Making A Difference

A Question Of Ballast

Italy can learn from Germany, and help their sailors

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A Question Of Ballast
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Forget the proverb. What is good for the German gander is definitely not good for the Italian goose in India. Or this is what many Indians might say when they look at the different cases of mariners from Germany and Italy. The recent acquittal of two German sailors accused of killing an Indian fisherman has brought back focus on the fate of the Italian marines undergoing trial for the death of two Indian fishermen, raising questions on why New Delhi has different yardsticks in dealing with the two countries.

“I always had full trust in the Indian judicial system. This has proven right. I am happy to see that the two German sailors are finally going back home to their families,” an elated Michael Ste­iner, Ger­many’s ambassador to India, said in a statement issued in Delhi.

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The two Germans, Albrecht Wols­gang, the captain of cargo vessel MV Grietj and his second-in-command Ste­ffen Hinksoth were arrested by the Indian Coast Guard after their vessel collided with a fishing boat about 18 km off the Chennai coast on March 16—with much less media noise. A 45-year-old fisherman, Anandan from Kasi­medu, drowned, while two others were rescued by the coast guard. The Ger­mans were charged with causing death due to negligence and taken into custody. Later, a local court in Tamil Nadu released them on bail but restrained them from leaving India. A few days back they were released. They were to leave for Germany on September 11.

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So can the Italian marines also expect a speedy trial leading to an acquittal?

Indian diplomats point out that the two cases are different, and say the court would deal with the Italians’ case on its merit. They argue that while the Germans’ action also led to a death, it was regarded as an accident. But for the Italian marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, the charges were much more serious, as they shot down two fishermen off the Kerala coast last year, mistaking them for pirates. “The shooting down of two of our nationals and causing death to an Indian fisherman as a result of a collision are by no stretch of imagination similar,” says an MEA official.

But others in South Block argue that the incidents can be better understood in their contexts. The Kerala incident happened at a time when the ruling Con­gress in the state faced an imp­ortant byelection, winning that subsequently enhanced its maj­ority in the Assembly and allo­wed it to survive. If the Con­­gress-led UPA at the Centre had not matched the strident stand taken by the party’s state unit, the Opposition would have blamed it for going soft on the Italians because Congress president Sonia Gandhi is of Italian origin—thus reviving an old anti-Congress bogey. By taking a tough stand, the UPA successfully took away the wind off the Opposition sails and prevented them from turning the issue into a campaign against the Congress.

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Some diplomats of European Union countries, who have been watching the developments closely, argue that much of the credit for bringing the Tamil Nadu incident to an amicable end must go to the German diplomats and their quiet diplomacy with their Indian counterparts. “Inst­ead of making a big issue of it in the full glare of the media like the Italians, the Germans achieved what they wanted by working behind closed doors with Indians,” a senior EU diplomat in New Delhi said. Moreover, the Italian government’s initial tough decision of not allowing the two marines to return to India when they were allowed to go home for elections earlier this year had been embarrassing for most European diplomats here.

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However, with the release of the two Germans, pressure is likely to mount on the Italian government from its people to ensure the early release of the Italian marines. But renewed Italian efforts would be no guarantee that the Centre will be more accommodative to their plea than what it has been in a case that came near to being a full-blown diplomatic war.

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