Nineteen mainland sailors who were accused of abducting a Taiwan
fishing boat will be back in Beijing on Wednesday, after spending
almost 48 hours in Malaysian custody.
Sources from the Chinese Embassy in Malaysia said authorities
there had detained the sailors after a report from Taiwan officials
on Sunday.
According to an embassy staffer surnamed Ning, one of the
sailors, Chen Yong, said that violence had led to them holding four
Taiwan crewmembers, including the captain and chief mate, in a room
for four days.
Fourteen sailors from southwest China's Sichuan
Province and five from the central province of Henan
were engaged by three labor firms to work on the Taiwanese
vessel.
They said they started fishing in the Indian Ocean in April 2003
with an agreed monthly wage of US$150, one-third of which was to be
paid by the captain and the rest by the work agencies.
The sailors said they decided to mutiny after the chief mate
beat one of them up on January 11.
"It was only four days and we had been negotiating with them
during that time," Chen told the embassy by telephone, while still
in the custody of Malaysian police.
The sailors finally agreed to sail the ship to Singapore to
settle the dispute.
"The captain was lying to us," Chen said. "He secretly contacted
people back in Taiwan who called the Malaysian police."
They reportedly said that when Malaysian marine police boarded
the boat the Taiwan captain was still "in charge."
A representative of the Taiwan company and the Chinese Embassy
in Kuala Lumpur both investigated the case.
At first the sailors refused to go home as arranged because
their employers refused to pay them on the grounds that they had
mutinied, but after negotiations they accepted an offer of US$500
each for 16 months' work.
(China Daily January 26, 2005)