Editorial-December 16, 2013,
There seems to be no end in sight to the burning issue of illegal fishing in the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar. It has obviously got out of hand as the Tamil Nadu politicians are aggravating it.
Some experts are of the opinion that the arrest and prosecution of fishers who cross the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) won’t help solve the problem. They have recommended a bilateral agreement between Sri Lanka and India in keeping with the International Plan of Action to Prevent and Eliminate Illegal Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, joint patrolling by the two countries and educating the fishermen of both countries on the consequences of crossing the IMBL illegally. They point out quoting the UN that ‘improvement in Monitoring Control and Surveillance (MCS) and their effective implementation in waters under national jurisdiction and in the high seas represent the best hope for preventing, deterring, and eliminating IUU Fishing’. Ideally, this is the course of action the two countries should adopt, but in reality, it is not possible to do so.
All attempts to pour oil on troubled waters having come a cropper Sri Lanka is now left with no alternative but to enforce the law regardless of the diplomatic fallout of such action. The Central government of India does not seem keen to go the whole hog to prevent Tamil Nadu fishermen from poaching in Sri Lankan waters because it is wary of antagonising Jayalalithaa, Karunanidhi et al encouraging illegal fishing. Most of the large trawlers that enter Sri Lankan waters belong to Tamil Nadu politicians, according to Fisheries Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne. The value of the fish illegally caught annually in Sri Lankan waters is said to be about one billion US dollars. This is a huge amount of money and the damage caused to the country’s fishing resources by illegal fishing methods cannot be estimated. Dr. Senaratne has also accused Tamil Nadu politicians of using fishers as pawns in a political game. According to him biggest culprits are the boat owners, many of whom were big politicians in Tamil Nadu and they are giving their vessels to fishermen on the condition that the latter poach in Sri Lankan waters.
Some of the multilateral issues such as illegal fishing and illegal migration continue to defy remedies because diplomacy has taken precedence over the law. Leniency doesn’t pay in addressing these problems. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has gone on record as saying, on several occasions, that fishermen are blind to IMBLs etc and go where the fish are. He is a former fisheries minister and his sympathy seems to be with fishers. But, such statements only embolden the poachers to do more of what they have been doing. Australia has realised that its liberal policies are counterproductive as regards the pressing need for stemming the influx of illegal migrants masquerading as refugees. Its new immigration laws which provide for transferring the asylum seekers to foreign territories and stern measures it has adopted with the help of Sri Lankan Navy are beginning to yield the intended results.
The theft of resources belonging to other countries is a punishable offence and it must be treated as such. Slant drilling is not permitted by oil producing nations and it was one of the reasons why Iraq invaded Kuwait triggering the Gulf War I. The theft of fish in the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar should be similarly treated and the culprits dealt with according to the available laws. Both Sri Lanka and India must arrest and prosecute the fish thieves in their waters as there appears to be no other way out and desist from making diplomatic interventions to secure the release of the offenders. Fishermen must be made to realise that they are not ‘more equal’ than others and they cross the IMBL at their own risk.
(SALEM) - During the last six days, nearly 7,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the Gaza strip, forced to evacuate their homes due to heavy rains from the winter storm, called Alexa, which caused floods and torrents of raging water through the streets.
New York, 16 December 2013
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