“Could it be a navy ship?”
In an old villa beside a frozen apple orchard in a small town outside Oslo, the Norwegian lawyer Eve de Coning is sitting and pondering. She is a member of the intelligence group that is trying to stop the Thunder; night and day for more than two months she has been thinking about the chase that is now taking place in the Indian Ocean. No sooner has she changed out of her pyjamas than the two vessels have again forced their way into her consciousness.1 Now she has a plan. Off the coast of Cape Town, a mere day’s sail from the two ships is a fleet of German and South African battleships that can stop the Thunder.
The boarding and arrest of pirate trawlers has been done on the high seas previously and has in many cases ended with the crew and ship owners going free. International waters are a wet Wild West where nobody actually has any authority. If the Thunder enters the economic zone of a coastal state, it is simpler, but the Thunder’s captain has consistently stayed in international waters. He knows what is at stake, de Coning thinks. If they are going to succeed with an operation at sea, Nigeria and South Africa must collaborate. Nigeria is a flag state and South Africa has modern vessels and experience with boarding on the open ocean.
There are countless opportunities for things to go wrong, but they have a concrete plan. De Coning believes they can succeed.
On Monday 9 March, a powerful armada sets out from the naval base in Simon’s Town on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula. The first vessel out is the South African submarine the SAS Manthatisi. Following it are the three frigates the SAS Spioenkop, FSG Hessen and FSG Karlsruhe. Once they have sailed out of the lively waters of False Bay, the huge, cauldron-shaped bay that received its name from seamen who believed they were on their way in to Cape Town, a large Super Lynx helicopter lands on the deck of one of the frigates. For the many observers watching the battleships from land, it is a dramatic sight.2
At the same time, the worst forest fire in living memory is raging on the craggy mountainsides surrounding the bay. Smoke and flames are whisked up along the rocks by the intractable wind that will soon create difficulties for the military operation “Exercise Good Hope”.
Every other year the South African and German Navies train together in the maritime regions off the coast of the southern part of the African continent, a series of windblown cliffs that for seamen mark the end of one ocean and the beginning of another. Along this strip of coastline the warm Agulhas stream, which flows south-westward at speeds of up to six knots, meets strong and unpredictable winds from Antarctica and the South Atlantic. The collision can produce monstrous waves more than 20 metres high. As many as 3,000 ships may have gone down along South Africa’s savage coastline.
The modern German and South African battleships have no difficulties manoeuvring their way out of False Bay and past the Cape of Good Hope. On board are soldiers trained in boarding ships on turbulent seas. In Nigeria, Captain Warredi Enisuoh has asked the country’s Interpol office to send in a request to South Africa for assistance in arresting the Thunder. All that is missing is for the authorities in Nigeria to send a formal legal request to South Africa for help. Then they can stop the Thunder and simultaneously demonstrate to Sea Shepherd that the authorities are not helpless. This is the best opportunity the Interpol group will receive, Eve de Coning thinks.
But why is Nigeria waiting?
In Lagos Captain Warredi Enisuoh has received a disturbing letter. The sender is the Special Services Office from the office of the president of Nigeria and the letter is addressed to the Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria. Next to the threatening title of the letter – “United States Government Indicts Nigeria over Illegal Fishing”, the minister has written the word “Urgent” in red ink. The USA is threatening to impose sanctions on Nigeria because despite the fact that the country has two vessels on its ships register that have been fishing illegally in the Antarctic year after year, the authorities’ have failed to take any action. One of them is the Thunder. “I thought that actions were taken?” the Minister of Agriculture has written on the letter in the same red ink.
This turns the situation upside down for Enisuoh. Becoming involved in a dangerous, uncertain and expensive operation at sea with South Africa is no longer the best alternative for the Nigerian authorities. There is a much simpler solution for Nigeria, a solution nobody can blame them for and which will fix relations with the USA. Instead of asking South Africa to send out battleships, the Nigerian coast guard decides to throw the Thunder out of the ships register. With a stroke of the pen, the Thunder is made a stateless vessel. Now, in principle, anyone at all can go out and arrest the vessel without Nigeria’s help. At the same time, the country need not fear sanctions from the USA.
Enisuoh knows that Eve de Coning and others in the intelligence group will be disappointed. Everyone has produced strong arguments in favour of Nigeria’s taking responsibility and now they will probably think that he has found a simple solution to a difficult problem. But they don’t know Nigeria like he does, Enisuoh thinks. The worst that can happen is that the Nigerian prosecuting authority initiates criminal proceedings against the officers. The country is in the midst of a turbulent presidential election campaign, and the laws regarding the alleged infringements are too weak. The best and simplest solution is thus to remove the Thunder from the Nigerian registers, Enisuoh thinks. Nigeria failed to take action. And the members of the Interpol group think that’s worth
