Saturday, November 8, 2008
Pirates protected from EU task force by human rights
The fate of pirates in better times.
A new EU naval task force will be unable to take tough action against Somali pirates because it must respect their human rights, its commander has admitted.
The pirates of old at least knew where they stood if captured - they would be jailed and hung, or possibly made to walk the plank.
But those policing the high seas today have no such potent sanctions to impose on 21st century buccanneers, as the human rights of the successors to Blackbeard and Captain Kidd are being put first.
The European Union's first naval task force is due to arrive next month in the Gulf of Aden to combat the region's unprecedented piracy scourge, which is being fuelled by the demand for cash and weapons in lawless Somalia. Ten EU countries, including Britain, have pledged support for the force - yet they may find it difficult even to make an arrest.
"In the old days, when the navy would catch a pirate, they would tie his hands and feet and throw him back in the sea," said Captain Andres Breijo, the Spanish head of the new anti-piracy mission, in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph. "Now they have human rights."
Somalia is a "failed state", Capt Beijo added, and the West fears that if the pirates were handed over to the Somali authorities they would be tortured or executed...
We can't have that!
Somalia is a "failed state", Capt Beijo added, and the West fears that if the pirates were handed over to the Somali authorities they would be tortured or executed...
But honour killings are acceptable because that is the religious culture of many states, and even acceptable in states where this is not the case because multi-culti diversity dictates acceptance of such practices so as not to offend the practitioners.
So the criminal behaviour of the pirates is not as bad as some poor women who was raped by her brothers, father, uncle whatever?
I bet that the pirates if they are executed don't get a slow stoning or other sadistic practice applied in the process.
Pirates are kind of a joke today, but they wouldn't be a joke if the old laws weren't so effective at getting rid of them.
They weren't a joke in the old days when they kidnapped entire communities and sold them into slavery. In those days, the Europeans did the same thing they're doing now - they appeased pirates and paid ransoms. They supported their own local pirates while condemning everyone else's brand of pirate. If it weren't for the hardline attitudes of the British and that cowboy Thomas Jefferson, no one would be celebrating 'talk like a pirate' day.
If the governments aren't going to protect ships, sailors will have to do it themselves. Bazookas will be as essential to boating as halyards and port-a-potties.