Old records of the Royal Indian Navy, as it was known, before 1947 refer to the constant need to carry out anti-piracy patrols off Socotra, so named by the Indians as Sukhadhwara or Island of peace.
The island became a pirate haven long after the rise of Islam resulted in the old Nestorian Christians of Socotra being suppressed and conversions having taken place. Located strategically at the gateway to the Gulf of Aden, it once exported frankincense. The gateway then came to be known as the Babel- Mandap or the ‘gateway of sorrow’. From then on India was isolated from the rest of the world and relapsed into technological backwardness. Today the Horn of Africa has the fastest growing populations, the worst governance, near continuous drought and a clutch of failed states. Between Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Yemen the population is expected to stabilize at 300 millions by 2050, and this area will spew out terrorists, migrants and pirates in endless streams.
The current series of pirate attacks is just a small indication of the growing disorder in this part of the world, to which India cannot be a silent witness.
The sad feature of all this, is the absence of any maritime leadership to control the situation with force, firmness and speed.
The multi-lateral mechanism to achieve this aim is traditionally the UN and India’s delayed participation in the Somalia patrol is on account of the hoary old MEA belief that all initiatives in the world must come from the UN - a body not known for reacting fast enough to prevent tragedy the world over.
As far back as 1812 when Algeria was the then pirate haven, it took the infant US navy operating from the east coast of the US to enter Algeria, sack the town, burn the pirate ships and rescue US merchantmen held hostage.
Today the US is under criticism for Iraq and Afghanistan, and the earlier evacuation from Somalia under Clinton. Bush is a lame duck president. NATO and the EU are toothless, as they have proved in Afghanistan, but for the British. So whom do the pirates work for? Presumably themselves, if one can believe the confused state of affairs in Somalia. The government is backed by Ethiopian troops, who are Christians.
The government’s writ runs in only a few of the 15 districts that comprise Somalia.
The two known pirate havens, Xarardhere and Eyl are in the lawless Mudug and Nugaal districts respectively. The former is where the huge Saudi tanker has been taken and the latter apparently has the Ukrainian arms carrying ship and a number of others anchored. The Saudi tanker is carrying a million barrels of crude valued at over $100 million. The ransom being demanded is apparently $20 million, but no one is sure.
The Islamists rebels who are fighting the government and the Ethiopian troops have vowed to free the Saudi tanker, but they can’t find the people who are responsible for the big hijacking either. The government doesn’t seem to be supporting the pirate initiative although a pirate captured off the Northern Somalia port of Berbera is reported to have said that the local government has received a share of all ransom money. The districts of the actual Horn are together referred to as ‘Puntland’. Puntland has declared itself an autonomous part of Somalia with its own flag and president. It is clearly out of control as it today harbours all the pirates. The pirate revenue in the last three years is said to be higher than that of the state.
As usual the pirates have actually sought sympathy by making excuses, such as we can’t help it, we have no other means of income or, we want only money, we won’t sell any military cargoes, or even worse we are protesting by being pirates since the world neglects us. These protests are clearly ridiculous, because the whole area is just as poor, but only Somalia resorts to piracy.
The pirate attacks began almost four years ago, but increased in intensity when the world failed to respond and pirates began to get away with huge amounts of ransom money. The ‘high life’ that the pirates lived attracted the envy of all the young, unemployed youth into becoming pirates too. The nearest two larger navies are the Saudi and the Oman Navy, but neither appear to have either caught or destroyed any pirates so far. In fact the Saudi Navy’s annual budget is approximately equal to that of the Indian Navy’s but what they get for that money, remains a mystery. As the pirate attacks increased, an allied coalition of four to five ships, designated Task Force 150, under the United States Centcom or Central Command, began to be tasked to do something.
Here begins the trouble for Indian participation.
Centcom controls the area of the Middle East and Pakistan. India comes under the area of jurisdiction of the US’ Pacific Command, PACOM. Hence India cannot, according to the US Navy rules, be invited to join Task Force 150. The Task Force had a rotating command post and a couple of years ago, the commander was a Pakistani naval officer.
Now Indians and Pakistanis working together on a joint mission for the UN is old history. It was a Pakistani Brigadier in command in the earlier Somalia operations and his staff were mostly Indian. A Pakistani Brigade and an Indian Brigade operated next to each other in Somalia and the Congo, so Pakistan is not the problem.
This force maintains a sanitised corridor in the Gulf of Aden almost 400 miles long and ships join the corridor at either end.
Ships join at either end and a warship convoys them through. So eventually when pressure from the Indian navy finally prompted the MEA to allow Indian participation, INS Tabar, a Talwar class frigate was sent to join at the Eastern end of the corridor. Coordination was arranged through diplomatic channels. The big difference in the way INS Tabar operated was that it was given clear instructions on the Rules of Engagement or ROE at it is commonly referred to by Naval Headquarters.
The commanding officer was given wide latitude to use force, at his discretion. Clearly, such explicit ROEs don’t exist for ships of TF 150.
This is a ridiculous situation, as the ROE of the NATO ships worries more about the human rights of the pirates, than about stamping out piracy. Actually there is an 1838 convention that permits any warship to interfere anywhere on the ‘High Seas’ to intercept pirates and try them - without handing them over to the country of origin.
Today’s interpretation by human rights lawyers state that pirates cannot even be handed over to their own state if that state does not respect the human rights of the pirates. This is an absurd situation. The US is not going to amend its rules regarding Centcom and Pacom. The answer appears to lie in New Delhi, where the MEA needs to draw up its own coalition of Indian Ocean powers, under the Indian navy to stamp out the pirates, in their harbours, ruthlessly
Del.Icio.Us Tags: Somalian Pirates and India!, India, World news, Economy, Navy
Technorati Tags: Somalian Pirates and India!, India, World news, Economy, Navy
