MV FAINA Piracy Crisis – The Naval & Military Build-up – An Analysis by Ecoterra
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
October 25, 2008
The Naval & Military Build-up
Though the Neustrashimy is carrying marines and special forces commandos and has been given the go ahead by the current president of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), though not yet by parliament, to attack the ship and to wage war against his adversaries in the territorial waters of Somalia as well as on land - provided the actions would be coordinated with the TFG - it seems to be under a considerate command and has no orders yet to attack the pirates on MV FAINA.
That ship's armament includes SS-N-25 Switchblade anti-ship missiles, SA-N-9 Gauntlet SAM, a 100-mm gun, torpedoes and depth charges. The frigate also carries a Ka-27 ASW helicopter. But too much sable-rattling doesn't contribute to peaceful solution finding if the hi-jackers are prepared to die. While the arrival of the Russian missile warship might well assist in making the waterways around the Horn of Africa for some vessels safer in future, just "waiting for the Russian destroyer" would only give reason for further delay in the proactive search for a peaceful resolution concerning the case at hand. If the gridlock is not solved until then, many experts believe, the Russian warship's arrival at the stand-off site of the FAINA will certainly escalate the critical situation concerning the weapons ship. The gang holding the FAINA said already during the first week of the face-off that they were ready to battle any commando-style rescue attempt and to die together with the crew.
While the UN started to think now about a coastal protection operation, the European Union agreed to establish an anti-piracy security operation off the coast of Somalia - with so far 9 Navies participating - to become operational in November and according to Russia's Itar-Tass news agency, the Russian warship Neutrashimy is to commence patrols in the Gulf of Aden on 6 November - co-operating with the EU and the US.
The Kenya Government has allegedly dispatched 49 navy soldiers to join Russian and US naval ships that have surrounded the vessel under siege. The Kenyan troops moved in using three small boats and a bigger one. It is, however, not known if the really entered Somali waters.
The UN Security Council authorized on 7. 10. 2008 the use of force to stop piracy against ships off Somalia. The council unanimously adopted a resolution submitted by France, the current EU president, to use the "necessary means ... for the repression of acts of piracy. Resolution 1838 "calls upon all states interested in the security of maritime activities to take part actively in the fight against piracy on the high seas off the coast of Somalia, in particular by deploying naval vessels and military aircraft." The same day the European Union was gearing up efforts to send a military mission to assess the situation and the Dutch government decided to send another ship to the coast of Somalia. The frigate De Ruyter is being dispatched to protect U.N. food transports from pirates.
Even the South African National Defence Force under newly elected Minister of Defence Charles Nqakula is proposing now in Cabinet discussions if South Africa's navy could be part of the Somalia offensive while pondering who will pay for it.
The Japanese government, however, abandoned a plan to send a destroyer to escort Japanese cruise ships navigating off the coast of Somalia, as Lloyds List reported today. Likewise Japan has apparently abandoned the care for three pirated ships in Somalia, who have links to Japan and leaves it to the insurances to deal with them, western sources in Nairobi stated. Reports from Somalia indicate that MV Stella Maris, which together with her crew has been held hostage since 20th July 2008, had not been released for a long time and had since the beginning of October run out of fuel. It was reported that even the generation of electricity and thereby cooling and lightning has stopped. The vessel was then re-fuelled and released on 10th October 2008.
The Latvian Defence Ministry has announced that the country will not take part in a European Union operation to combat pirates off the coast of Somalia, though a Latvian resident is part of the crew on MV FAINA. In late May pirates hijacked the German freighter LEHMANN TIMBER that had an Estonian national serving as first mate. The man returned home safely two months later.
NATO agreed on 9th October to send ships soon to protect vessels off Somalia's coast as bandits holding a Ukrainian ship laden with weapons softened their ransom demands in response to mounting international pressure. NATO's chief spokesman James Appathurai said ministers agreed that a seven-ship NATO force would be in the region within weeks. NATO will coordinate with organizations including the European Union
The Transitional federal government of Somalia, however, believes that the statement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to send warships to Somali waters to fight piracy off its coast is a violation of its sovereignty, the general director of the Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ministry, Dr. Mohamed Jama Ali, said on 13th October 2008 and stated: "We are not happy with NATO´s one-sided statement which shows that the military alliance does not recognize the transitional federal government of Somalia." The Somali government believes that NATO´s announcement will rather help illegal fishing in Somali waters, he told APA. "We believe that the entrance of Western ships in Somali waters is a double-standard. On one hand, they are engaged in a illegal fishing and on the other they are dumping nuclear waste in our waters," Mohamed Jama said.
The Russian warship Neustrashimy stopped at Tripoli, Libya, on October 11th, for a two day visit (and replenish its fuel and food supplies). It appears that the Neustrashimy won't show up off Somalia until mid October, at the earliest. The Neustrashimy is being accompanied to Libya by the nuclear powered battle cruiser Peter the Great (which will head for Venezuela after the Libya visit). The Russian missile frigate left Tripoli, parted from the other Russian ships and is on the way to Somalia, where shall ensure the safety of Russian vessels passing through the area against pirate attacks. Last week, Somali Ambassador to Russia Mohamed Handule said his country's president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, had authorized Russia's military to fight pirates both off Somalia's coast and on land in co-ordination with the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia.
While most of the Navy-"boys" now believe they have the political backing to waist millions of taxpayer's money for playing again hide-and-seek games in Somalia - this time around on the safer waterfront - a senior British Royal Navy commander in the Gulf has called for merchant shipping to hire mercenaries in response to the increasing danger of piracy. At a time when a record number of ships have been hijacked off Somalia, Commodore Keith Winstanley said he believed that the situation had become so serious that civilian vessels should be armed. Already companies like Hart Security made deals with insurance companies. He said private security companies working in Iraq or Afghanistan could be better used guarding ships, which in pirate-infested regions needed a "visual deterrent" such as mounted heavy machine guns. While security analysts have warned about such options the British Commodore, who commands 11 ships in the region, seems to admit his and his Navy's helplessness, though they have a unique go-ahead, which the world has never seen before. If his suggestions were adopted, it would be the first time that merchant seamen have been significantly armed since World War II.
The Baltic Fleet tanker Yelnya is on its way to the Somali coast, where it will meet the patrol ship Neustrashimyy, which has been dispatched to the region to fight pirates. On board the tanker there is fuel, fresh water and weapons for the patrol ship. The tanker is being guarded by a marine unit. The servicemen are armed with heavy machine guns and sniper rifles. They have been instructed not to allow the possible enemy to approach the ship within range.
That Navy vessels have to bring their own tankers is because Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force's mission in the Indian Ocean to refuel multinational forces ships operating in connection with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as dealing with the insecurity around the Horn of Africa is supposed to end in January 2009, if the Anti-Terrorism-Bill on which it is based would not be revised. Like neutral Germany, which had to change its war-renouncing fundamental law for such purpose, was drawn 1993 into Somalia by the US-led intervention, neutral Japan and other countries are more and more entangled in a global militarization under the disguise of the so called war against terror.
The speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament said on 16. October that Russia could resume a naval presence in Yemen. The U.S.S.R. had a major naval base in the former socialist state of South Yemen, which merged with North Yemen in 1990 to form the present-day Yemen. Speaking to journalists in Sana´a, the present capital of Yemen, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov said the new direction of Russia's foreign and defense policies and an increase in its naval missions would be taken into consideration when making a decision on the request. "It's possible that the aspects of using Yemen ports not only for visits by Russian warships, but also for more strategic goals will be considered", he said.
Yemen stands fourth on the list of Russian weapon importers worldwide, while Libya is the biggest Russian weapon importer in the Arab world. Yemen is estimated to have imported Russian arms worth about USD 12 billion from the 1994 Civil War until the past year. Media sources disclosed that Yemen annulled a weapon deal including MiG-29 aircrafts and armored cruisers with Moscow earlier this year, as the final arrangements were being made for Yemen to pay Russia. As to why the deal was annulled remains unclear, but the sources attributed it to budget deficits. According to American sources, Yemen imported light and heavy arms from Russia between 1996 and 2003 for a total cost of USD 200 million, plus other arms worth USD 50 million from the U.S. between 2000 and 2003. In addition, Yemen signed a deal with China to buy USD 100 million worth of Chinese arms. The country has also imported USD 50 million worth of weapons from some west European states such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. It also imported other weapons worth USD 200 million from other European states within the same time period. The Yemeni government, which wants to play a major role in security for the region as long as financed from abroad, currently faces local and international criticism over imbalanced spending on arms import at the expense of development. According to a previous analytical study by Dr. Nasser Al-Awlaqi, Professor of Agricultural Economy at Sana'a University, Yemen is the third-largest military spender and its population the second poorest in the Arab world. In mid October already a Russian warship has re-fuelled in Aden, which together with Djibouti on the Southern shores is a strategically important guarding point for the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which all ships on passing through the Suez Canal their way to or from the Indian Ocean or the Arabian Sea have to navigate .
The Suez Canal is a pillar of the Egyptian economy providing four percent of the national income and 10% of the country´s foreign currency income. An average of 2,000 ships pass through the canal every month carrying a variety of goods from the Middle East and Asia to the markets in the U.S. and Europe. However, recent statistics show a drop in income from the canal from $ 504.5 million in August to $469.6 million in September 2008. The number of ships decreased from 1,993 in August to 1,872 in September, but this is seen by analysts not so much due to the persistent fear from Somali pirates, but due to the general business decline in international cargo shipping.
Over 20 military vessels from 10 nations are now converging around the Horn of Africa in one of the world's most dangerous waters, similar to Nigeria and the South China Sea, but analysts say the campaign won't halt piracy unless it also confronts with the quagmire that is Somalia.
HMS Northumberland is set to sail in the fight against the growing threat of piracy the lawless waters off East Africa. The warship is ready to lead an international taskforce to the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia. The British Government has offered to send the Type 23 frigate to lead the European Union force to secure the safety of ships traveling to and from the strategically important Suez Canal and the Far and Middle East.
NATO alliance spokesman James Appathurai said a flotilla of seven NATO ships - the Standing Naval Maritime Group - was steaming toward the Gulf of Aden and will escort U.N. World Food Program (WFP) food shipments to Somalia and run patrols to deter pirate attacks on other vessels until the European Union will have set up its own operation, probably in December. The NATO naval group consists of destroyers from Italy and the United States, frigates from Germany, Greece, Turkey and Britain and a German auxiliary vessel. Evidently, NATO has been carefully planning its Indian Ocean deployment. The speed with which it dispatched the ships betrays an element of haste, likely anticipating that some among the littoral states in the Indian Ocean region might contest such deployment by a Western military alliance. By acting with lightning speed and without much publicity, NATO surely created a fait accompli.
Likewise a EU fleet is prepared to be dispatched. If approved by member states in November, the EU's first naval mission will consist of five or six ships from different EU countries under the command of UK vice-admiral Philip Jones and with headquarters in Northwood, Great Britain, Mrs Claude-France Arnould from the EU council - the secretariat of EU top diplomat Javier Solana - told MEPs. Many Members of the European Parliament, however, disagree. The EU naval mission to be deployed against pirates off the coasts of Somalia is a "military nonsense," "morally wrong" and has "no international legal basis," several MEPs said at a hearing in Brussels on Wednesday 15th October, as delegates from the EU council and the bloc's military co-ordination cell defended the project. Andres Breijo, head of the new EU piracy cell, tries to provide for an outlet to the frustrations European navies feel with today´s piracy scourge.
Calling the planned EU mission "military nonsense" and a "desperate attempt" by the French EU presidency "to run up the EU flag on another military operation during its time in office," British Conservative Defence Spokesman and MEP Geoffrey van Orden said in the Defence Sub-Committee of the European Parliament today: "It is a pity that the British government has agreed to an EU naval operation at the same time that NATO will be engaged in the same waters. Not only does this introduce unnecessary complexity and political confusion but it stretches our meager naval assets even further. Bear in mind that in the last 10 years the destroyer and frigate fleet of the Royal Navy has been reduced from 35 to 25," he told in an interview to EUobserver.
Greek MEP Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos from the EPP-ED group criticized the set up of a "global armada," while German green MEP Angelika Beer underlined the lack of international law to sustain the proposed European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) mission. "There is no clarity to the limitations of this mandate. Will the EU be able to sink ships and arrest pirates?" she asked. Portuguese socialist MEP Ana Maria Gomes gave a fiery speech on the "moral problem" of the EU mission, which, in her opinion, is only about "protecting oil tankers." "Nobody gives a damn about the people in Somalia who die like flies," she said.
South Korea is still undecided concerning their naval participation at the Horn of Africa. "A discussion is ongoing among related government offices to decide whether to dispatch a naval warship to Somali waters," said Col. Park Hee-cheol, director of the International Security Cooperation Bureau at the Defence Ministry. A inspection team shall be dispatched first. South Korean fishing vessels had been notoriously fishing in Somali Waters and had been previously captured off the Somali coast, and in one instance sailors were held for more than 100 days before being released.
The deputy speaker of the Somali parliament, Prof. Mohamed Omar Dalha, on 9th October 2008 accused western powers of having ties with pirates off the lawless coast of Somalia. According to APA he said: "The western powers are doing this because they want to make justifications for their occupation of Somali waters to steal our natural resources in the sea including fish." He asked the United Nations to help the Somali transitional federal government boot out buccaneers operating in Somali waters, who held a record high of 374 hostages last month.
One of the Somalia's legislative body members has animatedly condemned the foreign ships on the Somali coasts over exceeded illegitimate fishing and wastes dumping on the country's coasts. In a news conference he held in Baidoa town on Friday Mohamed Qanyare Afrah has added that the pirates are not lone those need to be dealt with but the foreign vessels as well have to be tackled. "Why is the world giving good reason for the fighting against piracy only but the foreign vessels had to be added to them in the fight against the piracy" Qanyare said.
The Indian Navy on 16th October confirmed that it would be participating in war games with the United States in the Arabian Sea from 17. - 22. October as part of an effort to boost naval ties between the two countries. Indian Navy spokesman Commodore Nirad Sinha said on 16th October that the US Navy's nuclear-powered super-carrier USS Ronald Reagan and five other warships of the US Navy's seventh Fleet would participate in an Arabian Sea exercise together with the Indian navy. It will include USS Chancellorsville, USS Gridley, USS Decatur, USS Thach and USS Bridge, an underway replenishment tanker as well as a submarine, USS Springfield and a P3C Orion aircraft. The Indian Navy deployed INS Mumbai, an indigenous guided missile destroyer, INS Rana, a Rajput Class guided missile destroyer and four guided missile frigates - INS Talwar, INS Godavari, INS Brahmaputra and INS Betwa. In addition, the INS Aditya, an underway replenishment tanker, a Shishumar Class submarine, Sea Harrier fighters, fixed and rotary wing aircraft will also take part. The exercises mark the first time that the USS Ronald Reagan will operate in Indian waters. The announcement of the drills comes less than a week after the United States and India signed a pact to open up sales of civilian nuclear technology to New Delhi for the first time in three decades.
Blackwater Worldwide, a private security company, wants to sent a decommissioned 40-year old research vessel, the McArthur, to the Gulf of Aden, and is offering its services to shipowners concerned with Somali piracy. The US private military contractor with ties to the US State Department is embroiled in controversy over its actions in Iraq, where in September last year its staff were involved in a shoot-out in Baghdad that left 17 civilians dead, in contentious circumstances. Blackwater, however, says the ship and its helicopters have the ability to patrol a commercial vessel´s route, thereby avoiding the need for the shipping industry to hire security contractors to ride on board and such would justify its presence in the area commercially by pointing to the increased bills for shipowners operating in the region, including massive insurance hikes, double-pay danger money for seafarers, and ransom payments where ships are captured.
While the ship as such will not be armed, the mercenaries on board are said to carry arms. It can carry 44 passengers including the 14-men crew. A similar governmental deal with a French security firm fell apart already and many security experts point to the difficult legal and practical implications. All real experts see the lasting solution to the piracy more inside Somalia itself and express the opinion that retired research vessels plus decommissioned ex-Navy-Seals are not the right medicine to heal and bring sick Somalia back to health. This operation hasn't received yet neither a serious request by a ship-owner for protection nor the required permission by the State Department to go ahead.
On 17th October Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso expressed a positive view on the possibility of sending Maritime Self-Defence Force vessels to guard commercial freighters and other ships from possible attacks by pirates in waters off Somalia. But a senior official of the Defence Ministry suggested the idea does not immediately sound realistic, given too many legal hurdles the government would have to clear. The Democratic Party of Japan is opposed to the activity.
NATO's Standing Maritime Group 2 (SMG2) is ending its transit through the Suez Canal to carry out anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf region. While SMG2 was already scheduled earlier to pay port visits in the region, NATO defence ministers decided at their 9-10 October meeting in Budapest to expand its mission to include anti-piracy tasks and particularly, to protect humanitarian supplies sailing to Somalia.
The Somali parliament has termed the deployment of foreign warships to the country's coast to fight piracy an invasion of its sovereignty. Speaking in Nairobi, deputy Speaker of the Somali parliament, Prof. Muhammad Umar Dalha, said on 18th October that Somalia's parliament was not consulted by the foreign countries before deployment of the warships, specifically now around the FAINA weapons-ship. The parliament therefore wants the foreign warships to move out of the Somali waters. "The foreign forces have no permission to fight with the pirates. We don't have such laws in Somalia. We need to be consulted before doing so," said Dalha.
Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein said on 19th October in a news conference in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, that the foreign forces which include U.S. and Russian warships are welcome to fight rampant piracy in the Horn of Africa coast. ``NATO has full permission to combat pirates in our waters because the transitional federal government demanded to the United Nations to act against pirates,'' the Prime Minister told reporters at a press conference in Mogadishu, thereby somehow contradicting earlier statements made by the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Prof. Dalha, who said that the Somali parliament had not made any such decision, which would give foreign vessels the right to do what they want in Somali waters and that the international community better should finance a governmental Somali coastguard to deal with piracy and other criminal acts in Somali waters.
That Somalia, Yemen and other regional governances wants to profit from the piracy issue is obvious, though the Yemen Government had to announce that it will postpone the proposed regional summit for fighting piracy, which was planned to be held in Sana'a next week. Participating countries were expected to sign a memorandum of understanding for mutual cooperation between them in fighting piracy. Minster of Transportation, Khalid Al-Wazir assured that Yemen will establish a centre in Sana'a for monitoring ships in collaboration with 20 countries and International Maritime Organizations. From his part, Al-Wazir, told media outlets that the postponing came in response to the Regional Center for Combating Piracy request, adding that the summit will be held later this year.
Much confusion also entangles the so called Rules of Engagement under which the navies sail. "There are indications that even the US-American military is not sure about which part of its command structure will take the lead in fighting the piracy in Somalia. For the time being it will be CENTCOM (US Central Command) and not AFRICOM that will be leading the effort, Scott A Morgan writes on Confused Eagle. Currently naval elements from the Fifth Fleet are part of the international armada that is attempting to eradicate piracy at the south end of the red sea". Resistance to Africom among African governments has been so strong that the US-American commander-in-chief abandoned initial ambitions to install a headquarters on the continent. Despite protests from German communities and the German anti-war-movement AFRICOM is now based in Stuttgart / Germany instead, with about two dozen Africom liaison officers posted at embassies.
US-American naval forces too contribute significantly to the pollution of the oceans with their cruisers and destroyers, having fired about 12,500 rounds of 5-inch ammunition so far this year according to Troy Westphal, Naval Surface Force´s ordnance officer, and frigates have fired about 2,400 3-inch rounds. Those numbers should increase by at least 20 percent next year, Westphal said in a SurFor announcement. The cost for the additional rounds was unavailable and thinkers in the US Armed Forces, who promote more virtual, computer-based training instead of wasting money and polluting the environment with live rounds seem not to be heard over the thunder of real-trigger-happy troops.
Two Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) ships, Navy frigate KD Lekiu and amphibious assault vessel KD Sri Inderapura, with together 515 sailors returned to base after Operation "Fajar" to oversee and safeguard the release of two Malaysian International Shipping Corporation (MISC) ships (Bunga Melati 2 & 5) seized by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. "Shipping companies must invest in security aspects and not depend fully on the RMN to protect their ships each time they are threatened by pirates", Fleet Operations Commander of the Lumut RMN Base, Vice Admiral Datuk Ahmad Kamarulzaman, who also was Ops Fajar task force commander, said today. Another RMN ship, the KD Mahawangsa, is still in the Gulf of Aden to monitor the situation and to escort Malaysian merchants vessels in the pirate hotspot. However it is unlikely to remain there for much longer due to the high operational costs incurred by the navy.
Also Indonesia is in the naval arms race. Jakarta became a major weapons customer for Russia eight years ago when the United States slapped an arms embargo on the country over alleged human rights violations. Washington has since lifted the ban, but Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, continues to turn to Russia for its military hardware imports. In the fall of 2007, then Russian president Vladimir Putin reached an agreement with Indonesia's leadership on a $1 billion Russian loan for Indonesia to buy 22 helicopters, 20 tanks and two Kilo-class attack submarines from Russia. In addition, Jakarta said it would buy six Sukhoi aircraft worth a total of $335 million. In late August, 2008, Russia's state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport and the Indonesian Defense Ministry had signed a $40 million contract for the delivery of 20 BMP-3F infantry fighting vehicles, to be made in 2010. Indonesia is also negotiating a deal to buy Russian amphibious tanks. "In addition, the Indonesian navy would like to make a separate purchase of Russian-made Yahont anti-ship missiles, which I hope will happen in the near future", Fleet Admiral Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno, Indonesia's navy chief of staff, said at the start of an official visit to Russia on 21. October 2008 to discuss bilateral military-technical cooperation.
The growth of global commerce in the past two decades crowded the oceans with cargo vessels, dry-bulk carriers and supertankers loaded with every good imaginable. The world currently transports 80% of all international freight by sea.
More than 10 million cargo containers are moving across the world's oceans at any given time. The heavy ocean traffic (and its valuable cargo) spawned a surge in sea piracy and a new breed of pirates, the bloodiest ever seen. More than 2,400 acts of piracy were reported around the world between 2000 and 2006, roughly twice the number reported for the preceding six-year period. Although pirate attacks have at least tripled during that time period, the actual number of attacks remains unclear. Shipping companies frequently do not report attacks out of concern that it could increase insurance premiums. And nearly every group or government monitoring sea piracy believes that number is seriously undercounted. The Australian government estimates the actual number of piracy attacks is 2,000% higher. Other reasons to not report such cases are given due to the fact that after the airfreight cargo security checks had massively increased and clandestine goods can hardly be sent any more by airfreight without being detected, all that kind of cargo goes on ships, whose owners then do not want to caught with it and often agree to a quick deal with the pirates. Piracy is estimated to cost between $13 billion and $16 billion every year and could cost substantially more in coming years. "Piracy is not going away," said Peter Chalk, an international security analyst at the RAND Institute. "In fact, it's getting more serious and more violent; and it's only a matter of time before you need to take it more seriously".
The commander of a NATO task force on its way to tackle piracy off the coast of Somalia has said he still does not know what the rules are for taking on the high-seas bandits. U.S. Admiral Mark Fitzgerald said while he was aware of where the pirates were operating, there was little he could do militarily to stop them and that guidelines on how to take them on -- including whether to shoot -- were still in the works. "You know, I don't think we've gotten the rules of engagement yet from NATO," Fitzgerald told reporters on 20th October during a briefing on U.S. naval operations in Europe and Africa.
Vice Admiral Gerard Valin, commander of the French Forces in the Maritime Zone of the Indian Ocean has held talks with Yemeni officials at the Interior Ministry and discussed with them security cooperation aspects particularly between French Forces and Yemeni coastguards. Recently, the coastguards and some of the French navy based in the international waters in the Indian Ocean conducted some joint exercises. The exercises included trainings on how Yemeni coastguards can intercept ships and fight pirates.
Indonesia's navy chief of staff, Fleet Admiral Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno, went on 21th October for an official visit to Russia to discuss bilateral military-technical cooperation and to seal new weapons deals.
After learning on 21th October that the NATO task force - comprising of seven vessels from six countries - has now first stopped for a rest at the splendid naval hospitality facilities of the French Navy in Djibouti before sailing into place off Somalia and moreover that it is led by Italy, many Somali groups expressed either disbelief or just laughed, local observers reported. The mission under command of Italian Admiral Giovanni Gumiero on board his flagship, the destroyer Durand de la Penne, is believed now by most Somalis and analysts to achieve simply nothing, neither for maritime security nor for the country. Italy has a long-standing history as failing colonial power in Somalia, is well known for its illegal fishing activities not only in Somalia but also along all other African coastlines and is probably the worst possible choice to lead the NATO naval force into Somali waters, regional analysts stated.
The rules of engagement for the NATO armada concerning piracy and intervention around the Horn of Africa "will arrive in the coming days," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said, adding that these would include how and when the mission could use force. "The operational plan and the rules of engagement should be agreed and finalised in the next day or two," he added. Navy vessels will also help escort UN World Food Programme (WFP) food shipments, until the European Union can launch its own operation, probably in December. The WFP ships 30,000-35,000 tonnes of aid into Somalia each month. Its vessels are currently under Canadian escort, but that service is due to come to an end on Thursday, when a Dutch navy ship will take over, Appathurai said.
The not yet finally decided European Union´s naval task force for the Gulf of Aden will protect World Food Programme vessels as a priority, it has emerged. EU ships scheduled to arrive in the region before the end of the year are expected to guarantee aid shipments to Somalia, according to the EU council of ministers. The development raises a question mark over the extent to which military escorts will be therefore unavailable to commercial shipping and duplicate NATO assignments, while leaving essential piracy-related tasks unaddressed. The U.N. Security Council on Oct. 7 adopted Resolution 1838, a resolution on piracy that was drafted by the European Union and proposed jointly by France, Japan and other countries. Based on the resolution, the EU is scheduled to form a fleet of warships to launch anti-piracy operations, which establishes a military coordination action named EU NAVCO.
In adopting a resolution on sea piracy, the European Parliament expressed its serious concern about the growing number of maritime piracy cases, in particular in the seas off Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Criminal assaults against Community fishing, merchant and passenger vessels have increased in number and frequency. MEPs called on the Council and Member States to adopt clear and legally incontrovertible rules of engagement for the naval forces engaged in those operations. The resolution calls on the Somali Transitional Government, in collaboration with the UN and the African Union, "to treat piracy and armed robbery committed from the Somali coast against vessels carrying humanitarian aid as criminal acts to be pursued by arresting the perpetrators under existing international law". However, Timothy Kirkhope MEP, Conservative transport spokesman said: "We must not pretend that the EU has competences and control it does not possess. Today's Resolution is full of references to 'EU fishing vessels', 'EU fishermen', 'Community fishing, merchant and passenger vessels' - yet the EU has no ships and none fly its flag. And Geoffrey Van Orden MEP, Conservative defence spokesman, who has consistently questioned the motives of the EU military mission, added: "The EU has no useful military role to play in this, their involvement will just add confusion and complicate matters. The EU is desperate to find military operations that it can stick its flag on in order to give credibility to its defence pretensions. All EU countries planning to contribute frigates and destroyers to the "EU military mission" are already members of NATO, and contributing ships for anti-piracy operations".
"The foreign existence in the Red Sea will make nothing" president Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen said, "German, U.S. Dutch and French warships have been there and could not prevent pirates" he added. If the international community does not work on rebuilding Somalia, it will remain the one of the worst spots in the Horn of Africa. He highlighted that the direct reason of the piracy phenomenon is disintegration of the Somali State, calling on the international institutions to contribute to restructuring Somali institutions. President Saleh during the conference revealed also that the arrested terrorist cell in Yemen proved to be linked to Israeli intelligence and in contact with the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office.
Somali pirate attacks climbed fivefold in the Gulf of Aden in the first nine months of the year as ransom payments spurred raiders to step up their activities, the International Maritime Bureau said on 23rd October.
Most observers have the impression that the whole game on the waters around the Horn of Africa is a win-win situation for the Navies and for the pirates, the security companies, certain governments and governmental agencies as well as the whole military-industrial-complex, by getting money from governments and insurances to Somalia on the one side and to inflate the military budgets, insurance coffers, public spending on the other, while mostly taxpayers have to pay for all of it. With mercenary companies like Blackwater, security escorters like Hart, rogue states like Yemen, Djibouti and Eritrea, failed states like Somalia and even unrecognized breakaway Somali regions like Puntland competing for the "Security-Dollar", the Somali pirates actually would be eligible for a job and business creation award. "Somalia, if it would not exist, one would have to invent it!", is the standing slogan of a scholar in Somali studies already since the 80s, and now we can use the same term with the word "pirates". One hidden face in the anti-pirate crackdown is also that with profitable business getting harder and harder to find in Iraq and Afghanistan, private security companies are now seeking contracts with shipowners whose vessels are being increasingly targeted by pirates.
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Picture: MV FAINA