Navy to Court-Martial Captain Accused of Abandoning Refugees in Disabled Boat

The former captain of the U.S. warship Dubuque, accused of abandoning a large group of Vietnamese refugees on a disabled junk in the South China Sea, will be court-martialed, Navy officials in the Philippines announced Friday.

Capt. Alexander G. Balian, 48, the former skipper of the amphibious landing ship, was relieved of his duties in August after details of the June 9 encounter emerged from statements made by some of the 52 Vietnamese survivors of the 37-day ordeal aboard the junk. In all, 58 refugees died during the voyage, and some of the refugees turned to cannibalism to survive.

Balian, a Los Angeles resident who is now stationed in Japan, will be court-martialed at the U.S. naval base in Subic Bay in the Philippines. He faces seven counts of violating Navy orders and regulations for allegedly failing to rescue or adequately assist the refugees, according to official Navy documents and statements from a Navy spokesman.

If convicted, Balian could be dismissed from the Navy, required to forfeit all his pay and allowances and imprisoned for two years on each count, or a maximum of 14 years.

Earlier, the Navy had said it was considering filing charges of negligent homicide against Balian, but no such charge has been filed.

‘Tragedy of Errors’

The veteran captain, who in previous statements to the Navy has described the incident as a “tragedy of errors,” has denied acting improperly and plans to fight the charges at the court-martial, according to his civilian lawyer, Dan Donato Jr. of San Diego, himself a former Navy captain.

Navy officials said the court-martial could begin as early as January.

As outlined in Navy documents, Balian’s previous statements and interviews with the survivors conducted by The Times and United Nations officials, a group of 110 Vietnamese refugees boarded the junk on May 22 in Ben Tre in southern Vietnam. But the boat’s engine quickly failed, and there were no experienced sailors aboard.

By the time the drifting junk encountered the Dubuque on June 9, 27 of the refugees had died. The Dubuque was on a tight schedule and headed for the Persian Gulf when it met the junk at a spot midway between Vietnam and Palawan, the Philippines, about 280 nautical miles from land.

According to the description of events in the court-martial documents, the 83 people on the junk, including at least one infant, were in dire need of help. Not only was the boat unseaworthy, but it was “without medical supplies and sufficient food or water to sustain the Vietnamese people . . . who were in imminent danger of being lost at sea.”

The Navy alleges that Balian failed to help the Vietnamese in the water and that he was negligent for failing to take several other actions. He allegedly failed to conduct a detailed inspection of the junk; determine the condition of the boat’s engine and make repairs; have Dubuque doctors and corpsmen examine the refugees, even though they were “visibly dehydrated and sickly,” and provide adequate amounts of food, water and clothing for the refugees.

The counts against the former captain also state that he failed to send messages to his Navy superiors adequately describing the condition of the junk, the length of time the refugees had been at sea, the number of refugees who had died and “the number of bodies actually observed in the water in the vicinity of the” Dubuque and the refugees’ boat.

Balian’s version of the events, contained in a lengthy statement he provided the Navy and obtained by The Times, describes the 90-minute encounter as chaotic and exacerbated by inaccurate reports relayed to the bridge of the Dubuque, plus language difficulties caused by poor interpreting.

In addition, Balian claims that a crew member who spoke Vietnamese promised the refugees, without his knowledge, that a second boat would arrive a few days later to help them.

The Dubuque supplied the refugees with 400 pounds of food and 50 gallons of water, Balian said.

Relied on Promise

After the Dubuque continued on to the Persian Gulf, the refugees, relying on the crew member’s promise, tried to stay in the area. But no help came, and the junk drifted 19 more days until the refugees were rescued by Philippine fishermen.

During those 19 days, however, according to Navy sources and statements from refugees, five people aboard the ship were cannibalized, including four who were murdered.