Dubai Dhow Captains Defy U.S. Sanctions With Shipments to Iran
By Glen Carey and Tarek al-Issawi
July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Sailors with skin baked to leather by the Persian Gulf sun stack Hewlett-Packard Co. laser-jet printers alongside a 40-foot wooden dhow in Dubai Creek as Ali Reza, an Iranian merchant, watches them sweat.
From his base in Dubai, the second-biggest member of the United Arab Emirates, Reza ships General Electric Corp. refrigerators and other American-branded products to Iran, even though re-exporting them is banned under U.S. sanctions. Within days, the printers will be snapped up by buyers in Iran.
"Anything made in America is popular,'' Reza, 55, says as his crew prepares for another voyage.
The illicit trade takes place in one of the world's most guarded waterways. Hundreds of dhows, traditional Arab sailing vessels, weave their way past U.S. warships that have patrolled the oil shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz for almost three decades. These days, the military is more occupied with intercepting weapons than desktop computers.
U.S. sailors are focused on securing oil flows from the region as tensions in the Gulf increase because of Iran's nuclear program and the war in Iraq.
"We're not looking for commercial products; if there aren't terrorists or weapons onboard, they're free to go,'' says Lieutenant John Gay, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet. "It's not our mission.''
Navigating Customs
In Dubai Creek, boats ranging in size from 100 to 1,000 tons load goods for shipment to the Iranian ports of Bandar Abbas and Qeshm. The dhows, fitted only with sails until the 1960s, now use motors and occasionally harness the wind to quicken the journey.
Once cleared by local customs officials, the vessels cast off for their journey, which can take as long as four days, in groups of three or four for safety.
Customs laws in the United Arab Emirates mean that officials only look at the port of origin for a cargo. With most of the U.S. goods coming through Asia, there are no legal grounds to seize them, says Marwan Ali Hasan, an inspector in Dubai.
"We don't confiscate goods based on brands, American or otherwise,'' Ali Hasan says. "We follow the manifest. If it's an American brand manufactured in another country, we release it.''
The U.S. imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution, which toppled the American-backed Shah. Militants later stormed the U.S. embassy and held 52 Americans for 444 days.
Goods, technology or services "may not be exported, re- exported, sold or supplied, directly or indirectly'' to Iran, according to guidelines from the U.S. Treasury Department.
The Persian Gulf has been on a war footing for more than two decades. Iran was at war with Iraq for most of the 1980s, and Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 prompted U.S.-led intervention.
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1 comment:
Hi
I am an expatriate living in Dubai and I know for sure this is not true at all. And this macho talk from the captains is worthless because they are simple employees and the ships, all ships, no matter how small or big, are checked very strictly by UAE and Dubai customs and marine police. If this was not the case the whole country would be swimming in a sea of Pakistani and Iranian illegal immigrants. Truth of the matter is there is a lot of bad feelings against the USA in the whole region and those captains are no exception. If you do your research better you will also find out that the more important and influential the person is, captain or else what, in this region , the more moderate he is. Thos in power are actually pro the USA all the way.
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