Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part IV

[Andy_Ross]

As we have more native Finnish speakers in the discussion may I cheekily ask your opinion about a previous puzzle concerning the ship's emergency buoys. The quote Vixen found "Estonian hätäpoijuistaoli unohtunut viritys" seems to say they were not "tuned" but there was no provision for the users to tune the transmitters so I wonder if viritys has a broader nuance which might mean activate or similar. Any opinions gratefully received.

Yes, I put the misconception about how the buoys work down to a mistranslation of something Vixen has read.

 

[Marras]

As we have more native Finnish speakers in the discussion may I cheekily ask your opinion about a previous puzzle concerning the ship's emergency buoys. The quote Vixen found "Estonian hätäpoijuistaoli unohtunut viritys" seems to say they were not "tuned" but there was no provision for the users to tune the transmitters so I wonder if viritys has a broader nuance which might mean activate or similar. Any opinions gratefully received.

"Virittää" means both "tuned" and "activated".

[Edited to add: "activate" in the sense of making something ready for action. For example, "virittää ansa" would be "set a trap"]

 

[MarkCorrigan]

So it would be a legitimate translation to say that the buoys were not activated (that is, turned on via the switch)?

 

[erwinl]

As we have more native Finnish speakers in the discussion may I cheekily ask your opinion about a previous puzzle concerning the ship's emergency buoys. The quote Vixen found "Estonian hätäpoijuistaoli unohtunut viritys" seems to say they were not "tuned" but there was no provision for the users to tune the transmitters so I wonder if viritys has a broader nuance which might mean activate or similar. Any opinions gratefully received.

It was one of these things, plus the obviously Google Translate that first fueled my suspicion that she didn't actually speak Finnish.

But, it seems that one part at least was mistaken by me.

 

[erwinl]

So it would be a legitimate translation to say that the buoys were not activated (that is, turned on via the switch)?

That would seem to be it, yes.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

"Virittää" means both "tuned" and "activated".



[Edited to add: "activate" in the sense of making something ready for action. For example, "virittää ansa" would be "set a trap"]

Ah, thanks very much. Puzzle solved.

(Edit to add) I suppose it raises the question of why Vixen insisted it just meant tuned in the same sense as English but I guess we'll never solve that one.

 

[JayUtah]

I said it contravened the Rome 1998 criminal law treaty. In which way does it not?

You said a court found that Sweden had violated the 1998 Rome Statute against enforced disappearance. That is a lie. Sweden was found to be at fault, but according to a different law that has nothing to do with enforced disappearance.

Sweden's actions failed to violate the Rome Statute forbidding enforced disappearance for the simple fact that moving a thing from Point A to Point B is not the same as making the thing disappear. The words used to write laws have meanings.

 

[Marras]

So it would be a legitimate translation to say that the buoys were not activated (that is, turned on via the switch)?

Yes. That is actually explicitly said in the same article:

"Ns. EPIRB-hätäpoijut oli huollettu äskettäin, ja ne oli sijoitettu sääntöjen mukaisesti paikoilleen. Asetusvaiheessa unohtui kuitenkin poijujen aktivointi: suojakansi pitää avata ja kääntää kytkin päälle."

"So called EPIRB emergency buyous had been serviced short time ago and they had been replaced according to the regulations. However, when they were installed the activation of the buyous was forgotten: a protective cover needs to be opened and a switch turned on".

(Note that Finnish uses passive tense in cases like this even though it's not recommended in English)

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Do look at the official team lists, as kindly supplied by Here to Learn.

Do look at the paragraphs about Y 74 in Section 7.5.5. and tell me how many people the "Y64 rescue man" is described as having saved while he was on Y74.

Just what that specific section of the JAIC describes, not some other list or statistic, please.

 

[JayUtah]

This is because disappearing a suspect comes under a different convention.

Irrelevant. You named the court and the statute allegedly broken, and claimed the ECHR had made a certain finding against Sweden for violating the 1998 Rome Statute in the part forbidding enforced disappearance. The facts you cited to when asked to substantiate that claim do not tell that story. You've spent considerable time trying to vilify Sweden in this particular way, but the facts are simply against you.

You can only bring a law suit by citing exactly under which paragraph of the law you are claiming under.

Yes, a cause of action must name the relevant statute. The statute that Sweden was found to have broken has nothing to do with enforced disappearance. Therefore your claim that a court found Sweden had made someone disappear in violation of the 1998 Rome Statute is not factually supported.

So the Egyptian guy claimed under Article 3, torture and inhumane treatment as that was the closest that described his enforced disappearance after having legally registered as an asylum seeker.

He was not made to disappear. He was sent back to Egypt and people were informed that this is what had happened. Egypt had given assurances that the deportees would not be tortured, but renegged on them. Sweden was justly sanctioned for its role in subjecting people to torture when it had a duty and and opportunity to avoid such a thing.

The "closest thing" theory you've concocted is your problem. Nowhere has it been argued at law or found that Sweden violated the 1998 Rome Statute against enforced disappearance. You lied when you said it had. It's as simple as that.

Why do you refuse to recognise the right not to be 'disappeared'.

Oh, for Pete's sake. Of course I recognize the right not to be "disappeared." Disagreeing with you when you say it was done in a particular case and that a court issued a finding to that effect, is not the same thing as denying the right. One wonders when -- if ever -- you'll run out of straw.

 

[JayUtah]

Your callous disregard and joking about human rights issues is noted.

How on Earth is it a "callous disregard" to note that the deportees were regularly visited after their return to Egypt, something that does not happen to people subjected to enforced disappearance as defined in the Rome Statute?

You made a big emotional appeal, asking how I would feel if I were detained and deprived of all outside contact -- effectively "disappeared." There is evidence that did not happen in the instant case. The crimes committed by Egypt, and abetted by Sweden, certainly do violate human rights. But they do not fit the definition of enforced disappearance in the Rome Statute.

As usual, when the facts don't go your way, you resort to emotional ploys and ham-fisted attempts to shame your critics away from challenging your beliefs. Do better.

 

[JayUtah]

JAIC predictably is completely silent...

And appropriately so. As with any forensic engineering investigation, it has no mandate or authority to investigate and prosecute criminal allegations.

 

[JayUtah]

"So called EPIRB emergency buyous had been serviced short time ago and they had been replaced according to the regulations. However, when they were installed the activation of the buyous was forgotten: a protective cover needs to be opened and a switch turned on".

Someone else pointed out a long time ago that all the problems with this evidence go away as soon as we stop thinking of "tune" as the right translation, and consider "activate" instead. Not the least of which is Koivisto's reputation, which is fully restored if we just translate his statement more accurately. Or more correctly, if we translate his statement to be in accord with how we can independently verify the buoys to work.

The juxtaposition of installation and activation is still problematic and led Vixen to postulate a different story. As we've learned from the diligent efforts of Captain Swoop and others, the buoys are installed simply by placing them in the particular holder on the ship's structure. At that time no switching is required. There is only one switch: the one required to start them transmitting, although it can also be used to check the battery, owing to a built-in delay. Vixen speculated that the switch named in the report is some kind of transport-safety switch to prevent the buoys from being inadvertently activated. But there is no such switch on the device, nor any mentioned in the accompanying documentation.

"When they were installed" suggests the time at which the buoys were received on board the ship and placed in their holders. "...the activation of the buoys was forgotten" will necessarily have to refer to such time -- if any -- that the ship is sinking and the buoys need to be turned on manually to start them transmitting. Is there grammatical room in the native Finnish for installation and activation to occur at different times?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes. That is actually explicitly said in the same article:

"Ns. EPIRB-hätäpoijut oli huollettu äskettäin, ja ne oli sijoitettu sääntöjen mukaisesti paikoilleen. Asetusvaiheessa unohtui kuitenkin poijujen aktivointi: suojakansi pitää avata ja kääntää kytkin päälle."

"So called EPIRB emergency buyous had been serviced short time ago and they had been replaced according to the regulations. However, when they were installed the activation of the buyous was forgotten: a protective cover needs to be opened and a switch turned on".
(Note that Finnish uses passive tense in cases like this even though it's not recommended in English)

Which means they were manual activation.

 

[Marras]

Is there grammatical room in the native Finnish for installation and activation to occur at different times?

The natural way to read the sentence is that they should have done the action at the time when they put the buoys back after servicing them.

 

[LondonJohn]

The natural way to read the sentence is that they should have done the action at the time when they put the buoys back after servicing them.

But we must also factor in the imperfect understanding of the person who wrote that news report. Because whoever wrote it didn't understand things properly.

And when we go to the best source - in this case, the manufacturer's guide plus the JAIC Report - we know for certain how the specific EPIRBs on the Estonia that night operated: they were mounted on hydrostatic-release cradles (meaning they'd separate from the ship and float free once they were submerged in water) but they required manual activation of the internal electronic circuitry and radio equipment.

The truth about these specific EPIRBs is beyond doubt. And that's all that matters, at the end of the day. We really need not fret over ambiguous translations or secondary-source imprecision - those sorts of things are mere side-shows.

We know for sure that the EPIRBs carried that night by the Estonia required a human being to manually operate their activation switches. We also know for sure that no human being aboard the Estonia that night actually performed that function. We know this because 1) no signal was ever transmitted by either EPIRB; 2) both EPIRBs, when subsequently found, had their activation switches in the "off" position; and 3) when these very EPIRBs were tested under appropriate conditions, they were found to operate perfectly if/when they were (manually) switched on.

The above paragraph is all that matters wrt the EPIRBs. Everything else is fringe white noise.

 

[JayUtah]

The natural way to read the sentence is that they should have done the action at the time when they put the buoys back after servicing them.

That's what I gathered from your translation. Someone who didn't know how the buoys work might wrongly conclude that the activation switch -- the only switch on the buoy -- was meant to be flipped at installation time, not in the event of an emergency. Reading things into secondary sources is not as accurate as knowledge of how the buoys work.

 

[LondonJohn]

That's what I gathered from your translation. Someone who didn't know how the buoys work might wrongly conclude that the activation switch -- the only switch on the buoy -- was meant to be flipped at installation time, not in the event of an emergency. Reading things into secondary sources is not as accurate as knowledge of how the buoys work.

Exactamente

 

[Andy_Ross]

The natural way to read the sentence is that they should have done the action at the time when they put the buoys back after servicing them.

then they would have activated.

 

[JesseCuster]

Being visited by your old mum every fortnight does not cancel out your being disappeared by a state, as Mojo flippantly claims.

Yes it does.

An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate and whereabouts, with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law

If the two Egyptians you are talking about were disappeared then their family couldn't have visited them and they couldn't have appealed to any international law for justice, because their family wouldn't know where they are, the state responsible for disappearing them would refuse to acknowledge where they were or what had happened to them and they couldn't appeal their deportation because disappeared aren't protected by the law.

You really are clueless, aren't you?

Go on, accuse me of being in favour of disappearing people or acquiescing to CIA requests or whatever emotional nonsense you wish to dredge up because your ignorance has been exposed.