Hope floats for Indian mariner in Taiwan lockdown

A tidal wave of e-mails from Mangaloreans and mariners around the world awaits Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou as part of a campaign to secure the release of an Indian mariner who is under house arrest in the island-nation for an alleged accident in the high seas that evidently never happened.

Capt Glen Patrick Aroza, a 37-year-old mariner from Bendur (Mangalore) and a father of three, has been in detention since April 2009 on manslaughter charges after a Taiwanese fishing vessel sank off the coast of Taiwan, killing its captain and chief engineer. Taiwan coast guard officials and prosecutors allege the fishing vessel sank following a midnight hit-and-run incident involving m.v. Tosa, the Panamian-registered freighter under Aroza’s command.
However, that claim has been discredited by subsequent evidence that, in fact, there was no collision involving the two vessels (although there was a near-miss), and that Japanese coast guard alerts had pinpointed the location of the capsize as being different from the one cited by Taiwanese officials.

The case comes up for final hearing in February, but sources familiar with its details told DNA Sunday that the defence has built up an “immaculate case” and “feels confident” that Aroza will be freed by mid-February. The prosecution case had also been weakened by the fact that Tosa was in international waters — and beyond Taiwanese jurisdiction — when coast guard officials detained it and ordered its return to port under threat of force.
The case had threatened to strain relations between India and Taiwan, the island-nation that enjoys de facto independence but over which China claims territorial sovereignty; under the ‘one China’ principle, India — and most other countries in the world — don’t have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, although they have ‘unofficial relations’.

“The wheels of diplomacy were also in motion in connection with the case, and that helped,” the sources added. Representations were made, through trade chambers, to President Ma, who responded with a sympathetic mail to Aroza’s family. Independent of the family and Aroza’s supporters, an e-mail campaign has been initiated by Mangaloreans and mariners around the world urging president Ma to secure the release of the officers — and to “make your prosecutor stop his witch-hunt”.

The case has also highlighted the undue risk that mariners face, and has prompted shipping companies and maritime organisations to act, Col (Retd) Sarvadaman Oberoi, who is assisting in Aroza’s legal defence, told DNA. “This risk exists and is not peculiar to Taiwan,” Oberoi added; it was accentuated by the fact that countries around the world - “including India” — were overriding international law by emphasising national laws.

Aroza’s case had awakened maritime organisations and shipping companies, and “for the first time, they have all come onto a single platform to save mariners from criminalisation,” Oberoi said. “The risks that mariners face are driving them away from the merchant navy, so even from a business sense, shipping firms feel the pressure to act.”