Pirates Seize French Yacht Off Somalia

PARIS — Pirates seized control of a French luxury yacht carrying 30 crew members Friday off the coast of Somalia, the French government and the ship's owner said.

Attackers stormed the 288-foot Le Ponant as it returned without passengers from the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, toward the Mediterranean Sea, said officials with French maritime transport company CMA-CGM.

"The Defense and Foreign ministries are mobilized to act as quickly as possible, I hope in the coming minutes or hours to try to win the freedom of these hostages," Prime Minister Francois Fillon told reporters while on a visit to Brussels, Belgium.

He did not elaborate. France has considerable military resources in the region, including a base in Djibouti and a naval flotilla sailing in the Indian Ocean.

A military spokesman said later that a French warship, the frigate Le Commandant Bouan, had been ordered to track the yacht. A helicopter from the Canadian warship Charlottetown also was dispatched, Cmdr. Christophe Prazuck said.

He declined to say if any military operation might be planned, and said he did not know the exact location of the yacht.

The Ponant was in the high seas in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean, the French Foreign Ministry said. At least some of the crew members are French, it said.

"French authorities are handling the situation," Jean-Emmanuel Sauvee, managing director of La Compagnie des Iles du Ponant, a subsidiary of CMA-CGM. The company did not want to comment further for fear of endangering the hostages, he said.

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According to the company's Web site, the three-mast boat features four decks, two restaurants, and indoor and outdoor luxury lounges. It can hold up to 64 passengers.

The Ponant was next scheduled to carry passengers as part of a 10-day, 7-night trip from Alexandria, Egypt, to Valletta, Malta, starting April 19. Prices started at $3,465, not including air fare or taxes.

Pirates seized more than two dozen ships off the Somali coast last year.

The U.S. Navy has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region. Last year, the guided missile destroyer USS Porter opened fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to a Japanese tanker.

Wracked by more than a decade of violence and anarchy, Somalia does not have its own navy, and a transitional government formed in 2004 with U.N. help has struggled to assert control.

The International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy, said in its annual report earlier this year that global pirate attacks rose 10 percent in 2007, marking the first increase in three years.

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Associated Press Writer Pierre-Yves Roger in Paris contributed to this report.

Comments

[Portnoy]

Good for the Pirates. The redistribution of Wealth is going pretty slowly in many countries. The super wealthy think they can flaunt their gross lifestyles inthe face of the working poor.

Too bad this redistribution of wealth and land isn't happening fast enough here in America. Perhaps our next president will quicken the pace.

[tombollocks]

.......You're all stoned, aren't you?

[totalliberal]

Ya, that's why our faces are all blurry..................................Dude.

[20thcenturykid]

Tomorrow at dawn the Somali pirates will be toast... or I'd say French fries. Take my word for it. They'll wish they were never born.

[wm1066]

In the 70's I was a long haired north american hippie in the caribbean. And these two scary looking guys from south america where trying to impress our group by telling us they were deck hands on a rich americano's boat, and they were going to kill him and steal the boat. We totally believed them and couldn't get away from them fast enough. to this day I can't figure out how they thought we would enjoy hearing that. And we were in no postion to stop them. The guy from Chile looked like Charlie Manson....creepy.

[spaceknife]

If I had a choice between U.S. forces or french to rescue me in such a hijack, I would , without hesitation, choose the french. They are infinitely more efficient at this sort of mission than the americans.
Just remember the Airbus that was hijacked in Marseilles and how they dealt with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969

[VivaZapata]

An oldie but goodie:
pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel attached to his crotch. the bartender asks, "did you know that you have a steering wheel attached to you?" The pirate says, "Arrr, and it's driving me nuts!"

[Geauterre]

I would like to think that in such situations the crew is well armed, and trained to repel all boarders. I would like to think that. I really, really, would like to think that.

[happydayz]

This is the dumbest sh*t ever. This is the most famously pirate-infested sea area in the world, and on top of that, off the coast of the most lawless failed state in the world. So let's see...let's take a big-ass expensive yacht there, yeah that's the ticket! Is there such a thing as so dumb you deserve it? Or, as Snoop from the wire would say, "deserve got nothin to do wit' it"!

[rektruax]

Lundi, Mardi happydayz!
Mercredi, Jeudi happydayz!
Vendredi, Samedi happydayz!

[totalliberal]

Um, it's not a yacht, it's a passenger vessel. And oh by the way, again every ship in the world that uses the Suez canal has to pass by Somalia.

[Durango]

There is certainly a lot of ignorance on display here. In this case geographical ignorance.

GO LOOK AT A MAP!!!!!

Jeez. People who have no clue where Somalia is feel free to exhibit their ignorance to the world.

[LibsRway2funny]

"French authorities are handling the situation,"

They're doomed.

[Nexus7]

The French love you way worse than you hate yourself.

[gouge]

aaaaaaaarghhhhh! where be thee skull n' crossbones? What say ye mateys!

[jubo]

Well yo ho ho and a bottle of Chateau Pietrus.

[Durango]

Instead of reinventing the military justice system for their War On Terror the Bush Administration should have dusted off the old Admiralty laws on piracy and used that precedent to deal with Osama and crew.

Instead of acting like the attacks on 9/11 were something new in the world they should have used the legal framework already in place, if somewhat dusty.

Unlawful combatants without a nation state behind them, murdering and terrorizing civilians. We have all seen this before in piracy. And the western world has successfully challenged and defeated the threat.

But to do that would have taken intelligence and foresight on the part of Bush/Cheney. Two attributes they sadly lack.

Stupidity on a world class scale. Bush/Cheney.

[newshawk14]

Excellent and knowledgeable post. The same problem exits in Indonesia, If there is one
area that all nations should agree on, it's stamping out piracy. It might be a good idea to
do this with the UN (yes I know they are often incompetent), but this is a relatively small
problem, and a good way for them to work out command and control problems

[Ramirez]

Are you saying that captured Al-Queda should be treated as harshly as one would treat 19th century pirates?

Can you imagine what the Democrats, the media and the ACLU would do with that?

[newshawk14]

Hanging them from a yardarm, would be perfectly acceptable, torturing them
would not be. The rest of your slurs against the Dems, media, and ACLU are
moronic.

[Durango]

I am saying that the model that should be used in the "War on Terror" should be the legal precedent established in the 19th century in the (successful) war on piracy.

Facing a very similar problem laws and institutions were established to counter the problems.

And who says 18th Century pirates were dealt with harshly? If you investigate you will discover they were given due process under the law.

[kvass]

Who cares ?-- Is this really an important story? Millions of children are dying of starvation, the world community is facing enormous problems and we are now being asked to be concerned about a yacht owned by the filthy rich being attacked by pirates. If there is something not right about this story it is some employees of the filthy rich are at ransom -- the filthy rich having flown home to Europe. And now , as in any western nation -- the filthy rich will demand their home country deal with the problem.

[rektruax]

You know, if you think about it, on any given news day millions of children are starving somewhere. The day my mother died, and the day yours will (if it hasn't happened yet). The day MLK was shot, and Kennedy. The day Vietnam, WWII, and WWI ended... etc. Lurking there in the background were starving people, death, and other enormous problems faced by the world community.

No one is asking for you to waste a split second of your life weighing the importance of an event. It's merely the report of an event.

Any weight you give it is your choice, and your choice alone.

[mamacat]

There have been pirates for as long as there have been ships. It is something that needs to be dealt with. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The pirates cannot expect to be treated with kid gloves, but it would be nice to get the crew of the yacht back safely.

[totalliberal]

According to the Laws of the Seas Convention, commercial ships are not allowed to carry arms. That is part of the problem. The headline declares it a yacht, but in fact it is a small sailing passenger vessel.

BTW for those who wonder why a ship would be in this area; passing by Somalia is the only way of getting too the Red Sea and Suez canal.