The international community has expressed reservations on recent events of piracy at the coast of Somali. Warships from over a dozen countries have formed what the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently described as “one of the largest anti-piracy flotillas in modern history.” Ships from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), European Union (EU) member states and others have been dispatched in recent months to fight a sharp expansion in the hijacking of vessels and crew members.
Operating from remote fishing communities in northeastern and central Somalia, pirates have earned millions of dollars in ransom. They have disrupted global trade and have caused havoc in several countries, whose citizens have been held captive. Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka are among the sufferers as their citizens are still held hostage by Somali pirates, demanding $2.1 million as ransom for their release.
The recent Somali piracy has exposed loopholes in the maritime laws of the seas of the UN namely, the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) 1982. This convention, signed by 150 countries, renders high sea piracy illegal. Warships and flotillas are patrolling the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean under the legal framework UNCLOS and the Security Council Resolutions.
The UNCLOS defines piracy under Article 101 as illegal acts committed on the high seas for private ends. It also states that all countries have a right to seize and prosecute those committing pirate acts on high seas. However, the convention has several loopholes. Firstly, it is silent about a pirate attack within the countries territorial waters and not the high seas. Secondly, it neglects the emergence of failed states like Somalia. In the case of Republic of Bolivia v Indemnity Mutual Mar Association Co. Ltd. (1909), a pirate was defined as “someone who plunders indiscriminately for his own ends and not simply operates against property of a particular state for a public end.”
Furthermore, the International Law on Piracy assumes that individual states would be responsible of policing and patrolling their own waters. However, not all states have the resources and the capacity to ensure maritime security. This is now being highlighted by the on-going piracy problem in Somalia, which after 18 years is still trying to establish a functioning government.
Several news sources and a United Nations report have suggested that piracy at the coast of Somalia is caused in part by illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste by foreign vessels. This has disrupted living of locals. Irregular fishing is fuelled primarily because an effective government in Somalia is absent. Other statistics allege that 70 percent of the local coastal communities strongly support piracy as a form of national defense of the country’s territorial waters. In addition, pirates believe that they are protecting their fishing grounds and are justified as it is compensation for stolen marine resources.
On August 02 2010, Somali pirates hijacked a Panama flagged cargo-ship MV Suez, at the Gulf of Aden. It was carrying a total crew of 22 with four Pakistanis, six Indian, eleven Egyptian and a Sri Lankan national. Pirates demanded a ransom of $2.1 million for the release, to be paid by May 16. The deadline is only three days away, yet the GOP has stayed apathetic and has done nothing to ensure their recovery. Families of the victimised live in anguish and pain. The incident even provoked children of one of the hostages, Naval captain Wasi to sell their kidneys in an effort to raise some money.
Pakistan’s veteran on Human Rights Ansar Burney has taken the front seat in recovery of this trauma. Unlike the GOP, which one would have thought to be the sole protector of Pakistani human dignity and lives, Ansar Burney has been negotiating with the Somali pirates for the larger interest of human dignity and to save lives of innocent human beings aboard on the vessel.
Raging silence from GOP raises ample questions. Is the Pakistani Military and Navy so defunct and incompetent that it is impossible to carry out a covert Navy operation designed solely to rescue its four nationals? How did the Danish Navy Vessel manage to rescue 16 Pakistani’s from the captivity of the Somali pirates? Did they negotiate a groundbreaking deal, leading to such a release or was it a covert operation intending the rescue of the hostages?
Answer to all this affirms the later proposition, as on April 2 2011, the Danish Navy carried out an air raid operation intended to rescue sixteen Pakistani and two Iranian hostages who have been in the custody of the Somali pirates since 2010. This rescue operation was further backed by aircraft support. The Danish Navy spokesperson Kenneth Nielsen later confirmed that 15 Somali pirates had been arrested from the ship, among which three had been injured.
Unlike the GOP, the Government of India had entrusted the task of coordinating efforts to obtain release of seven Indian nationals, held hostage by pirates to their Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekhar. The government had also rushed a vessel to the Somali coast to monitor the situation. The External Affairs Minister of India SM Krishna spelled out that the Cabinet Secretary will coordinate the inter-governmental efforts, needed to get the Indian nationals released from pirates. However, no details were released of any methods to get the hostages released.
Thus, with every passing minute, anguish of the captives’ families is rising. The GOP should have been more forthcoming in tackling crises rather than giving false hopes. Fate of four Pakistani nationals has been in the hands of the leadership of this country since August 02 2011. However, no sincere efforts for their rescue have been waged. One can only hope that the official verdict by pirates after the May 16 deadline would ensure a safe return of all crew members.
Simultaneously, the need to brazen out the issue of piracy on the international front is heightening. The international community agrees that a multilateral approach needs to be thought out. Likewise, within the UN, there have been a series of debates over creation of a maritime peacekeeping force for Somalia. Somalis, on the other hand, are skeptical about any peace efforts and, instead, believe that had the international community cared about what was happening at its coast in the 1990’s, crises would have never happened.
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