A two-day international conference on piracy around the Horn of Africa was kicked off earlier today in Nairobi. Placed under the auspices of the UN and the Kenyan Government, the event is a venue for many to discuss the rampant piracy off the Somali cost. A statement from the UN Political Office for Somalia said that the UN-backed December 10th-11th meeting is significant as piracy is linked to the need for peace and stability in the war torn nation.
The 75th Press Release Update released by Ecoterra a few hours ago sheds light on the event, as well as on several other cases of Horn of Africa piracy and their worldwide repercussions. I therefore re-publish it integrally.
75th Update 2008-12-10 23:51:12 UTC
Ecoterra Intl. – Stay Calm & Solve it Peaceful & Fast !
Ecoterra International — Update & Media Release on the stand-off concerning the Ukrainian weapons-ship hi-jacked by Somali pirates.
We also can make sea-piracy in Somalia an issue of the past – with empathy and strength and through coastal and marine development as well as protection!
New EA Seafarers Assistance Programme Emergency Helpline: +254-738-497979
East African Seafarers Assistance Programme – Media Officer: +254-733-385868
Day 77 – 1833 hours into the FAINA Crisis – Update Summary
Efforts for a peaceful release continued, but the now over two months long stand-off concerning Ukrainian MV FAINA is not yet solved finally, though intensive negotiations have continued.
While sources close to the seized vessel confirmed today only that the crew is apparently all right, though an earlier skirmish had been reported, critical voices urged both sides in the negotiations to finally come to terms.
A Russian frigate currently protecting civilian ships from Somali pirate attacks near the Horn of Africa is escorting another convoy of four vessels in the area, a Navy spokesman said. Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said the Northern Fleet’s Neustrashimy (Fearless) is currently escorting the Russian Nadezhda (Hope), the Fesco Yenisey flying a Marshall Islands flag, along with the Panamanian Symphony, and the Cayman Islands-flagged Nanami. The Neustrashimy will continue to escort commercial vessels through the dangerous waters off the Somali coast until the end of the year when it will be replaced by the Pacific Fleet’s destroyer Admiral Vinogradov, which left a naval base near Vladivostok on Tuesday on course for the Indian Ocean.
Ecoterra Intl. renewed it’s call to solve the FAINA and the SIRIUS STAR cases with first priority and peaceful in order to avert a human and environmental disasters at the Somali coast. Anybody encouraging hot-headed and concerning such difficult situations inexperienced and untrained gunmen to try an attempt of a military solution must be held responsible for the surely resulting disaster.
Clearing-house:
News from other abducted ships ———-
Security sources said that two Yemeni fishing ships with 22 fishermen on board were hijacked on Wednesday by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, Yemen’s Interior Ministry said. The pirates attacked the ships as they sailed off the Mait area near the southern port city of Aden, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.The ministry affirmed that the 22 fishermen taken as hostages by the pirates were Yemenis, but sources of Yemen’s Coastguards Authority said that seven fishermen escaped on a small boat and had claimed the pirates attacked the two ships as they sailed in the Gulf of Aden. A total of 17 crew members on board in coastal waters in the Gulf of Aden were hijacked, a state-run website then reported late Wednesday. “Before the pirates took control of the two ships, seven Yemeni fishermen escaped on a small boat to report the attacks to the authorities in Aden”, independent sources confirmed.
Philippines’s Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos reconfirmed to the media on Wednesday that the pirates had released the Greek-owned MV Captain Stefanos and its 19-man crew, as reported. The ship was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden on 21 September, and it had 19 crewmembers, including 17 Filipinos, one Chinese and one Ukrainian, on board when it was hijacked. Conejos said all the crewmembers were safe and added that the ship was currently on its way to Italy, and then to Greece. The department also said that Somali pirates are still holding 91 Filipino seamen, on board six international ships, hostage. There has always been an element of risk in the seafaring life, but these days, with piracy resurgent off the Horn of Africa, the dangers have seldom been more glaring. Nevertheless, in the Philippines, whose citizens make up nearly a third of the world’s commercial sailors, economic considerations trump concerns for personal safety. Recruiters say they’ve seen little falloff in demand for jobs on even the most dangerous routes.
According to reports of some Filipino sailors who were freed late last month by Somali pirates, it could even be fun. The all-Filipino crew of the Greek-owned tanker Centauri, which was hijacked in September, told news agencies that the pirates treated them well, even playing cards with them and sharing meals. While some legislators in the Philippines have called for restrictions on the maritime recruiting market, Salvador Santos, assistant general manager of the Luneta Seafarer’s Center, a private organization that offers counseling and other assistance to sailors, said he did not think the men were being exploited. “It’s up to the sailor whether to accept the offer,” Santos said. “The important thing is he knows what he’s getting into.” News reports of pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden apparently had not deterred sailors from seeking jobs on oil tankers and other commercial ships. “We haven’t seen any change in the number of people who come here,” Santos said. “On the contrary, perhaps because of what is happening in Somalia, we’ve heard that more sailors are seeking to be deployed there because the money is good.” A sailor who boards a ship bound for Somali waters gets double pay plus hazard pay, Santos said. That could mean more than $3,000 a month for a cook, more than a minimum wage-earner in the Philippines would make in a year. The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration says that 30 percent of the world’s merchant sailors, about 270,000, are Filipinos. They are likely to continue to find themselves in pirate-threatened waters for some time to come. “The Philippine government is doing its best to protect its sailors, whom we consider heroes,” said Crescente Relacion, executive director of the Office of Migrant Workers Affairs at the Department of Foreign Affairs.
“We are in constant communication with the ship owners, with foreign authorities and with the families of the sailors who remain in captivity.” Santos, of the Luneta Seafarer’s Center, said it should not surprise anyone that Filipino sailors are enthusiastic about sailing despite the dangers. “Given how hard it is to find a job in the Philippines that pays as much as a sailor would get abroad, I think it’s not surprising that sailors would take some risks,” he said. Santos noted that Filipino workers have even smuggled themselves into war-torn Iraq because of the high pay offered there. “About the only thing we can do,” Santos added, “is make sure that the sailor’s needs are met and he is equipped with all the knowledge and information he must know before he embarks on a dangerous assignment”.
With the latest captures and releases still at least 15 foreign vessels with a total of around 335 crew members (of which 91 are Filipinos) are held and are monitored on our actual case-list, while several other cases of ships, which are observed off the coast of Somalia, have been reported or reportedly disappeared without trace or information, are still being followed. Over 123 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) have been recorded to far for 2008 with until today 51 factual sea-jacking cases (incl. the presently held 15). Several other vessels with unclear fate (not in the actual count), who were reported missing over the last ten years in this area, are still kept on our watch-list, though in some cases it is presumed that they sunk due to bad weather or being unfit to sail.
Other related news ——-
A two-day conference, sponsored by the United Nations and hosted by the Kenyan Government, opened today in Nairobi and brought together officials from more than 40 countries, as well as representatives from regional and international organizations. During the first day technical experts elaborated recommendations and the ministerial-level meetings are scheduled for Thursday. The conference is seeking to also develop an improved approach to pursuing, arresting, and charging pirates. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime is reported to have proposed a $1.3 million program to enhance justice and law enforcement efforts in Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, and Yemen. Plans to cut ransom supply routes and money laundering opportunities for Somali pirates are some of actions being considered to stem the rising tide of piracy. Estimates show that at least three billion shillings may have been paid to Somali pirates since January.
The pirates have attacked about 100 ships this year. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, United Nations Special Representative for Somalia stated that the international community must work harder to block access to finances for pirates. “What is important is to freeze the money. We need to go after the pirate´s associates, the brokers. We know the names and they should be arrested,” he said, on the sidelines of a two day anti piracy conference in Nairobi. He said the United Nations will work with partners to block avenues where pirates invest their money. But he said the ultimate solution will be to have a functioning government in Somalia. In this all experts agreed and also that law enforcement supported by foreign navies must include the fight against illegal fishing, toxic waste dumping as well as against trafficking in arms, drug or humans. The experts had to elaborate recommendations concerning four key sectors. While recommendations were elaborated on enforcement actions, capacity building as well as on the commercial and financial implications, the rapporteur of the working group on the legal implications and a legal framework had to state that no agreement was achieved, citing time constrains. Deliberations concerning the finalized recommendations will continue tomorrow on ministerial level. An official with the East African Seafarers’ Association, Andrew Mwangura, said that international efforts would have little lasting impact without involving the local population in Somalia. “If you are not going to involve the local community, it cannot achieve anything,” he said. Mwangura said a strategy to combat piracy needs to be part of a coordinated effort against other illicit activities in the region.
Meanwhile the U.S.-American Bush administration announced today that it will push for international action–a last ditch attempt to stabilize the East African nation, but as Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper told FP, it will take weeks–maybe months–even to get coastal surveillance under control. The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff Admiral Michael Mullen said Wednesday he was “extremely worried” about potential safe havens for terrorists in Somalia and Yemen. “A significant objective in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to not have a safe haven, and I am concerned about the potential for a safe haven in Somalia as I am in Yemen,” Mullen said at a Pentagon press conference. “I try to pay a lot of attention to the evolution of potential safe havens, these two in particular,” said Mullen, the highest-ranking US military officer and the top military adviser to the president.
“So I’m extremely concerned about that,” adding that he believes the United States and the international community needs “to do all we can to impede the arrival of more safe havens out of which we can be threatened”. Mullen however ruled out US intervention in Somalia if the Islamists take over the country. “It wouldn’t be the US military,” he said according to an AFP report. The U.S. plan outlined by State Department officials who requested anonymity would encourage shipping and cruise operators to do more to fight attacks, bolstering navigation strategy with non-lethal technology such as alarm and surveillance systems, anti-boarding devices such as water cannons and electric fences, and long-range acoustic devices that generate painful noise. Under the plan, an international naval presence would continue, and countries would improve sharing of intelligence about threats of piracy. Nations would coordinate an international effort to disrupt pirates’ financial resources, and attempt to reach consensus on how to deal with pirates after they are captured. The U.S. does not plan to increase the number of Navy vessels now patrolling the sea lanes around the Horn of Africa, but the administration wants to utilize growing support in Europe for coordinated action against attacks at sea on shipping and cruise vessels.
The United States is seeking international authorization to hunt Somali pirates on land with the cooperation of Somalia’s weak U.N.-backed government. A U.S. draft resolution circulating among council members and obtained by The Associated Press proposes that all nations and regional groups cooperating with Somalia’s government in the fight against piracy and armed robbery also “may take all necessary measures ashore in Somalia” including its airspace. Presumably that could involve the U.S. military, which withdrew from Somalia after the killing of 18 U.S. troops in 1993. The resolution is to be presented at a session on Somalia with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and senior officials from a number of countries will attend an anti-piracy meeting at the UN in New York on Dec. 16, according to reports. The U.S. intends to back efforts to deploy an international peacekeeping force in Somalia to replace a contingent led by Ethiopia scheduled to leave the country by the end of this month. The U.S. says pirates based in coastal camps have links to an Islamic extremist group that has taken control of much of the country. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who will both be in New York on Monday, may also attend the Somalia talks, which are scheduled for Tuesday, diplomats said. U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Alejandro Wolff confirmed that Washington hoped to see a resolution adopted. “There is complete council solidarity and consensus on the importance of dealing with the piracy problem and thwarting it, and dealing with it with every tool at our disposal,” he said. “Clearly this implies both at sea and, if needed, with the consent of the Somalis, on land,” Wolff told reporters.
It was not clear what form that Somali consent would take. The country has been in virtual anarchy since the collapse of a dictatorship 17 years ago. Islamists now control most of the south. Feuding, heavily armed clan militias hold sway in many other areas and a weak, Western-backed interim government has little authority outside the capital of Mogadishu. Diplomats familiar with the text said it was not clear what kind of force would be permitted for countries in “hot pursuit” of pirates who decide to bring the chase onto dry land. It was also unclear if the U.S. military would participate. The latest US initiative may be seen as a further response to a crisis that has “clearly escalated,” according to a senior UN diplomat. President-Elect Barack Obama, who did not make piracy a high-profile issue during the presidential campaign, did not comment on the issue, which represents one of the final foreign-policy initiatives for the Bush administration.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet on Wednesday asked parliament to approve the use of a German warship in a European Union anti-piracy mission off Somalia, spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said. The naval mission, code-named Atalanta, was formally constituted on Monday. Participation by the Germans must wait until the German parliament grants authorization. That is scheduled for December 19. The authorization is expected to then run through to December 15, 2009. Germany has offered a naval frigate, the Karlsruhe, and up to 1,400 sailors, airmen and other military personnel. The German Foreign Ministry meanwhile issued an “urgent” warning against visiting Somali coastal waters. “There is a very high risk of pirate attacks in the entire Gulf of Aden, including Yemeni coastal waters and adjoining waters,” it posted on its web page for travelers and stated there is “no effective protection” against the raiders.
The German government has agreed that the sailors on the Karlsruhe should have a “robust mandate” to shoot at pirates and liberate prisoners by force if other deterrence fails. The vessel normally has a crew of 220. They will only be allowed to capture pirates and send them to Germany for trial if they have harmed German citizens or ships. Wilhelm said the primary aim of Operation Atalanta was to protect relief shipments into Somali ports from pirate attack. Armed soldiers – so called riders – would be put on board the chartered UN World Food Programme cargo vessels. The German government said the anti-piracy operation did not relieve shipping companies of their responsibility to keep their own ships safe. The EU expects to operate a flotilla of six warships and three reconnaissance planes in the area, with seven EU nations involved in the operation. According to German news agency DPA, the modern German Navy has no experience fighting pirates. Europe’s most recent experience with rampant piracy dates back to the early 19th century. For hundreds of years, German states paid ransoms annually to pirate lords on North Africa’s Barbary Coast. Germany’s military ombudsman, Reinhold Robbe, warned on N24 television that “the resources currently being deployed” would not solve the piracy problem. He said the West had to ask itself about the causes and promote the authority of the Somali government so that the people of Somali could earn an honest livelihood. “Otherwise, I fear, this deployment won’t make a lot of sense,” he said.
The Hapag-Lloyd company said it decided to allow the passengers to leave the vessel after the German government turned down a request for a naval escort through the Gulf. Officials in Berlin said this was because the Columbus does not sail under the German flag. Hapag-Lloyd’s website says the 15,000-gross-ton vessel is registered in the Bahamas. Hapag-Lloyd disembarked 370 passengers and crew from its cruise vessel MS Columbus in a Yemeni port Wednesday so the vessel could cross the pirate-infested waters without them.
Shippers based in the Emirates are being approached by independent security firms with offers of gangs of “tough guys” to join the crews of vulnerable vessels. Smaller Dubai-based dhow operators, who cannot afford to stop sailing to Somalia, are taking expensive detours of up to a week to minimise the danger of seizure. Amid widespread concern at the failure to mount a concerted international response, owners are under pressure to find their own means of protecting their vessels and cargoes in the Gulf of Aden. Despite rising concern in the industry, a UAE seafarers´ charity is urging companies against hiring private security, warning that this would put seamen´s lives at risk. “These companies are offering business in the UAE — they are doing so anywhere here where there are ports,” said the Rev Stephen Miller, the director and port chaplain for the Mission to Seafarers. “But so far there has been no take up. It would not be a good thing. When pirates come aboard and meet no resistance then generally no one gets hurt. “If someone is firing down at them then they will respond. A pirate´s bullet does not discriminate between an armed security man and a crew member”.
Mr Miller could not identify any of those offering protection to the UAE maritime industry. Daren Dickson, from the security firm Drum-Cussac, based in the English Channel island of Jersey but with an office in Dubai, said: “Basically everyone is trying to cash in. Piracy is high profile now and there are firms offering maritime security and tough guys walking the dockyards touting for business.” Mr Miller said UAE-based shipowners had so far resisted such offers of protection partly because they would then be legally liable for any violent deaths that might occur on board. “The owner is responsible for whatever happens on the ship so if someone dies then the owner is liable for that death,” he said. Meanwhile the lack of a legal framework for dealing with pirates if they are captured is hindering navies from taking stronger action against maritime pirates and encouraging the use of private muscle, a shipping body warned. “We have been pushing for more robust action by navies. If they were stopping and searching mother ships and confiscating vessels then the number of attacks would go down,” said Cyrus Mody, a manager at the International Maritime Bureau in London. “The UN is debating what would happen to pirates if they are caught. We don´t have a framework for that and it is a big hindrance for the entire deterrent process.” The IMO advises strongly against the use of private security companies and seeks solutions from regional agreements on maritime safety.
Military and counter-terror sources report that the pirates have set up a land-based intelligence-financial-logistic logistic network in the Persian Gulf, East Africa andâ?¦ northern Europe. Information turned up by the US Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet intelligence were reported by DEBKAfile to have revealed that the Somali pirates had organized their traffic on business lines by establishing a sort of “back office” in Abu Dhabi. It is allegedly run by money changers earning a rake-off on ransom payments as the pirates’ agents. They have since established similar “agencies” in Mombasa, Kenya; Piraeus, Greece; Naples, Italy; and Rotterdam, Netherlands, which work through spies at shipping and marine insurance firms. The pirates’ undercover agents obviously gather information from their shipping contacts in the Gulf, in East African and European ports on the merchant vessels heading for the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean as well as their cargoes.
They brief the pirates on the presence of security guards and weapons available for the crew aboard the vessel. The pirates are always on the lookout for “special cargoes”, meaning smuggled goods or merchandise exported illegally or contrary to international law, such as clandestine weapons shipments. Such consignments, like that of the Ukrainian MV FAINA, which carried a large unregistered cargo of 33 T-72 tanks and other armaments – and is still held – increase the ransom value of the vessel and pay more than routine freights. The pirates also use their proxies to negotiate ransoms and terms for releasing the hijacked vessels, rather than exposing themselves and their locations. DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that the pirates’ logistics and intelligence are far superior to that of the European counter-terror operation. This gap seriously detracts from the international patrol fleet’s prospects of getting to grips with the pirates.
All warring parties in Somalia have committed war crimes against civilians including rape, murder and the use of people as human shields, a human rights’ body said in its latest report. “The combatants in Somalia have inflicted more harm on civilians than on each other,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. A bloody insurgency began in the Horn of Africa nation early 2007 after Ethiopian forces helped kick out the Islamic Courts’ Union (ICU) – a Islamist regime that was in power for six months. The Horn of Africa nation has been plagued by chaos and civil war since the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, but the last two years have been particularly miserable for civilians. Aid agencies say around 10,000 civilians have died and over a million have fled to avoid the crossfire since the insurgency began. A report released by HRW – “So Much to Fear: War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia” – details how government forces, Ethiopian soldiers and insurgents have indiscriminately opened fire on civilian areas.
Drawing on the testimony of 80 witnesses, HRW accuses government forces and allied militia of torturing detainees, killing and raping civilians and looting their homes. The report includes testimony from teenage girls raped by government forces, parents whose children were shredded by Ethiopian rockets and people shot by insurgents for working as messengers for the government. Around 200,000 civilians have fled to neighbouring Kenya, even more are internally displaced and hundreds have died already this year as they attempted to cross the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, usually after being forced overboard or abandoned at sea by smugglers. According to the UN, 3.2 million Somalis, 40 per cent of the total population, are dependent on humanitarian aid as a result of the conflict, drought and high food prices. Western governments have backed the transitional federal government in the hope that it will halt the march of Islamist insurgent group al- Shabaab, which has made huge gains in recent months. HRW said that blindly supporting a regime that targets it own civilians is not the solution. “There are no quick fixes in Somalia, but foreign governments need to stop adding fuel to the fire with misguided policies that empower human rights abusers,” Gagnon said. HRW called for a policy review and said that the incoming Obama administration would have the opportunity to “break with the failed policies of its predecessor”. Ethiopia announced in late November that it will pull it troops out by the end of the year, leaving behind only a small African Union peacekeeping force to help the government keep the insurgents at bay.
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