Cosco Busan Detainees Where are the T-Shirts? allision Add commentsMay052008
Nobodys wearing any t-shirts proclaiming Free The Cosco Busan Six, no
craggy-jawed celebrity is taking up their cause at the UN, but, then, theyre
not cute whales or seals, not noticeably gay, dont appear to advocate
political or cultural extremism, and arent being murdered in Dafur, and,
anyway, only two US newspapers have mentioned them, no prime time soundbites.
They fall beneath the liberal radar because theyre simply seafarers waiting to
go home.They, of course, are the six seafarers detained in Los Angeles awaiting
the pleasure of American courts. They are not charged with anything, they are
being held as material witnesss in the trial of Cosco Busan pilot John
Cota.They did, at least, get mentioned by Howard Mintz in the San Jose Mercury
and John Upton in the National Examiner, which appears to have been more than
they got in the maritime industry press, in which they seem to be
invisible.True, they are living in a reasonable apartment, they have been
allowed to visit the local Chinatown and museums, almost certainly under the
watchful eye of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service or sapooks from the
Department of Homeland Security (As British House Of Commons Transport
Committee report points out, seafarers are regarded as little more than
terrorists in the US). They are getting a $50 a day meal allowance from the
ship owner, which is far from excessive or unreasonable. As Howard Mintz points
out, it isnt exactly Gitmo.If they had been charged with a crime and were
awaiting trial, those would be pretty good conditions to be held in. But they
are not. They are not being detained voluntarily, but under court order.At the
moment they are receiving their salaries from their company, which ends on 31st
May. Cotas trial has yet to be set. Theyve lost their jobs on the Cosco Busan
and cant find replacement employment because of their detention.The US
Attorneys Office is willing to let them go home once theyve given
depositions, but it appears that cant be done until June.Yet another reason
not to be a seafarer, or, at least, to keep clear of the US.
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