While family members of a South African couple held hostage by Somali pirates since 16 months ago were asking the world community for a rescue operation, an EU naval commander said Monday such a move "would be too risky." - CRI English
Fearing the risk of mass casualties, an international counter-piracy force operating off the coast of Somalia has ruled out the possibility of carrying out an armed raid to free 220 seafarers held hostage there, including the South African couple, Bruno Pelizzari and Debbie Calitz.
"The main concern is not to put lives at risk. A recovery operation is highly risky," said Rear Admiral Jorge Manso, the Force Commander of the European Union Naval Taskforce (EUNAVFOR), which has been battling piracy there since 2008.
Bruno Pelizzari and Debbie Calitz were probably the longest-held hostages since they were captured by pirates together with their yacht in the Madagascar/Mozambican channel some 16 months ago.
Last week, the EU confirmed its intention to extend the mandate of the counter-piracy mission, code-named Operation Atlanta, until December 2014.
The decision effectively included an extension of the area of operation to include Somali coastal territory and internal waters. Read more.
Pirate attacks are a little less frequent than last year, but the European Union has no intention of easing the pressure on Somali outlaws who prowl the Horn of Africa coast and the Indian Ocean - The National.
On Friday, the EU agreed to expand its mission against Somali pirates to include attacks on land targets. The 10 EU warships operating off the Horn are now authorised to strike moored vessels and fuel dumps in "coastal territory and internal waters".
As a tactic to fight piracy, the EU's extension of Operation Atalanta makes a degree of sense. Pirate bases on land will, initially at least, offer little resistance to the EU forces, which will likely be helicopter-borne. The pirates' small boats are no match for the EU's heavily equipped warships; certainly, pirate groups can expect heavy material losses and many casualties.
However, this mission creep will be risky for the Europeans. Attacks without a follow-up plan, as many interventions in the Middle East and Africa have shown in the past, ultimately fail because they leave behind further instability. The pirates, like the Shabaab militia (and the line between the two is now blurred), will be almost impossible to eradicate in the absence of a political solution that helps to build a stable government in the coastal area, and in all of Somalia.
Statistics that have been collected suggest that pirates in Somalia make more money, and have higher life expectancy, than the country's farmers. Pirates claimed $160 million (Dh588 million) in ransoms in 2011. In impoverished, insecure Somalia, turning to piracy could be seen as a rational decision.
Further, any EU military successes will be overshadowed by a downed helicopter or a demolished house full of children. Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate how quickly such missions become military, and public relations, disasters.
The only real solution for piracy requires civil institutions to suppress crime and create legitimate opportunities. That is of course easier said than done, but by working with the country's transitional government, the EU and others can help build those institutions, starting with a well-run army and police forces.
The EU mission faces a long haul to protect shipping in the area, including World Food Programme ships that deliver aid to displaced Somalis. But widening hostilities could hurt those efforts more than help them.
Politicians in India are pressuring their government to intervene on behalf of crewmen of the hijacked MT Royal Grace - The National.
The Dubai-registered chemical tanker was captured by Somali pirates off the coast of Oman this month after setting sail from Sharjah. The crew of 22 consists of 17 Indians, three Nigerians, a Pakistani and a Bangladeshi.
PC Chacko, an MP from Kerala, said he would meet the external affairs minister SM Krishna and ask the government to act as two crewmen were from his constituency.
Mr Chacko visited the families of both men and assured them the government would do everything it could to ensure their safe release.
"I came to know that the owner of the ship has initiated negotiations to release the ship," he said. "The government of India has also instructed the director general of shipping to closely follow the developments pertaining to the incident and update them from time to time. Something must be done to stop this menace. It's a horrible experience for the families."
Fasil Ashraf is a friend of one of the crew, Stanly Vincent, 21.
Mr Ashraf said he had heard nothing from the owner about the ship. "We are in dark about the developments," he said. "There has been no information on this matter.
MT Royal Grace is owned by Oyster Cargo and Shipping Company. The company could not be reached for comment.
Captain Pottengal Mukundan, Director of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) was invited to MC Northwood to meet with the staff of the NATO Shipping Center to maintain and strengthen the dialogue between the two organizations which work to provide the maritime community with the best information products possible to avoid piracy - Globmaritime.com.
The IMB is based in London and is a specialized division within the Commercial Crimes Services of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). IMB's primary mission is to protect the integrity of international trade by seeking out fraud and malpractice. One of the IMB's principal areas of expertise is in the suppression of piracy. Concerned at the alarming growth in the phenomenon, this led to the creation of the IMB Piracy Reporting Center in 1992, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It maintains a round-the-clock watch on the world's shipping lanes, reporting pirate attacks to local law enforcement and issuing warnings to shipping about piracy hotspots.
Both Captain Mukundan and Michael Howlett, Divisional Director of the IMB, addressed the Senior Leadership and operational sectors of MC Northwood Headquarters (HQ), NATO, sharing information on how the Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau, the Financial Investigation Bureau and the IMB look at trade finance fraud, container crime, charter party fraud, phantom ship fraud and their relationship with the Piracy Reporting Center and Counter Piracy as a whole. This informative overview provided comprehensive knowledge and background which will no doubt prove to be useful to work being done at this NATO HQ. Read more.
A task force from Russia’s Northern Fleet, led by the Udaloy class destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov, will soon depart on an new anti-piracy mission off the Somali coast, the fleet’s spokesman Capt. 1st Rank Vadim Serga said on Tuesday - Ria Novosti.
The destroyer is currently on a training mission in the Barents Sea as part of the preparations for the upcoming tour-of-duty in the Gulf of Aden.
“It will be the first anti-piracy mission for the Vice Admiral Kulakov destroyer,” Serga said.
The new task force will replace the Russian Pacific Fleet’s task force headed by the Admiral Tributs destroyer, which completed its anti-piracy mission off the Somali coast on Monday and set sail for its home base in Vladivostok.
The Admiral Tributs, the Pechenega tanker and a rescue tugboat arrived in the Gulf of Aden on January 12 and escorted five convoys of commercial ships since then.
Task forces from the Russian Navy, usually led by Udaloy class destroyers, operate in the area on a rotating basis. Read more.
NATO and Russia agree that countering piracy is a common security challenge and have agreed to explore ways to strengthen cooperation in this area under the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) Work Programme for 2012. Building on limited military tactical cooperation off the Horn of Africa, they are seeking to strengthen information exchange and coordination and considering possible mutual support, such as refuelling and medical assistance, for ships involved in counter-piracy operations - Safety4Sea.
"We are all actors in the same area and good cooperation between our forces will enhance the effectiveness in keeping the shipping lanes safe as well as mutual understanding of the NATO and Russian units," says Rear Admiral (LH) Sinan Azmi Tosun, the current Commander of Ocean Shield, NATO's counter-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden.
Remarks by US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Political-Military affairs, Andrew J Shapiro to the Center for American Progress in Washington DC - US State Dept.
Despite the romantic notions surrounding piracy of previous centuries, modern day piracy represents a new and complex threat to the international community. While piracy at sea is certainly not a new problem, its modern re-incarnation has an impact of a different magnitude. Piracy off the coast of Somalia threatens one of the principal foundations of today’s modern interconnected global economic system – and that is freedom of navigation on the high seas. In a globalized world, the impact of piracy in one area of the world can cause a ripple effect greater in magnitude than ever before. We live in an era of complex, integrated, and on-demand global supply chains. People in countries around the world depend on secure and reliable shipping lanes for their food, their medicine, their energy, and consumer goods. By preying on commercial ships in one of the world’s most traversed shipping lanes, pirates off the Horn of Africa threaten more than just individual ships. They threaten a central artery of the global economy, and therefore global security and stability.
The United States will join partners from nearly 70 countries, international organizations, and the private sector at the United Nations in New York on March 29 for a plenary meeting of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia - US State Dept. The Contact Group is a broad and growing diplomatic effort taking action against criminal activity that threatens commerce and humanitarian aid deliveries along one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors.
The plenary, hosted by the United Arab Emirates, will be the eleventh gathering of this outstanding international partnership. Since its initial meeting in January 2009, the Contact Group has nearly tripled in size. This is a testament to the global consensus that piracy poses a shared security challenge to maritime safety and to the need for further concerted and coordinated international action. Among its accomplishments to date, the Contact Group has:
- Facilitated coordination of international naval patrols through the operational coordination of an unprecedented international naval effort from more than 30 countries working together to protect transiting vessels. The United States coordinates these efforts with multilateral coalitions such as NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield and the European Union’s Operation ATALANTA. The United States also looks to further develop counter-piracy cooperation with several other nations deploying forces to the international counter-piracy effort, including China, India, Japan, and Russia.
- Partnered with the shipping industry to improve practical steps merchant ships and crews can take to avoid, deter, delay, and counter pirate attacks. The shipping industry’s use of Best Management Practices and the increasing use of Privately Contracted Armed Security Personnel are among these measures that have proven to be the most effective deterrents against pirate attacks.
- Strengthened the capacity of Somalia and other countries in the region to combat piracy, in particular by contributing to the UN Trust Fund Supporting Initiatives of States Countering Piracy off the Coast of Somalia; and
- Advanced a new initiative aimed at disrupting the pirates’ financial and logistical networks ashore through approaches similar to those used to target other types of organized transnational criminal networks. Read more.
Despite Defense Department budget cuts and ongoing military operations, pirates in the waters off the coast of Somalia won’t see a decrease in naval military presence any time soon - CatalystDC.com. NATO allies recently agreed to continue through 2014 the Ocean Shield operation – a counter-piracy naval operation off the Horn of Africa protecting merchant ships from pirate attack. This is welcome news to many ship owners and charters, which have seen an increase in the number of pirate attacks in the Indian Ocean. In 2011, Somali pirates attacked 439 vessels, fired on 113 of them, hijacked 45, and took 802 hostages. The pirate threat and the international response seem only to be escalating.
Piracy in the Indian Ocean threatens human life, regional stability, and international commerce, costing the global economy $7 billion to $12 billion annually. To address this issue, the National Chamber Foundation (NCF) recently hosted “High Risk on the High Seas: The Economic Impact of Piracy in the Indian Ocean,” an event featuring comments from industry and government experts on the challenge of piracy and the threat to commercial interests in the Indian Ocean.
For ships passing through the 2.5 million square nautical miles of water where Somali pirates operate, security measures are a necessity. Speakers at the NCF program offered several perspectives on the pirate threat, offering insight into the primary areas where governments and industry should focus their efforts. Read more.
In a speech in Brussels held 28 March, at a seminar on Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea, the keynote speech by Koji Sekimizu, the Secretary-General, International Maritime Organization,“Coordination and co-operation: activities of IMO and the way forward”, said:
As piracy continues to plague shipping and put the lives and livelihoods of seafarers at serious risk, we must continue to work hard to ensure meaningful and substantial progress in the fight to combat this insidious criminal activity. We must change and stem the tide towards complete eradication. A coordinated response, across several different fronts, is the only way forward and, from this point of view, the holding of this Seminar is timely and I appreciate Vice-President Kallas for inviting me to address the Seminar today.
As the specialized agency of the United Nations with, among other things, a responsibility for the safety and security of international shipping, the International Maritime Organization has been among those actively advocating and working towards just such a coordinated approach. This is based on our long involvement in combating piracy, not just Somali-based but in other parts of the world too.
IMO was, for example, instrumental in establishing the framework for collaboration among the littoral States of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore and the South China Sea that proved so successful in helping to almost eradicate piracy in what used to be the world’s major hotspot.
More recently, it was IMO that first drew the problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia to the attention of the United Nations Security Council; and, since then, we have been in the vanguard of counter-piracy efforts, often on our own initiative, and often in collaboration with others. Read more.