Pirate Threads (2 Merged)

"Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100023495/why-is-new-labour-so-reluctant-to-arrest-somali-pirates/

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates

There is no point in arresting suspected pirates because you will never have the evidence to prosecute them unless you catch them in the act, in which case you have a window of a few minutes before they have hostages. You are very unlikely ever to catch them in this window. Maybe on a large container ship where the crew have locked themselves somewhere inside the ship, but you would have to be very lucky.
Let us say you do catch some in the act, then you have to find somewhere to prosecute them. Currently Kenya is the place of choice, due to concerns (as mentioned in the article) that if we bring them here they might claim assylum! Unfortunately Kenya's justice system is being questioned so the future of this arrangement is in jeapordy.

What we need to do is establish a safe corridor which you are not allowed to enter without announcing to the patrolling taskforce who you are, where you are going and why. Ships could take on armed security for the transit. Any boats coming within a certain sensible distance of ships in this area would be fired upon with little more than a brief warning shot. Pirates would soon learn.

Come to think, wouldn't the javelin missile be handy against pirates in small boats? I know they're expensive, but it must be pennies in comparison to ransom for 20+ crew and putting a container ship out of action for many weeks whilst it is anchored off Somalia in the hands of pirates.

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates

Every time the need to protect merchant shipping arises (WW2 etc) people think that " protected corridors" are the answer. This has been proved wrong time and again. The only way to guarantee safe passage is to use convoys. That means waiting for convoys to form up and making passage at the speed of the slowest ship - all of which costs shipping companies money and is therefore unpopular.

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates

"Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"


Simple, as soon as we nick them they;ll claim asylum.

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"

wanabedoc - A protected corridor would need to be 2,000 nm long and that's just for the east African coastal route, irrespective of traffic bound elsewhere. This would require an unrealistic number of warships to provide any effective security, i.e. be within a few minutes dash of any threatened vessel to exploit the brief window of opportunity you mention.

Until the pirates' nest is eradicated at source, a convoy system is the only reasonable alternative but, as ctfairway has indicated, the costs and delays involved in participating in such a scheme still outweigh the risk of being hijacked.

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates

The "asylum" thing does come in to it...
As far as I know, pirates have been caught in the act (with weapons and even hostages on board,) only to be sent on their way with life-jackets and hot drinks inside them. On board human-rights lawyers are wary of advising to detain hostages, because the reality of the situation is, once they come here for prosecution, they'll be here for life! Hence France in negotiations with Kenya, etc.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3736239.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/somalia/3363258/Pirates-protected-from-EU-task-force-by-human-rights.html

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"

Forgive me for failing to make myself clear. I am not suggesting physical protection, but rather a change in law & philosophy to afford commercial ships legal protection. The idea was not that warships should patrol the whole corridor, I am suggesting that it should be legal to unleash the fury of whatever arsenal the commercial ships fancy carrying onto anybody who approaches them within this corridor. Everybody would have to know the rules and once they did they would know that if they toyed around they would get shot at. In a small arms fight between a massive container ship and a shitty wooden dhow, you wouldn't even have to be well trained to see the pirates off.

The advantage would be that you wouldn't have to wait until you were fired upon before firing back, because merely coming within, say, 2 miles of a commercial ship could be seen as a hostile act.

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"

Destroying the pirates base ports would indeed the only way to guarantee an end to piracy unfortunately this would either involve landing and securing the coastline and getting sucked into the quagmire that is Somalia, or air/naval bombardments that would no doubt kill a fair few civilians as the pirates live amongst them. In my unqualified opinion the international community either need to substantly increase the naval forces in the region (which will cost more money than most are willing to spend) or go for the bombing option which may well not work and will probably kill a lot of innocent people. All in all the situations pretty much fcuked and it'll take smarter men/women than me to sort it out.

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"

Are there any innocent people?

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"

I have just completed a civvy cruise along a shipping lane
I did notice that mechant ships and yachts were of different sizes and sailing at different speeds, thus approaching and overtaking other vessels,
Are you suggesting that they may be shot at?

The sensible answer would be that Merchant ships are of course armed and respond to any obvious threat accordingly
Though what if the Pirates use an already high jacked container ship to pirate you

Initially a good idea to suggest maritime law IF you are a small boat DO NOT APPROACH a merchant ship within two miles in AREA X Y and Z

Jack McH

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"

To quote Judge Dredd, 'Innocent of what?'

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"

Never easy is it? How about reducing my 2nm to 2 cables then?

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates

Of course, if you had looked at BBC Parliament this evening you could have received the explanation from Navy commanders responsible for reporting to the Somali Piracy Committee and not needed to link to an insane pensioner's blog

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates

Just been on now. RADM Hudson and Cdr Dow handled themselves very well, actually. Sounded like Their Lordships actually liked them as well.

Will they get upgraded MPA cover? Nah. Will they get better multinational consent? Nah. Will they get tankers, drones, more frigates, better understanding of ROE and the understanding and backing of the government? Nah.

levers

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates

It doesn't, although we've been down this particular road several times in RR and I think the collective decision is never to let the truth get in the way of a gash dit.

The legal status of HM ships and submarines means that they do not constitute UK territory for the purpose of immigration. Essentially you can't claim asylum on a ship. As wanabedoc has observed the issue is collecting evidence and handing them over to a legal system that will investigate and prosecute. They can't be prosecuted in the UK, so there is no need to bring them here, hence no asylum problem.

Tebbits' blogs are usually quite entertaining but his research on this one is crap.

 

Re: "Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"

Lol I was going to quote Gene Hackman's character in Unforgiven as saying exactly the same thing

 

Mail: RN gives pirates food/water then lets them sail away!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246300/Navy-gives-pirates-food-water--lets-sail-scot-free.html

 

Re: Mail: RN gives pirates food/water then lets them sail away!

Typical Mail. If you can't find any news, regurgitate something from last week/month/year, and attribute it to a new source. This is the journalistic equivalent of the word "bump" in these fora.

2BM

 

Re: Mail: RN gives pirates food/water then lets them sail aw

The Daily Mail... really, I give up! :twisted:

 

Re: Mail: RN gives pirates food/water then lets them sail away!

It's not the Daily Mail's fault - most of their readers are so dim witted they have to be told the same thing 3 or 4 times before they start to take it in.

Given this sort of pressure on Daily Mail journalists is it any wonder that they haven't really got time to find news stories or research the facts before writing up their articles?