Indonesian seamen queried

Indonesian seamen queried

SEOUL (AFP): Twenty Indonesian seamen were in custody Monday
after mob violence on a South Korean trawler triggered by an
argument over instant noodles, police said.

"They are under custody here for questioning," a police
spokesman in the southern port of Pusan said by telephone.

Police said the 20 sailors went on a rampage injuring three
South Korean engineers, after their supervisors took away instant
noodles they were preparing in their cabins.

Initial investigations revealed the Islamic Indonesians had
resorted to instant noodles after the ship's galley had served up
two meals Sunday containing pork.

"Cooking in places other than the kitchen is against the
rules," the police spokesman said.

A total of 87 seamen including 31 Filipinos and 36 South
Korean crew were aboard the 3,237-tone trawler, Oryong 501, which
was at anchor in Pusan port when the trouble started.

Police said the Indonesian seamen had also complained that
their wages were lower than those of other foreign colleagues.
The incident was the latest in a series of violent brawls
involving Korean and foreign seamen.

In August, Indonesian seamen seized four South Korean trawlers
in the Indian Ocean over unpaid back wages and commandeered them
to Indonesia.

Three weeks later, six ethnic Koreans from China killed and
dumped 11 South Korean and foreign colleagues overboard in a
bloody mutiny prompted by beatings and maltreatment in the South
Pacific. They were sentenced to death in December.

South Korean offshore fishing vessels, shunned here as "dirty
and difficult," employ some 2,500 seamen from China, Indonesia,
Vietnam and other Asian nations.

But foreign seamen have frequently complained of maltreatment,
harsh working conditions and failure by Korean supervisors to pay
back wages.