- In mid-April this year, several Indonesian crew members aboard the China-based Run Zeng 03 fishing vessel jumped into the Arafura Sea following a pattern of alleged mistreatment on board.
- One of those who jumped didn’t survive, while the others were rescued by a fishing boat that happened on the crew members fighting for life in the water.
- Authorities in Indonesia may have missed opportunities to confine boats operated by Donggang Runzeng Ocean Fishing Co Ltd, a Chinese company based in a port on the country’s border with North Korea.
- The Indonesian fisheries ministry’s head of supervision explained in an interview that his history of contact with the manager of the boats’ operator was part of a law enforcement operation.
Labor abuses on foreign-flagged fishing vessels in Indonesia’s remote eastern seas continue to claim lives, with Indonesian crew members bearing the brunt of exploitation amid weak law enforcement, a new report published on Oct. 3 shows.
“What we ate and drank was unfit,” Sanusi, a crew member aboard the Russia-flagged Run Zeng 03 fishing boat, told Indonesian publications Jaring and Tempo.
Sanusi said he was given rotten chicken to eat and drank used water from an air-conditioning condenser. Crew members felt so desperate after working up to 18 hours a day and enduring a protracted dispute over withheld pay that they leapt in April from the boat into the Arafura Sea, some 8 kilometers (5 miles) from shore.
Most of the crew were rescued by a passing purse seine fishing boat and admitted to the nearest health center for critical care. However, the headless body of one of the men, named Juanaaby, was recovered days later and buried by residents of Warabal village, Tual district.
Awareness of criminality at sea has increased a decade after Associated Press journalists won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for documenting systemic forced labor in Southeast Asia’s fishing fleets. That disclosure led to the release of more than 2,000 people, some of whom had been kept in cages.
However, reporting in the past several years has revealed widespread abuses have persisted in the sector, perhaps most notoriously on vessels operated by Dalian Ocean Fishing, a China-based tuna firm that supplied sashimi-grade fish to Japan.
Months before Sanusi and other crew members abandoned the Run Zeng 03, 27 other Indonesian workers were summarily dismissed and “dumped” near Dobo harbor in Indonesia’s Maluku province, receiving only 1.5 million rupiah ($100) in severance payments.
“It was so bitter working on that ship,” one of the men said.
Earlier this year, international fisheries monitors tracked the Run Zeng 03 and 05 ships as they motored south toward Indonesia from their port of origin on the China-North Korea border.
“After leaving the port in China, the Run Zeng 03 fishing vessel turned off its AIS transmission,” the Ocean Justice Initiative wrote in a report published in April, referring to the automatic identification system that broadcasts a ship’s location. “Meanwhile, the Run Zeng 05 fishing vessel was monitored at several locations in the Indonesian EEZ [exclusive economic zone].”
Word of abuses on board the Run Zeng 03 reached Paguyuban Mitra Nelayan Sejahtera (PMNS), a politically connected fishing association on Indonesia’s main central island of Java, which then wrote to the country’s fisheries minister, Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, on April 14.
“We are asking for arrests and strict action against illegal foreign ships,” PMNS secretary Siswo Purnomo said.
What followed was an international law enforcement operation involving authorities in Australia and Papua New Guinea, supported by Interpol.
On May 19, authorities seized the Run Zeng 03, while the Run Zeng 05, which was carrying 19 Indonesian deckhands, managed initially to evade officials but was later detained off Papua New Guinea.
The ships’ owner is Donggang Runzeng Ocean Fishing Co. Ltd., a company based on China’s border with North Korea and operated by married couple Sun Hiu and Yang Chunge.
Donggang Runzeng vessels have been implicated in at least 290 reported cases since 2012. Of these, 98 involved labor disputes with crew members, 32 involved alleged noncompliance with trade regulations, and 31 involved disputes with shipbuilders. The company is also facing no fewer than seven lawsuits.
The report published by Jaring and Tempo raised questions that officials missed at least two opportunities to investigate the Run Zeng vessels while they docked in two Indonesian ports.
The Run Zeng 03 anchored in Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok Port and fisheries department officials later also detained the boat in Ambon, a city in Indonesia’s eastern Maluku region. However, the boat was allowed to continue on its way.
The Indonesia country manager for Donggang Runzeng, Gunawan Winarso, has alleged in court that the Indonesian fisheries ministry’s director-general for supervision, Pung Nugroho Saksono, allowed the boat to continue to operate. Gunawan made the admission as he faced questions as a witness in an unlawful transshipment case.
“It’s no problem that it was mentioned in court,” Pung told Jaring and Tempo in an interview. “Because my actions in the field were a technique to integrate with perpetrators.”
Banner image: The Run Zeng 03 ship was detained at a port in eastern Indonesia on June 5. Image by Abdus Somad/Jaring.id.
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