Unknown hero's great escape

Captain Zain Juvale was in charge of a charge ship which was seized and held hostage by invading Iraqi forces in Kuwait. Photo / Supplied

Even now, 20 years after Zain Juvale stared down the barrel of a gun held by a nervous Iraqi soldier, the veteran sea captain shudders at the memory.

Lined up on a Kuwait wharf with his crew, a day after Saddam Hussein launched a lightning invasion of his oil-rich neighbour, Juvale felt certain he was about to become a casualty of war. "We all were trembling with fear," Juvale recalled at his Blockhouse Bay home, pausing to retain his composure.

"We feared they'd blow up the ship and shoot all of us and we'd never see the light of day again."

Flashing through the thoughts of the master of the cargo ship Safeer was the sense he would never again see his 6-year-old twin boys or wife Saadia.

The order to open fire never came. Juvale and his crew were marched back to their ship and held hostage while fighting raged a few kilometres from the port in downtown Kuwait. Their vessel, though, was a mess. Soldiers had been on board, trashing cabins and looting valuables. It was the start of a foreboding five weeks for Juvale, who not only survived captivity but eventually sailed to a safe haven, taking with him 725 Indian refugees.

It is 20 years to the month since Saddam declared war on Kuwait, a military misstep by the Iraqi dictator which unleashed the first Gulf War, the US-led Operation Desert Storm.

Captain Juvale's role in saving hundreds of lives in the conflict has been overlooked by the allied nations which eventually sent Saddam packing. Even in his native India, authorities were of a mind to prosecute Juvale for ignoring instructions to leave his human cargo to the outcome of the war.

Juvale settled in New Zealand in 1997 with his wife and sons. But even today he struggles to understand how he summoned the courage to confront his heavily armed captors, restrain his own crew from mutiny and persuade Kuwait's occupiers to release his ship and permit its safe passage. "I cannot say," the modest captain responds to a question about his bravery. "All I know is I wanted to make the rescue mission a success."

Juvale, who comes from a maritime family - his father was a captain and his grandfather started a shipping school - was not even rostered to take the Safeer to Kuwait. But the master fell ill and the owners asked Juvale to take command.

Laden with a cargo of rice, the 10,000 tonne ship berthed at Kuwait's Port Shuwaikh on July 31, 1990. Juvale says he found it odd that a lot of ships seemed to be leaving but no one mentioned that an invasion was imminent.

The news came via the radio on August 2: "We tuned into the BBC to discovered that Iraq had invaded." Contact with the outside world was cut off and war planes screamed overhead. Bombs exploded a few hundred metres from the ship, the only merchant vessel left in port.

"We thought our ship might be the next target."

The next day, heavily armed soldiers seized the port and detained Juvale and his crew.

After the frightening episode ashore, Safeer's crew were locked on board, under the eyes of their captors. For a few days, recalled Juvale, conditions on board were tense and unnerving.

But slowly the relationship between the troops and the seamen eased, partly because Juvale made sure the soldiers got fed. The troops helped replenish the ship's fresh water supplies, and restock its dwindling provisions from port cool stores.

Eight days into their detention, Juvale got word to the Kuwait Indian Embassy that he and and his crew were being held. He suggested that if the ship could sail, then it would take as many evacuees as possible to the nearest safe port.

A week passed without a response. As despair gnawed at his crew, Juvale found ways to sustain their morale. With the consent of the Iraqis, he instructed the crew to work their normal shipboard duties, though he eased up on working hours.

"We prayed, watched video tapes and listened to the radio. We even played cricket with makeshift wooden bats."

Finally on August 21, a senior Indian official boarded the lonely cargo ship and escorted Juvale back to the embassy. Occupying Iraqi troops mistakenly saluted Safeer's master in his crisp white uniform as he made his way through bombed out streets littered with charred vehicles.

Outside the embassy, 10,000 Indians clamoured to leave Kuwait. Juvale finally got backing for his evacuation plan, reinforced a few hours later by the newly-installed Iraqi Governor of occupied Kuwait, Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, the notorious "Chemical Ali".

For the next few days, as his crew built makeshift toilets from 44-gallon drums, Juvale dealt with the waves of people desperate for space in the ship's holds. He was offered cars, VCRs, televisions, cash. His reply, he says, was always the same - contact the embassy.

Then came a diplomatic bombshell: India's Ministry of Transport in New Delhi had ruled the ship could not take passengers as it was a cargo vessel. A defiant Juvale reasoned that as his ship was registered in Panama, Indian authorities could not stop him.

Let down by Delhi, Juvale turned to the invaders. Perhaps they wanted the ship gone, but the Iraqis provided a pilot to take the vessel and its human cargo out. As it sailed away from Kuwait waters, the pilot assured Juvale that if he stuck to the charted route he would avoid mines.

Inside Saudi waters, Juvale radioed surrounding Allied naval forces, advising his ship had been freed and pleading with them not to fire. After 72 hours at sea, the Safeer refugees landed in Dubai, tired, dehydrated but elated. Four ships captured by Iraq were blown up in the war; their crew's fate unknown.

Eventually Juvale spoke to his wife for the first time in 35 days: "She thought it was just a dream."