Invasion to stop piracy
In a little more than a month, the Royal Thai Navy is to rejoin the mostly ineffective international flotilla trying to suppress piracy off the coast of Africa and the Arab countries. On their second deployment, the HTMS Pattani and the HTMS Similan will take along elite commando forces.
The decision to step up the lethal force is timely and welcome. A proposal to widen the anti-piracy battle came from an unlikely source last week. A senior Chinese general has recommended that the international military force join hands and ''crash the pirate bases'' inside Somalia. The plan has strong merit and deserves serious consideration.
Gen Chen Bingde, chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, is deadly serious about his proposal. He made it in Washington, in a public speech, on the sidelines of talks with US Navy counterparts. It took many by surprise. China has long held a position of non-intervention. It has vetoed or refused to vote on United Nations resolutions authorising military action, such as the recent, popular decision to act against Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Gen Chen's proposal goes against a Chinese foreign policy which almost always opposes any sort of international action against other countries.
The general's carefully nuanced position is that Somalia, home base of the pirates, no longer qualifies as a sovereign state. It has not had a central government with national authority for at least two decades. Warlords of various nasty stripes control territory, but provide almost no government-type services. The warlords recognise no national or international laws. The pirates who prey on shipping in the Indian Ocean and Gulf Aden use the country as their own, unchallenged by any central authority.
Gen Chen claims another point, entirely credibly. The pirates ''earn'' tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, including from Thai shipping and fishing companies. But the ransoms and captured materials obviously go somewhere else, with the actual pirates receiving only a small part. In essence, the pirates are hired hands for a much bigger operation. Gen Chen believes that most or all of the pirates are hired guns for international terrorist organisations. His comments are in perfect sync, but even more aggressive than those of one of his US counterparts, Vice Adm Mark Fox. He believes piracy proceeds go to terrorists, and recommended using anti-terrorist financing tactics against the pirates.
The Chinese general's words should be considered seriously, especially by the Royal Thai Navy. The armed forces command is about to dispatch two ships, 369 sailors and 60 special warfare troops back to the pirate-infested areas. The same vessels, minus the Seals and recon Marines, were recalled after more than four months on station. The mission was particularly embarrassed by the seizure of a Thai cargo ship and 27 crewmen, who had to be ransomed for a significant sum after the Thai navy had left for home.
The current international effort against the Somalia-based pirates has long been a failure. Occasionally, a single effort by a naval vessel has scored a success. Sailors of the Indian navy thwarted a pirate attack on a Chinese cargo ship early this month. That attack on the merchant vessel Fucheng may have been the tipping point for Gen Chen and his officers in Beijing.
Passive patrols have failed to halt or even intimidate the Somalia-based pirates. Military attacks to destroy their land bases would devastate the cross-border criminal enterprise. Gen Chen has made a proposal that deserves serious consideration.
0 comments:
Post a Comment