TEMA: A stately Argentine navy sailing ship held in a Ghana port is proving a novel attraction for locals, while a diplomatic mission has been sent to release it, and bored sailors pass the time with mall visits and football.
Buenos Aires has dispatched two top government officials to Accra in a bid to secure the release of the ornate, three-masted training frigate ironically named the Libertad, or Freedom, which was seized under an October 2 court order in a debt dispute.
"I haven't seen this type of ship before," said Sadick Mohammad as he worked on a fishing boat docked in the next berth.
"It's an olden days ship," he added, staring at one of the masts soaring roughly 50 metres (165 feet) above the deck of the vessel, which looks like it has sailed through a timewarp.
While the courts have barred the Libertad from leaving, the 200 crew can come and go from the warship as they please.
But they have had to find ways to pass the time while their floating home remains stuck in the port of Tema near the capital Accra. A group of them could be seen kicking around a football on the wharf, while one sailor skipped with a rope.
Abdul Wahab, a truck driver at Tema, said he had seen buses arrive every evening to pick up the crew. One driver told him that they were going to the posh Labadi Beach Hotel.
On Thursday afternoon, another driver, Joseph Sacquah, was waiting in his bus to take sailors to the Accra Mall. He had received his directions from a note handed to him by a Spanish-speaking sailor.
The crew is mostly Argentinian, with a smattering of nationals from elsewhere in South America and at least one South African on board, the Argentinian navy has said.
According to Mohammad, the sailors have not mingled much with the Ghanaians in the port during their unexpectedly long stay.
"No, no, no, I don't talk to them," he said.
The sailors themselves were also refusing to speak in detail to journalists.
"We don't know (how long) we have to stay here," Lieutenant Luis Melian, the Libertad's spokesman, told AFP, declining to comment on how the sailors on board were spending their time.
The ship, which arrived in the West African nation on a training mission, has been detained under a court order linked to claims by an investment firm that is suing Argentina over its 2002 bond default.
Argentina said bondholders NML capital perpetrated a fraud in the Ghanaian court, arguing that the ruling violated the Vienna Convention as the military vessel enjoys diplomatic immunity.
But Accra's commercial court ruled that Buenos Aires waived immunity under the terms of its bond sale to the Cayman Islands-based NML capital.
So, for the moment, the Libertad will remain as an imposing but unwilling guest amid the exhaust-spewing trucks and stacked containers in Tema.
NML Capital, a so-called 'vulture fund', bought Argentinian bonds at discounted rates as the country's economy teetered on the brink of collapse.
Buenos Aires has rescheduled and refinanced much of the its debt, but among the unsettled business are bonds held by speculative funds.
In documents filed in the Ghanaian court, NML says it is owed more than $370 million (285 million euros), including the outstanding principle plus the interest accrued on bonds purchased in 2000.
NML won its first judgment over Buenos Aires in New York in 2006 and secured a similar victory in Britain's Supreme Court in 2011.
Both courts found that Argentina's immunity claims were invalid, but the only payment made so far by Buenos Aires was a token $270,000 in August, the court documents further show.
The Ghanaian lawyer acting on behalf of NML, Ace Ankomah, told AFP the Libertad could be released "tomorrow" if Argentina posts a bond of $20 million, but Buenos Aires has given no indication that it intends to pay.
An Argentine defence ministry statement charged that Ghana had jeopardised its status as a responsible international actor in detaining the warship, adding that the deputy defence and foreign ministers had been dispatched to Accra for talks.
Meanwhile at Tema, the only thing tying the Libertad to the port were some ropes, with no Ghanaian security personnel visibly guarding the vessel.
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