Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with CBC reporter David Common, who's aboard a Canadian warship currently patrolling the waters off the coast of Somalia in search of pirates.
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LISA MULLINS: I'm Lisa Mullins, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. Piracy is big in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Pirates in speedboats attacked more than 100 ships off the coast of Somalia last year. In response, dozens of warships from the US, Britain, Germany, and Canada among others, have been patrolling the waters. Here is a distress call received by a Canadian warship earlier this week. The captain of this vessel says he's being fired upon by pirates. That call was received by the HMCS Winnipeg – that's a Canadian warship currently patrolling the area. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's David Common is aboard the HMCS Winnipeg. He says that these calls for help come in frequently.
DAVID COMMON: Every single night, every single day are distress calls like that from frantic captains of cargo ships pleading for any military vessel to come to their aid. Often they're being fired upon – rocket propelled grenades, AK47s, rounds being fired toward the bridge, the crew simply calls out screaming a lot of the time, like this. They say, “Come and send a helicopter please,†because in these waters, helicopters can move so fast and so far away from the ships they're based at that they're often instrumental in thwarting these pirate attacks. And they've been cited in fact in the last 3 weeks, there have been no successful pirate attacks.
MULLINS: Okay. Now, you were aboard the HMCS Winnipeg when it approached one of these skiffs, which apparently was a pirate skiff. And tell us what we're hearing.
COMMON: So what you're hearing is the aftermath of a chase. The helicopters identified these as suspected pirate vessels largely because there was a ladder in one of them – a ladder that's used to climb on board these cargo vessels. In it, you're hearing the boarding party – the armed boarding party that's left HMCS Winnipeg, goes over in a speedboat, heavily armed, and yells at the Somalis in the boat to move up to the front of it. They do this of course at gunpoint, leaping into the skiff and begin searching it after having searched the suspected pirates themselves. And they found underneath the engine, rocket-propelled grenades and these AK47 assault rifles, pistols, a large amount of other weaponry. This of course is the second boat that day that they found, so it was for the HMCS Winnipeg, a very big find.
MULLINS: All right. That's a very big find. The problem is, what happens after they find the RPGs and after they're after to apprehend these suspected pirates?
COMMON: Indeed, that's the legal conundrum in these waters and to this problem. Ultimately, under international law, you can only prosecute someone if in fact an attack is successful, if they carry out an act of piracy. And therein lies the problem. The warships out here by and large will only go after pirates that are attempting to hijack a vessel. Once it has been hijacked, out of fear for hostages' lives, they leave it alone. Largely they don't feel they have the capability, they don't want to get involved, and under the law, they can't do anything if they seize pirates who haven't themselves seized a vessel. Finding weapons, however suspect, isn't enough to prosecute someone.
MULLINS: All right. That means they have to get them in the what, 2 or 3 minutes that it takes for the pirates to actually board the boat, according to the law of the sea. Now, the result of the fact that so few of these pirates are being arrested and prosecuted is what?
COMMON: Well, the result is that when they are disarmed, they go back to Somalia, rearm -- there's no shortage of weapons there – and then come back out to the sea and hope not to be stopped by a warship when they pick their target and attempt to board.
MULLINS: Well, right now, we know there are 46 warships patrolling the area and the Gulf of Aden, trying to chase after these skiffs or at least present a warning to them. What's it like for the folks who are onboard ships like this, if they have such a small window in which they can prevent piracy from happening?
COMMON: Well, they feel great when they actually pull it off, when they do find pirates before their attack or during an attack. It's a big morale boost. And certainly in the past couple of instances where they found weapons onboard, it's been another shot in the arm. But there is some underlying frustration of the fact that they could very well see the same faces again next week or next month.
MULLINS: All right. The CBCâ€s David Common, speaking to us from aboard the HMCS Winnipeg in the Gulf of Aden, on the lookout for pirates in that region. Thank you very much, David.
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