The chief of the General Staff of the Navy (Ajema), Admiral General Antonio Piñeiro, has made clear this Friday that, before a Cayuco at sea, the main mission of military ships that are in the area is to help, save and rescue their occupants if they are in danger. In no case, he has emphasized, his work is to “fight” illegal immigration. “In the issue of immigration I will be very clear because it is a mandate that says the law of the sea: the Navy, if a Cayuco is located in the sea, its main mission is to save people if they are in danger,” said chest.
This has stated during his speech at the Forum of the New Defense and Space and in response to the Vox leader Javier Ortega Smith, who had asked him if he saw it necessary to increase the presence of ships of the Navy in waters of the Strait and close to the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla in order to, in the opinion of the councilor of the City of Madrid, put a brake on the illegal immigration that reaches the Spanish coasts in the Spanish coasts. “That nobody thinks that the Navy will be fighting at sea illegal immigration,” said Piñeiro this Friday, which has specified that the Armed Forces can “identify the ships that transport these people to proceed with their arrest and put them at the service of justice to be tried.” Ajema has specified that this is being done within the framework of the, it has more than a decade fighting crime and piracy in waters near the horn of Africa.
that the armed forces intervene against irregular immigration. That is not your mission. “That nobody expects that an Navy ship in a situation of this type will proceed to separate them,” said Admiral General Piñeiro. “We are not for that,” he has settled.
This is a debate that Santiago Abascal’s party has already opened five years ago when asking for a with navy ships to prevent the Cayucos from arriving in the Canary Islands. Then, the Chief of the General Staff of the Defense (Jemad), also Admiral Teodoro López Calderón, who today remains the Military High Command, “if any warship in Spain meets a patera in a situation where the life of those who are in it is in danger, its obligation of all kinds, legal and moral, is rescue them”.
In recent years, Vox has proposed on several occasions to deploy the Navy in the midst of the usual migratory routes such as those of the Strait or Canary Islands to block the entry of pateras and cayucos into Spanish territory.
“The only mission that a ship from the Navy can make, and of any Western Navy, is to help people.” “That there is no doubt about it. And it is what we can do. The rest is an issue that is above the armed forces”, in reference to which they are decisions of political and non -military draft, he has assured, after specifying that the armed forces can serve as a tool to help the countries of origin of immigrants as it is being done, for example, in Mauritania, and monitoring the waters of the Gulf of Guinea.
People traffic
To illustrate the rawness that is lived in the sea in the sea in this type of situations, the chest has referred to the Operation Sophia of the European Union that sought to dismantle people trafficking networks in the Mediterranean and in which Spanish frigates participated in humanitarian work. It was one of the missions that “has impacted” its people, he has recognized.
The Admiral has reported the “helplessness of having 250 or 300 people in the water who do not know how to swim, that they are going to drown.” “And you with a boat in which you can put 10 or 20 to get them out of the water and have to choose between one and the other knowing that in the time you go and return to the one you are going to pick up it is no longer. That is very hard,” he lamented. “I have had conversations with people who have been in this operation [Sophia] and psychologically have been affected. ”
The Navy, just like the armies of the air and dirt, are to defend the Spaniards. And to guarantee territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty.
Without a doubt, the Sánchez government is also assaulting these institutions, as it has done with all, …
– The voice 🇪🇸 (@vox_es)
Vox has tried to amend the flat to the head of the Navy on social networks. “The Navy, like the armies of the air and dirt, are to defend the Spaniards. And to guarantee territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty.” In the same tweet, he has suggested that Piñeiro has allowed himself politically to influence: “Sánchez’s government is also assaulting these institutions, as he has done with all, trying to put them at their service of partisan interest. A pity that some leave so easily.” But, before, in his question to Admiral General, the Ultra Councilor of the Formation had given him “thank you very much for his loyal service to Spain.”
