Jordan Saunders
4:25 p.m
November 17, 2010
Recently retired British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler was kidnapped on their way to Tanzania by local pirates. The Chandler’s were sailing from the Seychelles toward Tanzania on their private yacht in October of 2009. They were three days into their trip when they were attacked and then kidnapped by the pirates. As kidnapped prisoners the Chandler’s were forced to sail toward Somalia on their yacht with the pirates aboard. Soon after the attack the couple was forced off their own yacht and onto a container ship. All together the couple was kidnapped for thirteen months, as they waited for their ransom to be paid. Paul Chandler said as the pirates impatiently waited for their ransom his wife and him were put into separate areas of solitary confinement before making their first public plea on television. The pirates wanted a ransom of $7 million dollars from the British government. During the beginning of the kidnap the British government said that they would not pay ransoms or negotiate with any pirates. The British government said that giving into a ransom would give pirates and kidnappers power and influence them to do it again. Although the pirates did not get their $7 million dollar ransom, they received $750,000 from an unknown donor. Information from the International Maritime Bureau states that one hundred pirate attacks have occurred along the coast of Somalia over the past seven months. Navy vessels have decreased the numbers from last year by observing the coast frequently. The pirates knew that they were going to get some type of ransom, because if they didn’t then they probably would have killed the couple after awhile or they would have kidnapped them so other reasons. The couple was never seriously harmed, because the pirates knew if they had a chance of getting the ransom the couple could not be hurt. Pirates want to control the area and show that they have power over the government. These pirates were probably from the slums and never had any structure or stable income. Some factors that they might have been exposed to could have influenced their current lifestyle, and caused them to engage in kidnapping and other illegal actions.
2 comments:
$750,000 from an anonymous donor? Who do you think the donor is? I think it must be from one of the close relatives/family members of the kidnapped couple. It can't be from some philanthropist who has no connection to the couple, because otherwise why there was no anonymous ransom from other kidnap cases.
Kidnapping is an interesting issue involving very complicated psychology. For example, would the pirates have released the couple if they did not receive the $750,000? After all, they had kept the couple for 13 months. Is it right for the British government to refuse paying the 7M ransom?
That's a GREAT QUESTION, I would love to know who paid that money. The Somali pirate situation seems to ebb out of the public conscious too often.
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