Yesterday the MV IRENE SL, a Greek flagged and owned supertanker of 319,247 tons was captured by pirates. This is last of a long line of attacks by Somali pirates on international shipping. There are around five hundred sailors held as hostage by the pirates and the number is growing.
What should our response be?
The European navy is out there in force headed by Major General Buster Howes OBE. During its operations the number of thwarted pirate attacks have reached 80%. But the attacks are getting more frequent and adventurous because it pays so well.
China has sent a few ships but has been loathe to do more than watch events. The Indian navy has sunk some pirate boats. Last month, the Koreans sent in their navy seals and rescued all 21 crew (8 Koreans, 2 Indonesians and 21 Burmese) killing all the pirates. The French have used specialist forces in a similar fashion.
The Russians have captured pirates and set them free. Recently, the Russian navy commandos moved some captured pirates back to their own pirate ship, searched the ship for weapons and explosives, and then left the ship and blew it up with all remaining pirates hand-cuffed to it.
The problem appears to be that because people have the right to sail the high seas one has to have a very good reason to apprehend a boat. The pirates usually claim that they are fishing. The pirates are well organised with strategically-placed mother ships and satellite high speed dinghies. The pirates protect themselves from attack by sprinkling their boats with hostages taken from previous attacks.
Even when pirates are caught in the act and captured there is no apparatus to convict them. Most of Somalia is in anarchy and the high seas belong to no-one.
It is a far cry from the days of Pax Britannica, when under the anti-piracy laws the captain of the rescuing ship had the right to decide what to do with the pirates. Usually, they were hanged.
In today’s world that would be regarded as against people’s human rights. However, if sailors are found in a fishing boat equipped with extra barrels of fuel, grappling hooks and a cache of weapons that included rocket-propelled grenades, machineguns and ammunition would it not be beyond reasonable doubt that they were pirates? Couldn’t they be found guilty via due process, have their boat sequestrated and live the remainder of their lives incarcerated on Kerguelen Island? With a slightly better fate than the sailors of the Nancy Bell.
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