Ecoterra Press Release 285 – The Somalia Chronicle June – December 2009, no 98
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
April 08, 2010
ECOTERRA Intl.
SMCM
Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor
ECOTERRA INTERNATIONAL - UPDATES & STATEMENTS, REVIEW & CLEARING-HOUSE
2009-11-10 * TUE * 23h24:57 UTC
Issue No. 285
A Voice from the Truth- & Justice-Seekers, who sit between all chairs, because they are not part of organized white-collar or no-collar-crime in Somalia or elsewhere, and who neither benefit from global naval militarization, from the illegal fishing and dumping in Somali waters or the piracy of merchant vessels, nor from the booming insurance business or the exorbitant ransom-, risk-management- or security industry, while neither the protection of the sea, the development of fishing communities or the humanitarian assistance to abducted seafarers and their families is receiving the required adequate attention, care and funding.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." George Orwell
The right to know the truth ought to be universal. Tom Paine warned that if the majority of the people were denied the truth and ideas of truth, it was time to storm what he called the "Bastille of words". That time is now."
EA ILLEGAL FISHING AND DUMPING HOTLINE: +254-714-747090 (confidentiality guaranteed) - email: somalia[at]ecoterra.net
EA Seafarers Assistance Programme EMERGENCY HELPLINE : SMS to +254-738-497979 or sms/call +254-733-633-733
"The pirates must not be allowed to destroy our dream !"
Cpt. Florent Lemaçon - F/Y Tanit - killed by French commandos - 10. April 2009 / Ras Hafun
NON A LA GUERRE - YES FOR PEACE
(Inscription on the sail of F/Y TANIT - shot down on day one of the French assault)
We have the obligation to fight oppression and cruelty wherever it appears, and believe that anybody who is degrading other people and peoples has to be fought against with whatever appropriate tools people have available.
Clearing-House: Cut out the clutter - focus on facts !
(If you find this compilation too large or if you can't grasp the multitude and magnitude of important, inter-related and complex issues influencing the Horn of Africa - you better do not deal with Somalia or other man-made "conflict zones". We try to make it as easy and condensed as necessary.)
Breaking:
Fishing Vessel Seized Off Ras Hafun
Yet unconfirmed reports speak of the capture of a fishing vessel named Al Hilal or Al Halil (not to be confused with the Al Hilal container ship or the Almezaan already held at Garacad).
It was apparently seized off Ras Hafun on the Indian Ocean side of North-Eastern Somalia at about 08h00 local time this morning.
It is a white coloured fishing boat and was apparently heading north when the attack happened and it was taken over by at least 14 Somalis.
The crew list could not yet be obtained, but there are indications that also Indian fishermen could be held on board. The Directorate of Shipping and the Indian High Commissioner were informed.
Owners of Weapons Ship in Efforts to Cover Up
While the owners of cargo on Panama-flagged MV ALMEZAAN (not to be confused with the offshore-tug AL MEEZAN) still maintain the wrong vessel name Al-Mizan, a Somali businessman admitted that the ship with 18 crew was captured as reported.
Abdirisak Abdulkadir says he heads a business group called Juba General Trading Company that hired the vessel to carry food, electronics and other small items from the United Arab Emirates to Mogadishu.
Abdulkadir says there are 15 Indians, two Pakistanis and a Somali on board, but he denied that the cargo ship was carrying weapons to the Horn of Africa nation, officials told Shabelle radio on Tuesday.
Abdirisak Abdulkadir, who is an agent for the abducted cargo ship confirmed then in a direct interview with Shabelle radio that the ship was kidnaped near Hobyo town in Mudug region in central Somalia.
The agent added the cargo ship belonged to a company in Panama, but it was carrying goods for Somali businessmen adding that it had sailed from an United Arab Emirates port and he stated that they had contacted the pirates to discuss about it, and that the Somali captors didn't demand any ransom. According to Shabelle radio he harshly disproved reports saying that the ship was bringing weapons to Somalia reiteterting that it was a commercial ship. Mr. Abdirisak was calling on the Somali captors to release it soon. Similar reports were received by other media.
VOA spoke by phone to a man who says his name is Issa Abdi Ahmed. He says he is a pirate on board the cargo but no arms are on board. At the same time the commander of the group which captured the vessel aired his anger, saying that the person VOA spoke to would be just a broker.
Andrew Mwangura of the piracy specialist group East African Seafarers' Assistance Program says he believes the ship is one of the regular weapons carriers circumventing the U.N. arms embargo on Somalia. Mwangura told VOA the pirates may not be telling the truth when they deny the existence of the arms. He says the pirates may fear that naval ships patrolling the area will close in on the ship if they believe weapons have fallen into the wrong hands.
The MV ALMZAAN is a general cargo ship with a gross tonnage of 2086, was built 1979 and is sailing under the flag of convenience of Panama. The vessel sports as "registered owner" SHAHMIR MARITIME of St Vincent & The Grenadines - another briefcase office -, while BIYAT INTERNATIONAL from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates serves as ship-manager.
"The ship was carrying 3,000 tons of general business materials," Abdirisak Abdulkadir said later to AP in Mogadishu. "It set out from Dubai on the 24th of October. We were expecting it on the 6th or 7th of this month but it did not arrive."
Besides the agent also one Abdi Ali Farah, who claims to be the owner of Juba General Trading Company, spoke out and confirmed the vessel had left from Dubai on 24th of October but could not explain why the voyage would have taken the vessel over two weeks. He also did not divulge if the vessel had stopped somewhere else before coming to the Somali coast.
When the consortium called the ship, Abdirizak told AP, a pirate answered the phone and said it had been hijacked.
A man, who answered a satellite phone number provided to AP in Mogadishu by Abdulkadir on Tuesday, identified himself as a pirate and said the bandits were demanding a $3 million ransom. He said the ship was captured 10 days ago about 60 miles off the Somali coast, which maybe just was reported to further confuse, since the vessel is held off Garad only since Friday.
Mohammed Iqbal, who says he manages the hijacked cargo ship, spoke to VOA from Dubai. He says negotiations with the pirates are under way. "The plan is that the charters are negotiating with them," Iqbal said.
There have been many reports that warring Somali groups receive foreign military aid, which fuels the escalating conflict in the Horn of African nation. A since 16-years imposed arms embargo against Somalia has been constantly violated with weapons allegedly coming mainly from the Gulf States, according to a 2008 UN report.
Confusion about the weapons find on MV ALMEZAAN was also created, because on Sunday the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) reportedly received a "military consignment" for its troops in Mogadishu and harbour workers were told to "remain behind the barbed wire until the unloading of the consignment is through" said Yussuf Ahmed a worker in the seaport while speaking to local radio, adding that it would be usual to halt the activities at the seaport whenever there is a military consignment offloaded from a ship which is carrying military equipment for the African Union troops in Somalia.
Early reports about the weapons ship at Garacad therefore had even triggered frantic calls by TFG officials into Hobyo and Garacad claiming that the weapons on the seized vessel were for the Somali government.
But others also seem to be interested in the clandestine cargo of MV ALMEZAAN, because a heavily armed Al-Shebaab convoy from Mogadishu has arrived yesterday in the area.
Meanwhile it transpired that the owner of the vessel from Dubai called the captors and cautioned them against revealing anything about the cargo.
Thereby a similar saga seems to evolve as during the previous event, when the same vessel was briefly captured on May 1, 2009 about 60 nm off Mogadishu and first reports directly from the captured ship spoke of a consignment, which also comprised of some armoured vehicles with UN logo. Also back then a frantic effort ensued to cover up and to come to a quick arrangement with the captors. Is it too far fetched to assume that those vehicles might have been the ones used in the double suicide bombing of the AU headquarters in Mogadishu? The UN and FBI investigations into the origin of those vehicles has not been released.
Why has the UN, who unisono with the US and the transitional federal government of Somalia persistently claimed that e.g. Eritrea would deliver weapons to the Islamic insurgents in Somalia, not a single time achieved to impound a single of the illegal weapons transports - despite the fact that a whole global armada watches the Somali coasts. Apparently already some of the deadly cargo from MV ALMEZAAN has been offloaded.
If one leaves cases like this just to the media-spin of easily intimidated Somali journalists with access to the wires, also this case will be solve "the Somali way", which not necessarily provides for more transparency and peace or less weapons in the country.
EU NAVFOR extradites 7 Somalis to Kenya
7 alleged pirates, who were said to have attacked a French fishing vessel in the Indian Ocean and where nabbed by German naval forces, have been handed over yesterday to Kenya adding to the 132 suspected pirates in Kenya handed over by Western warships patrolling the waters off Somalia already.
The EU reported that on 27 October 2009 a French Fishing Vessel was attacked by pirates in two attack skiffs. Her embarked military Vessel Protection Detachment (VPD) fired warning shots after which the pirates finally broke of their attack.
The EU NAVFOR German warship FGS Karlsruhe was ordered to set course to the attack position. Simultaneously, the helicopter of EU NAVFOR Spanish warship ESPS Canarias, also on anti-piracy patrol, was launched and relocated two fast attack skiffs trying to flee the area of the attack.
The seven Somalis were produced today at the Mombasa Law Courts.
An official request by a human rights monitor to receive the list with the names of the accused in order to follow up with the next of kin was refused.
The hearing of the case was set for January 6 and 7, 2010. Until then they will be remanded in Kenya's infamour Shimo-la-Tewa prison.
The Somali group, which is holding the British couple they snatched from a sailing yacht off the Seychelles, had earlier demanded to have these pirates brought back to Somalia in exchange for Paul and Rachel Chandler.
Today local observers reported that an Al-Shebaab group with one military lorry and four SUVs were since yesterday combing the vast bushland north-west of Hobyo in search for the Chandlers, who according to local elders are safe, though some form of ailment due to exhaustion has been reported today.
"Let's have an exchange-deal," a mother of a pirate son says
By Ustaad Mohamed & Nur Hersi Abdi (Tallman) (Mareeg)
A man who claims to be a spokesman of the Harardhere pirate group holding the Spanish Alakrana boat at the shore, tsaid that they would kill the three Spanish captives, who are now held at the western side of Harardhere town in Mudug region in the central Region of Somalia. The determined group leader, Mohamed Abukar Gafaje, informed the Spanish government and the relatives of the hostages that the Spanish government should release two men whom Spanish navy forces captured on the Indian Ocean.
The man has revealed that those pirates who are the captors of the Spanish vessel Alakrana are not willing to accept any kind of ransom from Spain now, but are expecting first and foremost to exchange the captives for their two fellow pirate members, who are supposed to stand trail in Spain.
"Alakrana boat captain, Richardo Blanch, had already submitted our death warning to Madrid and he told his government that we would kill the three Spanish men if the government of Spain wouldn't rapidly release our two friends, whom Spanish forces illegally kidnapped in our sea," the pirates' spokesman, Mohamed Gafaje said.
Captain Richardo talked about the matter and said, "If my government fails to release the two Somali pirate men, three men of Spanish nationality can actually face death risk and our fate will be the same as long as my government is opposed to an exchanging deal."
Fadumo Mohamed, a mother of one of two Somali pirates who are in Spain for a trail, said that she would like to see the painful feeling of the relatives of the hostages who are now being held in her residence.
Fadumo said that she would release the Spanish captives only when her son and his friend in Spain got free.
Talking to the relatives and families of Spanish hostages, Fadumo said," let us have a real understanding on the matter. I like to get my son back safely and you like yours free by any means and that is our mutual interest."
The three Spanish men are now held in a village in the suburbs of Harardhere.
Latest:
Press Release from the Office of the Special Envoy of Somalia against Piracy - Ismail Haji Noor (diirad)
On 7th November a cargo ship carrying a wide range of weapons was seized by Somali buccaneers. Soon after it happened the Special Envoy of Somalia for Counter-Piracy directly informed the duty officer of EU NAVFOR Atalanta of the situation.
It was stressed by this report and in later communications to other high ranking officers in EU NAVFOR that the incident includes the unfortunate possibility that the captors themselves could now offload the weapons and bring them to shore - to either use or sell them. Since the consignment also contains missiles this could create serious problems, military imbalances and many deaths in Somalia.
These warnings, however, seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
The position of Garacad, where the weapons ship was then brought to shore, was only about 140 miles north of the area where two Spanish warships operating under EU NAVFOR command are keeping watch near a seized Spanish fishing vessel. None of these or any other of the around 36 warships in the area has sailed to Garacad to investigate the incident or to deter any offloading of weapons.
It is quite unfortunate when EU NAVFOR gets information beforehand and still fails to take the necessary precautionary action in order to avert serious implications caused by criminal or insurgent groups gaining control of modern military weapons.
My question to the extent why EU NAVFOR Atalanta bends the laws and sneaks into Somali waters under the disguise of providing anti-piracy operations or to curb crimes on the waters, if these warships and their naval crews are doing absolutely nothing to stop illegal weapon shipments from reaching the Somali shores, to stop illegal dumping or to help Somalia in the fight
against illegal fishing by foreign fleets, has never been answered.
On the basis of this I, once again, urge EU NAVFOR Atalanta in co-operation with other navies to re-organize themselves and form a naval cordon outside the 200nm zone in the Indian Ocean and along the joint border of the Yemeni and Somali waters inside the Gulf of Aden and halt any vessel which has no legitimate business to enter the Somali seas and those harbours, which are officially designated reporting points and ports of entry. Since there is since the beginning of the year also a moratorium on fishing licences for foreign vessels and no legitimate fishing licences for foreign vessels exist for the Somali EEZ, the warships would for the first time have some positive impact by preventing illegal foreign fishing vessels to poach important Somali natural resources, by stopping illegal dumping of toxic waste and last but not least averting the ongoing bloodshed in the country by halting any illegal weapons shipment.
Two ships evade pirate attacks in Indian Ocean (MSCHOA/agencies)
On the early morning of 10 November 2009 some 1000 nautical miles east from Mogadishu, Somalia, pirates attacked MV Nele Maersk, a Danish flagged Container ship, belonging to Danish shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk.
The Nele Maersk was attacked near the Seychelles, the spokesman said, on its way to Oman from South Africa. The attack took place not far from the area crude oil tanker BW Lion was attacked yesterday.
Pirates fired automatic weapons on MV Nele Maersk but she could outrun the pirates with a high speed. No casualties were reported. 's container ship Nele Maersk
A second attack this morning was in the southern part of the Somali Basin 530 nautical mile east of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and 420 nautical miles west of Victoria, Seychelles. MV Felicitas Richmers, a Marshal Islands flagged Container Ship was attacked by two small skiffs. Automatic weapons were fired on the ship.
With evasive manoeuvres, speed and other anti piracy methods MV Felicitas Rickmers also managed to evade the attack. No casualties were reported.
Chinese Oil Tanker Evades Capture In Mid-Ocean Attack
Alledged Somali pirates have launched their deepest attack into the Indian Ocean, firing rocket propelled grenades at a Hong Kong-flagged oil tanker, the European Union anti-piracy mission said Monday.
The Chinese tanker, the around 360 m long VLCC BW LION, managed to escape the attackers, who were using two fast skiffs, and suffered no casualties during the incident Monday, some 400 nautical miles northeast of the Seychelles and around 1,000 nautical miles east of the Somali capital Mogadishu.
"This was the longest range of a pirate attack off the Somali coast ever," said a statement from the EU's Atalanta naval mission, which is working in the pirate infested waters off Somalia.
"Automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades were fired. With increasing speed and evasive manoeuvres the master managed to evade the attack. No casualties were reported," it said.
Initially it was reported that the merchant vessel caught fire after being hit by bullets and a rocket-propelled grenade. Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, however, confirmed that there were no casualties and that the captain remained in control.
EU NAVFOR said the French warship, FS Floreal, and a maritime patrol aircraft from Luxembourg which was based in the Seychelles, were searching for the pirates.
It is assumed that this attack will be used by the Chinese naval forces to garner more financial and material support from their government for an extended operation in the Indian Ocean.
No contact with Ukrainians aboard seized Delvina vessel (interfax)
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry hasn't yet been able to get in contact either with the crew of the Delvina, a ship seized by pirates, or with its captors, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Valeriy Dzhyhun said at a briefing on Tuesday.
According to the spokesman, the Greek cargo ship, which was hijacked on November 5, is being taken toward the Somali coast.
"Meanwhile there have been no communications with the pirates or the crew," he said.
Dzhyhun said that the foreign ministry is currently making every effort to clear up the situation and get information about the hostages, including seven Ukrainian citizens.
On November 5, pirates seized the Greek dry cargo ship Delvina in the Gulf of Aden. The ship was carrying a cargo of wheat and a crew of 14 Filipinos and seven Ukrainians.
Spain 'negotiating with Somalia' over pirates (AFP)
The Spanish government is negotiating with Somali authorities over the possible transfer of two suspected pirates held in Spain, Spanish media said on Tuesday.
The two were captured and brought to Spain over their alleged role in the seizure of Spanish tuna trawler, the Alakrana, and its 36 crew members on October 2.
The kidnappers of the Alakrana are demanding the release of the two suspects as well as four million dollars (2.6 million euros) in ransom.
The crew's families have appealed to Spain's government to negotiate with the kidnappers, who have threatened to kill the hostages.
"The government is working intensively to reach a deal with Somalia to allow the handing over of the two pirates held in Spain," the daily El Pais said, quoting government sources.
The ABC newspaper said Spain "is looking for a deal with the transitional government in Somalia to provide legal coverage for the national court during an eventual extradition" of the suspected pirates.
It said Madrid wanted Somali authorities to guarantee that the two would be put on trial.
The lawyer for one of them, Francisco Javier Diez Aparicio, told Spanish National Radio Tuesday that he would ask the court to order the expulsion of his client, Abdu Willy, to Somalia.
National court judge Baltasar Garzon, who ordered the two transferred to Spain, said "legal channels" existed to resolve the crisis without "giving in to pressure" from the pirates.
The Spanish government has previously ruled out handing over the pirates. But crew members have told Spanish media that the conditions under which they are being held are deteriorating.
Spanish troops monitoring the area off the Somali coast seized the two suspects shortly after they left the Alakrana on a small boat.
Among the 36 crew being held are 16 Spaniards, eight Indonesians as well as others from Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Senegal and the Seychelles.
News from sea-jackings, abductions, newly attacked ships as well as seafarers and vessels in distress
Deal to Free Spaniards ?
By Abdi Guled (Reuters)
Also on Monday, Spanish fishermen being held hostage said they believed a deal had been struck to free them. Ricardo Blach, first mate of the Basque tuna boat Alakrana, said he understood Spain's government had agreed to send two accused pirates back to Somalia in exchange for the crew's release.
The Spanish navy captured the two Somalis soon after pirates overran the Alakrana on October 2 and took its 36 crew hostage. They are set to face trial in Spain for kidnapping.
"It seems almost certain that they are going to send the (captured) pirates here," Ricardo Blach told Spanish state radio on Monday. "We want to believe it, good news, even if it's clutching at straws, because of the tension we have here."
The pirates holding the crew have said they would not negotiate a ransom for their release until Spanish authorities freed their two colleagues.
"In the morning (on Sunday), they were telling us in signs that they were going to cut our throats. Now the head of the pirates is smiling," Blach said in separate comments to the Spanish daily El Mundo.
Environment Minister Elena Espinosa told state TV the Spanish government was exploring various options. Judge Baltasar Garzon, who ordered that the two suspects be brought to Spain, said Madrid should not cave into pressure.
"I believe there are legal ways to find a solution to this conflict and without a doubt that is going to happen," he told Europa Press agency.
The pirates said last week they had taken three men from the Alakrana ashore. But Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said he believed the whole crew remained on board.
´Alakrana´ hijackers stubborn on release of fellow pirates
By Rajat Anand
The Somali pirates who had hijacked the fishing boat ´Alakrana´ along with its 36 member crew have now brought back three crew members to the boat as they agreed to a $3million ransom against the release of the hostages. They had earlier taken these members to the shore.
However, they continued to demand the release of two pirates who were in prison in Spain.
According to reports, the Spanish government has agreed to pay the ransom of $3 million but the problem was with the release of the two pirates who had been captured earlier. It is said that the government has been given a time of three days to make a deal or else the pirates would start killing the hostages.
The families of the trapped crew held a press conference demanding the release of the two pirates on Saturday, whom the National court had sent to prison.
However, the Spanish government has its hands tied as the pirates´ future lies with the National Court and all reports suggest that neither the judge nor the prosecutor see any chance of the pirates being released. The Spanish ambassador to Kenya was scheduled to meet the Somali Prime Minister on Sunday and look for a faster release of the hostages by exercising diplomatic pressure.
Somalia Sees End to Spanish Hostage Crisis In 3 Weeks (Reuters)
Somalia's government expects a settlement in about three weeks with pirates holding hostage 36 crew of a Spanish fishing vessel, a source close to the Somalian prime minister said Sunday.
"The government of Spain is facing mounting pressure from its people and wants an end to this hostage crisis very quickly," the source told Reuters.
"But the situation on the ground is tough. It may take two to three weeks to secure the freedom of its nationals."
The source spoke after a meeting between the Spanish envoy to Kenya and Somalian Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke in the Kenyan capital. A second meeting would be held Monday to craft a strategy for freeing the hostages, the source added.
A pirate who identified himself as Mohamed said three Spanish sailors were still being held ashore in Somalia after being taken there from their tuna fishing vessel, the Alakrana, where the rest of the crew remain. The ship is moored off the pirates' enclave of Haradheere.
The pirate said the three would be returned to the craft only when two alleged pirates being held in Spain were freed.
Madrid should negotiate directly with the pirates, rather than trying to deal with the Somali government, he told Reuters by phone from the Alakrana which remains under pirate control.
"No one has been returned to the ship," said Mohamed.
The pirates said the three sailors were taken ashore to reassure the families of the prisoners held in Spain.
"It will ease the grief of the parents. We shall deal with them they way Spain deals with our colleagues," Mohamed said.
"Deal with Us", Say Pirates
In Madrid, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratino said he believed the entire crew of 36 was on the Alakrana. "All our reliable sources, our (intelligence) services tell us that they are all on board," he told a news conference.
The Spanish navy captured two Somalis in the Indian Ocean shortly after pirates seized the Alakrana on October 2. The suspects are set to face trial in Spain on kidnapping and other charges.
Moratino said Spain was directing its diplomatic efforts at authorities in Mogadishu. "The Somali government has to guarantee the security and integrity of all the crew," he said. "With this greater diplomatic effort, we think we can get results quicker."
But Mohamed said Madrid had to deal with the pirates, not Sharmarke, whose government controls little of its lawless country.
"This has nothing to do with Sharmarke, it concerns parents and missing sons," Abdulahi Abdisalan, an uncle of one of the pirates held in Spain, told Reuters.
"Even if a ransom is paid, whatever amount, we will not release (the hostages) unless we get our sons back to Haradheere."
Andrew Mwangura, of the Kenya-based East Africa Seafarers Association, also told Reuters the latest information he had indicated three of the Spanish were still being held onshore.
Several crew are Spanish and others are of nationalities including the Seychelles, Ivory Coast, Madagascar and Senegal.
The Alakrana's first mate Ricardo Blach said he did not know whether all the crew were on board, telling Spanish television by phone that the ship's captain had been separated from the rest of the crew early on.
Moratinos said the Alakrana's crew had food and water, but Blach said they had been without water since Saturday.
Spain seeks solution to Somali piracy drama (DPA)
Spain on Tuesday continued seeking a solution to a piracy drama off Somalia, where pirates holding 36 fishermen are demanding the release of two of their accomplices who were captured and flown to Madrid for trial.
A lawyer representing one of the two detainees proposed that Spain expel them to Somalia, saying that would make it possible to resolve the crisis within three days.
The Basque purse-seiner Alakrana has been held by pirates for 40 days off the Somali coast. The Spanish government is assisting the owner of the vessel in negotiations with the pirates, who not only demand a ransom of several million dollars, but also the release of two of their companions.
The two, who are known as Abdiweli and Raagegeesey, were captured by a Spanish frigate when they left the Alakrana two days after the hijacking. The frigate was taking part in international anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean.
Abdiweli and Raagegeesey were then flown to Spain for interrogation and trial.
The pirates have threatened to start killing the fishermen unless the two are released and brought back to Somalia.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government was looking for a legal way of returning the two suspects to Somalia, but wanted them to be brought to trial in the Horn of Africa country, Spanish media reported.
However, it would be difficult and time-intensive to organize their extradition to Somalia, which has no firm central government, Abdiweli's lawyer Francisco Javier Diaz Aparicio argued. Diaz Aparicio said his client and Raagegeesey could simply be expelled to Somalia, because they were accomplices rather than main suspects in the hijacking of the Alakrana and would not face prison terms of more than 16 years in Spain.
Pressure has mounted on the Spanish government to obtain the release of the fishermen, who have complained that the pirates kicked them and spit on them while the vessel was running out of food and water. Demonstrations have been held in Spain to demand the release of the fishermen. The group includes 16 Spaniards, as well as Africans and Asians.
With the latest captures and releases now still at least 12 (13 if one would count the abandoned yacht SY LYNN RIVAL) seized foreign vessels with a total of not less than 248 crew members are accounted for. The cases are monitored on our actual case-list, while several other cases of ships, which were observed off the coast of Somalia and have been reported or had reportedly disappeared without trace or information, are still being followed too. Over 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) had been recorded for 2008 with 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases (for Somalia, incl. presently held ones) and the mistaken sinking of one vessel by a naval force. For 2009 the account stands at 196 incidences (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 56 vessels seized for different reasons on the Somali/Yemeni captor side as well as at least TWELVE wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) on the side of the naval forces. According to an U.S. statement the naval alliances had since August 2008 and until September 2009 apprehended and released 343 suspected pirates, detained and transferred for prosecution 212 others and killed 11. (New independent update see: http://bruxelles2.over-blog.com/pages/_Bilan_antipiraterie_Atalanta_CTF_Otan_Russie_Exclusif-1169128.html).
Not fully documented cases of absconded vessels are not listed in the sea-jack count until clarification. Several other vessels with unclear fate (also 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. In the last four years, 22 missing ships have been traced back with different names, flags and superstructures. Piracy incidents usually degrade during the monsoon season in winter and rise gradually by the end of the monsoon season starting from mid February and early April every year.
Present multi-factorial risk assessment code: GoA: ORANGE / IO: RED (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely).
Directly piracy, abduction, mariner or naval upsurge related reports
NATO Continues to Meddle in Somali Affairs
Somaliland and NATO officials meet aboard warship to discuss piracy (SomalilandPress)
Somaliland government officials and officers from NATO's anti-piracy mission, which has warships patrolling the seas off the coast of neighbouring Somalia met aboard a naval warship anchored off the coast of Berbera.
Participating in the meeting on the Somaliland side were members of the government, officials from the Sahil regional authority, the head of the port of Berbera and officers from the Somaliland coastguards & security services.
There was no official communiqué from the meeting from either side, but sources confirmed to Geeska Afrika that the main agenda of the meeting concentrated on areas of mutual interest between Somaliland and NATO including combating piracy in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
China eyes lead naval role in Somalia and pirates fight (Reuters)
China wants to take a lead role in spearheading naval anti-piracy operations off the Somalia coast, underscoring its spreading military ambitions beyond Chinese waters, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
The request was made during a closed door multilateral meeting over the weekend, involving representatives of major international navies deployed in the pirate-infested waters off the Gulf of Aden and around the Horn of Africa, an important maritime route linking Asia and Europe.
"It's unprecedented, but Beijing's request was welcomed in a very cooperative atmosphere ... there is a recognition that a great deal more work is needed to get on top of piracy," one official at the meeting was quoted as saying.
"China is very keen but more discussion will be needed before a final agreement is reached," the official added.
The meeting comes after a Chinese coal ship was seized last month by pirates off the Somali coast. Some Chinese media outlets urged a direct military response, but the Post reported that Beijing and the ship's owners have instead been involved in "secret talks over a ransom to free the 25 Chinese crew".
While NATO and the EU have so far played a lead role in the anti-piracy operations, naval vessels from China, Russia, Japan, and other nations are also involved with the coalition of naval forces seen to be stretched very thin over the vast expanses of sea, including the Indian Ocean.
The move, while still not confirmed, comes as many governments worry about China's rising military spending, especially the United States, which has said Beijing is not open enough about its intentions.
"(China is) showing the world they are serious ... that they have the potential to be one of the big boys on the block and are prepared to risk furthering their military diplomacy. We haven't seen anything like this before," Sam Bateman, a senior fellow at Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, was quoted by the Post as saying.
India, Japan agree to step up cooperation in anti-piracy ops (DNA)
India and Japan today agreed to enhance their defence ties and step up cooperation in anti- piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia.
The two sides also agreed to enhance their defence relations by holding joint exercises and expressed their commitment to contribute to bilateral and regional cooperation in areas like Asean Regional Forum, peacekeeping and disaster relief.
This was stated in a joint press statement issued at the end of a meeting between defence minister AK Antony and his Japanese counterpart Toshimi Kitazawa here where they reviewed their existing bilateral defence cooperation.
Antony's three-day visit is the first by any Indian Cabinet Minister to Tokyo after the new Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government took over here.
Piracy incidents off the Somalian coast and Gulf of Aden came up for discussion and the two sides agreed to step up their coordinated efforts against it, officials said.
Already, Indian and Japanese navies are coordinating efforts in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden to share the burden of patrolling in the sea brigand-infested waters.
Shipping companies to pay more for insurance
By Varada Bhat and Remya Nair
Offshoot of piracy incidents off Somalia.
Insurance costs of shipping lines have gone up considerably in the recent past as they have been forced to take ´kidnap and ransom´ policy after the recent flare-up on pirate attacks on high seas, off the coast of Somalia.
What has pushed up the costs to such a large extent is the fact that kidnap and ransom policies come with a very high premium.
Typically, shipping companies purchase a $1-million insurance cover.
The insurance premium works out to $10,000-$15,000 per week.
The cover for kidnap and ransom is bought on a voyage-to-voyage basis, and not for a year like other policies.
The premiums are decided on a weekly basis as the situation can change every day, said Mr K. Ramachandran, Executive Director, J.B. Boda Insurance Brokers.
"Shipping companies are increasingly opting for an additional kidnap and ransom cover, besides taking the standard hull and machinery cover. It has become a necessity for the ships that pass through the Gulf of Aden, because of the increasing attacks from pirates," said Mr Ramachandran.
An executive at the insurance department of Shipping Corporation of India said, traditional marine insurance does cover piracy, but does not provide adequate cover against hijack of ships.
"Along with traditional marine policy, now ship owners are opting for the specialised marine kidnap and ransom insurance policy which provides guarantee for reimbursement of the ransom, cost of delivery of ransom and legal costs that may occur during a period of illegal seizure," he said.
Reinsurance rates up
"Marine insurance is specific to ship, voyage and climatic conditions. As the number of pirate attacks has increased in the Gulf of Aden, the reinsurance rates have gone up for this route. As a result, the marine insurance premiums have gone up by 20-25 per cent in the past one year," said Mr Rahul Aggarwal, CEO, Optima Insurance Brokers.
Mr V. Ashok, Director, Essar Shipping Ports & Logistics, also confirmed that the costs of marine insurance had seen a sharp rise.
In the first nine months of 2009, Somalia´s pirates were responsible for over half the 306 attacks against ships worldwide, according to Director General of Shipping (DGS).
In last two weeks, the Panama-flagged bulk carrier MV Al Khaliq, carrying 24 Indian sailors and Singapore-flagged container vessel MV Kota Wajar with four Indians were hijacked near Seychelles.
Govt advisory
Earlier last month, the DGS had ´strongly´ advised Indian ships carrying Indian seafarers transiting the Gulf of Aden to utilise the escort provided by the naval ships.
The Ministry issued the advisory following media reports quoting a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) official that there are specific threats to Indian ships and Indian seafarers by Al Qaeda type groups in the Gulf of Aden and on the Somalia coast.
Two Japanese Naval vessels to arrive at Kochi tomorrow (PTI)
Two Japanese Naval ships, returning after Anti Piracy operations in Somalia, will arrive tomorrow at Kochi on a two-day visit.
The ships -- JDS Amagiri and JDS Harusame -- are en route to Japan after the operations in Somalia, naval sources said.
They said Commander, Escort Division, Captain Masai Arihara would meet Rear Admiral S S Jamwal, Chief of Staff Southern Naval Command, tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Indonesian Warship KRI Diponegoro, which arrived at Kochi Port yesterday while on her way back from a UN Mission at Lebanon, left this morning.
The Indonesian Ambassador to India Lt Gen (Retd) Andi M Ghalib, who was in Kochi, met Vice Admiral K N Sushil, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Naval Command.
The Japanese government also decided to give 5 billion USD for development in Afghanistan rather than concentrating only on naval missions.
Ecosystems, marine environment, IUU fishing and dumping, UNCLOS, ecology
MERIDIAN 60 – Fish or Security
Spanish tuna fishers say they are in a dilemma and their vessel owners must come to a decision.
The presence of pirates in the marine zones to the west and the north-west of the Seychelles is dangerous for the tunny boats while the areas east of the 60th meridian hardly any fish can be found in the moment.
While French ships with navy soldiers on board dare to follow the tuna shoals to the north-west and boast about their catches, the Spanish companies have instructed their skippers to direct their boats towards the zones that they consider safe. The captains therefore face the dilemma to remain in a safe zone without fish or to go towards the west and towards Somalia, where the shoals of tuna fish are located, but to take the risk of being boarded by Somali sea-shifta.
A serious dilemma exists at the best time of the year to fish tuna in the Indian Ocean. "During these two months - October and November - usually we almost fish half of the captures of all the year," say the Spanish fishermen.
In fact, some boats go now to the zone they left after the kidnapping of FV ALAKRANA, while others decided to maintain course towards the central and eastern zones of the Indian Ocean and to move away from the danger of the pirates of Somalia.
"I do not know if we will catch fish, but at least we can sleep quiet," said one of these skippers to the Spanish newspaper DEIA.
A total of eight Basque boats with flag of the Seychelles is willing now to take private security on board. The ships FV ARTZA, FV INTERTUNA I and FV INTERTUNA II - all large tuna haulers - were the first to hire British ex-military personnel and equip their boat with military weapons, a move, which is strongly opposed by the majority of the shipping industry.
These three purse-seiners and the FV DEMIKU have now each four armed men on board, who are supposed to provide safety in a move which is seen as an escalation in the fisheries wars. Other vessels, who fly the Spanish flag seem to be bogged down in security policies and administrative hurdles at home and fear to loose this season.
As of December the tuna in one of the most magnificent migrations of the oceans moves towards the centre of the Indian Ocean where pirate activity is still less observed. "Therefore, we need security now, without major delay," says an owner of a Spanish-flagged tunny boat.
The excellent catch obtained by the French boats in the waters near Somalia, who work in pairs and at a distance of 50 to 25 miles, makes the Spanish jealous. "Now we will play Russian roulette," is the thought of the Basque tuna hunters.
A French fishing boat the FV TREVIGNON worked alone before the insecurity increased and has since united with a pair of French tunny boats to form a trio heavily guarded by soldiers.
Meanwhile the command of the EU NAVFOR Atalanta Operation only could advise the Spanish boats to avoid three potentially dangerous zones.
One of them includes a radius of 200 miles to the north of the Seychelles islands. Another one stretches along a direct line between Port Victory and the port of Kismayo in Somalia.
The third danger zone includes the triangle formed by the Seychelles and the Somali ports of Haradheere - where the seized FV ALAKRANA is held - and Eyl to the north.
Even at Port Victory certain security procedures were recommended.
Unwise Fisheries for Tuna Demand Threatens to Wipe Out Albatross
Japanese and Western appetite for tuna fish products is threatening to drive rare birds including the albatross to the edge of extinction.
A new study by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) warns that a certain method used to fish tuna is killing rare birds in unprecedented numbers and threatening to wipe out rare species like the albatross altogether.
The charity estimates that 37 bird species, of which 18 are already at risk of extinction, are being threatened by longline fisheries in the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. The boats throw out a series of lines with up to 1000 baited hooks to catch the fish but before they sink the birds dive in and become hooked or entangled in the lines, causing their death.
U.S., U.N. Perspectives On Food Aid To Somalia Examined (KaiserReport)
Emergency food aid to Somalia has been interrupted, partly because of a recent U.S. decision to delay food contributions to the country out of concern that it would end up in the hands of terrorists, U.N. officials said on Friday, the New York Times reports.
About "40 million pounds of American-donated food was being held up in warehouses in Mombasa, in neighboring Kenya, because American officials were not allowing aid workers to distribute it until a new set of tighter regulations was ironed out," according to U.N. officials. They said the U.S. government "was insisting on guarantees that were unrealistic in Somalia, like demanding that aid transporters not pay fees at roadblocks, which are ubiquitous and virtually unavoidable in a nation widely considered a case study in chaos," the New York Times writes (Gettleman, 11/6).
The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) said Saturday that it will run out of food supplies by December, the Associated Press/Washington Post reports. "WFP's food assistance supply line to Somalia is effectively broken," said Peter Smerdon, a spokesperson for the agency. "The pipeline break is partly because [the U.S. government] has delayed U.S. assistance to Somalia," he said. Smerdon added that a drop in worldwide donations due to the current economic situation and an increased need for aid in East Africa was also contributing to the problem.
According to Laura Tischler, a State Department spokesperson, "Renewal of some U.S. non-food humanitarian programs was delayed while we reviewed conditions on the ground and their impact on our programs." Tischler said, "U.S. food aid deliveries to Somalia were temporarily suspended while we conducted our review ... However, the food aid pipeline for Somalia has not been broken."
Smerdon said his agency "understands the concern of the United States and other donors regarding the appropriate utilization of resources in Somalia." He said, "We remain hopeful that the United States will continue to fund food relief programs in Somalia, understanding the difficult and complex political and operational environment in which agencies such as WFP must work" (David, 11/8).
The New York Times reports that U.N. officials "said that even if they wanted to bypass the American government and ship in food from other countries, which would cost millions of dollars, it would be impossible to get it to Somalia in time and that the American sacks of grain sitting in Mombasa were the only solution to averting a widespread famine" (11/6).
Somalia: hardship compounded by heavy rain (ICRC)
Heavy rains are severely affecting thousands of families displaced by the hostilities in Mogadishu who sought refuge between the capital and Afgoye. Many families moved to higher ground but are still exposed to the rain. The ICRC has distributed 7,000 tarpaulins as emergency shelter.
The forecast, based in part on the effects of the El Niño weather system, is for rains in Somalia and the Ethiopian highlands to continue and even intensify in the coming days and weeks.
As a consequence, there is a very high risk of breaches occurring in river banks that have gone without maintenance for years.
After several consecutive crop failures caused by drought, many destitute farmers no longer have enough seed to continue their agricultural activities.
The ICRC therefore distributed 300 metric tonnes of staple seeds (maize, sorghum and cowpea) together with a one-month food ration to 120,000 farmers in various areas of southern Somalia.
"The people receiving the seed should be able to produce enough food to feed their families from January until the next harvest in June," said Ottavio Sardu, an ICRC agronomist working for the Somalia delegation.
"The food ration is included in order to make sure that they have enough to eat during the cropping season." The ICRC also distributed a two-month dry food ration to 45,000 people in Sool severely affected by the drought and in dire need of food because they had lost their livestock and all other means of income.
Anti-piracy measures
China Wants Lead Role in Sea Piracy Fight
China asked that it be given a lead role in coordinating international anti-piracy operations off Somalia, the South China Morning Post said, citing unidentified officials who attended a meeting of representatives of navies protecting sea lanes between Asia and Europe.
The meeting at the weekend was called at the request of China and confirmed the need for more warships to be sent to the area, the newspaper reported today.
Before now the Western Cowards blow sugar up the orifices of the Chinese blue-water experimenters, they and the Somalis should know what is in the offing. Applauding the Chinese to come in and onto the naval theatre in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean in order to let them do the dirty work, might be a vicious plan by the West to alienate the oil-rich Horn-of-Africa nation of Somalia from becoming too friendly with the Chinamen, but stirrup-holders will be as guilty as the perpetrators.
The Chinese are not getting mad publicly, but the PLAN is to not just grab pirates and to send them back to Beijing for speedy trials, but to then also create deterrents by public executions. Flattening the Somali port towns of the pirates and everyone caught in them is apparently in the plans as well. The Chinese are quietly getting the OK from others to do this dirty work.
Even some refinancing might be envisaged through the well established Chinese trade in human organs, which would find capable and professional counterparts in Kenya with a well established network of professional handlers in Somalia. Human organs from Somalia are very much sought after, because of the low level of environmental contamination (except near the toxic dumping sites at some shores) and therefore very clean organs like kidneys or livers could be harvested - highly priced in the west, where in the US alone nearly 20,000 rich Americans wait for an opportunity to get a transplant.
That such sentences are not far-fetched but bloody reality is shown already:
´Bloody Harvest´ confirms a most macabre practice
By Pam Mclennan & Joan Delaney
Bloody Harvest' expanded report is now available in book form (Courtesy of Serphim Editions)
Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for their organs is a meticulous account of true events that reads like a Stephen King horror story.
A portent of that horror comes early in the book: "The allegations, if true, represented a disgusting form of evil which, despite all the depravities humanity has seen, was new to this planet."
In May 2006, coauthors David Matas and David Kilgour received a letter from the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) asking them to investigate allegations that imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners were being used to supply vital organs for the transplant tourist industry in China.
With no eyewitness testimony available and unable to enter China, the authors used independently verified sources of evidence and a deductive reasoning model to conclude that the allegations were indeed true.
The result of their investigations was a preliminary report released in July 2006. A second report, with new substantiations, was released in January 2007. Both were published on the Internet.
The newly released book is larger than the reports and contains previously unpublished materials. It is presented in two sections: the evidence that led to the authors´ conclusions, and the responses to the reports, followed by some suggestions on how to stop the practice of using living organ donors in China.
Kilgour and Matas concluded that "A set of peaceful, healthful exercises with a spiritual foundation was made illegal in 1999 by the Chinese Communist Party because of fear it might threaten the Party´s dominance, and it appears that many human beings engaged in these exercises have been in effect executed for their organs by medical practitioners." David Matas, coauthor of 'Bloody Harvest' (Epoch Times)
Matas, a human rights lawyer who received the Order of Canada for his human rights work, and Kilgour, a former crown prosecutor and former Member of Parliament, have produced a damning body of evidence that could shake the world press and various governments from their complacency regarding the Chinese regime´s persecution of Falun Gong.
CIPFG chair Clive Ansley said he´s delighted with the release of Bloody Harvest and hopes the book "sparks a lot more public debate than we´ve had up ´til now."
He said the mainstream press has been "inexcusably derelict" by not reporting on the illicit harvesting of Falun Gong organs in China.
"The knowledge is there, people in the media know it, but they´ve done almost nothing about publicizing it, which means that a very significant percentage of the population in North America particularly remains unaware of the fact that we´re watching another holocaust essentially."
Starting with the knowledge that 1999—the year in which the number of organ transplants performed in China began rising dramatically—was the same year that the persecution of Falun Gong started, the authors uncovered various supporting facts that explain why the abhorrent organ harvesting started and how it is carried out. Some of the many factors described in the book include:
No system for voluntary donation exists in China, and a societal aversion to the practice means organ donors are rare.
Numerous testimonials of previous Falun Gong prisoners detailing how they were routinely blood tested and examined while regular criminal inmates were not.
Testimonials of people who traveled to China to receive transplants and the impossibly short wait time for a matched organ to become available.
Websites advertising living organ donors whose renal function is verified before the operation.
The huge number of transplants performed annually cannot be accounted for using executed prisoners or brain-dead patients.
The involvement of military physicians and hospitals trafficking in human body parts coupled with the systematic persecution of Falun Gong adherents resulted in large numbers of organ transplants occurring without any record of the source of the donors.
"A full explanation of the source of all organ transplants would disprove the allegation," wrote the authors.
"If the source of all organ transplants could be traced, whether to willing donors or executed prisoners, then the allegation concerning the Falun Gong would be disproved. But such tracing is impossible." David Kilgour, coauthor of 'Bloody Harvest' (Epoch Times)
The part played by the western world in enabling the harvesting of organs from living human beings is also discussed, including the role of economic considerations as businesses and governments try to please the communist leaders so they can maintain trade relations and make money in China.
The authors make a case for continued human rights advocacy in China and explain that although the Chinese regime can´t be forced to change its principles, it can be confronted with the facts. The facts make the regime look bad, and China fears loss of face above all else.
In Ottawa, the authors will hold a press conference in the Parliament Hill press room at 10 a.m. on Monday November 16. A book launch will be held at 4:30 p.m. in room 208 West Block from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.
European Union Naval Force (EU NAVFOR) meets Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) in Beijing in anti piracy cooperation
On 7/8th November EU NAVFOR was invited to participate in a meeting organised by the Chinese PLA to discuss clarifying areas of responsibility in the gulf of Aden and "to find the best formula of international cooperation" for escorting vessels through the Gulf of Aden. Other representatives were Combined Maritime Forces, NATO, India, Russia and Japan.
Currently EU, NATO and CMF all lead specialised anti piracy task forces, covering the security and protection of shipping in the Internationally Recognised Transit Corridor (IRTC), while the Chinese, Russian, Indian and Japanese task forces operate independently in convoys. The coordination of these forces is done through the SHADE and this meeting takes place in Bahrain every month. EU NAVFOR and CMF, who established this coordination, co-chair the meeting.
At the meeting in Beijing, the Chinese officials were keen to continue the close cooperation between PLA ships and other coalition forces. They also proposed to take a more active role in the SHADE, requesting that the co-Chairman positions should be rotated, making clear that, on occasions, they would also be willing to co-chair. The EU delegation, expressed their support for this proposal which will be presented to the next SHADE in December.
Somali Piracy on UN Security Council Calendar
This month´s President of the UN Security Council, Thomas Mayr-Harting from Austria, briefed correspondents on November´s programme of work, which will include a debate on protection of civilians in armed conflict chaired by Austria´s Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Mr. Mayr-Harting said speakers during that debate; to take place on 11 November; would include the Secretary-General and possibly the High Commissioner for Human Rights or her designee. His delegation was preparing a draft resolution that would address thematic matters, including the link between peacekeeping and protection of civilians.
On 25 November, the Council would consider the report of the Peacebuilding Commission, he said. It had become increasingly clear that peacekeeping and peacebuilding were complementary and did not necessarily need to take place sequentially. The Chairs of the three "terrorism" Committees ( the 1267 Committee on the Taliban and Al-Qaida, the 1373 Committee on Counter-terrorism and the 1540 Committee regarding non-State actors´ acquiring weapons of mass destruction ) would brief the Council on 13 November in an open debate.
Turning to African issues, he said the issue of Somalia and piracy would be taken up on 18 November.
If developments warranted, the Council might address the issues of non-proliferation, the situation between Djibouti and Eritrea, the upcoming elections in Côte d´Ivoire and the International Commission of Inquiry regarding the 28 September events in Guinea.
Speaking in his national capacity, he said the priority of his country, the European Union and Arab States was to ensure that there would be follow-up to the report at the national level in Israel and by the Palestinian Authority.
Somali president calls for joint action against pirates (hurriyetdailynews)
Somalia has called on the Muslim world to help in its fight against piracy at the Organization of Islamic Countries meeting in Istanbul. The Turkish president has echoed the call, saying that solving problems in the East African country would bring stability to the whole region. Pirates attempted 148 kidnappings in the first six months of this yearSomalia has asked its larger Islamic brothers for support in a joint struggle against piracy at a meeting held Monday in central Istanbul.
"Let´s jointly struggle against the threats in the Gulf of Aden. We await your cooperation for the struggle against pirates in Somalia and to eliminate anarchy," President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said at the 25th meeting of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation, or COMCEC, of the Organization of Islamic Countries, or OIC.
N.B.: Some of the Somali officials accompanying the President in this tour are the Somali finance Minister Shariff Hassan, the Somali Foreign Minister Jama Jangeli, and the Minister of rural development Khadija. The delegation had first traveled from Mogadishu to Nairobi, where they met officials from a number of friendly countries in the Kenyan capital for talks on the Somalia crisis. In addition, there were reports that the Greek government and some other governments have called on the Somali president and offered financial support to his government.]
In addition to poverty, hunger and conflicts, this eastern African country has become known around the world for rampant pirate activities off the Somali coast. In 2008, there were 111 kidnappings in the Gulf of Aden and near Somali shores, while in first six months of 2009, there were 148 attempted abductions.
Turkish vessels have been among the targets of Somali pirates and a Spanish vessel has been under pirate control since Oct. 2.
"This threat not only disrupts the Somali economy, but the regional and world economy as well," Ahmed said.
Turkish President Abdullah Gül agreed that the OIC should play a special role in overcoming the problems in Somalia, which has great significance for regional stability. "Our Somali brothers should know that they are not alone," Gül said.
The COMCEC economic summit started Monday morning as the leaders of Islamic countries arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel in Istanbul´s central Beşiktaş district under tight security.
Leaders of 11 Islamic countries, including Iran´s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syria´s Bashar al-Assad, and Afghani President Hamid Karzai, are participating in the summit, of which Gül is the chairman.
Three deputy presidents, six prime ministers and three observers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, northern Cyprus and the Russian Federation, along with many ministers, also attended the meeting. The only female leader at the summit was Gambian Deputy President Isatou Nije-Saidy.
The Turkish coastguard provided security from the sea, as the hotel is located on the coast of the Bosphorus, while a police helicopter also provided control from the air. An abandoned purse in front of Çırağan Palace next to the hotel where the summit held was examined by police and a bomb squad and was determined to be empty.
Nearly 700 press members were accredited to watch the summit, including almost 300 foreign journalists. Reporters and camera operators were removed from the summit hall after the opening session of the meeting, with only representatives from the Turkish Radio and State Cooperation, or TRT, allowed in the hall for the rest of the event.
The summit was opened with a reciting from the Koran. Press members followed the summit from a pressroom where the proceedings were broadcasted live in Turkish and English. Translation in other languages was also available.
Call for stronger political will
In his speech to the attendees, Turkish President Gül called for Islamic states to put stronger political will behind realizing projects. "In order to promote future cooperation, the institutional structure of COMCEC should be strengthened, financing opportunities found and viable projects with renewable vision developed," Gül said. "Moreover, it is deemed instrumental for member countries to exercise stronger political will and conjure up determination and monitoring."
Gül also underscored the importance of resolving problems in the international arena in reaping the fruits of OIC and COMCEC activities. "Muslim communities in non-member countries, together with OIC member countries, should be incorporated in the solidarity environment to be established accordingly," the Turkish president said. "We should always take into account the Muslim communities in Balkan countries."
Underdeveloped nations mainly Muslim
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said in his speech that eight out of every 10 underdeveloped nations belong to the Muslim world and called for joint efforts to create growth in Muslim countries. Karzai also called on member countries to invest in Afghanistan, which has been damaged by war and conflicts.
For his part, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not mention anything in his speech about his country´s nuclear dispute with Western powers. Instead he attacked capitalism and said there is a need to draw up programs based on Islamic economic thinkers.
Harsh reaction from al-Assad
Syrian President al-Assad reacted harshly against Israel in his speech, saying that Israelis had tried to break down Mescid-i Aksa completely and were attempting to make Jerusalem "purely Jewish."
Al-Assad said trusting in others would not create a solution to the Palestinian issue, cited the world´s ignorance about murders in the Gaza Strip and some Western countries´ negative attitude toward the U.N.´s Goldstone report as evidence.
Islamic countries should claim ownership of their own rights, the Syrian president added.
"There is no political problem [in Palestine], but a humanitarian problem," said Palestinian Prime Minister Selam Fayyad, adding that the West had started to take lessons and that the Goldstone report proved Israel´s unfairness.
Added Fayyad: "Israel should stop breaching international law."
Somalis want RP help to fight pirates
By Evelyn Macairan (The Philippine Star)
A high-level Somali delegation is expected to arrive in the country this month to meet with officials of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and discuss measures on how to improve the campaign against sea piracy.
PCG commandant Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo said they have been informed that Somali Deputy Prime Minister and concurrent Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Abdurahman Aden Ibrahim Ibbi would lead the delegation.
He would be accompanied by Somali Navy commander Admiral Farah Ahmed Omar and Somali Ambassador to Indonesia Mohamud Olow Barow.
It was reported that the PCG would be giving training seminars but there are no details on whether a selected PCG team would be sent to Somalia to spearhead the training.
"These things would still have to be discussed," said PCG spokesman Lieutenant Commander Armand Balilo.
However, if it turns out that the PCG would be sending a team to train their counterparts in Somalia, Balilo said they might select personnel from their Special Operations Group (SOG) and their Anti-Terrorism Team.
"If ever, this would be the first time that we would be sending PCG personnel abroad to train Coast Guards of other countries," Balilo added.
The visit of the Somali officials was in response to the invitation earlier extended by President Arroyo to Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed during the African Union Special Summit in Tripoli last August for the Philippines to train the Somali Coast Guard and Civil Service.
Tamayo earlier said that there have been few recorded cases of sea piracy and robbery of ships in the Philippines.
Compared to last year, the PCG said there was a 60 percent decline in the number of cases of sea piracy this year.
The PCG chief said they would be sharing with delegates from the African country information and strategies they could adopt to help improve their campaign against sea pirates.
"Monitoring is very important and they can ask for the support of other countries when it comes to this matter. They should also deploy ships in areas where acts of piracy have been reported," Tamayo said.
He suggested that the Somali Coast Guard could also beef up its communications equipment and "conduct on board inspection of fishing boats to see if there are any firearms on board and if these were accompanied by permits."
Sea pirates roaming off the Somali coast have long been preying on passing foreign vessels. They would abduct the ship´s officers and crew and then demand ransom for their release, he said.
RP Coast Guard to train with Somali counterparts
By John Carlo M. Cahinhinan
As part of maritime safety cooperation, the Philippine Coast Guard is set to a possible joint training with their counterparts in Somalia.
According to Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Armand Balilo, the said activity was initiated by no less than President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo during the sidelines of the African Union Special summit last August in Tripoli, Libya. The President actually offered assistance to Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.
The Department of Foreign Affairs already informed Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo of the proposed visit by a high-level Somali delegation to the Philippines this month to explore possible training and capacity-building cooperation with the Philippines in maritime security, combating piracy, and in enhancing coast guard operations.
Balilo added that the PCG envisions that the delegates will be able to pick up from counter measures and strategies in the same manner that the local delegation will also learn from the experiences and gains of other country. In essence, the improvement of each country´s measures and operational capability against piracy will mean the safety and security of global shipping activities and international seafarers.
The delegation will consist of Somali Deputy Prime Minister and concurrent Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Abdurahman Aden Ibrahim Ibbi, Somali Navy Commander Admiral Farah Ahmed Omar and Somali Ambassador to Indonesia Mohamud Olow Barow.
Somalia had been recently known in news after several number hostage-taking and kidnapping incident done by groups of pirates in their region especially that some of those victims were Filipino seafarers.
EU and Seychelles sign anti-piracy agreement
B George Thande (Reuters)
The Seychelles and the European Union signed an agreement on Tuesday that would allow the deployment of EU troops on the Indian Ocean islands to counter a maritime crime wave by Somali pirates.
Attacks on merchant vessels and private yachts off the archipelago have surged in recent weeks as Somali gangs extend their range beyond the lawless Horn of Africa nation's shores.
"The deterrent effect of capturing pirates and bringing them to justice is crucial if we are to bring this problem under control," British High Commissioner Matthew Forbes, who signed the agreement on behalf of the EU, told a news conference.
The troops would be deployed to some of the Seychelles' numerous islets and creeks, which experts fear could be used be pirates to plot attacks. It was not clear which nations would provide the forces.
Heavily armed pirates from Somalia are currently holding at least 11 vessels and more than 200 crew hostage, including a British couple whose yacht was hijacked off the Seychelles.
The presence of a multinational naval force patrolling the strategic shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia, has failed to curb their attacks.
Belgian Defence Minister Pieter de Crem, who was visiting the Seychelles for talks on Tuesday, called for the EU's anti-piracy mission, Atalanta, to be extended beyond December 2010. Belgium takes the EU's rotating presidency on July 1 next year.
The status of forces agreement with the EU follows similar separate deals with the United States and France.
France has placed French troops on its tuna fishing vessels, while Washington has sent aerial drones to the Seychelles to bolster its regional counter-piracy surveillance activities.
On Sunday, pirates seized a United Arab Emirates-flagged cargo ship loaded with weapons bound for Somalia in defiance of a U.N. arms embargo, maritime experts said.
Then on Monday, the gunmen launched their longest range hijack attempt yet -- opening fire on a giant Hong Kong-flagged crude oil tanker some 1,000 nautical miles east of Mogadishu.
A police spokesman in the Somali capital said on Tuesday that the UAE-flagged vessel had not been loaded with guns.
"The ship was carrying small items and cars, not weapons," Abdullahi Hassan Barise told reporters.
The EU force said there were two more attempted hijackings on Tuesday -- one in the same area as Monday's tanker attack.
N real peace in sight yet
Somali MP Denounces Former Prime Minister (ShabelleMediaNetwork)
Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, a Somali MP has on Sunday denounced the former prime minister of the transitional federal government of Somalia Noor Hassan Hussein (Noor Adde) for signing a secret agreements with the EU.
Mr. Qanyare told Shabelle Radio that the parlimentarians had got information about secret agreements that was not aware of the Somali MPs and signed by Somali ambassador with the European Union representatives in Kenya.
He said that the agreement was signed by the Former Premier Noor Adde as he sent two letters to the EU officials demanding those secret agreements to be implemented.
Asked about what the agreements were about, he replied that they were to allow the foreign warships to enter the coast line of Somalia to fight against the pirates.
On the other hand the Somali MP Mohamed Qanyare Afrah also talked more about the activities of Somali pirates attacking and abducting the commercial ships and boats far away from Somali waters.
The TFG official said that it is not good to harm the commercial ships sailing through and further off the Somali coast, but he was calling for the foreign warships to leave from the whole coasts of Somalia and stop actions against the Somali people.
We contacted Nor Hassan Hussein (Adde), the former Somali Prime minister of the transitional government who is currently the TFG ambassador to Italy, to get information about the suggested accusations, but he declined to say more on it.
Somali Prime Minister returns home (Mareeg)
Somali Prime Minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, has returned to Mogadishu on Tuesday after a trip to several countries in Europe and Africa.
Mr. Sharmarke has been welcomed in Mogadishu airport, where the security was tightened by the African Union troops.
A convoy of African Union peacekeepers from AMISOM escorted the prime minister to the presidential palace.
Prime Minister Sharmarke has been in Britain and Belgium where he met with high ranking officials of those countries, but has not revealed a report about the outcomes of his trip to the press yet.
The delegation led by Mr. Sharmarke was looking for the money pledged in Brussels by donor countries in April this year.
Civilians killed in fresh Mogadishu clashes
At least 8 people were killed and more than 17 others injured in Heavy fighting between Somali government forces and insurgents in south and northern Somali capital Mogadishu, witnesses said.
The clashes broke out late on Saturday, when the two sides exchanged heavy mortar fire, which killed at least 6 civilians in the districts of Bondhere, Karan, Yaqshid, Hodon and Abdiaziz.
According to eyewitnesses, heavily armed insurgents carried out attacks on government bases in the districts.
"The dead include two civilians who were killed in Hodon when armed insurgents attacked government forces," said an eyewitness.
The district was also the scene of grisly truck accident that claimed the lives of 5 people including the driver of the truck who was shot dead by forces dressed in government uniforms. Wounded civilians were admitted in various Mogadishu hospitals.
The restive seaside capital has been wrecked by deadly clashes between rebel fighters and government troops backed by AU troops in recent months.
Somali powerful militants are bent on overthrowing fragile UN-backed transition government, which controls little more than a few blocks of Mogadishu.
2 Kenyans Kidnapped in Somalia by Al-Shabaab Released
Kidnappers in the Somali capital Mogadishu have freed two Kenyan men they abducted last Sunday near the city's Bakara market, colleagues said on Tuesday.
The pair was grabbed along with two Somalis by 10 masked gunmen in the market, which is controlled by al Shabaab rebels. The Somalis were later released the same day, while the Kenyans were freed late on Monday.
"They are safe ... We gave them a vacation," said Abdukar Ali, manager of the Hamar Adde printing centre where all four men had worked. He said the two Kenyans had flown to Nairobi.
Another colleague at the printing centre confirmed the pair had been released and had left the Horn of Africa nation.
About ten masked gunmen had yesterday entered a Somali market with automatic weapons and kidnapped 2 Kenyan workers along with two other that are believed to be Somalis. The market is largely controlled by al-shabaab, the alleged al-qaeda proxy in Somalia. The incident which took place on Sunday was centred around the Bakara Market inside the Hamar Adde printing centre, which produces office stationary and is located near Abu Hureira Mosque in Mogadishu.
The gunmen all in masks entered the printing centre and captured four men, but they later released the 2 Somalis who on return refused to shed any light on the incident. Witnesses say the kidnappers took the men with a car.
According to reports, the gunmen took their captives to an undisclosed location. It is quite unusual for locals to be kidnapped by the group who mainly targets foreigners and aid workers and some locals are suggesting that the group may have a score to settle with the owner of the printing press.
Officially no group has claimed the responsibility of the abduction, but Bakara is under the control of the Islamist rebels fighting to topple the fragile Somali government led by Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.
Hizbul Islam disagree over new governor for Hiran (garoweonline)
A decision by Somalia´s Hizbul Islam faction to establish a new administration for central Somali region of Hiiran and subsequently appoint a new governor has been met with stiff opposition from individuals within the group.
Sheikh Abdullahi Usman ´Qorey´, a Hizbul Islam official in Beleweyne, the provincial capital of Hiiran termed the decision as unconstitutional and one that is meant to please a clan in the region.
"Hiiran region does not have any administration since the former governor left the group. We must all agree on the formation of a new administration for the region," he said.
On Monday, Muse Abdi Arale, Hizbul Islam´s Defense Secretary and Sheikh Abdullahi Hiiraan, another top Hizbul Islam official announced the appointment of Sheikh Shuriye Farah Sabriye as the new governor.
However, Sheikh Abdullahi Qorey said the new governor has committed atrocities against the fighters
"Shuriye is a killer, he committed several atrocities against the mujahidins," he charged.
Early this month, the group took control of Beledweyne, a strategic central Somali town that borders Ethiopia and used as supply route for central Somalia.
Somaliland Court Sentences Men Charging They Were Behind Blast in Las Anod Town
A high court of Somali's break away Republic of Somaliland in established in occupied Sool region said Sunday that it will bring several men to justice after accusing them to be the mastermind of a blast which killed high officials of Somaliland recently.
Reports from Las Anod town say that the troops of Somaliland were conducting search operations in the town during the past days, capturing more people including businessmen who were all said to be connected or to have links with men responsible for the explosion in Las Anod town in north Somalia.
Mohamed Cabdullahi, one of the peacemakers in Sool region told Shabelle Radio that the Somaliland forces arrested 80 people - mostly children and women - during their operations, adding that these people had recently just demonstrated against the occupational force and the Somaliland administration in Las Anod.
The latest reports from the region says that now at least 6 people will be charged with the roadside bombing.
Government officials say they will recapture south western regions (Mareeg)
Officials from the fragile Somali government say they will recapture Bay and Bakol regions from al Shabaab militants.
Former Bay region governor under the transitional federal government of Somalia, Abdifatah Mohamed Gesey, said Monday they had enough soldiers to recapture Bay and Bakool regions in south western Somalia and were planning attacks against al Shabaab militants who control the regions.
Early this year Al shabaab militants seized Baidoa, the former parliamentary seat, from government soldiers including those loyal to the former governor, Abdifitah Gesey.
The government soldiers in parts of Bakool region fought with al Shabaab already several times. Al Shabaab militants often launch incursions to Yeed town, where the government soldiers are based in the region.
The government soldiers in Yeed town are accused of getting support from Ethiopian troops, but Mr. Gesey, the former Baidoa governor, denied the accusations and termed them as false reports and propaganda against the government.
The government officials who were ousted from Bay and Bakool regions by al Shabaab have already many times threatened they would retake the regions from al Shabaab.
Al Shabaab commander defects to government (Mareeg)
A prominent commander from al Shabaab has defected to the Somali government and has been welcomed in the presidential palace, officials said on Monday.
The commander, named Sheik Mohamed Sheik Abdullahi, better knows as Pakistan has defected from al Shabaab and joined to the government.
A welcoming ceremony has been held in the office of the Somali prime minister in the presidential palace.
Sheik Abdirahin Isse Adow, a former Islamic Courts Union spokesman who joined the government, addressed in the ceremony and welcomed the commander who defected from al Shabaab.
Abdirahman Ibbi, the deputy and acting prime minister said they were very glad the commander who joined to them and called for the other young teenagers to leave from al Shabaab and work for their nation.
Sheik Mohamed Pakistan the former Shabaab commander said he deiced to leave al Shabaab and work with the Somalia government.
He said that "al Shabaab lied about the principals of the Islamic religion" and was committing actions against the Islamic religion.
Sheik Ali Mohamed Hussein, an official from al Shabaab denied that the commander was among their commanders.
N.B.: In the meantime Al-Shabab strongly denied that Al-Pakistani ever was in Al-Shabab.]
Somalia's Ahlul-Sunnah displays trained army in central town (garoweonline)
Somalia´s Ahlul-Sunna Waljama´a group which control most of Galgadud region has on Sunday displayed a uniformed military outfit that would maintain the security o the region.
The officials said military, armed with different types of weaponry and armored vehicles finished their three-months training in Abudwaq district on Saturday, and have already been deployed in some towns.
Sheikh Burhan Abdullahi Jama´a, The group´s interim chairman said the military received uniforms to differentiate them from any other armed group.
"Some 600 soldiers have finished the three-months training and for the first time today they have received uniforms," he told reporters in Abudwaq.
He added that the troops and some others who are still in training would be deployed in regions that are under their control, vowing that his group will take over the security all the regions that are under the control of their rivals Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam rebel groups.
This comes amid raising tensions in the region after reports emerged that Al-Shabaab is conducting military movement in the regions.
The Somali armed groups, which have large swathes of southern region under their control, have been engaged in deadly power struggle in the recent months over regions in Somalia, which has been without an effective central government for more than 18 years.
Al-Shabab Tightens Grip in Somalia (WSID)
Somalia's al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants are tightening their grip on areas of the country they already control, imposing new rules and punishing people they say are violating their radical brand of Islamic law. Some observers believe until a more powerful group emerges to bring law and order to the country, ordinary Somalis are not likely to challenge al-Shabab's violence-driven agenda.
In recent months, al-Shabab militants have carried out violent acts they describe as "just punishments" for Somalis who violated Sharia - Islamic law.
Alleged spies and Christians have been publicly executed. Thieves have had their legs and hands amputated. And women accused of adultery have been flogged and stoned. Al-Shabab militants have also reportedly forced citizens, including children, to watch the gruesome punishments being meted out.
Somalia observer Paula Roque at South Africa's Institute for Security Studies says there is little doubt that in some places, al-Shabab has restored law and order that Somalis have been have been missing since the fall of the last functioning government in Somalia in 1991.
But Roque says al-Shabab is trying to bring order through violence and the threat of violence, which is not what Somalis want.
"There are elements that are extremists, who want to install a caliphate in Somalia," she said. "So, to that extent, they have an objective and they have a way of achieving it, which is through the use of violence and exterminating those that stand in the way of their objective. Certainly, the public executions are intimidation tactics. This is a movement that is led by military men, not theologians, clerics," she said.
The militant group is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Australia for having ties to al-Qaida.
Al-Shabab's links with al-Qaida began in the early part of this decade, with the group's founder, Aden Hashi Ayro, who was trained by al-Qaida in Afghanistan. His death in a U.S. missile strike in May 2008 failed to stop al-Shabab from stepping up recruiting efforts and vastly expanding its territory in Somalia. The group achieved this largely by portraying itself as a nationalist-Islamist group fighting to preserve Somalia's sovereignty against threats by Ethiopia and the West.
After the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia and the election of an Islamist leader as president of Somalia's transitional federal government earlier this year, al-Shabab formed alliances with various clans and Islamist groups opposed to the government to maintain the group's grip on power.
The militants have invited hundreds of foreign fighters to Somalia to help them battle African Union peacekeeping troops propping up the weak government in Mogadishu.
At the same time, al-Shabab suppressed public dissent through the imposition of its ultra-conservative brand of Sharia.
Somali analyst Afyare Elmi says most ordinary Somalis no longer view al-Shabab as a benign nationalist Islamist force nor do they accept the group's radical politico-religious stance.
But he says the West should not assume the Somali people also reject Sharia. He says there is overwhelming support for having Sharia as the cornerstone for laws governing the country. Elmi says the problem for Somalis is not Sharia, but the harsh, alien concepts that have been introduced by al-Shabab as Sharia.
"What is the difference here is that al-Shabab, at this stage, has a different kind of interpretation," he said. "The brand [of Islam] that al-Shabab is trying to impose on Somalis will not be adopted by the majority of Somalis. You can convince 100 young men to join your organization. But to get popular acceptance of your ideas is a completely different thing," he said.
Last week, al-Shabab militants reportedly rounded up more than 130 people in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, for violating Sharia.
Witnesses say dozens of militants, armed with whips, walked through al-Shabab-controlled areas, beating and arresting women not wearing garments that covered their bodies from head-to-toe. They publicly flogged women who had neglected to cover their feet with socks. Earlier this month in north Mogadishu, al-Shabab whipped women for wearing bras, claiming that it was un-Islamic to wear undergarments that deceived men.
And it is not just women who have to adhere to stricter rules. Scores of men have been arrested and beaten for indulging in their addiction to a mildly narcotic plant called khat. In some cities under al-Shabab control, barbers have been threatened with death for shaving or trimming beards.
But Elmi says as unpopular as al-Shabab's brand of Sharia may be, disapproval alone is not likely to ignite a mass uprising.
"I do not think they will just one day wake up and say, 'We are opposing al-Shabab and want to kick them out of the country.' No, that will not happen. Political and organizational capacity is always needed. So, a lot will depend on how the government succeeds in recruiting and defeating its adversaries," he said.
Roque at the Institute for Security Studies agrees that most Somalis are sitting on the fence, waiting to see which side - al-Shabab or the U.N.-backed government - can offer them a better future.
"There is very little national commitment to anything, unfortunately. Social structures, structures that are needed for the healthy functioning of any society, have collapsed," she explained. "So, when you have populations that are on the brink of a humanitarian crisis, who are constantly displaced, it is very problematic to address issues of moderation when their concern is stabilization and if al-Shabab can provide them with public order and some sort of opportunity for sustainable livelihood. Then, it is not a question of if they support al-Shabab's ideology and extremist views, but it is a survival mechanism. In Somalia, whoever is perceived as being the winning force is the one that is going to get support," she added.
Since 1991, clan-based power struggles and corruption allegations have doomed more than a dozen attempts by Somalis and the international community to establish a functioning government in Somalia.
Puntland Police Officer Killed in Qardo Town
Unidentified gunmen have shot and killed one of the police officers of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in Qardo town in north-east of Somalia, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Sunday.
Locals said that the deceased officer was called Haykal Ali Hirat adding that the killing was committed by a masked men armed with pistols. The assassin escaped.
The reason for the killing is so far unclear, but it is another sign of the increasing insecurity in parts of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.`
Pressure on Canada to help free kidnapped journalists
B Dan Karpenchuk (ABCnews)
Public pressure is growing on the Canadian government to free two journalists who were abducted in Somalia more than a year ago.
Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout and freelance Australian photographer Nigel Brennan were kidnapped near Mogadishu.
Canada's department of Foreign Affairs has received dozens of letters and emails from people concerned about the fate of the pair.
Reporters Without Borders says the two are being held for ransom, about 120 kilometres south of the Somali capital.
Recently other journalism organisations joined a petition calling on the Canadian government to make it a top priority to bring Ms Lindhout and Mr Brennan home.
The families of both say they have been working tirelessly for their release but with little outside help.
Canadian officials refuse to identify the kidnappers, saying to do so could be counter-productive to talks.
N.B.: It's 15 months - for how many more months the Canadian officials as well as the Australian officials to a certain extent even the families want to tell the world the same sentence over and over again, while opportunities to get the hostages free were lost by bureaucrats and blunders?]
Impacting reports, news and views from the global village
Two killed as light aircraft bound for Somalia crashes in Kenya (DN)
A light cargo plane crashed in Nairobi, Kenya, killing two crew members.
Eyewitnesses said the American made aircraft BC 1900 had taken off 0330 GMT at Wilson Airport before it was forced to turn back after the pilot reported it had developed mechanical problems.
The light aircraft that was transporting miraa, also known as khat which is a mild narcotic leaf, to Mogadishu, Somalia, crashed just a few meters from the runway before bursting into flames.
The pilot died as he was being taken to hospital, while his co-pilot later died at the hospital where he had been admitted in critical condition.
Airport officials said the crew decided after an hour to return to crash-land at the airport and had been airborne for about two hours by reaching Wilson again. But the plane crashed into the airport's fence and burst into flames before skidding onto a ditch near the runway.
The plane's black box has been retrieved and the Civil Aviation officials have launched investigations into the accident.
The accident continues to raise doubts about the safety of planes taking off and landing at the airport in southern Nairobi.
It was the fourth plane tragedy to have occurred near the airport -- whose runway borders the Nairobi National Park, on one side, and human settlements, on the other -- in the last four months.
Govt, Kenya Working to Alleviate Cross-Border Conflicts
By Fikremariam Tesfaye
Ethiopian and Kenyan ministers are working to address cross-border conflicts between pastoralists of Somali cluster, they disclosed in the course of the Cross Border Peace Meeting from 2-4 November, 2009 at the border town of Moyale, some 775 km South of Addis Ababa.
The joint effort of the countries would help address and sustain the peace and security of the border, which is fundamental for development of the region, said both ministers.
Dr. Shiferaw Teklemariam, Minister of Federal Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and Mohamed Ibrahim, Minister of State for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands, have been engaged in discussion to strengthen current efforts in mitigating pastoralist and related conflicts amongst the cross-border communities of Ethiopia and Kenya including the Borana, Gabbra, Garre, and Murule.
The Somali Cluster which covers border areas of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia is home to various pastoralist communities that engage in violent conflict over limited resources.
The Ethiopian Minister said, "The mobilization of local level peace structures necessitates the creation of cross border linkages in order to foster region-wide peace initiative." The purpose of the meeting was to create such linkages between the different institutions working on the Somali cluster. This would increase the ability to sustain solutions for the purpose of peace and would ensure the active participation of the local communities in peace efforts.
Since the ratification of the Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN) protocol in 2003 by seven member states, the Ethiopian government has been making concerted effort to create and strengthen the early warning and response components of the CEWARN mechanism on the Ethiopian side at National, Regional, Woreda and Local levels as structures of the Conflict Early Warning and Response Unit (CEWERU), According to the Minister.
The Kenyan Minister Mohamed on his part said that the government of Kenya is also working to develop a strategy to end communal violence among pastoral communities in Northern Kenya. The strategy addresses four elements: the state fulfils its basic duty of protecting its citizens, all politicians spearhead the search for peace, communities change the attitudes, practices and beliefs which perpetuate violence and comprehensive regional policy to facilitate collaboration and coordination between neighboring states.
The three days meeting was organized by Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN), the Ethiopia and Kenya national Conflict Early Warning and Response Unit's (CEWERU's), as well as the Regional Livelihood Enhancement in Pastoralist Areas (RELPA) /Enhanced Livelihood in Mandera Triangle (ELMT) and Enhanced Livelihood in Southern Ethiopia (ELSE).
CEWARN's report indicates that, from May 2003 through January 2009, over 207 violent incidents, 255 human deaths and over 16,400 livestock raids happened.
Participants of the cross-border peace meeting include Ministers, members of parliaments, commissioners, government representatives of both countries, Oromia regional state officials, religious and community leaders, and influential local elders.
Uganda Security hunts for Somali terrorists
By Milton Olupot
Security is investigating reports that a number of Al Shabaab Islamists have entered the country following their threat to strike Kampala and Bujumbura last month.
Sources within the Joint Anti-Terrorism squad yesterday told The New Vision that three British nationals of Somali descent are suspected to have sneaked into the country in the last three weeks.
"Security is on the alert and provided with details and photographs of the suspects. We are not leaving anything to chance," the source said yesterday.
The three have been identified as Walla Eldin Abdel Rahman, born on September 1, 1982 and bearing passport number 039813894 and Sakrih Mohammed, born on February 6, 1985 and bearing passport number 012726483.
The third suspect is known under four different names: Halway Carpet, Omar Yusuf, Bilal Berjawi and Bilal el Berjaour. He was born on September 28, 1984 and bears three passports with the numbers 301307039, 303941310 and 800307153.
Following the threats, a countrywide registration of all Somalis is being carried out to identify new arrivals.
In Kampala, the security has been beefed up in Kisenyi, a suburb with a big Somali population.
A joint force of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) and the anti-terrorism squad is deployed there.
President Yoweri Museveni recently warned the Islamist rebels that they would pay a heavy price if they attacked Kampala.
"Those groups, I would advise them to concentrate on solving their own problems. If they decide to attack us, they will pay heavily because we know how to deal with those who attack us," he told journalists at the end of the African Union summit in Kampala last month.
He warned that Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia would pursue and attack the rebels if they acted on their threat.
The militants issued the threats after they claimed that rocket attacks by the AU peacekeepers killed at least 30 people in Mogadishu.
"We shall make their people cry. We'll attack Bujumbura and Kampala. We will move our fighting to those two cities and we shall destroy them," Sheikh Ali Mohamed Hussein, a senior al Shabaab commander, told reporters in Mogadishu.
The AU force fired back after insurgents shelled the airport as President Sharif Ahmed was boarding a plane to fly to Kampala for the summit.
Burundi and Uganda have about 4,300 peacekeepers in the Somali capital as part of the African Union's force, dubbed AMISOM.
Gen. David Tinyefuza, the coordinator of the intelligence agencies, said on October 23 that the threat was real but not new.
"Uganda has been a target for international terrorists since 1990. Our involvement in Somalia has only raised the stakes and intensified the threat," he said.
Asked which measures Uganda was taking against the threats, Tinyefuza said they were three-fold and involved coordination with western allies.
"We are strengthening the capability of our security systems. We are also intensifying coordination and information exchange with our international allies."
Uganda's legal system, he said, was supportive of such measures since the Anti-Terrorism Act was passed.
"The third component is mobilisation. Public awareness is the most effective weapon against terrorism."
He noted that the Police had been issuing terror alerts to the public, transport organisations as well as hotels.
AMISOM comes under near-daily attacks from roadside bombs and rebel artillery. Two months ago, al Shabaab hit its main headquarters with a twin suicide car bombing that killed 17 peacekeepers, including the Burundian deputy force commander.
Several African nations had committed to send troops to reinforce AMISOM, which needs 8,000 soldiers to secure Mogadishu alone, but have so far failed.
In meetings in Kampala, Somali elders, some of whom fought in the Somali wars, vowed to cooperate with Uganda's security services to defeat the militants.
Will the militarization of the world by the Pentagon and NATO ever stop?
By Rick Rozoff
"In 1989, no one could have foreseen that a decade later Western military expansion would begin a process that led to American bases in parts of the world where their presence was hitherto unimaginable: Kosovo, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Australia, Bulgaria and Romania. And the first permanent U.S. base in Africa, Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, with a new regional military command, AFRICOM, covering the entire continent."
This year began with Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visiting Colombia in mid-January and meeting with that nation's defense minister and top military commander. While in Bogota Mullen railed against the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas and accused the government of Venezuela of conniving with them.
Less than two months and the inauguration of a new president later, America's top military commander returned to Colombia, the third largest recipient of U.S. military assistance in the world, as part of a Latin American tour that also took him to Brazil, Chile, Peru and Mexico. Upon returning to Washington Mullen said that "The U.S. military is ready to help Mexico in its deadly war against drug cartels with some of the same counter-insurgency tactics used against militant networks in Iraq and Afghanistan" [1] and "the Plan Colombia aid package could be an ´overarching´ model for Pakistan and Afghanistan...." [2]
He was then speaking for the Barack Obama and no longer the George W. Bush administration but Mullen, like his superior Defense Secretary Robert Gates who nominated him for his current post in 2007, was advocating a military and geostrategic polity that is pursued regardless of who occupies the Oval Office in the White House and whose photograph adorns the State Department's Harry S. Truman Building headquarters in Foggy Bottom.
Military commanders and former CIA directors like Mullen and Gates have seen a succession of presidents and secretaries of state pass by during their professional careers and the latter, like shadows on a wall, have not affected in any substantive manner plans for international military and intelligence expansion. Elected officials and their civilian appointees are to be humored, cajoled or ignored as the situation requires but have never stood in the way of the creation and maintenance of a 65-year-old military-security-intelligence state with its tentacles extended into every latitude and longitude of the planet.
The role of American elected officials on the federal level and what the nation and the world politely pretend to consider its diplomatic corps is to issue a steady stream of imprecations against "rogue regimes" and frighten the domestic populace with inflated if not entirely concocted claims of other, non-Western, nations' military threats, the better to give the Pentagon (which may play the part of a coy and hesitant ingenue for public consumption) what it wants.
Witness the false alarm sounded by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on May 1st of this year when she, striking the pose of a modern Paul Revere, warned that Washington's backyard was besieged by specters of the Cold War once thought long laid to rest and spoke of the need to "counter growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere," lamenting that "Republican President George W. Bush's policy had been counterproductive, allowing leftist leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega to promote anti-U.S. sentiment and rely on aid from China, Iran and Russia." [3]
The fact that the three heads of state identified by Clinton as a New World Axis of Evil irrationally bent on contaminating their neighbors with an "anti-U.S. sentiment" were popularly elected is of no concern to Washington. Central and South American electorates have voted before in ways displeasing to the U.S. - Guatemala in 1951, Guyana in 1953 and 1961, Chile in 1970 - and Washington successfully reversed the outcomes through subversion and coups d'etat.
The month after Clinton's statement U.S.-trained commanders in Honduras ordered troops to storm the residence of President Manuel Zelaya, abduct him and fly him to exile in Costa Rica. The leader of the coup, School of the Americas-trained General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, also dispatched troops to assault the ambassadors of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, as though he had studied Hillary Clinton's comments and taken them to heart.
Following the armed overthrow of the Honduran government on June 28, a state of affairs still not reversed over four months afterward notwithstanding the U.S.'s decisive leverage over the ringleaders in Tegucigalpa, media coverage was rife with allusions to a return to the era of Latin American coups staged and backed by Washington during the Cold War.
This November 9th will mark the twentieth anniversary of the event that more than any other is acknowledged as having signalled the end of the Cold War: The opening of the gates along the wall dividing East and West Berlin. The fall of the Berlin Wall.
At the time much of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief and in some quarters emitted a whoop of triumph, expecting that the end of the decades-long U.S.-Soviet conflict would issue in a golden age of global harmony, disarmament, the elimination of nuclear weapons and a massive peace dividend to fund civilian needs long given short shrift during the preceding forty three years.
Those hopes turned out to be so many vain opium reveries.
Warning signs were evident even at the time.
The former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was abruptly and without a referendum absorbed into the Federal Republic (West Germany) - and into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a U.S.-dominated military bloc - and the 1990 Western armed buildup in the Persian Gulf and the next year's war with Iraq followed almost immediately.
One didn't have to wait that long, however, to discover that the fruits of a Western victory in the Cold War were sour. Were poison.
Less than a month following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, on December 2, 1989 U.S. president George H.W. Bush and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev led respective national delegations to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta for a summit described fairly typically since as "the most important since 1945, when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed on a post-war plan for Europe at Yalta." [4]
The American delegation, incidentally, included two officials who weren't familiar to many observers at the time but would become so over a decade later: Then Director for Soviet and East European Affairs at the National Security Council Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz.
Within days of the summit's completion and as though to suggest that the two leaders agreed to address respective Cold War era thorns in their sides, ten days of violence erupted in Romania on December 16, culminating in the nation's aged leader, Nicolae Ceausescu, and his wife Elena dragged before a firing squad on Christmas Day.
In the middle of that ten-day uprising Washington launched an armed invasion of Panama, Operation Just Cause, with over 27,000 troops and 300 aircraft, deposing President Manuel Noriega, who continues to languish in an American prison cell almost twenty years later.
The post-Cold War world order was baptized in blood.
Following the Panama attack and the next two years' preparation for and activation of war plans against Iraq, the U.S. and its allies observed an almost decent interval - aside from wreaking carnage in Somalia, conducting ongoing bombing runs in Iraq, bombing Bosnian Serb targets with depleted uranium-tipped shells and firing cruise missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan - until 1999, when the U.S. and NATO launched a 78-day air war against Yugoslavia and right afterward Washington inaugurated Plan Colombia. The latter has resulted in Washington providing almost $5 billion in military assistance to Colombia since 2000. Current American vice president Joseph Biden pushed the hard-line - counterinsurgency - version of the initiative in the U.S. Senate in 1999.
Since then there has been a reactivation of the worst aspects of the Cold War period. Just as then, political change in any country is viewed through the prism of what it means in terms of alignment with or apart from the United States. And neutrality is not an option. The top official in charge of American foreign policy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has indicated her view of Latin American nations attempting an independent regional and global orientation. They are enemies. And are the proxies of larger adversaries: Russia, China and Iran.
On October 30 the U.S. and the Alvaro Uribe regime in Colombia signed an agreement during a closed-door ceremony in Bogota for the Pentagon to acquire seven new military bases in the South American country. [5]
"One of the bases involved, at Palanquero, 180 kilometers (110 miles) west of Bogota, boasts a 3.5-km (two-mile) runway adapted for large cargo planes, which critics say would allow the US to project itself far beyond Colombia's borders." [6]
"The United States maintains similar 'forward operating locations' in El Salvador and Aruba-Curacao [Netherlands Antilles]." [7]
Colombian troops illegally entered neighboring Venezuela last August and Caracas claims to have apprehended Colombian paramilitaries on its soil at the time of the signing of the U.S.-Colombia bases deal on October 30.
In late September, less than two months after elections brought pro-Washington President Ricardo Martinelli to power, Panama's La Prensa newspaper announced that the new government will "sign a treaty with the United States on the opening of two U.S. naval bases on its territory...."
Minister of Government and Justice Jose Raul Mulino was quoted confirming that "The U.S. and Panama will sign before October 30 an agreement on the deployment of two naval bases on the Pacific coast of our country....One of the bases will be located in Bahia Pina...450 kilometers [280 miles] east of the capital, Panama City, and another one - in Punta Coca about 350 km [217 miles] west of the capital." [8]
American bases had been closed and troops brought home in 1999 in accordance with the 1977 treaty signed by the two nations. However, Washington led the 11-day PANAMAX 2009 military exercise in September with forces from Argentina, Brazil, Belize, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and NATO allies Canada, France and the Netherlands. The formal purpose of the maneuvers was to "simulate a terrorist threat in the Panama Canal," Gerald W. Ketchum, U.S. Operation, Preparation and Mobilization sub-director from the Southern Command, claimed. [9]
A comparable multinational exercise, Honduras-Commando Force 2007, was held in the nearby Central American nation two years earlier which included "marine, air and shelling operations" and the participation of troops from the United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. The drills were also described as "anti-terrorist exercises...under the aegis of the United States under the pretext of an alleged attack by the Al Qaeda network." [10]
What purpose U.S. training of the Honduran armed forces in fact has been put to was demonstrated last June 28. The Pentagon maintains its Joint Task Force-Bravo at the Soto Cano Air Base in the nation.
Further south, in 2007 two retired Peruvian military intelligence officers, Jesus Suasnabar and Juan Castro, exposed American plans to construct a base in their country to replace the military base in Manta, Ecuador from which the U.S. has now been evicted.
"The two ex-military officers pointed out that the US base would be the center of domination of Peruvian and Brazilian Amazonia, where multinational rapid-action forces would be deployed....[T]he military base would also prevent the consolidation of an energy bloc made up of Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela....Peru might get involved in the Colombian conflict, as the military facility would be used to intervene in that country." [11]
Washington has now compensated, and far more than compensated, for the loss of the air base at Manta with the acquisition of seven new bases in Colombia, positioning its military closer to that country's eastern border with Venezuela. (And perhaps its southwestern border with Ecuador.)
As with all other parts of the world, where the Pentagon goes so do its NATO allies. Until earlier this year Great Britain was reported to be the second largest provider of military aid to Colombia.
In Venezuela's eastern neighbor, Guyana, the Pentagon deployed 650 troops (infantry, naval and air force) this July for New Horizons Guyana, "a U.S. Southern Command-sponsored annual exercise starting July 1 designed to strengthen ties with partner nations in Central and South America...." [12]
In recent days a controversy has arisen in Guyana after Britain withdrew assistance for a security project following the Guyanese government's "refusal to allow training by UK Special Forces on a western border location with live firing...." [13] Guyana's western border is with Venezuela. A letter to a local newspaper denounced the "U.K.'s demands for the training of British Special Forces officers on Guyana's territory, and worse yet, in close proximity to Guyana's South American neighbours, namely, Brazil and Venezuela.
"Such a request from the British must be seen as unreasonable, an affront to Guyana's territorial sovereignty and could even undermine Guyana's relationship with her neighbours whom we know from previous experiences could interpret the presence of Western military personnel in close proximity to their borders as an act of hostility or concern and may even spark an arms race in South America." [14]
In Guyana's eastern neighbor, Suriname, the Pentagon has also been busy. Two years ago U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited and secured "military premises on its territory.
"Suriname President Ronald Venetiaan said the United States wants to build military premises in Surinamese soil to test the capabilities of military vehicles in the forest," Associated Press reported on October of 2007. [15]
Anticipating American military chief Mullen's tour this March, "Before his...visit to Suriname, Gates met leaders in El Salvador, Colombia, Chile and Peru." [16]
The eastern-most of the three Guianas, the French, is still an overseas department and used for various military purposes.
French military instructors at a camp on the premises of the Guiana Space Center in Kourou "operate one of the most grueling courses in jungle warfare and survival, opening it to Special Forces from around the world….
The base´s "main purpose is preparing legionnaires for hardships in places where France still uses them for military intervention, like Chad, Djibouti or Ivory Coast." [17]
Three years ago Paris used the space center, "which each year launches into orbit about half of the world´s commercial satellite payloads," [18] for another objective. It launched "the military satellite Syracuse 3B from Kourou in French Guiana thereby creating the conditions for faster and more efficient military exercises abroad.
"The satellite is to be made available to Germany's military and to the NATO alliance."
The Syracuse satellites "cover an area extending from the eastern United States to eastern China and would multiply the existing transfer capacity by ten...of France and the European Union to act." [19]
No part of the world is now isolated from and left unmolested by the West's worldwide military network.
This past September the new president of Paraguay Fernando Lugo (elected last year) cancelled the U.S. Southern Command's scheduled New Horizons military maneuvers after the announcement that Washington was going to sign the agreement with Colombia for seven new bases. Lugo said of his government's decision "There would be about 500 US military and other personnel in the country and that wouldn't go unnoticed." [20]
Elections in Central and South America over the past eleven years - Venezuela in 1998 and since, Argentina in 2003, Uruguay in 2004, Bolivia in 2005, Ecuador and Nicaragua in 2006, Paraguay in 2008, El Salvador in 2009 and for while in Panama after 2004 and Honduras after 2006 - have severely limited the scope of the Pentagon's plans to renew and expand its presence in Latin America. To compensate for these unprecedented losses, long-time military clients in Colombia and Peru are being tapped for greater commitments and concentrated efforts are being exerted to recruit Brazil and Chile into the fold. [21]
Three years ago retired Brazilian scholar Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira provided an outline of American armed forces plans for South America:
"They occupy an area extending from Guiana into Colombia....Most of them are not uniformed soldiers, but employees of what are known as private sector military companies. The Pentagon has been outsourcing war operations since the 1990s. These private military contractors have been playing an important role in military operations exactly because they are outside restrictions imposed by the US Congress." [22]
Twenty years after the end of the Cold War and ten after NATO declared itself a global organization rivaling and ultimately supplanting the United Nations, the Western Hemisphere south of the United States is not being spared in plans for a Western-dominated international military bloc. In August the Colombian regime announced that it would "send 84 soldiers to join NATO forces in Afghanistan in yet another nod to US wishes," [23] joining troops from four other continents.
In 1989, no one could have foreseen that a decade later Western military expansion would begin a process that led to American bases in parts of the world where their presence was hitherto unimaginable: Kosovo, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Australia, Bulgaria and Romania. And the first permanent U.S. base in Africa, Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, with a new regional military command, AFRICOM, covering the entire continent. [24]
That Washington would gain strategic air bases on the Black Sea and in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Would conduct military exercises in Cambodia, East Timor, Gabon, Georgia, India, Mali, Mongolia, Senegal, Uganda and Ukraine. Would redeploy its military to the Philippines and permanently assign troops to Israel and Poland to staff missile radar and interceptor missile bases. Would stake out the Arctic Circle for military and missile shield deployments.
The Cold War ended a generation ago. Wars did not. Neither did the militarization of the world, which has instead intensified, reaching even into space.
Notes:
1]. Reuters, March 6, 2009
2]. Reuters, March 5, 2009
3]. Associated Press, May 1, 2009
4]. Wikipedia
5]. Colombia: U.S. Escalates War Plans In Latin America, Stop NATO, July 22, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/ybxvk5g
6]. Agence France-Presse, October 30, 2009
7]. CNN, October 30, 2009
8]. Russian Information Agency Novosti, September 27, 2009
9]. Xinhua News Agency, September 12, 2009
10]. Prensa Latina, June 23, 2007
11]. Prensa Latina, December 27, 2007
12]. Air Forces Southern Command, May 29, 2009
13]. Stabroek News, October 29, 2009
14]. Stabroek News, October 29, 2009
15]. El Universal, October 8, 2007
16]. Canadian Press, October 7, 2007
17]. New York Times, December 1, 2008
18]. Ibid
19]. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, August 12, 2006
20]. Press TV, September 18, 2009
21]. NATO Of The South: Chile, South Africa, Australia, Antarctica, Stop NATO, May 30, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/yahch5m
22]. Agencia Brasil, January 19, 2006
23]. Press TV, August 8, 2009
24]. AFRICOM: Pentagon Prepares Direct Military Intervention In Africa, Stop NATO, August 24, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/yc3glvx
It didn't take long for the spin-doctors to establish Al-Queda links, but ....
Mysterious motives
By Gwynne Dyer
Earlier this year, the Pentagon committed $50m to a study on why the suicide rate in the military is rising: it used to be below the rate in comparable civilian groups, but now is four times higher. Thirteen American soldiers were killed by a gunman at Fort Hood, Texas, last Thursday, but 75 have died by their own hand at the same base since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Why?
The US military budget tops half a trillion dollars, so the military can splash out on diversionary studies that draw attention away from the main problems - combat fatigue and loss of faith in the mission. We are seeing the same pattern in the response to the Fort Hood killings, although in this case the army is getting the services of the media for free.
Let's see. A devout Muslim officer of the US Army, born in the US but of Palestinian ancestry, is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan. He opens fire on his fellow soldiers, shouting "Allahu Akbar". Was he unhappy about his promotion prospects?
There is something comic in the contortions the media engage in to avoid the fact that if the US invades Muslim countries, some Muslim Americans will think that it has declared war on Islam. It has not, but from Pakistan to Somalia the US is killing Muslims in the name of a "war on terror."
So is it possible that the Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, did not want to take part in that enterprise in Afghanistan? Might he belong to that large majority of Muslims (though probably a minority among American Muslims) who, unable to discover any rational basis for US strategy since 9/11, have drifted towards the conclusion that the US is indeed waging a war on Islam?
Rather than entertain such subversive idea, US spokespersons and media have been trying to come up with some other motive for Maj Hasan's actions. Maybe he was a coward who couldn't face the prospect of combat in Afghanistan, or a nut-case whose actions had no meaning or unhappy at the alleged abuse he had suffered because he was Muslim/Arab/Palestinian.
The one explanation excluded is that the US wars in Muslim lands overseas are radicalising Muslims at home. Never mind that the home-grown Muslim terrorists who attacked the London transport system in 2005, and the plotters caught in other Western countries before their plans came to fruition, have almost all blamed the Western invasions of Muslim countries for radicalising them.
What radicalised them was the fact that those invasions made no sense in terms of Western security. No Afghan has attacked the US, although Arabs living in Afghanistan were involved in the planning of 9/11. There were no terrorists in Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction, and no contacts between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. So why did the US invade those countries?
The real reasons are panic and ignorance, reinforced by militaristic reflexes and laced with racism. But people find it hard to believe that the US, Britain and other Western governments involved in these foolish adventures could be so stupid, so the conspiracy theories proliferate.
It is a testimony to the loyalty of Muslims in the West that so few of their members have succumbed to these conspiracy theories. It is evidence of the denial that reigns in the majority community in the US that the obvious explanation for Major Nidal's actions didn't even make the media's short list.
Geneva Conventions need to be stronger, 60 years on
By Kofi Annan
In all the understandable attention given to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this week, there is a risk that another important anniversary will be overlooked. Sixty years ago, the Geneva Conventions were signed, giving force to a simple but enduring idea – the belief that we should do everything we can to reduce human suffering in war.
But while the Conventions have been a remarkable force for good, this commemoration should galvanise us to do more to protect people. Around the world, we see continued evidence of the callous inhumanity of those waging war.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, militias and soldiers are carrying out mass killing and rape. In Sri Lanka, thousands of civilians were killed in the fighting between the Sri Lankan Army and the Tamil Tigers. Many more remain interned in camps. The people of Somalia are once again caught between the guns of rival militias and foreign forces. And, of course, the terrible tragedy of Darfur continues.
We also see in many parts of the world, terrorists deliberately detonating bombs to kill hundreds of civilians. The state response too often is indiscriminate attacks and the abuse of detainees. There are some who claim that the blame for this inhumanity lies, in part, with the failure of international law. They argue that it has not kept pace with conflicts no longer predominantly waged between states or with conventional forces or weapons.
But this fails to recognise how the Conventions have been improved and expanded to better cover civil wars and armed groups. Furthermore new conventions banning or restricting new types of weapons, including landmines and cluster munitions, have been agreed.
This argument also lets those responsible for such suffering off the hook. It is not international laws that are to blame for the continuing death and destruction in our world but that leaders deliberately disregard them. And they will continue to ignore these rules as long as they think they can get away with it.
The challenge is to alter the balance of the calculation they make. All alleged breaches of international humanitarian law, wherever they take place, must be formally investigated, and we mustn´t let states – especially powerful ones – dismiss or ignore the resulting reports, as we have seen recently with the Goldstone report. We then have to take bold steps to ensure those found responsible, whoever they may be, are held to account.
National and international human rights groups work tirelessly and with courage to expose abuses. But no matter how thorough their investigations and indisputable the evidence, their reports are too often and too easily dismissed and discredited.
We can´t expect, of course, those with so little regard for human suffering to readily accept responsibility for war crimes. What is worrying, however, is how often their denials deflect blame and spread confusion among world opinion. Countering this culture of denial must be a priority for the international community.
While civil society plays an important role, it can only do so much. I believe we must now consider activating formal permanent bodies to monitor and report on the widespread breach of human rights and humanitarian principles in armed conflicts – bodies already provided for under international law. These investigations should be triggered automatically whenever armed conflict arises just as the United Nation´s relief agencies respond automatically to major humanitarian catastrophes.
This will only work, however, if allcountries believe they will be fairly treated.The accusation that powerful states avoid scrutiny, while those with less influence and fewer friends attract it too readily, cannot be brushed aside. There has been, and continues to be, selectivity in who is investigated and acted upon, even when formal reports are prepared and abuses are well documented. International bodies, first and foremost the Security Council, must redress this bias to restore trust in their authority.
While exposing abuses is important, it is only the first step in changing behaviour and improving protection for civilians. We also need to ensure that there is a much stronger link between committing a crime and the likelihood of punishment.
For much of the past 60 years this link has been missing. War criminals rarely faced justice. National courts lacked the will or mandate to act. Amnesties were too freely given as part of peace accords. For many, international justice seemed an illusion.
In recent years, this has changed. We have seen the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and international criminal tribunals set up to punish genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
International justice is also at work, alongside national judicial systems, in Cambodia and Sierra Leone. National courts are increasingly ready to hold to account those responsible for flouting the protections of the Geneva Conventions and human rights standards no matter where the crime was committed. Amnesty laws that shield war criminals are being overturned by courts.
International justice has gone from an abstract concept to a reality. Impunity is in retreat.
But the battle is far from over. Some of the world´s most powerful countries have not ratified the ICC statute. Many who have are still not living up to their obligations. Countries are too quick, for historical or political reasons, to ignore the abuses of neighbouring leaders and allow themselves to be deflected into attacking the rules or how they are applied.
I am aware of the reasons for this. But leaders need to remember that the whole purpose of the ICC and international standards is to serve victims, not protect those in power. Concessions that weaken international justice risk being seen as a license to kill with impunity.
As we mark the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, we don´t need to change the rules. We do need to ensure they are enforced much more widely, robustly and fairly. Only then will they provide the protection that people around the world require.
(*) Kofi Annan was secretary general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2007. He is now president of the Kofi Annan Foundation
Israel Files Case with UN on Illegal Arms Smuggling with German Ship
Israel has filed an official complaint with the United Nations following its seizure earlier this week of the German-owned boxship MV FRANCOP laden with arms allegedly bound for Hezbollah. The complaint singles out the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines for repeatedly engaging in arms trafficking.
The Lebanese militia group Hezbollah denied any link to weapons on boxship and refuted the Israeli claims.
Israel´s navy has intercepted the Antigua & Barbuda-flagged containership 160 km off its coast.
The 864 teu, was caught with dozens of containers carrying and ordnance reportedly disguised as civilian cargo.
According to the Israeli authorities, commandos who boarded the 864 teu Francop uncovered 500 tonnes of weapons in 36 containers disguised as aid delivery of mainly food.
But behind the blinds more than 3000 Raketen, anti-tank weapons, rocket propelled grenades, hand-grenades and many boxes of ammunition for assault rifles.
The cargo was allegedly transported by a small vessel from Iran to the Egyptian harbour Domiat and there transferred onto the MV FRANCOP, which was supposed to first sail to Cyprus and then to the Syrian harbour Latakia, from where it would have gone by land into Lebanon.
The German authorities apparently are satisfied with the explanation of the owner of the vessel, Gerd Bartels, that the ship was permanently chartered to United Feeder Services and that the real owner of the vessel had no knowledge of the cargo.
It is, however, the second time in a few weeks that a German vessel is involved in weapons-smuggling. Just recently the US navy boarded in the Red Sea the German freighter MV HANSA INDIA (a sister ship to the HANSA STAVANGER, which was sea-jacked off Somalia not long ago). The vessel owned by the Hamburger shipping magnate Leonhardt und Blumberg actually carried several containers with cartridges for automatic weapons.
The German authorities are investigating also this case, though even the involvement of several German vessels in the alleged arms smuggling to Sudan via Kenya has not yet been concluded.
Let´s Not Forget DU Weapons in Beletweyn and from MV Faina
The Responsibility of the US in Contaminating Iraq with Depleted Uranium
By Souad N. Al-Azzawi (*)
For two decades, the administrations of the United States of America and the United Kingdom have been waging continuous wars on Iraq to occupy this oil rich country.
The armed forces of those two countries attacked civilians with different kinds of conventional, non-conventional, and banned weapons such as cluster bombs ammunitions, napalm bombs, white phosphorous weapons and depleted Uranium weapons.
Depleted Uranium (DU) is a radioactive and chemically toxic heavy metal. If ingested, inhaled, or it enters the human body through wounds or skin, it remains there for decades.
Within the human body the (DU) particles would be a continuous source for emitting alpha particles. With its toxic effects, published research & epidemiological studies have proved that it causes serious health damages to the human body. Some of the damage to the human body is to lymph tissue, kidneys, developing fetuses, neurological system, the bones, lung fibrosis, and an increase in the risk of many types of cancer and malignancies.
Hundreds of tons of (DU) expenditure have been fired & exploded on Iraqi highly populated areas like Basrah, Baghdad, Nasriya, Dewania, Samawa, and other cities.
Exploration programs and site measurements by Iraqi and non-Iraqi researchers all proved the existence of (DU) related contamination over most Iraqi territories.
Iraq's Minister of Environment admitted in July 23, 2007 in Cairo that "at least 350 sites in Iraq are contaminated with (DU)". She added that the nation is facing a tremendous number of cancer cases and called for the international community to help Iraq cope with this problem.
A few years after exposure to (DU) contamination, multifold increase of malignancies, congenital malformations, miscarriages, children leukemia, and sterility cases have been registered in suburb areas of Basrah and other surrounding areas. Similar problems appeared in Falluja, where illegal weapons were also used intensively in the 2004 attack of occupation forces on the city. More than two million of the Iraqi population died since 1991 because of the synergic multiple impact of using (DU) weapons, economical sanctions, and the destruction of the health care systems.
The economical sanction that were also imposed by USA and UK administrations deprived the children and people of Iraq their rights in food, potable water, health care, sanitation and other life supporting necessities.
The USA and UK administrations have subjected the whole nation of Iraq for two decades to torture and slow death through the intentional use of radioactive weapons and the sanctions. The continuous and intentional use of radioactive weapons is a crime against humanity due to its undifferentiating harmful health effects on civilians in contaminated areas tens of years to come after the military engagements. The existence of (DU) radioactive contamination in the surrounding environment is a continuous source of exposure to low level radiation. This exposure can be considered as a systematic attack on Iraqi civilians in an armed conflict, according to Article 4 of the official regulations and Article 7 of the ICC.
This paper is submitted to present the facts and scientific evidences regarding the intentional use of the USA and UK administrations of depleted uranium weapons against the people and environment of Iraq, in addition to the health consequences that have been result from them.
1.0 Introduction:
The administrations of the United States of America and the United Kingdom have been continuously waging wars against Iraq since 1991.
The armed forces of these two administrations have been using different kinds and new generations of conventional, nonconventional, and illegal weapons like Napalm, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, microwave, and Depleted Uranium weapons [1][2][3][4] against the human population and the environment of Iraq. Invasion and occupation of Iraq proved to the world that oil flow is the main reason behind these criminal attacks.
As a result of using these weapons, with the economical sanctions that were also imposed on Iraq by the same administration more than two million Iraqi people died and the count continues.
In this paper, we present the consequences and damage resulting from the use of Depleted Uranium weaponry against Iraq, backed by scientific fact and research.
2.0 What is Depleted Uranium?
Depleted Uranium (DU) is a man-made, radioactive, heavy metal extracted from Uranium ore. Since (DU) is a byproduct of the Uranium enrichment process to produce spent fuel for nuclear reactors. Natural Uranium has an isotopic content of 99.274% of U-238 by weight, 0.072% of U-235, & 0.0057% of U-234 [5].
Due to its highly pyrophoric and spontaneously ignitable properties, the DU penetrator ignites on impact generating extremely high temperatures. As the projectile pierces, it leaves its jacket behind dispersing DU dust into the environment during the impact. The quantity of the aerosol production is proportional to DU mass within the projectile and the hardness of the impact.
It is estimated that up to 70%of DU in the projectiles to be aerosolized when on the impact DU catches fire [6]. The explosion generates high temperatures of (3000-6000) °C. The aerosols particles are smaller than 5µm in size [6]. These nano-particles act more like a gas than a particle. The DU aerosols remain windborne for an extended time and this is the most dangerous pathway on civilian population around the battlefield areas.
3.0 Depleted Uranium within the human body
There is empirical documentation that suggests that DU aerosols can travel up to 26 miles [5], others suggest even further distances. The full radiation effect of DU occurs six months after production [6]. One milligram of U-238 can give of 1, 07, 000 alpha particles in one day. Each alpha particle releases over 4 MeV (million-electron-volts) of energy. If swallowed or inhaled, this much energy will hit up to 6 nearby cells away in the organ [6]. Just 6-10ev (electron volt) is needed to cleave the nuclear DNA strand in the cell.
Dr. Rosalie Bertell, an epidemiologist with 30-years experience in the field of low level radiation explains DU potential harm to the human body [6]:
After inhalation (DU) nano-particle aerosols cross the lung-blood barrier and gain entrance to the cells. They create free radicals. As a heavy metal, DU toxicity attacks the proteins in the cell which normally fight the free radicals, and creates extra free radicals. This amount of free radicals creates total oxidative stress in the human body. This stress causes failure to protective enzymes, leaving cells vulnerable to viruses and mycoplasmas, damage to cellular communication system and the mitochondria.
As a heavy metal, DU replaces the magnesium in the organ´s molecules that normally function as antioxidants, and causes the destruction of the body´s repair mechanisms. Consequences of this destruction are chronic diseases and tumors. Free radicals can also totally disrupt the folding process and manufacturing of the molecule proteins which is sequenced by DNA and manufactured by the RNA. Some of the diseases resulted from misrouted proteins include cystic fibrosis, diabetes insipidus and cancer. [6]
Amassing and accumulation of misfolded proteins leads to neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson´s Diseases and early onset Alzheimer´s disease. In these diseases, amyloids are formed from protein fragments and dysfunctional proteins and that "Misfolded proteins" are the central pathogenic mechanism.
Gulf War veterans have manifested many of the symptoms of these neurodegenerative diseases.[6]
Other health effects of DU within the human body are:
Lou Gehrig´s disease is twice as commonly diagnosed in Gulf War veterans as expected.
Immune and Hormonal system damage
Disturbance of thyroid function
Mycoplasmas invasion into human cells.
Initiation or promotion of cancer
Tetratogenic toxicity which causes mental retardation, congenital malformations.
GW veterans were twice-three times as likely to report children with birth defects as their counter partner who did not serve in the first Gulf War.
Miscarriages
Dr. Hari Sharma, formerly of the University of Waterloo, tested the urine of some US, UK and Canadian veterans as well as Iraqi civilians from Basra and Baghdad.
Using 24hr urine samples, his isotopic analysis revealed a range of DU in the sample of (81-1,340) nanogram. Results showed that two of the three Iraqis from Al Basra had 147 – 426 nanograms respectively in their urine. Also it showed that 2 out of 5 Iraqis from Baghdad have DU in their urine
4.0 Other Important Scientific Evidence:
Dr Alexandra C. Miller and her team at the Armed Forces Radiological Research Institute, Bethesda, MD and the University of Paris, France used human cell models (the human Osteoblast cell HOS) to evaluate the carcinogenic potential of DU in vitro through assessing morphological transformation, genotoxicity [7] (chromosomal aberration), mutagenic (HRRT Ioci) and genomic instability.
Published data of the results have demonstrated that DU exposure in vitro to immortalized HOS cells is neoplatically transforming, mutagenic, genotoxic, and induces genomic instability. Other results showed:
Exposure to embedded DU pellets could induce leukemia in mice.
Internalized DU resulted in significant increases in the mutagenic frequency in the Lac gene in the tests of the exposed mice.
Internalized DU resulted in the development of bladder carcinoma in 75% of all animal exposed within 90 days of initial DU exposure.
As we can see all these results suggest that long-term exposure to internalized DU could be critical to the development of neoplastic disease in humans.
Pub. Radiation Protection Dosimetry Schroder, Heike 2003. A molecular biologist conducted research about the chromosomal aberration on white blood cells of 16 British Gulf War veterans of 1991. The veterans have suffered from symptoms ranging from headache, to chronic fatigue, depression, muscle and joint pains, impaired short-term memory and other cognitive defects. [8]
The results showed that the mean frequency of their blood cells chromosomal aberrations is 5-fold elevation higher than the control blood samples. This strongly indicated previous exposure to ionizing radiations.
The intercellular distribution of the Dicentric and Centric ring chromosomes indicates significant over dispersion on the group level for the veterans who served in the Gulf War. Dic and CR are a known consequence of non uniform irradiation on the human body. [8]
Dr. Huda Ammash, Professor of Molecular Biology in Baghdad University and her team [9] conducted and published the results of genetic hematological analysis for a group of individuals living in DU contaminated areas in southern Iraq. Blood tests for the (47) individuals who lived in Basrah contaminated areas and another 30 as a control group. The control group individuals lived in Baghdad.
Blood tests showed that 21% of the studied individuals in Basrah group suffered a reduction in hemoglobin concentration of (9-13) g/d.
The blood packed cell volume (PCV) test results showed that 25.5% of Basrah studied group showed abnormal (PCV) rates of (30-39)% less than the normal rate.
Total white Blood Cells count (WBC) results showed that 8% of the individuals in the Basrah study group with (WBC) less than normal which is (4000)c/ml or higher than normal rate (1100)c/ml.
Compound chromosomal changes in the lymphocytes of periphal blood of the individuals of Basrah studied group had been found at a ratio of (0.1118)% which is significantly higher than that of the control group.
The ratio of dicentric and ring centric chromosomal abnormality fraction was found to be (0.04479) which is higher than ordinary ratio chromosomal damages where mostly in male veteran individuals. One case was for a 13 year old young boy at the time of the exposure in Al-Zubair contaminated area.
Rita Hindin, et al [5] published a paper "Teratogenicity of Depleted Uranium aerosols: A review from an epidemiological perspective" in which they stated that animal studies firmly support the possibility that DU is a teratogen. They also concluded that the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with the increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU.
For further scientific evidences by Iraqi researchers, check: "Depleted Uranium Contamination: Iraq: An overview" http:///www.globalresearch.org.
5.0 Contaminating Iraq with Depleted Uranium
The USA and UK armed forces used Depleted Uranium ammunition for the first time in the history of their wars during the Gulf War of 1991. About one million bullets, projectiles, and missiles were fired along the highway from Kuwait to Basrah then up to Nasriya and other Iraqi cities. About 60-65% of this ammunition and expenditure were fired within Iraqi territories,
As stated previously, as soon as DU projectiles hit the target, it will ignite with a huge explosion that generates Depleted Uranium oxide aerosols. Mixing height of the aerosols in the atmosphere gets to 250m [13]. Area of Basrah War Zone and highway warzone [10] [14] were calculated to be around 2400km2. This area was the major continuous source of DU aerosols and contaminants to surrounding areas years to come.
Types of Depleted Uranium contaminants in the studied areas were:
1. Destroyed tanks and artilleries.
2. DU projectiles shells (exploded and unexploded)
3. DU shrapnel´s (different sizes)
4. Deposited DU particles
5. Deposited DU oxide aerosols
Modeling mechanisms of spreading of DU pollutants from the source to surrounding populated areas were done by the Environmental Engineering department of Baghdad University [10] [14] [15]. The results of modeling spreading of pollutants through different environmental pathways to human population suggested that total calculated annual body dose received from DU aerosols inhalation pathway for the period from 1991-1996 in Basrah warzone was between 0.1768 Sv and 0.2309 Sv [10] (for a person both in normal or active duty respectively). Compared to normal background annual effective dose people should receive of 2.4 mSv only. In the highway warzone, these values came up to 0.4425 Sv and 0.577 Sv [14] respectively.
6.0 DU Contaminated Dust Storms In Iraq
Spreading and dispersion of DU contamination to surrounding areas also occurs through wind storms, dust storms, sandstorms, and rainstorms. Mechanisms of surface migration of DU radionuclide´s in soil include [16]:
Siltation, creeping, and suspension from contaminated soil to atmosphere.
Suspension and re-suspension of deposited DU aerosols are the most dangerous and critical pathway of transfer and spreading from source to the human population.
DU nano-particles through this mechanism stay suspended in the atmosphere for tens of days. With each dust storm a new DU attack on the civilians within populated cities occurs. Published data indicate a significant increase in the frequency of annual dust storms in both Iraq and Kuwait areas [17]. The first 8 months of 2009 witnessed 20 dust storms, as declared by the Iraqi Minister of Health [18]. Figures (3) and (4) show sites of these dust storms.
DU contaminated dust storms can be considered as new systematic attacks by USA armed forces, on civilians, since it adds an extra harmful radioactive dose received by the people internally and externally.
The USA and UK administrations should be held responsible for exposing a whole nation to the risk of continually receiving high radioactive and toxic persistent contaminants such as DU.
Cumulative effects of these additional doses add additional risk to residents of these areas. Intentional denial and cover up of the types, locations and amounts of DU ammunitions by the US and UK armed forces prevent Iraq from taking any precautionary measures to reduce exposure to additional radioactive doses.
To understand how persistent these pollutants are; Soil and dust samples from areas near NL Industries site in Colonie, NY, USA proved containing DU after more than 20 years of the closure of these DU manufacturing industries [19].
A total of 5 to 10 metric tons of DU dust and aerosols settled from air on soil, rooftops, and other surfaces near the plant during its operation. The plant was closed in 1984 and contaminated soil was removed. In 2006, twenty-two years later, dust samples that had been collected from residents in the area proved the existence of DU significantly above the clean up standard. People working near NL Industries also tested positive for DU in their bodies. Results of these tests are being published in the international journal "Science of the Total Environment" [20].
If we compare this case study with Basra DU contamination where (320 tons of DU * 0.65 in Iraqi territories * 0.6 aerosolized) we end up with about 114.80 metric tons of DU aerosols spreading through winds to huge inside Iraq and the Gulf countries´ areas, then pre-suspension of these contaminants to larger areas with each dust and sand storm that hits the area.
In 2003, it is estimated the US & UK armed forces used about (700-800) tons of DU [21]. The aerosolized portion of this amount is about 420 metric tons, a quantity large enough to cover the soil of the whole country after the dispersion of plumes with the previously mentioned mechanisms.
7.0 DU Contamination Casualties in Iraq:
Epidemiological studies in contaminated areas indicated a drastic rise in the incidences rate of malignancies amongst children to be far more noticeable from 1995 onward, namely a four times increase than prior to 1991, the distribution of this increase specifically in contaminated areas west of Basra City [22].
Moreover, the shift in Leukemia to younger children supports the criteria of biological plausibility specificity and is consistent with findings of correlating such incidents to exposure to ionized radiations [23].
Also a six fold increase in congenital malformations among births in Basra City since 1995 onward, have been registered [24]. Congenital heart diseases and chromosomal aberrations have been also reported.
Another crime of the occupation forces is the destruction of the evidence targeting the Iraqi research centers related to this issue.
Two decades of suffering, pain, and human life losses, the Minister of Environment in Iraq finally announced in 2007 the disaster of DU contamination in Iraq. She pointed out that more than 300 sites have been contaminated with these radioactive weapons [25]. She also called for the Japanese authorities and the international community to help Iraq with coping with the drastic increase of cancer incident rates [26].
To prove our case: Kuwait DU waste & wreckage from Gulf wars are shipped back to be dumped in USA.
After 18 years, Kuwait required US dept. of defense to remove the DU contaminated wreckage from their land [21]. Over 6,700 tons of contaminated soil, sand and other residues were collected and shipped back to the USA for burial by American Ecology at Bios, Idaho.
The US administration and pentagon officials still insist that DU has no significant health hazards, if so, why would they have to ship back their dirty radioactive wreckage back home from Kuwait?
8.0 Stand of the International Community on DU Weaponry
The Hague and Geneva conventions and its protocols and subsequent treaties clearly declare that weapons which cannot discriminate between civilians and military or combatants are prohibited from not only use but also from manufacture and sale [27].
The Nuremberg principles were incorporated into the Charter of the UN, a treaty which is supposed to be "Supreme Law" in the USA. When the American Administration ratified it, the 7th principle declares that "Complicity with a crime against Humanity is a war crime".
UN resolutions since 1996 called DU weaponry "incompatible" (i.e. illegal) under existing humanitarian law and human rights [UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/27 and additions; E/CN.4/Sub.2/2002/38 and E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/35] [28].
Uranium radiation hazards are covered up and misrepresented through the obsolete models of risk and derived standards of allowable exposure set by the International Commission on
Radiological Protection (ICRP).
This model was derived from invalid assumptions due to secrecy and cover up about the health effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs then, around the cold war developments of nuclear power and weapons [28].
The ICRP risk model was built from studies of the atomic bomb survivors, which overlooked the effects from the internal radiation source and ignored cancer that in some cases takes decades to appear.
It was certainly developed before the DNA and the human genome knowledge existed the way it does to date.
Cover-ups and deception are expected from American and UK administrations the perpetrators of all radiological wars and illegal weapons, which should face liability for war crimes, military and civilian casualties, as well as contamination of the environment.
The US has refused to disclose information about DU during the invasion military operations of Iraq in 2003, and did not let UNEP team study DU contamination Iraq [29].
With the great efforts of anti-nuclear weapons groups, NGO, peace organizations and international figures, the call of these organizations to ban the all Uranium weapons, including DU, have earned very good momentum especially among the NATO countries.
On March 23rd, 2007, the Belgian Chamber Commission on National Defense voted unanimously in favor of banning the use of DU ammunitions and armor plates [30].
On November 1, 2008, a UN committee passed a resolution with an overwhelming majority, highlighting concerns over the military use of Uranium. The resolution entitled "Effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing Depleted Uranium 1" urges the UN member states to re-examine the health hazards posted by the use of Uranium weapons [31].
Another historic sentence was pronounced on January 13, 2009 by a court in Florence, Italy asking the Italian Ministry of Defense to compensate Gianbattista Marica with Euro 545,061, a parachutist who was deployed in Somalia for eight months in 1993. The sentence is very important because it states "the casual link between the presence of depleted uranium and the illness (cancer) of the Soldier" [32]. The courts statement includes the report of technical consultant who maintains that there is a causal link between the Hodgkin Lymphoma developed by the soldier and the exposure to DU.
In September 2009, a British jury at Smethwick Council House ruled that DU was likely cause of death of Gulf War veteran Stuart Dysan in June 2008. Dyson had been a Lance Corporal with the Royal Pioneer Corps and had cleaned tanks after the 1991 Gulf War. He developed colon cancer that killed him last year [33].
The European Parliament on 22nd of May 2008 passed its fourth resolution against the use Uranium weapons. MEP´s have called for EU and NATO-wide moratorium and global ban [29].
9.0 Concluding Remarks:
1. The US and UK administrations have been using Depleted Uranium weapons against the civilian population and the environment of Iraq since 1991.
2. Laboratory studies and scientific evidence prove the link and causal relationship between exposure to Depleted Uranium and the increased risk of inducing neurodegenerative diseases, immune and hormonal system damage, initiation or promotion of cancer, Tetratogenic Toxicity which causes mental retardation and congenital malformations, miscarriages, and sterility.
3. Intentional denial and refusal of the US and UK administrations to release any information about the types, locations, and amounts of DU weapons that have been used against Iraq have caused additional radioactive doses, and health damages to the people in contaminated areas.
Both administrations should be held responsible for this crime.
4. The drastic increase of cancer incidences in Iraq since 1995 to date and the DU related diseases like congenital malformation, miscarriages, etc, are all attributed to the use of prohibited weapons including Depleted Uranium.
5. DU contaminated areas all over the country are continuous source of radioactive pollution.
Without cleaning and other measures, resuspension of these contaminants with each dust and sand storm can be considered as systematic attacks by the US and UK armies on civilians in an armed conflict.
This is a crime against humanity to its undifferentiated harmful health impacts on civilians long times to come after the military operations (Article 4 of the official regulations and Article 7 of ICC).
Notes
1. Simon Helweg-Larsen, "Irregular Weapons Used against Iraq". ZNET http://www.znet.org/welser.htm ,April 2003
2. Sarah Meyer. "What Kind of Incendiary Bomb Was Used Against People in Iraq" http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1226 November 14, 2005.
3. Steven D. "US Army Admits Use of White Phosphorus as Weapon". Daily KOS.
4. Scott Peterson Remains of Toxic Bullets Litter Iraq, May 18, 2003, Christian Science Monitor.
5. Rita Hindin, Doug Brugge, and Bindu Panikkar, "Teratogenicity of Depleted Uranium aerosols: A review from an epidemiological perspective " Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source 2005. http://www.ehjournal.net/info/instructions/
6. Rosali Bertell "Depleted Uranium: All the questions about DU and Gulf War Syndrome are not yet answered". International Journal of Health Service 36(3), 503-520, 2006
7. Alexandra C. Miller, Mike Stewart, Rafael Rivas, Robert Marlot, and Paul Lison, "Depleted Uranium" internal contamination: Carcinogenisis and Leukeinogenisis in Vivo. Proc. Am Assoc Cancer Res. Volume 46, 2005.
8. Chroder, H. et al. "Chromosome aberration analysis in peripheral lymphocytes of Gulf War and Balkans War veterans". Radiation Prot. Dosimetry. Vol. 103(3) 2003 (PP. 211-219).
9. Ammash, H., Alwan, L., and Maarouf, B.,"Genetic hematological study for a selected population from DU contaminated areas in Basra." Proceeding of the conference on the effects of the use of DU weapons on human and environment in Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq 2002.
10. Al-Azzawi, S. N. and Al-Naemi, A. "Assessment of radiological doses and risks resulted from DU contamination in Basrah war zone." Proceeding of the conference on the effects of the use of DU
11. Gulf War Resource Center "Primary Areas of DU Expenditure", USA, 1999.
12. Turnley, P.; News Week Magazine; (January-20), 1992.
13. Neboysha, L. "Environmental Impact on Humans During the Gulf War", Communications between Professor Neboysha and Professor Sharma, 1999.
14. Al-Azzawi, S., and Al Naemi, A., 2002, "Assessment of radiological doses and risks resulted from DU contamination in the highway war zone in Al-Basra governorate", proceedings of the conference on the effects of the use of DU weaponry on human and environment in Iraq, March 26-27 2002, Baghdad, Iraq.
15. Al-Azzawi, S. et al, " Environmental Pollution Resulting from the Use of Depleted Uranium Weaponry Against Iraq During 1991, World International Conference on DU, Hamburg, Germany, 2003 http://www.grassrootspeace.org/wuwc_reader2_science.pdf - p.41
16. Al-Heli, W.M. "Effects of DU Weapons on Air and Soil Pollution in Southern Iraq", M.Sc. Thesis in Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Baghdad, Iraq. 1998.
17. Draxler R. R., et al, "Estimating PM10 Air concentrations from Dust storms in Iraq, Kuwait and Kingdom Saudi Arabia. Atmospheric Environment" vol35:4115-4330.
18. Middle East Online, "Draught steals Iraqi's nutrition", September 1st 2009
19. ICBUW, "Robert shows New Yorkers Contaminated with DU over 20 years after exposure" http://www.banddepleteduranium.org/
20. William, D. "Hazards of Uranium Weapons in the Proposed War on Iraq" full report.. The Eos life resources center. Oct, 2002.
21. ICBUW, "Statement by the DU positive testees" http://www.banddepleteduranium.org/
22. Yaqoub, A., et.al., 1999, "Depleted Uranium and health of people in Basrah: an epidemiological evidence; 1-The incidence and pattern of malignant diseases among children in Basrah with specific reference to leukemia during the period of 1990-1998", the medical journal of Basrah University (MJBU), vol.17, no.1&2, 1999, Basrah, Iraq.
23. Yaqoub, A., Ajeel, N., and Al-Wiswasy, M., 1998, "Incidence and pattern of malignant diseases (excluding leukemia) during 1990-1997", Proceeding of the conference on health and environmental consequences of DU used by U.S. and British forces in the 1991 Gulf War, Dec. 2-3, 1998, Baghdad, Iraq. http://www.irak.be/ned/archief/Depleted%20Uranium_bestanden/DEPLETED%20URANIUM-3-%20INCIDENCE.htm
24. Al-Sadoon, I., Hassan, J., and Yaqoub, A., 1998, "Incidence and pattern of congenital anomalies among birth in Basrah during the period 1990-1998", Proceeding of the conference on health and environmental consequences of DU used by U.S. and British forces in the 1991 Gulf War, Dec. 2-3, 1998. http://www.irak.be/ned/archief/Depleted%20Uranium_bestanden/DEPLETED%20URANIUM-1-%20INCIDENCE.htm
25. RIA Novoski "Iraqis blame US depleted Uranium for surge in cancer"
26. Tokyo Newspapers "Iraqi Minister of Environment Appeals to Japanese Government for Assistance in Dealing with DU contmination". September 10th 2008 http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp
27. Proceeding of World Uranium weapons conference 2003, Hamburg, Germany. Page 192
28. Protr Bein "Uranium Weapons cover-ups in our midst". Proceedings of world Uranium Weapons conference, 2003, Hamburg, Germany.
29. David Goliath "The Adversary's Tactics and Effectiveness". Proceedings of world conference, 2003 Hamburg, Germany, Page 204.
30. William Van Den Panhuysen. "Belgium Bans Uranium Weapons and Armor". ISBUW, March 24, 2007.
31. ICBUW, "UN First Committee Passes DU Resolution in Landslide Vote" Nov. , 2007 http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/
32. Stefania Divertito "Historic sentence in Florence, Italian court recognizes the link between cancer and Depleted Uranium". 13th Jan. 2009 http://www.peaclink.it
33. ICBUW, DU was a likely cause of dead Gulf Veteran's cancer". Sept. 11, 2009 http://www.bandepleteduranium.org
34. ICBUW "European Parliament passes far reaching DU resolution in landslide vote", May 22, 2008. http://www.bandepleteduranium.org
(*) Prof. Souad N. Al-Azzawi presented the above article to the Kuala Lumpur International Conference to Criminalise War, Putra World Trade Centre, 28-31 October 2009. He has published extensively and many of his articles can be found on Global Research For more information on DU: http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en and
The terrorists´ weapon of choice
By Beth Day Romulo
While military leaders in the US and Europe have gone on record that their worst fear is that unclear weapons may fall into the hands of terrorists, the terrorists' weapon of choice is not nuclear. They are waging daily destruction and heavy loss of life against US and NATO troops in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq with simple, homemade improvised explosive devices, known to the military as IEDs.
Whenever a soldier goes out on patrol, or a military vehicle travels down a road, they face the possibility of stepping on or running over one of these devices, hidden in the pathway, that will blow up, on contact, killing, maiming, and destroying troops and vehicles. IEDs have been the major killer of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have also been used, with devastating effect, in India, Sri Lanka, Columbia, Somalia, and yes, in the Philippines. As I was working on this article, two IED attacks were reported in Quezon City. Russian troops have encountered them in the former Soviet Republics. In testimony before a US House Armed Services Committee, General Thomas Metz, who directs the US military efforts to counter improvised explosives, warned, "There is a robust and constant IED effort among violent extremists who are using it as their weapon of choice." And, he added, "That won´t change for decades. We are in this fight for a long time."
The threat is growing. General Metz estimated that use of IEDs outside of Afghanistan and Iraq add up to at least 300 cases each month.
In Afghanistan, in this year alone, there have been 955 cases. In Iraq, there were over 1,000 so far this year, far less than the 4,718 cases in 2006.
India has the second highest number of IEDs. Thailand comes in third, but their number has been on the decline since 2007. In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers are known to have stockpiled IEDs and the US military assumes that North Korea has learned about them by watching what has been going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While there is no immediate threat of war with North Korea, the US and South Korean military assume that if war should break out, North Korean forces would plant IEDs in the demilitarized zone to prevent or slow an invasion from the south. American and South Korean forces are incorporating countermeasures in their war plans and practicing them.
Although IEDs can´t win a war against a stronger opponent, they can be used for strategic purposes to slow the advance of troops or wound and kill civilians on major highways.
Top-Crook lands Top Job
Criminal fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra was appointed senior governmental adviser for economics in Cambodia. Thaksin, responsible also for vast environmental destruction, the persecution of the Akha people and sick ventures like the Chian-Mai Night-Zoo for which he wanted to steal wildlife from Kenya must be attractive to the Cambodians because the economy of the crooks seems to rule today's world.
Thailand on Monday accused ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra of offending the country's monarchy, stepping up pressure on the fugitive tycoon as he prepares for a provocative trip to neighboring Cambodia. The Thai government also said it was preparing a formal extradition request for Thaksin, who was toppled in a 2006 coup, when he visits Phnom Penh this week in his new capacity as economics adviser to the Cambodian leadership.
ASEAN said on Monday that the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia has triggered anxiety in the organisation. ''This is not just a border dispute any more because it has caused anxiety in ASEAN and could affect the image and profile of the body,'' the Secretary-General of ASEAN Surin Pitsuwan told ambassadors for the organisation in Jakarta.
We do not send pictures with these reports, because of the volume, but picture this emetic scene with your inner eye:
A dying Somali child in the macerated arms of her mother besides their bombed shelter with Islamic graffiti looks at a fat trader, who discusses with a local militia chief and a UN representative at a harbour while USAID provided GM food from subsidised production is off-loaded by WFP into the hands of local "distributors" and dealers - and in the background a western warship and a foreign fishing trawler ply the waters of a once sovereign, prosper and proud nation, which was a role model for honesty and development in the Horn of Africa. (If you feel that this is overdrawn - come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality yourself!)
and if you need lively stills or video material on Somalia, please do contact us.
There is no limit to what a person can do or how far one can go to help
if one doesn't mind who gets the credit !
ECOTERRA Intl. maintains a register for persons missing or abducted in the Somali seas (Foreign seafarers as well as Somalis). Inquiries by family member can be sent by e-mail to office[at]ecoterra-international.org
For families of presently captive seafarers - in order to advise and console their worries - ECOTERRA Intl. can establish contacts with professional seafarers, who had been abducted in Somalia, and their wives as well as of a Captain of a sea-jacked and released ship, who agreed to be addressed "with questions, and we will answer truthfully".
ECOTERRA - ALERTS and pending issues:
PIRATE ATTACK GULF OF ADEN: Advice on Who to Contact and What to Do http://www.noonsite.com/Members/sue/R2008-09-08-2
NATURAL RESOURCES & ARMED FISH POACHERS: Foreign navies entering the 200nm EEZ of Somalia and foreign helicopters and troops must respect the fact that especially all wildlife is protected by Somali national as well as by international laws and that the protection of the marine resources of Somalia from illegally fishing foreign vessels should be an integral part of the anti-piracy operations. Likewise the navies must adhere to international standards and not pollute the coastal waters with oil, ballast water or waste from their own ships but help Somalia to fight against any dumping of any waste (incl. diluted, toxic or nuclear waste). So far and though the AU as well as the UN has called since long on other nations to respect the 200 nm EEZ, only now the two countries (Spain and France) to which the most notorious vessels and fleets are linked have come up with a declaration that they will respect the 200 nm EEZ of Somalia but so far not any of the navies operating in the area pledged to stand against illegal fishing. So far not a single illegal fishing vessel has been detained by the naval forces, though they had been even informed about several actual cases, where an intervention would have been possible. Illegally operating Tuna fishing vessels (many from South Korea, some from Greece and China) carry now armed personnel and force their way into the Somali fishing grounds - uncontrolled or even protected by the naval forces mandated to guard the Somali waters against any criminal activity, which included arms carried by foreign fishing vessels in Somali waters.
LLWs / NLWs: According to recently leaked information the anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden are also used as a cover-up for the live testing of recently developed arsenals of so called non-lethal as well as sub-lethal weapons systems. (Pls request details) Neither the Navies nor the UN has come up with any code of conduct in this respect, while the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP) is sponsoring several service-led acquisition programs, including the VLAD, Joint Integration Program, and Improved Flash Bang Grenade. Alredy in use in Somalia are so called Non-lethal optical distractors, which are visible laser devices that have reversible optical effects. These types of non-blinding laser devices use highly directional optical energy. Somalia is also a testing ground for the further developments of the Active Denial System (ADS) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD). If new developments using millimeter wave sources that will help minimize the size, weight, and system cost of an effective Active Denial System which provides "ADS-ACTD-like" repel effects, are used has not yet been revealed. Obviously not only the US is developing and using these kind of weapons as the case of MV MARATHON showed, where a Spanish naval vessel was using optical lasers - the stand-off was then broken by the killing of one of the hostage seafarers. Local observers also claim that HEMI devices, producing Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) Bioeffects, have been used in the Gulf of Aden against Somalis. Exposure to HEMI devices, which can be understood as a stun-gun shot at an individual over a larger distance, causes muscle contractions that temporarily disable an individual. Research efforts are under way to develop a longer-duration of this effect than is currently available. The live tests are apparently done without that science understands yet the effects of HEMI electrical waveforms on a human body.
WARBOTS, UAVs etc.: Peter Singer says: "By cutting the already tenuous link between the public and its nation´s foreign policy, pain-free war would pervert the whole idea of the democratic process and citizenship as they relate to war. When a citizenry has no sense of sacrifice or even the prospect of sacrifice, the decision to go to war becomes just like any other policy decision, weighed by the same calculus used to determine whether to raise bridge tolls. Instead of widespread engagement and debate over the most important decision a government can make, you get popular indifference. When technology turns war into something merely to be watched, and not weighed with great seriousness, the checks and balances that undergird democracy go by the wayside. This could well mean the end of any idea of democratic peace that supposedly sets our foreign-policy decision making apart. Such wars without costs could even undermine the morality of "good" wars. When a nation decides to go to war, it is not just deciding to break stuff in some foreign land. As one philosopher put it, the very decision is "a reflection of the moral character of the community who decides." Without public debate and support and without risking troops, the decision to go to war becomes the act of a nation that doesn´t give a damn."
ECOTERRA Intl., whose work does focus on nature- and human-rights-protection and - as the last international environmental organization still working in Somalia - had alerted ship-owners since 1992, many of whom were fishing illegally in the since 1972 established 200 nm territorial waters of Somalia and today's 200nm Exclusive Economic Zone (UNCLOS) of Somalia, to stay away from Somali waters. The non-governmental organization had requested the international community many times for help to protect the coastal waters of the war-torn state from all exploiters, but now lawlessness has seriously increased and gone out of hand - even with the navies.
ECOTERRA members with marine and maritime expertise, joined by it's ECOP-marine group, are closely and continuously monitoring and advising on the Somali situation. (for previous information concerning the topics please google keywords ECOTERRA (and) SOMALIA)
The network of the SEAFARERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME helped significantly in most sea-jack cases. ECOTERRA Intl. is working in Somalia since 1986 on human-rights and nature protection, while ECOP-marine concentrates on illegal fishing and the protection of the marine ecosystems. Your support counts too.
Please consider to contribute to the work of SAP, ECOP-marine and ECOTERRA Intl. Please donate to the defence fund.
Contact us for details concerning project-sponsorship or donations via e-mail: ecotrust[at]ecoterra.net
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For more information see this article in The Nation or this article in Wired News.
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