that the kidnappers have demanded 8M DKK for the release of the ship an her crew.
Problem is, the shipping company doesn't have that kind of money according to Danish TV2 (link in Danish.)
The company has major debts and only have around 1.5 million kroner in the cash registry. And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will not fork out for fear of encouraging more piracy.
So the company can't pay and the Danish State won't. Which leaves a third option: Send a group of Danish SEALS and make an example. Next time a pirate captain sees a vessel with a Danish flag he'll back off. Not worth your life!
Wishful thinking! Not that it couldn't be done. Here is some footage from a rescue drill a few years ago. (wmv 2:42) They even have a dog with them. How cool is that? :-)
2 comments:
The sensible course of action is pay the money, get the men and the boat free, de-brief the sailors. Then send a Danish warship out there and turn the harbor into rubble and sew acoustic mines in and around the harbor. Make the harbor unusable. Make sure that it costs them more to repair it than the $1,500,000 ransom. The Danish Warship might have to wait around for a couple of months until there was an international incident before they started bombarding, this would help to keep off the front pages of the Newspapers. The whole affair can be easily denied if the ship is sitting well below the horizon. It wouldn't that these thugs long to get the message. If you don't think that this wouldn't work check this out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War
Oh, that western countries were run by real men, ones with balls, brains and common sense!
Excellent post.
Good suggestion, Yorkshire. Somebody should make Yorkshire pudding out of the terrorists.
Things haven't changed since the days of the Barbary Coast pirates!
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