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.