Amid drizzle and tears, a joyful reunion
In a jubilant, tearful reunion, the crew of an American merchant ship that repelled a band of Somali pirates - and whose captain was rescued by US Navy commandos - arrived here early today, capping a week-long ordeal that thrust the threat of piracy to the top of the international agenda.
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After arriving on a chartered jet from Kenya, a smiling Chief Officer Shane Murphy of Seekonk, Mass., and his 18 crewmates from the Maersk Alabama emerged in the early morning drizzle to hugs and high fives from smiling loved ones, some waving small American flags.
Murphy's wife, Serena, joked before the arrival that she was going to take him hostage.
"Well, I'm going to give him food and water. That's a positive for him," she said yesterday on NBC's "Today" show. "But I think I'll make the accommodations a lot more pleasant than the pirates did."
The crew's highly anticipated return, however, was marred by more acts of piracy yesterday off the coast of East Africa - including one incident that swept up their captain, Richard Phillips of Underhill, Vt.
Just days after Navy SEAL sharpshooters freed Phillips by killing his captors, the American warship that staged the rescue mission raced to the aid of another US-flagged cargo ship when pirates, armed with mortars and automatic weapons, attacked it off the Somali coast.
Phillips was still aboard the USS Bainbridge when it sailed to help the Liberty Sun.
The US Navy's Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, said the pirates fired on but failed to board the Liberty Sun, and had fled by the time the Bainbridge arrived.
The warship escorted the Liberty Sun to its destination in Mombasa, Kenya.
The crew of the cargo ship was unharmed, but the drama on the high seas off the Horn of Africa showed no sign of relenting.
Later in the day, a French warship, the Nivôse, stymied a pirate attack on a cargo ship and captured 11 of the bandits about 500 miles off the coast of Kenya, according to a statement from the European Union.
The French ship planned to hand over the pirates to the Kenyan government for prosecution.
Back in Washington, there were more calls yesterday for military strikes against the pirates' bases on the Somali coast.
In a letter to President Obama, Representative Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, wrote that "the only way to deal with these criminals is to seek them out in the coastal safe havens where they are operating."
Skelton cited the American military raids against the Barbary pirates in North Africa in the early 1800s and recent joint efforts by Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia to combat piracy in the Straits of Malacca.
"In both of these examples," Skelton told Obama, "the victory over the pirates came when they were denied safe havens ashore."
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A Massachusetts lawmaker who chairs a key congressional panel said he plans to hold hearings on how the United States and the international community can deal with a major threat to international shipping between the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.
"Congress is ignorant," said Representative William D. Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat and chair of the House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight. "We are very much in the learning phase."
Delahunt's panel has primary jurisdiction over United Nations matters. The organization is currently debating how to strengthen antipiracy efforts and has authorized the use of force on Somali territory as one option.
Delahunt said Skelton's call for military action is "my instinct, but I don't know," adding that he intends to review current efforts to determine if they need to go further, and if international law must be strengthened.
Meanwhile, the Maersk Alabama's crew began to give more details about their ordeal.
In an interview yesterday with ABC's "Good Morning America," Shane Murphy, who took command when Phillips was captured, said he had no regrets about the pirates' deaths because they reneged on their agreement to leave the ship and took Phillips hostage when the crew handed over a pirate it had seized in the initial confrontation.
"That was something that didn't go as planned," he said. "You have to realize, this was after a 13-hour ordeal. There was physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion. They got greedy . . . at the last second, they changed on us," he added of the pirates.
"I gave these guys 100 chances to take what they want and go. People ask, 'Did they get what they deserve?' Human life is human life, but these people had so many opportunities."
Serena Murphy told NBC yesterday that she did not want her husband to return to sea but would "support him in whatever decision he decides to make."
It was unclear when Phillips, whose dramatic rescue from armed pirates on a small lifeboat captured global attention, would return home.
In a statement, his wife, Andrea Phillips, said yesterday, "Our family joins with the families of crew members in celebrating the return of their loved ones."
Peter Schworm of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Source: The Boston Globe
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