![]() Mare does get to travel to America, but as a prisoner. The Somali pirates have only their machine guns and a mother ship with engine trouble. Within thirty-six hours Captain Phillips and the Maersk Alabama are rescued by three United States Navy ships, armed with drones, helicopters, night-vision telescopes, and Navy Seals who parachute onto the scene after an emergency flight from Virginia. Not surprisingly, the citizens of the rich and developed world win out. For Mare piracy is not terrorism, just a business transaction between the rich and poor. Mare responds that international ships do not respect Somali waters-providing a nationalist rationale for his actions-and that he needs 10 million dollars for his bosses. dollars in the ship safe is a decent reward. ![]() He also advises Mare that the 30,000 U.S. The American captain argues that he is in international waters, and he questions Mare’s claim to be a fisherman. The tense, threat-filled dialogues between the Phillips and Mare reflect their different positions in the global capitalist order. Professional and self-righteous, his ship loaded with food aid for hungry Africans, Phillips instructs his 20-man crew that if boarded by pirates, their orders are to lock themselves in the engine room. ![]() ![]() For two anxious days the Maersk Alabama, defended only by fire hoses and flares, is stalked by the four khat-intoxicated, armed men in an open skiff. The dramatic, action-filled hijacking reveals the peculiarities of international maritime and insurance law. Mare would like another big reward, similar to a $6 million dollar reward collected in ransom for a Greek ship, so that he can one day travel to America and buy his own car. Summoned by businessmen who arrive in SUVs to demand that he get back out to sea to make more money, Mare recruits a crew from a crowd of hungry, muscular, young men struggling to survive in one of the least stable states in the world. The pirate Captain Mare (played by Barkhad Abdi, a Somali refugee living in Minnesota) is introduced sleeping on the floor in a cinder-block bunker in Eyl, a shanty-town on the Indian Ocean. Phillips aims to deliver his cargo as expeditiously as possible so that he can return to his comfortable home and family. Driving in a late-model Toyota van to the airport, Phillips and his wife express concern that their children are just not tough or disciplined enough to survive in the new world of global competition. The American, Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks), is introduced in his study in a white frame house in Underhill, Vermont, preparing for his trip navigating the Maersk Alabama from the Port of Salahah in Oman to Mombasa, Kenya. ![]() The larger issues of global class and economic differences are set in the first few minutes. The film Captain Phillips (2013), directed by Paul Greengrass and based upon the 2011 memoir by Richard Phillips, tells the story of one of the most sensational events of 2009-the hijacking of an American cargo ship and the dramatic rescue of its heroic captain. In Washington, President Barack Obama on Monday said Phillips' "safety has been our principal concern.In 2009, according to the International Maritime Commission, the waters off the northeastern coast of Somalia had more acts of piracy than anywhere in the world. She said she is proud of her husband and thanks everyone for giving her "the strength to be strong for Richard." She said the hardest part for her was not knowing what her husband was enduring. Richard Phillips' rescue caused his crew in Kenya to break into wild cheers and brought tears to the eyes of those in Phillips' hometown of Underhill, Vt., half a world away from the Indian Ocean drama.Ī statement from Phillips' wife Andrea was read at a news conference in Vermont on Monday. "From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)," Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old pirate, told the Associated Press from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl. According to The Associated Press, investigators have determined that from the attack on the Alabama and the hostage-taking of freighter captain Richard Phillips, the suspect is at least 18 years old, one official told the press agency. Those threats raised fears for the safety of some 230 foreign sailors still held hostage in more than a dozen ships anchored off the coast of lawless Somalia. ![]()
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