WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday the Obama administration will take the unusual step of trying to seize pirate financial assets and property, as it works with shippers to thwart hijackers off the coast of Somalia. The measures outlined by Clinton, part of a new U.S. diplomatic initiative to thwart sea piracy, are largely stopgap and symbolic moves while officials weigh more comprehensive diplomatic and military action.
| Unlikely to do much good, though it might nibble at the edges. The pirates aren't terrorists, and we don't fight them the same way as we do terrorists. The pirates don't have intricate networks that have to be rolled up. |
The exploratory effort to track and freeze pirate assets will be difficult because of the highly localized and informal nature of their economy, which does not often use regulated portions of the international financial system, current and former officials said.
As part of the package, Clinton said the administration will also call for immediate meetings of an international counter-piracy task force to expand naval coordination against pirates. She said federal agencies would meet Friday to review the problem and consider its responses ahead of an international conference on Somali piracy and development next week. She also warned that the United States "does not make concessions or ransom payments to pirates."
Clinton acknowledged that the diplomatic steps she outlined Wednesday will not necessarily address piracy's root causes — endemic instability and insecurity on the ground in Somalia. But she said the moves were critical given the rising number of ship hijackings, including last week's attack on a U.S.-flagged ship that ended with an American hostage freed and three pirates slain by Navy snipers.
"You've got to put out the fire before you can rebuild the house," she told reporters at the State Department. "And, right now, we have a fire raging."
Clinton talked of "going after" pirate bases on the ground in Somalia, a "hot pursuit" policy that was authorized by the U.N. in December but has not yet been undertaken by the U.S. because of liability concerns among military officials. Despite those comments, Clinton did not specifically call for using military force against the pirates. "These pirates are criminals, they are armed gangs on the sea. And those plotting attacks must be stopped," she said. "We may be dealing with a 17th-century crime, but we need to bring 21st-century solutions to bear."
| The 17th and 18th century solutions seemed to work pretty well ... |
Clinton acknowledged difficulties ahead in Treasury efforts to locate pirate assets. But she wants the U.S. and others to "explore ways to track and freeze" pirate ransom money and other funds used in purchases of new boats, weapons and communications equipment.
"We have noticed that the pirates are buying more and more sophisticated equipment, they're buying faster and more capable vessels, they are clearly using their ransom money for their benefit — both personally and on behalf of their piracy," she said. "We think we can begin to try and track and prevent that from happening."
But a former Bush administration official who worked on piracy and on steps to stop the financing of terrorist groups at the National Security Council and Treasury said such action would be "extremely difficult" to take. "These are local networks that aren't necessarily putting their cash into bank accounts or attempting to transfer it out of the area," said Juan C. Zarate. "Their assets rarely touch either the formal or informal global financial system."
Unlike international terrorist networks who operate in and raise money from people in regulated economies, the pirates do not. "At this stage, I think this is a noble goal but probably not very realistic," he said. |