East Wood affair

The East Wood affair was an incident of piracy in early 1993 aboard the cargo ship East Wood (also Eastwood), after Chinese illegal immigrants took control of the vessel before being taken back by her crew.[1] More than 500 undocumented Chinese nationals were being transported in one of the largest efforts to smuggle Chinese into the United States in recent times.[2][3]

USCGC Rush.

Radio messages

On January 27, 1993 a distress message went out from the freighter that had been hijacked by pirates the East Wood had left from Hong Kong to Taiwan.[4] On February 7 the US Coast Guard cutter USCGC Rush, after gaining permission from the Panamanian government (the ship was registered and as a Panamanian vessel), boarded with armed sailors but by then the mutiny had already been put down.[5] They found signs of violence and discovered 527 illegal immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong provinces, China.[6] The only weapons were pocket knives and machetes, and two crew members were missing.

Investigation

Upon interviewing the remaining crew with conflicting accounts the general consensus was the mutiny occurred on December 29, 1992 when a dispute between a smuggler and the captain broke out. The dispute lead to some of the migrants taking control of the ship and the two missing crewmen abandoned ship and jumped overboard. The immigrants sailed the ship toward Hawaii to illegally immigrate there, but were thwarted by the distress message and the subsequent response.[7]

Aftermath

The ship was escorted the Marshall Islands, breaking down twice, and arrived at Kwajalein where the immigrants stayed for 20 days to recover their health before being returned to China.[1][8]

References
  1. Commander in Chief U.S. Pacific Command History 1993 Volume I March 31, 1995 Histories from US service or unified commands in the Pacific were released to Nautilus under US Freedom of Information Act requests. Declassified July 16,1999 SEC 3.1 E. O. 12958
  2. Essoyan, Susan - of Chinese Refugees Into U.S. Grows : Smuggling: Last week more than 500 would-be immigrants were found in ship's holds. Since August, 1991, 1,126 nationals have been intercepted. Los Angeles Times, February 10, 1993
  3. Air Station Barbers Point History United States Coast Guard
  4. Coast Guard reports possible vessel hijacking in Pacific UPI, January 30, 1993
  5. Union Bridge man served in Coast Guard rescue NORTHWEST -- Taneytown * Union Bridge * New Windsor Baltimore Sun, March 30, 1993
  6. Daily News (Feb 10, 1993)
  7. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-07. Retrieved 2010-04-28.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. Mann, Jim, Christine Courtney and Susan Essoyan - Outlook : Chinese Refugees Take to High Seas : Emigrants pay up to $30,000 to criminal syndicates that pack them into boats, the INS says. Numbers are small but growing. Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1993
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