The actions of the international community with respect to the terror caused by Somali pirates are getting increasingly embarrasing. This post should actually be titled The Pirates are Winning, but I have already used that one (January 15).
A few weeks ago the Finnish warship Pohjanmaa captured 18 Somali pirates who had been trying to hi-jack a Singapore-registered cargo ship. The Somalis had been using a captured trawler, which was sunk.
Source: Puolustusvoimat
Yesterday the pirates were released without trial, safely on the coast of Somalia. They can now start over and participate in new attacks against innocent seafarers.
The pirates had spent two weeks in captivity aboard the warship, being well fed and given medical checks but EU Navfor, responsible for operation Atalanta, mentioned humanitarian considerations as reason for the release.
The term catch and release is familiar from game fishing, but obviously the idea can be practiced also in other ways.
Apparently no country was willing to start procedures for having the pirates tried in a court of law. Singapore seams to have been willing to take care of the Somalis, but it is believed that the EU countries refused to hand the pirates over as they could have been sentenced to capital punishment.
About a year ago the Russians, who probably couldn’t care less about such pussy-footing, just let the pirates, who previously had hi-jacked a Russian tanker, drifting in a small boat, without food, water or supplies, 300 nautical miles offshore. The pirates failed to reach the shore and evidently all died.
The incident raised some indignation in the press, but, interestingly, Somalia’s ambassador to Moscow, Mohammed Handule, denied that the Russians had acted improperly in the affair. “The Russian military showed they can act effectively so that not one crew member of the captured tanker was hurt. This is the most important thing,” he said according to the web site Rawstory.
The Russian approach is interesting, because they would clearly have had legal right to try the pirates back home, as they indeed had attacked a Russian ship. Maybe they just decided to save the taxpayers’ money;)
A few hundread years ago the pirates would probably just have been hung up from the yard arm and the bodies then fed to the sharks. Even horse thieves were promptly hanged in the nearest tree in the Wild West, not too long ago.
So what is to prefer, letting the crooks go loose, try them in a court where they risk being given the death sentence or take the law in your own hands? Or maybe they could start using Guantanamo again, just for this cause!
It doesn’t have to be any of those options, however. As the problem appears to be unwillingness by all countries to accept the cost of the procedures, we only need our decisionmakers to establish a fund for the financing of an international court of law to handle the matter. Alternatively the funds could be used for paying compensation to nations who accept to arrange trials, case by case.
So it will cost money, but of course. However, I’ve read somewhere that the present piracy situation in Somalia is costing the commercal shipping alone 9 billion USD a year.
According to Martin Scheinin, United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, there are no provisions of international law that would prevent the pirates to be taken to Finland (and I assume any other of the EU or Nato countries either).
Releasing the Somali pirates is a signal that piracy is an activity that one can get away with, says Scheinin according to Finnish YLE News. The prescense of the warships has a preventive effect only as long as the actions of the naval forces are credible. Therefore it is vital that all participating countries are willing to bring in pirates to be sentenced.
I feel sorry for Mika Raunu, the master of the Pohjanmaa. After he and his crew did a great job capturing the bandits, they first had to baby-sit them and then make sure the hoodloms got ashore safe and with dry feet.
I’m sure there is a lot of celebration going on right now all over Somalia.