Ecoterra Press Release 288 – The Somalia Chronicle June – December 2009, no 101
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
April 08, 2010
ECOTERRA Intl.
SMCM
Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor
ECOTERRA INTERNATIONAL - UPDATES & STATEMENTS, REVIEW & CLEARING-HOUSE
2009-11-15 * SUN * 23h59:12 UTC
Issue No. 288
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:
Somali captors free Indian, Bangladeshi illegal fishermen
Somali pirates have released nine Indian and Bangladeshi seamen after north Somalia Puntland elites intervened to liberate the fishermen.
The seafarers were freed around the semi-autonomous Puntland capital of Garowe on Saturday, after the region's tribal leaders reportedly negotiated their release from their pirate captors.
The sailors "are all healthy and at a hotel here waiting for their departure," said a driver, speaking with journalists.
"Their release came after joint efforts by local businessmen and clan elders," he added.
Some of the Indian sailors had gone on hugerstrike over the last days.
The sailors were dropped off late on Saturday in Puntland´s capital Garowe.
Indian diplomatic contacts in Nairobi were surprised and couldn't say if the Indian Department of Shipping would make any arrangements to bring the sailors home.
Their vessel, the FV AL HILAL, which had been on an illegal fishing trip into Somali waters, was beached last week and subsequently looted to the extent that it probably will never sail again.
Latest:
British hostages are refusing to eat or drink, say Somali pirates (TimesOL)
The British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean are ill and refusing to eat or drink, according to one of their captors.
The claim will renew concern about the wellbeing of Paul and Rachel Chandler, and comes after it emerged that the crew of a Royal Navy vessel watched helplessly as the couple were taken hostage from their yacht Lynn Rival on October 23.
Despite carrying arms and sailing to within yards of the Chandlers and the kidnappers, the navy vessel did not intervene for fear of putting the couple´s lives at risk. The pirates have since asked for a ransom of £4.2 million for the couple from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, who were seized as they sailed from the Seychelles towards Tanzania. It is believed that they became ill from infected food or water. Awali, one of the pirates, said: "Sometimes they will not speak to us, and sometimes they refuse to eat or drink.
"They have serious health problems. The woman is vomiting often."
Military officials insisted last night that the Royal Fleet Auxiliary replenishment tanker Wave Knight, carrying 75 merchant seamen, 25 Royal Navy sailors and a helicopter, could not have acted without endangering the lives of Mr Chandler, 59, or his 55-year-old wife.
The Ministry of Defence said initially last month that the Chandlers´ yacht had been found empty in open waters.
Later it said: "We did everything we could possibly do without further endangering the lives of Paul and Rachel Chandler."
It appears that the decision not to intervene was taken by the captain.
After they were taken into Somalian waters, the couple were moved on to a container ship, the Kota Wajar, which had been captured by the pirates. Sources said that the couple were transferred to the mother ship in a very crowded open boat alongside armed pirates, placing them in a "very dangerous situation". The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: "We are monitoring the situation closely. Foreign Office staff are in close contact with the family and offering support."
The Wave Knight is part of the Nato fleet tackling piracy off East Africa, but the Navy´s nearest warship, HMS Cumberland, was two hours away.
News from sea-jackings, abductions, newly attacked ships as well as seafarers and vessels in distress ----
Truth is out: British Navy watched Chandlers kidnapped (yachtpals)
The truth is now out. 'Wave Knight - watched the abduction'
It has been confirmed that a British Royal Navy ship actually watched Somali pirates kidnap British cruising sailors Paul and Rachel Chandler on the high seas, British authorities said Friday.
Other reports say there's reason to hope they could be released within a month.
Previously the British Defense Ministry was reported as saying that it could not rescue the couple on Oct. 23 because the couple was already on the pirates' ship and their yacht Lynn Rival was already abandoned when the Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker Wave Knight arrived at the scene.
But a ministry spokesman confirmed Friday the Wave Knight arrived as the couple was being transferred from their yacht to the pirate's ship 50 feet away. The crew was ordered not to intervene because the pirates were carrying AK-47 assault rifles and there was fear a gun battle would result in the hostages being killed.
This harks back to the tragic death of kidnapped French cruising sailor Florent Lemacon. When French commandos attempted a rescue of him and his wife and crew, he was killed by a French commando bullet, not by the pirates.
Supply ship RFA Wave Knight, which regularly operates out of Plymouth, was sent to intercept the pirates as they grabbed the couple from their yacht on the night of October 28. But the crew, made up of 75 merchant seaman and 25 Navy sailors, were under orders not to fire in case the hostages were caught in a bloody gun fight or killed there and then.
They conducted a three-hour battle with the pirates' mothership, the Kota Wajar, a container ship which was en route to capture Mr and Mrs Chandler, and tried to head it off-course. But their efforts were to no avail as the Chandlers were transferred by small boat from their yacht to the mothership just 50ft away from them.
RFA Wave Knight was dragged into the conflict as the Navy's nearest battleship, HMS Cumberland, was two hours away.
The supply ship was ordered to try to slow down the Kota Wajar, which is twice its size, potentially affording Cumberland time to get to the scene. Wave Knight, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary oil tanker which is part of the Nato anti-piracy fleet off East Africa, was ill-prepared to take on the pirate ship, but pluckily attempted to stop the container capturing the couple.
The account from a crewman, who has asked not to be named, suggests the crew were angry that they were not given clearance to open fire on the pirates. He said they were left 'depressed and frustrated' as the Kota Wajar made off with their captives towards Somalia and they had not been able to save the Britons.
The insider said yesterday: 'We saw the moment they were handed over and were forced to stand by helpless. We did everything possible to save them.'
Given that the Wave Knight is an oil tanker not a war ship, trying to knock the Somalis off-course was highly dangerous.
The sailors also believed the pirates could have had an arsenal of weapons on board.
It is thought the crew were angered when they heard reports that the ship supposedly found the yacht just floating, which they say is 'simply not true'.
The Chandlers were abducted from their yacht in the Indian Ocean as they sailed from the Seychelles to Tanzania in spite of many warnings by authorities and other cruising sailors, who are also reported to be angry that the Chandlers disregarded them.
The couple's whereabouts are not clear from conflicting reports coming from the troubled area, but it is probable that they are being held in a small town close to the coastal pirate stronghold of Harardheere.
The pirates are warring with each other about whether to demand an exchange of the Chandlers for some arrested pirates, or to demand a ransom. While the initial demand was for US$7million, it has been conjectured by locals on the ground that they may accept much less.
Andrew Mwangura, chief officer of the East African Seafarers Assistance Program, and with a reputation for correct reporting of piracy in the area, was reported as saying that the Chandlers could be freed within a month, 'as long as profiteers did not get involved in any negotiation.'
Mr Mwangura said: 'They have changed their minds (about the ransom). They realise the Chandlers are poor people.' However, he also said that it was unlikely the couple would be released without some kind of ransom being paid, and this could be within a month.
Four attacks on cargo ships have been made in the last two days, as the Somali pirates continue their onslaught against ships in the Indian Ocean. While until several years ago there were as many Yemeni pirates as Somalis, these days Yemen has joined the fight against piracy in the Gulf of Aden which has made it a 'no-go' area for many ships and cruising yachts.
Africa based organisation Ecoterra reported today that Yemen's Coast Guard has seized eight Somali pirates in the pirate-plagued seas. A spokesman for the authority said Friday the pirates were captured on a fishing boat with two RPGs and small and medium weapons. An investigation is underway as a prelude to turning the Africans over to the judiciary.
Pirate hostages: Sailors 'forced to stand by'
British sailors watched helplessly as Somali pirates seized hostages Paul and Rachel Chandler, it was revealed yesterday.
Supply ship RFA Wave Knight, which regularly operates out of Plymouth, was sent to intercept the pirates as they grabbed the couple from their yacht on the night of October 28. But the crew, made up of 75 merchant seaman and 25 Navy sailors, were under orders not to fire in case the hostages were caught in a bloody gun fight or killed there and then.
They conducted a three-hour battle with the pirates' mothership, the Kota Wajar, a container ship which was en route to capture Mr and Mrs Chandler, and tried to head it off-course. But their efforts were to no avail as the Chandlers were transferred by small boat from their yacht to the mothership just 50ft away from them.
RFA Wave Knight was dragged into the conflict as the Navy's nearest battleship, HMS Cumberland, was two hours away.
The supply ship was ordered to try to slow down the Kota Wajar, which is twice its size, potentially affording Cumberland time to get to the scene.
Wave Knight, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary oil tanker which is part of the Nato anti-piracy fleet off East Africa, was ill-prepared to take on the pirate ship, but pluckily attempted to stop the container capturing the couple.
The account from a crewman, who has asked not to be named, suggests the crew were angry that they were not given clearance to open fire on the pirates. He said they were left "depressed and frustrated" as the Kota Wajar made off with their captives towards Somalia and they had not been able to save the Britons.
The insider said yesterday: "We saw the moment they were handed over and were forced to stand by helpless. We did everything possible to save them."
Given that the Wave Knight is an oil tanker not a war ship, trying to knock the Somalis off-course was highly dangerous.
The sailors also believed the pirates could have had an arsenal of weapons on board.
It is thought the crew were angered when they heard reports that the ship supposedly found the yacht just floating, which they say is "simply not true". The Somali pirates are demanding a $7 million (£4.26 million) ransom for the couple.
Retired civil engineer Mr Chandler, 59, whose 98-year-old father Alfred Chandler lives in Churchfield, Dartmouth, and his wife, 55, were captured three weeks ago. The couple from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were sailing from the Seychelles towards Tanzania when armed men boarded their yacht, the SS Lynn Rival.
The Ministry of Defence would only add yesterday that the ship was "doing her best to protect" the Chandlers.
With the latest captures and releases now still at least 12 seized foreign vessels (13 cases since yacht SY LYNN RIVAL was abandoned and taken by British Navy) with a total of not less than 270 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 and the mistaken sinking of one vessel by the Indian naval force. For 2009 the account stands at 199 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
Poverty, Global Trade Justice, and the Roots of Terrorism
By John Perkins
To combat terrorism, we should address the root causes of poverty, says former "economic hit man"
The following is adapted from Hoodwinked: An Economic Hitman Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded—and What We Need to Do to Remake Them. Random House, 2009.
"Yes" Navy Seal snipers rescued an American cargo ship captain unharmed and killed three Somali pirates in a daring operation in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, ending a five-day standoff between United States naval forces and a small band of brigands in a covered orange lifeboat off the Horn of Africa.
The New York Times published that article in April 2009. The very words "pirates," "daring operation," "standoff," and "brigands" were typical of the U.S. media; they made it sound as though white-hated cowboys had ridden to the rescue of a town besieged by Billy the Kid and his gang. Having lived in that part of the world as an economic hit man, I knew there was another side to what had happened. I wondered why no one was asking about the causes of piracy.
I recalled my visits with the Bugi people when I was sent to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in the early 1970s. The Bugi had been infamous pirates since the time of the East India companies in the 1600s and 1700s. Their ferocity inspired returning European sailors to discipline their disobedient children with threats that "the bugiman will get you." In the 1970s, we feared that they would attack our oil tankers as they passed through the vital Strait of Malacca.
I sat with one of their elders on the Sulawesi shore one afternoon. We watched his people build a sailing galleon, known as a prahu, much as they had for centuries. Like a gigantic beached whale, it was high and dry, propped upright by rows of gnarled stakes that resembled roots sprouting from its hull. Dozens of men hustled about it, working with adzes, hatchets, and hand drills. I expressed the concerns of my government to him, intimating that we would retaliate if the oil lanes were threatened.
The "terrorists" I have found in Andean caves and desert villages are people whose families were forced off their farms by oil companies, hydroelectric dams, or "free trade" agreements, whose children are starving, and who want nothing more than to return to their families with food, seeds, and deeds to lands they can cultivate.
The old man glared at me. "We were not pirates in the old days," he said, his bushy white hair bobbing indignantly. "We only fought to defend our lands against Europeans who came to steal our spices. If we attack your ships today, it is because they take the trade away from us; your ´stink ships' foul our waters with oil, destroying our fish and starving our children." Then he shrugged. "Now, we're at a loss." His smile was disarming. "How can a handful of people in wooden sailing ships fight off America's submarines, airplanes, bombs, and missiles?"
A few days after the rescue, the Times ran an editorial entitled "Fighting Piracy in Somalia" that concluded:
Yet left to its own devices, Somalia can only become more noxious, spreading violence to its East African neighbors, breeding more extremism and making shipping through the Gulf of Aden ever more dangerous and costly. Various approaches are being discussed, such as working through Somalia's powerful clans to reconstitute first local and then regional and national institutions. These must be urgently explored.
Nowhere did the Times-or any of the other media outlets that I read, heard, or saw-attempt to analyze the roots of the problem in Somalia. Debates abounded about whether to arm ships' crews and send more Navy vessels to the region. There was that vague reference to reconstituting regional and national institutions, but what exactly did the author mean by that? Institutions that would truly help, like free hospitals, schools, and soup kitchens? Or local militias, prisons, and Gestapo-style police forces?
The pirates were fishermen whose livelihoods had been destroyed. They were fathers whose children were hungry. Ending piracy would require helping them live sustainable, dignified lives. Could journalists not understand this? Had none of them visited the slums of Mogadishu?
Finally, NPR's Morning Edition on May 6 aired a report from Gwen Thompkins; she interviewed a pirate who went by the name Abshir Abdullahi Abdi. "We understand what we're doing is wrong," Abdi explained. "But hunger is more important than any other thing."
Thompkins commented, "Fishing villages in the area have been devastated by illegal trawlers and waste dumping from industrialized nations. Coral reefs are reportedly dead. Lobster and tuna have vanished. Malnutrition is high."
You might think we would have learned from Vietnam, Iraq, the "Black Hawk down" incident in Somalia back in 1993, and other such forays, that military responses seldom discourage insurgencies. In fact, they often do the opposite; foreign intervention is likely to infuriate local populations, motivate them to support the rebels, and result in an escalation of resistance activities. That was the way it happened during the American Revolution, Latin America's wars for independence from Spain, and in colonial Africa, Indochina, Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and so many other places.
Blaming pirates and other desperate people for our problems is a distraction we cannot afford if we truly want to find a solution to the crises confronting us. These incidents are symptoms of our failed economic model. They are to our society the equivalent of a heart attack to an individual. We send in Navy Seals to rescue the hostages, as we would hire doctors to perform a coronary artery bypass. But it is essential to admit that both are reactions to an underlying problem. The patient needs to address the reasons his or her heart failed in the first place, such as smoking, diet, and lack of exercise. The same is true for piracy and all forms of terrorism.
Our children's futures are interlocked with the futures of children born in the fishing villages of Somalia, the mountains of Burma (Myanmar), and the jungles of Colombia. When we forget that fact, when we see those children as remote, as somehow disconnected from our lives, as merely the offspring of pirates, guerrillas, or drug runners, we point the gun at our own progeny as well as at the desperate fathers and mothers in lands that seem so far away but in reality are our next door neighbors.
Every time I read about the actions we take to protect ourselves from so-called terrorists, I have to wonder at the narrow-mindedness of our strategy. Although I have met such people in Bolivia, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, and Nicaragua, I have never met one who wanted to take up a gun. I know there are crazed men and women who kill because they cannot stop themselves, serial killers, and mass-murderers. I am certain that members of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other such groups are driven by fanaticism, but such extremists are able to recruit sizable numbers of followers only from populations that feel oppressed or destitute. The "terrorists" I have found in Andean caves and desert villages are people whose families were forced off their farms by oil companies, hydroelectric dams, or "free trade" agreements, whose children are starving, and who want nothing more than to return to their families with food, seeds, and deeds to lands they can cultivate.
In Mexico, many of the guerrillas and narcotraffickers once owned farms where they grew corn. They lost their livelihoods when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) gave subsidized U.S. producers an unfair price advantage. Here is how the Organic Consumers Organization, a nonprofit that represents more than 850,000 members, subscribers, and volunteers, describes it:
Since NAFTA came into effect on January 1, 1994, U.S. corn exports to Mexico have almost doubled to some 6 million metric tons in 2002. NAFTA eliminated quotas limiting corn imports . . . but allowed U.S. subsidy programs to remain in place-promoting dumping of corn into Mexico by U.S. agribusiness at below the cost of production. . . . The price paid to farmers in Mexico for corn fell by over 70 percent. .
The passage above exposes the dark side of "free trade" policies. U.S. presidents and our Congress have implemented regulations that prohibited other countries from imposing tariffs on U.S. goods or subsidizing locally grown produce that might compete with our agribusinesses while permitting us to maintain our own import barriers and subsidies, thus giving U.S. corporations an unfair advantage. "Free trade" is a euphemism; it prohibits others from enjoying the benefits offered to the multinationals. It does not, however, regulate against the pollution that is melting glaciers, the land grabs, and the sweatshops.
Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a Nicaraguan priest who ministered to Sandinista guerrillas and is now president of the U.N. General Assembly, has a firsthand appreciation for such euphemisms and the power of words used to sway public perceptions. "Terrorism is not really an ´ism,' " he told me. "There's no connection between the Sandinistas who fought the Contras and Al Qaeda, or between Colombia's FARC and fishermen turned pirates in Africa and Asia. Yet they are all called ´terrorists.' That's just a convenient way for your government to convince the world that there is another enemy ´ism' out there, like communism used to be. It diverts attention from the very real problems."
Our narrow-minded attitudes and the policies that result from them foment violence, rebellions, and wars. In the long run, almost no one benefits from attacking the people we label as "terrorists." With one glaring exception: the corporatocracy.
Those who own and run the companies that build ships, missiles, and armored vehicles; make guns, uniforms, and bulletproof vests; distribute food, soft drinks, and ammunition; provide insurance, medicines, and toilet paper; construct ports, airstrips, and housing; and reconstruct devastated villages, factories, schools, and hospitals-they, and only they, are the big winners.
The rest of us are hoodwinked by that one, loaded word: terrorist.
The current economic collapse has awakened us to the importance of regulating and reigning in the people who control the businesses that benefit from the misuse of words like terrorism and who perpetrate other scams. We recognize today that white-collared executives are not a special, incorruptible breed. Like the rest of us, they require rules. Yet it is not enough for us to reestablish regulations that separate investment banks from commercial banks and insurance companies, reinstate anti-usury laws, and impose guidelines to ensure that consumers are not burdened by credit they cannot afford. We cannot simply return to solutions that worked before. Only by adopting new strategies that promote global environmental and social responsibility will we safeguard the future.
John Perkins adapted this excerpt of Hoodwinked: An Economic Hitman Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded—and What We Need to Do to Remake Them for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. John is also the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, The World is as You Dream It: Shamanic Teachings from the Amazon and Andes, and Spirit of the Shuar.
Advise on the Way Forward in Somalia
By Yusuf M. Hassan (*)
The extreme poverty and lack of direction on the ground fuels desperate acts by armed youth, seeking opportunity in a land of destroyed dreams, plundered potential and helpless households.
The world´s effort against piracy should adopt a comprehensive approach that deals with the root causes of pirate attacks – not just tackling the after-effects, such as a military standoff whenever pirates hijack a foreign vessel and the subsequent drama until the ransom is paid.
A comprehensive approach would seek a political settlement for the disintegration and political collapse experienced in Somalia since 1991. A genuine political settlement, that at least satisfies the majority of Somali stakeholders, would pave the way for the gradual restoration of security and the opening of educational and economic opportunities for the young Somalis who are despairingly drawn to acts of piracy, terrorism and other forms of criminality. Provided with security and economic opportunities, coastal communities would spearhead the fight against pirates feeding off the public sentiment that Somali territorial waters have been violated by foreign trawlers, who are accused of illegal fishing and toxic waste dumping.
However, if the current trajectory of pursuing temporary military-based solutions to piracy is followed, I fear that the continued desperation in Somalia will ultimately inspire new trends of insecurity that continue to threaten global and regional interests.
In a country like Somalia, where guns are abundant and poverty breeds desperation, the emergence of sky pirates should not come to us as a surprise.
(*) This advise is the conclusive part of a narrative by sky-jack survivor Yusuf M. Hassan The Emergence of ´Sky Pirates´ in Desperate Somalia http://somalilandpress.com/9655/the-emergence-of-%E2%80%98sky-pirates%E2%80%99-in-desperate-somalia/
Pan-Arab task force to join fight against piracy, EU official says
By Sunil K. Vaidya (*)
Saudi Arabia to take initial command of combined unit 'in near future'
A pan-Arab task force under Saudi Arabian command could soon join the other forces in fighting piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Somali Basin, according to a top European naval officer.
"The pan-Arab task force will join others in the near future and the first command will be with Saudi Arabia," Commodore Pieter Bindt, Force Commander of the European Union Naval Force (EU NAVFOR), said at a media briefing on board the Dutch naval vessel HNLMS Evertsen, which is here to take on provisions and fuel.
In reply to a question, the senior Dutch naval officer said that Oman was currently not contemplating joining the Pan Arab Force.
The Evertsen arrived last week at Qaboos Port on a routine port call.
Commodore Bindt was categorical in saying that the problem of piracy cannot be wished away. "It would be naïve and unimaginative to think that the problem of piracy can be solved," the silver-haired naval officer said.
"There are more than 3,000, may be 5,000, skiffs [small flat-bottomed open boats] in Somalia and good power of money gives rise to these pirates," he believes.
"The Somali Basin is a big challenge because it is a huge area," he said.
However, he emphasised that constant monitoring of the internationally recognised transit corridor (IRTC) by EU naval forces as well as the other forces had reduced the number of piracy cases in the area since August.
Commodore Bindt, at the same time, said he was amazed how some ships try to cut corners and take risky routes, falling prey to the Somalia-based pirates. "There are ships that don't heed our advice and take the risk [of being hijacked]," he said.
He said that the forces in the area can deter, prevent and repress piracy, but the real solution was somewhere else. "The solution is on land, it doesn't require rocket science to know that," he said rather wryly. He suggested development in Somalia as well as financial aid which, the Commodore added, the EU was providing.
Describing the importance of the area for the global energy sector, he said that 62 per cent of its oil and 40 per cent of its gas pass through the Gulf of Aden. The EU naval force's Dutch officer also revealed that currently 140 suspected pirates were awaiting trial in Kenya.
"The EU had an arrangement with Kenya to try pirates and the EU naval force had handed over 75 pirates recently, taking the total to 140."
He expressed full faith in the Kenyan judiciary and detention facilities. "Their legal system is comparable and they have adapted their detention facilities to the EU standards for holding pirates," he said.
Commodore Bindt said that the naval assets from a number of EU countries currently make up the EU naval force, which has been conducting a military operation — code-named ´Operation Atalanta' — to deter and disrupt piracy off the coast of Somalia.
"Our mandate is to protect World Food Programme (WFP) shipping that moves food from Mombasa to Mogadishu, Bosasso and Berbara on the Somali coast," the Dutch naval chief said, adding that they also deter, prevent and repress piracy.
Sidestepping a question with political ramifications, Commodore Bindt said: "I am not a happy man whenever a ship is hijacked."
(*) Sunil K. Vaidya is the Bureau Chief, Gulf News and reported here on board of the Dutch warship HNLMS Evertsen
Iran sends armada to protect Gulf of Aden (YO)
Preserving shipping security in the pirate-ridden Gulf of Aden, the Iranian navy sends a new armada of warships to fight Somali buccaneers.
A senior naval commander, Fariborz Qaderpanah, said Wednesday that the navy has decided to send more ships to the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian merchant containers and oil tankers from Somali pirates in the volatile waters.
"The dispatch would be Iran's fourth," said Qaderpanah, and would include the Alborz warship and the Bushehr logistic vessel.
The Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008, when Somali raiders hijacked the Iranian-chartered cargo ship, MV Delight, off the coast of Yemen.
The Gulf of Aden — which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea — is an important energy corridor, particularly because the Persian Gulf oil is shipped to the West through the Suez Canal.
According to US Department of Energy estimates, the water way is the quickest transit point for ships laden with some 3.3 million barrels of crude — almost 4% of daily global demand.
In a report published last year, the Times reasoned that the West's age-old policy of marginalizing Somalia's endemic poverty is the main reason behind the sudden increase in piracy off Somalia's coast.
Iranian commandos sent to arrest Somali pirates (PressTV)
A senior commander says Iranian special forces have bee sent to the Gulf of Aden to preserve shipping security and go ahead with a plan to arrest Somali pirates.
The Iranian navy sent a new fleet of warships last week to fight the Somali pirates off the Somalia's coast.
""We are in a struggle to capture pirates in the region,"" Fars news agency quoted Amir Qaderpanah as saying on Friday.
Qaderpanah says the Iranian commandos, who had been specially trained, were deployed in two places in the Gulf of Aden to carry out the mission.
Iran decided to send more ships to the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian merchant vessels and oil tankers from Somali buccaneers in the volatile waters.
The dispatch would be Iran's fourth, Fariborz Qaderpanah, a senior naval commander said on Wednesday.
He added that the armada would include the Alborz warship and the Bushehr logistics vessel.
The Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008, when Somali raiders hijacked the Iranian-chartered cargo ship, MV Delight, off the coast of Yemen.
The Gulf of Aden - which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea - is an important energy corridor, particularly because Persian Gulf oil is shipped to the West via the Suez Canal.
RP Govt blames recruiters for rise in Filipino seamen abduction in Somalia (GMANews.TV with an AP report)
Malacañang blamed unscrupulous recruiters for the government's inability to stop seafarers from defying a deployment ban to pirate-infested Somalia.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita made the admission after Somali pirates seized several vessels with Filipino seafarers on board in just under two weeks.
A total of 57 Filipino seafarers are now in the hands of pirates (54 in Somalia) after a Greek cargo ship, this time with 19 seamen from the Philippines, was hijacked in the Indian Ocean on Thursday morning (Manila time).
"Ang nangyayari ang ginagawa ng recruiter di natin alam paano nila na-recruit ang Pinoy na pumupunta doon, di alam ng gobyerno Somalia pupuntahan. Minsan sasabihin punta isang bansa malapit doon tapos slip out at punta Somalia (We don´t know how they did it, but the recruiters got past us and allowed Filipino seamen to get to Somalia. Sometimes they would say they are going to other countries near Somalia, but would have the seamen sneak there)," Ermita said in an interview on dzXL radio.
Otherwise, he said President Arroyo already ordered a deployment ban to Somalia due to the dangers of piracy there.
The government maintains a no-ransom policy with kidnappers.
"Pinapalaya din naman at nagbabayad lang ng usapan ang nagre-recruit na kumpanya (The seamen are eventually released after payment of ransom)," he said.
Pirates have increased their attacks since the end of the monsoon season last month. They are now holding at least 12 ships and more than 200 hostages.
Pirates can often command multimillion-dollar ransoms for the release of the vessels they capture, a fortune in impoverished Somalia. The failed state has not had a functioning government for a generation and its lawless coastline provides a perfect pirate haven.
China takes on greater role to protect ships in Gulf of Aden
By Hui Ching-hoo
Marine forces (as so called ship-riders) deployed on board Chinese vessels transiting pirate-infested waters
The Chinese Navy has stepped up its effort to protect merchant ships from pirate attack the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia.
At an international piracy conference held by the Nautical Institute, Chinese Navy deputy director of operations Hu Gang Feng said the Chinese government had so far deployed four teams of warships to undertake patrols and escort merchant ships.
Spain approves tough new law against piracy (expatica)
Spain's cabinet on Friday approved a draft law against piracy which calls for prison terms of up to 15 years for those found guilty of carrying out attacks on planes or ships.
Approval of the country's first law specifically aimed at piracy comes as Madrid seeks the release of a Spanish trawler and its crew of 36 which was seized by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean on 2 October.
Under the draft law pirate attacks carried out without violence are punishable with jail terms of between one and three years while those carried out with violence are punishable with prison terms of 10-15 years.
The bill would punish those who "take control of a ship or aeroplane and attack its crew and/or seize its cargo". It must be approved by parliament before it comes into effect.
Pirates holding the Spanish trawler are demanding USD 4 million dollars (EUR 2.6 million) in ransom and the release of two suspected pirates who were detained after it was seized and brought to Spain to face trial.
The trawler is one of 12 vessels and their crews being held by Somali pirates, according to Spain's defence ministry.
A Spanish air force plane transported Friday 54 private security guards to the Seychelles who will provide security on board 13 Spanish tuna trawlers that operate in the Indian Ocean, the defence ministry said in a statement.
The guards received training at a Spanish military school and they will be armed with machine guns and scoped rifles, it added.
Spain in April allowed Spanish-flagged vessels to employ private security guards to protect against pirates off the coast of Somalia. Last month it authorised the guards to use large-calibre weapons.
But the Spanish government has refused requests by trawler owners to have soldiers on the vessels, as France does. Spanish law does not permit the military to be used for protecting private property.
Ecosystems, marine environment, IUU fishing and dumping, UNCLOS, ecology
Western boats 'loot' Somali fish: Somali pirates (AFP)
Somali pirates who are demanding $7 million in ransom for a British sailing couple say boats from other countries are plundering Somalia's fish-rich waters, a pirate spokesman said Saturday.
Ahmed Gadaf, who says he's a spokesman for the pirates, said the group holding the couple hostage off Somalia's coast was made up of "voluntary guards" — not pirates.
"The Western forces continue to loot our natural resources. They continue to harass local fishermen and destroy their fishing nets, so we want them to taste the consequence," Gadaf said by satellite phone from the coastal town of Haradhere.
The British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, are safe and will not be harmed, Gadaf said. They will be released once the ransom is paid, he said.
The Chandlers were headed to Tanzania in their boat, the Lynn Rival, when a distress signal was sent Oct. 23. The British navy found their empty yacht on Thursday, and both have been in sporadic contact with the British media since.
Illegal fishing off the coast of Somalia stirs strong passions in the country. The prime minister of Somalia's transitional government, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, said in a speech Wednesday that many pirates are former fishermen "responding to the loss and disappearance of their livelihoods."
"Many of these pirates were once profitable fisherman and would be so again given the chance," he said at the London-based Chatham House think tank.
"I shall not name names, but suffice to say many countries are fishing illegally in Somali waters," he said. "We estimate that the value of the fish being taken from our waters is perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars.
"It is wholly unacceptable for these countries, many of whom claim they want to help Somalia, to turn a blind eye to this theft. Particularly when that theft robs thousands of Somali people of a way out of poverty and a way out of piracy," Sharmarke said.
Rachel Chandler told her brother in a telephone call broadcast by ITV News on Friday that the pirates were "hospitable people," a message that Sharmarke underscored in his London remarks.
British officials held a meeting on the hostage situation Friday in the government's crisis briefing room. The Foreign Office said a team from across several government departments was involved. Both the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defense declined to comment on whether any potential rescue was under consideration.
Pirate attacks have increased the last several weeks after the recent end of the monsoon season. An international armada is patrolling the region to try to stop the attacks. source.
Somali Islamist group accuses WFP as "an obstacle" (Xinhua)
The Somali Islamist rebel group of Al-Shabaab on Sunday accused the United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) of being "an obstacle" to the war ravaged country's agricultural production.
Spokesman for the militant group, Ali Mohamoud Raage, said the UN food agency "deliberately" imports food aid during harvest seasons in Somalia to discourage farmers from growing food grains.
"WFP is an obstacle to the agricultural production of Somalia because they bring in spoilt grain when farmers are harvesting their crops," Raage said as he spoke in the southern port town of Merka, 100 km south of Mogadishu.
The Islamist official claimed that his group found out from farmers and intellectuals they consulted that the UN food agency was discouraging farmers from growing food grains, saying the local farmers have been given "money and machinery so that fruits and vegetables be grown instead of food grains".
"We can do without WFP's spoilt maize. If we put our trust in Allah we will have prosperity," the Islamist official said.
The Islamist Al-Shabaab movement, which controls much of south and centre of Somalia, had previously banned the operations of several UN agencies in areas under their control.
The group which is alleged to have links to Al-Qaeda considers the UN as a tool used by the west and in particular the United States, which they see as their sworn enemy.
WFP has scaled down its operations in the south and centre of Somalia following the deteriorating security situation which led the death, injury and abduction of several local and international aid workers.
N.B.: So far WFP is also not ready to sign a moratorium which would bind the agency to abstain from sending genetically modified food or seeds to Somalia.]
Somali extremists accuse WFP of crippling the country
Written under pseudonym of Shafi'i Mohyaddin Abokar
Somali extremist group Al shabab which has ties to Al qaeda on Sunday accused the United Nations world Food program (WFP) of crippling the country´s food production.
Al shabab spokesman sheik Ali Mahmoud Raghe who was talking to reporters in Merka, the provincial capital of Lower shabele region on Sunday denounced the UN food agency saying that it brings what he described as dirty maize to the poor Somalis as soon as they grow their farms.
"They never help the people while there are draughts and instead they bring the dirty maize when rains fall and people grow farms and that is a new policy intended to cripple the products of our farmers" the militant spokesman stated.
"The dirty maize is coming from United States which is leading the global war against Islam" he stressed.
He called on Somalis to refuse the food aid by world food program and other aid agencies which he said are disappointing Somali farmers from producing their own products.
It is not the first time that Islamists in Somalia condemn relief organizations or ban some of them from operating in areas under their control.
The previously banned agencies include: the United Nations department for Safety and security, United Nations development program, United Nations Political office for Somalia, International Medical corps and care international which has been working in Somalia since 1981.
Al Shabab accused the banned agencies of being involved in intelligence that lead to the killing of former Al qaeda Boss in Somalia Aden Hashi Ayro and being against the implementation of sharia law throughout all Somalia.
Somalia's Al-Shabaab accuses WFP of being farmers obstacle (garoweonline)
Somalia´s Al-Shabaab militant group has accused United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) of distributing food in Somalia at harvesting season to undermine farmers.
Al-Shabaab´s spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said the world food agency has make its norm to purposely hand out spoilt grains to the residents in an effort dishearten the hard working farmers.
"WFP distribute foodstuffs that are dirty, dry which is provided by the US. It´s deliberately distributed on harvesting seasons in Somalia," he said.
"Somali farmers are facing hard time to sell their produce because WFP distributes food aid across the regions and that is demoralising."
He urged Somali people stop being dependent on assistance from UN and other international aid agency, saying it is contributing to their sufferings.
Rage´s comments come after his group held meetings with farmers in the town to discuss about the problems facing Somali farmers in the country.
The group, which want to impose its own version of Islamic law across the Horn of African nation, have previously banned international aid agencies such as CARE, MSF and MercyCorps from operating in areas under its controls over espionage charges.
However, WFP is one of few aid agencies that have been allowed to operate in southern Somali regions, which is largely controlled by Al-Shabaab.
Somalia, located in Horn of Africa, has been plagued by fighting and humanitarian suffering for decades since collapse of central government in 1991 and some 3.7 million people - nearly half of the population - are in dire need of humanitarian aid assistance in the Horn of African nation.
Anti-piracy measures
We won´t arm drones in East African waters – US
By Kevin Kelley (EastAfrican)
The United States has "no plans" to arm the pilotless aircraft that are carrying out reconnaissance missions from a base in the Seychelles, a spokesman of the US Africa Command (Africom) has said.
The aerial surveillance vehicles, known as MQ-9 Reaper drones, "will be operating primarily over water," spokesman Vince Crawley told The EastAfrican in an email from Africom headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.
He was reacting to a story carried in this newspaper last week: "Armed drones to pursue pirates off the Horn".
But he did not rule out other missions for the long-range drones, including flights over Somalia to track Islamist militants fighting to overthrow a government backed by the US, the United Nations and the African Union.
Mr Crawley said deployment of the drones reflects "a commitment to counter-piracy, maritime security, border security, deterrence of international terrorism, and other security-related issues impacting the residents of Seychelles and neighbouring countries."
The United States and Seychelles agreed to initiate the drone programme "in response to increased acts of piracy in the western Indian Ocean," he added.
Somali pirates are returning to the high seas in force now that seasonal storms have ended.
Last week, they fired rocket-propelled grenades at a Hong Kong-flagged oil tanker about 1,600 kilometres off the Somali coast — the most distant attack so far.
Over 250 hostages have been seized by pirates.
A British couple were kidnapped last month after setting sail in their yacht from the Seychelles.
The Seychelles consist of 115 islands with a total population of 85,000 scattered over 1.4 million square kilometres.
Presiding over an economy dependent on tuna fishing and tourism, Seychelles leaders are worried that the country´s small military cannot by itself counter the growing piracy threat.
The governments of the United States and Seychelles agreed after several months of discussions to base what Mr Crawley describes as "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance" assets at Mahé regional airport.
About 75 US government personnel are in the Seychelles to help carry out the mission, Mr Crawley said.
With a cruising speed of about 200 knots and a range of more than 3,500 nautical kilometres, the Reaper drones represent "an ideal platform for observing the vast ocean and maritime corridors in the Indian Ocean region and assisting in counter-piracy efforts," Mr Crawley continued.
The operation could make use of other intelligence-gathering options in addition to the Reapers, he said without specifying those options.
He emphasised, however, that these "assets will not be armed, and we have no plans of doing so."
The Reaper class of drones can carry several guided bombs and missiles.
The Reapers are more powerful than the drones known as MQ-1 Predators that are regularly used by the US to strike targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Attacks carried out by these remote-controlled aircraft have been criticised by a United Nations special investigator of extrajudicial.
He termed them summary and arbitrary executions which could violate international law.
The Seychelles-based mission is expected to last several months as Africom assesses its effectiveness, Mr Crawley said.
Yemen, EU review anti-piracy efforts (Saba)
Transport Minister Khaled al-Wazir has talked with a delegation of the European Union (EU), currently visiting Yemen, on the steps required for the anti-piracy needs in the region of the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden.
Al-Wazir reviewed the procedures taken by Yemen to implement its duties toward the Code of Conduct of the states of the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden.
The Minister also briefed the EU delegation on Yemen's preparations to carry out the Djibouti Code of Conduct and set up a regional center for coordination and exchange of information in Sana'a.
The aim of the center is to coordinate the anti-piracy efforts among the region states' coastguards to carry out joint tasks in the framework of combating piracy and ensuring sea security services.
In January 2009, a high-level meeting of 17 states from the Western Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea areas, was convened in Djibouti to help address the problem of piracy and armed robbery against ships off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.
The meeting adopted a Code of Conduct concerning the Repression of Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden (the Code of Conduct).
The meeting was attended by Ministers, Ambassadors, senior officials and legal experts from Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Jordan, Kenya, Madagascar, Maldives, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, the United Republic of Tanzania and Yemen, as well as observers from other IMO Member States; United Nations specialized agencies and bodies; and international and regional inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations.
The Code of Conduct recognizes the extent of the problem of piracy and armed robbery against ships in the region and, in it, the signatories declare their intention to cooperate to the fullest possible extent, and in a manner consistent with international law, in the repression of piracy and armed robbery against ships, with a view towards sharing and reporting relevant information through a system of national focal points and information centres; interdicting ships suspected of engaging in acts of piracy or armed robbery against ships; ensuring that persons committing or attempting to commit acts of piracy or armed robbery against ships are apprehended and prosecuted; and facilitating proper care, treatment, and repatriation for seafarers, fishermen, other shipboard personnel and passengers subject to acts of piracy or armed robbery against ships, particularly those who have been subjected to violence.
The Code of Conduct also covers the possibilities of shared operations, such as nominating law enforcement or other authorized officials to embark in the patrol ships or aircraft of another signatory.
The Code of Conduct further calls for the setting up of national focal points for piracy and armed robbery against ships and the sharing of information relating to incidents reported.
The signatories intend to use piracy information exchange centres in Kenya, United Republic of Tanzania and Yemen, to be located, respectively, in the regional Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Mombasa, the Sub-Regional Coordination Centre in Dar Salaam, and a regional maritime information centre, which is being established in Sana'a.
The meeting also recommended the establishment of a regional training centre within the purposes of the Code of Conduct and, by means of a resolution, accepted with appreciation the offer of Djibouti to host it.
The Code of Conduct is open for signature by the 21 countries in the region, of which nine - namely, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Maldives, Seychelles, Somalia, United Republic of Tanzania and Yemen - signed it during the closing ceremony in Djibouti. As a result, the Code of Conduct is effective as from 29 January 2009.
The Djibouti meeting follows from earlier regional meetings, also convened by IMO, including the Subregional seminar on piracy and armed robbery against ships and maritime security held in Sana'a, Yemen, in April 2005; the follow up Subregional workshop on maritime security, piracy and armed robbery against ships held in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, in January 2006; and the Subregional meeting on piracy and armed robbery against ships in the Western Indian Ocean, held in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania, in April 2008.
A chain of radars, AIS to block sea route for terrorists (zeenews)
A chain of radars and Automatic Identification System (AIS) would be deployed along the coast by next year to block the sea route for terrorists, a top official said.
"To tighten the security and ensure that no attempts are made by terrorists to use the sea route, the Indian Coast Guard has been given responsibility along with Director General Light Houses for establishing a chain of radars and Automatic Identification System along the coast," Vice Admiral Sanjeev Bhasin, Flag officer commanding in chief (western Naval command) told reporters here.
Talking to media on the sidelines of a function at Vasco this morning, he said the country has a long coastline and it is not possible for state governments, customs and immigration authorities to guard the coast.
Bhasin said the coast guard and marine police would expedite the pending orders for the ships in various shipyards. "By 2010, the defence forces would get large number of ships which were ordered four to five years ago," he said.
Talking about the high seas piracy, he said the threat is becoming very complicated. "If you remember few years ago, the only piracy was in the Malakha state. Now the threat has suddenly emerged in the Gulf of Aden and in the vicinity of Somalia where large number of ships from different nations are operating," Bhasin said.
He said the Indian navy has been continuously on vigil in this stretch to ensure safety of the ships.
Fighting the Pirates by Remote Control
By Kim Hampton exclusively for YachtPals.com
As the pirate attacks around the Seychelles islands have been increasing over the past year, many governments have offered a hand to the small island nation, which doesn't have the resources to prevent, or even curb, the pirate activities on its own. The monsoon season now over, it appears that the recent lull has ended, and pirates have seized a yacht and several ships over the last few weeks, including a Greek ship just last Wednesday. As we know from the pirate attack on a yacht in the Seychelles last year, where the hostages where held for months in Somalia, these activities affect not only commercial shipping and fishing operations (pirates originally claimed that their ultimate goal was to protect the waterways from illegal fishing and dumping), but private yacht travel in the entire region as well. To combat the problem, the Seychelles government has asked the US to bring in some very deadly high tech military gear.
In an effort to squelch the pirates operating around the Seychelles, the U.S. military is now sending surveillance drones to patrol the area off Somalia's coast, and around the island nation. U.S. military officials say unmanned drones, called Reapers, will now be stationed in the Seychelles, aimed at patrolling the Indian Ocean. Vice Adm. Robert Moeller, deputy commander for U.S. Africa Command in Germany, says pirates remain "a pretty significant challenge," which is why they have increased their presence in the area recently. It may also explain why the government has chosen the Reaper to be their eye in the sky. With millions of square miles of ocean to patrol, finding, tracking and attacking pirates and their vessels requires a lot of manpower, whereas the unmanned Reaper is capable of all three.
Capable of searching, silently following, and ultimately sinking anything from a tiny speedboat to a large ship, the $10,000,000.00 MQ-9 Reaper spy plane represents a leap in evolution from its Predator ancestor. The Reaper is capable of staying in flight for up to 49 hours straight, and can hunt for pirates using a number of sensors, including a thermal and other cameras so sensitive they can read a license plate from up to two miles away. Smaller and stealthier than ordinary aircraft, the Reaper can remain invisible while tracking a vessel for days, but it is not only designed to find and identify a threat while waiting for the Navy to arrive, the Reaper is armed with a blood curdling array of weaponry.
Looking like something that fell out of the pages of a science fiction novel, one of the latest versions of the Reaper can carry air-to-ground Hellfire missiles, laser-guided Paveway bombs, the AIM-9 Sidewinder, and more. This means that while the Reaper is flying silently, high above the Indian Ocean, a pirate vessel could be detected, identified, tracked, and with the order sent by ground personnel far away, the Reaper could fire upon and destroy the boat without the pirates ever having any idea they were even being watched. We hope it doesn't come to that, but with the pirates of Somalia continuing to broaden both their hunting grounds and the types of vessels on which they prey - taking private yachts and their owners (such as Paul and Rachel Chandler from the Lynn Rival) captive once again - this so-called "death by remote control" may be an inevitable escalation.
2009 – Pirate Attacks on Private Yachts
There have been five pirate attacks on private yachts so far in 2009.
1. Brazil - Two robbers armed with guns in a small row boat boarded a catamaran at anchor in Brazil on February 8th. The captain confronted the robbers and was shot and killed.
2. Thailand - British sailor Malcolm Robertson was killed by pirates near the Buntang Islands of Thailand in March. While sleeping aboard their 44-foot yacht Mr. Bean, which the couple have been cruising for over a decade, the sailboat was boarded by three attackers, who murdered Mr. Robertson. Full article: Pirates Attack Yacht in Thailand, Murder Skipper
3. Seychelles - Gilbert Victor, Andre Conrad and John Hoareau onboard the catamaran sailing yacht Serenity taken hostage by pirates in March while sailing for Madagascar from the Seychelles. All Seychelles crew held as hostages in Somalia. Full article and updates about pirates around the Seychelles: Pirates Attack Yachts near the Seychelles
4. Somalia/Seychelles - The sailing yacht Tanit, apparently crewed by French two couples and a three year old boy, was sailing between the coast of Somalia and the Seychelles when attacked by pirates in April. 5 crew members kept hostage. Full article: Yacht Attacked by Pirates - Sailing Crew Taken Hostage
5. Seychelles - Rachel and Paul Chandler aboard the Rival 38 sailing yacht Lynn Rival captured by pirates near the Seychelles (EPIRB set off 60 miles west of Victoria) in October. British couple from yacht held hostage in Somalia. Full article: British Couple on Yacht Captured by Pirates
No real peace in sight yet
Somalia: AU troops confront armed Islamist in Mogadishu overnight (SMC)
A ferocious battle between armed Islamist and AU troops has overnight occurred at the former building of comrade Siyad in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
The building where the battle took place is a base for the Burundi troops who are part of the peacekeeping mission in Somalia.
Both sides have exchanged heavy weapon's fire using rocket propelled grenades and mortars.
Somaliweyn radio has made contact with a Burundi officer who is at the base where the combat occurred and this is what he had said. "We have never come to Somalia to fight, but we are here for the protection of the Somali people, and we occasionally meet battles carried by the rival groups. The government of Somalia is now and then calling the rival groups to the negotiation table, but they are not willing to come. Somalis should come together and sort out their differences in a very systematical way" said the Burundi officer who spoke to Somaliweyn radio in a condition of anonymity.
The officer added that there were no casualties on their side but could not verify what casualties the attackers had.
The area where the combat occurred overnight was calm on Sunday morning.
The Burundi troops were the second peacekeeping troops to arrive in the war strife country immediately after the Ugandan troops came. There currently over 4500 African Union troops in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Mogadishu violence claims seven (garoweonline)
At least seven people have been killed and 11 others injured in heavy clashes between African Union peacekeeping forces and Somali insurgent fighters in the restive capital Mogadishu, witnesses said on Sunday.
The fighting erupted on Saturday night after heavily armed insurgent fighters carried out surprise attack on Burundian troops based at Jalle Siad Military base north of Mogadishu.
"Several mortar shells slammed into residential areas near the base. I have seen five dead people who were killed in the fighting. Also some civilians swere injured in mortar shells attack," said Musa Alasow, one of Daynile resident.
A spokesman for Burundian forces confirmed that several mortars shells landed inside their base, only causing the slight injuries of two soldiers.
"The attack was a surprise one, several mortar shells landed inside the base and slightly injured two of our soldiers," said Col. Jesus Tito, the spokesman for BurundiMogadishu. forces in Al-Shabaab group is yet to comment about the latest attacks, which claimed two of its fighters.
Some 5000- strong AU troops, comprised of Ugandan and Burundian soldiers have been deployed in the restive capital in 2007 as part of internationally backed efforts to stabilize Somalia, which has weathered 18 years of anarchy.
The embattled peacekeepers are restricted in guarding the Presidential palace and few strategic sites such as airport and seaport in Mogadishu, helping the weak but internationally recognised government fight militant groups in the restive capital.
Former Mogadishu Governor slams government as powerless (garoweonline)
Former Mogadishu mayor who was also the Governor of Somalia´s embattled Banadir region has lambasted the fragile Transition Somali government over its ineffectiveness to control the war-torn country.
Speaking in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, Mohammed Omar Habeb also known as Mohammed Dhere said the Somali government, which is under the protection of African Union Peacekeeping forces, is only controlling few blocks of restive Mogadishu with the rest of the country remaining under the hands of militant groups.
"You can´t call yourself a government while hiding under AMISOM. The Federal Government is required to control the whole regions and stop hiding behind the peacekeeping forces," he said.
"Whenever Somali leaders are in the country, they must be guarded by AMISOM. This is not a leadership. They should seek the comfort of their people."
Mohammed Dhere said that the former Somali government led by then Abdullahi Yussuf was much competence as it used to control some regions compared to the current one led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed which does not have even a single region under its authority.
He said Somalis could solve their problems themselves without any foreign interference, saying Ethiopian invasion in 2007 failed to recapture the whole the country.
Mohammed Dhere said his stay in Nairobi is because of security reasons, promising to return to politics once the country is relatively stable.
The former Mayor was ousted from the office in early 2009 over claims that he misused the office, leading to his arrest by Ethiopian forces for allegedly planning to wage war against the government.
His predecessor Mohamed Osman Dhagahtur also left the office recently over his administration failure to root our insurgency in the capital.
The current Mogadishu administration led by Engineer Abdirisaq Mohamed Nur has promised to eradicate insecurity and poverty in Mogadishu and its environ.
The war-ravaged Somali capital became ghost city after thousands of families fled on May following the rebels´ deadly onslaught on the fragile UN-backed transition government.
Somalia has lacked an effective central government since the ousting of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
Somali army starts military ops in southern Somalia
By Hassan Osman Abdi (Shabelle -Mareeg)
The transitional Federal Government troops in Bakol region have started a military operation in Dolow district in Gedo region, just as the Islamist officials in the region responded to the soldiers´ movement in southern Somalia, officials told Shabelle radio on Sunday.
Sources said that the transitional government soldiers´ aim was to attack and take over parts of the region, which is controlled by the Islamist fighters in southern Somalia - adding that the TFG troops had fully prepared in the district over the past few days.
There is also another military manoeuvre in Luq and Beled-Hawo in Gedo region, which so far still are under the control of the Islamist forces and stand against the government troops in southern Somalia.
Islamist officials in Gedo region stated that they are aware of the military plans and movements of the Transitional Federal Government troops in the region.
Sheik Hassan Al-Iraqi, the security secretary of the Islamic administration of Hizbul Islam in Luq district told Shabelle radio that they are committed to defend their positions from the troops of the TFG.
Puntland presidents held talks with Somali PM and foreign envoys (garoweonline)
The president of Somalia's Puntland State government has held talks with Somalia´s Prime Minster Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke, Somali lawmakers and foreign envoys in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
The talks were based on the recent disagreement between Somali Federal government and Puntland over a harmonised accord that would allow the two governments to work together under a federal umbrella.
President Abdirahman Mohammed Farole received a delegation for Sweden and Italy who paid him a visit in his Hotel in Nairobi.
The president handed over a report on the accord to the Swedish Ambassador whose country holds the rotating European Union chairmanship.
On the other hand, President Farole received the Somali PM who visited him in his hotel where they discussed about the disagreement.
President Farole underscored his full commitments to the accord, vowing not to back down of his government and people demands.
The meetings come after representatives of both sides failed to agree on certain issues about the accord which its first phase was signed by Somali PM and Puntland President on August 23 in central Somali town of Galkayo.
On Thursday, Puntland President Abdirahman Mohammed Farole held talks with his counterpart President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in Nairobi´s Panari Hotel where they both agreed to form a committee to harmonise the accord.
However, the next day, Somali Embassy in Nairobi hosted a meeting between the groups but they differed over certain issues, which Puntland regards as very important in reaching a consensus.
Puntland, a collection of seven Somali regions that declared itself as an autonomous state in 1998, maintains to remain in a federal Somalia.
Is Puntland Drifting Towards Collapse?
By Liban Ahmad (Somalilandpress)
Puntland president, Abdirahman Mohamud Farole , is facing security challenges that his predecessors did not face.
President Farole was in Kenya and having a photo-op with American Embassy officials in Nairobi when a judge and a member of Punltand people´s assembly were murdered in Bosaso and Garowe respectively.
A hand grenade was thrown into Punt land´s local government offices in Galka´yo in the same day. Almost two weeks ago the Puntland president asked people in Puntland to trust in the ability of his government´s security forces to deal with mounting insecurity and violence in Puntland.
Without having solid evidence president of Puntland implied that people coming from other parts of Somalia and Somali populated territories in Ethiopia endanger Puntland security.
Puntland´s security related problems partly lie in the misuse of resources for political and personal purposes. Puntland mistakenly believes that it has a Secret Service known as Puntland Intelligence Service (PSI). Since Puntland is an administration based on a clan consensus, why its political leaders have chosen to mislead people into believing PIS is as adept at " counter-terrorism" as Ethiopia´s or Kenya´s or Djibouti´s secret services is not known.
Puntland may collapse if president Farole does not avoid pinning blame on external forces. Candid discussion of Puntland´s problems can start from figuring out what is the direct and indirect role of Puntland government in security and economic woes.
If the assassins targeting government officials are linked to ´extremist groups´, who created conditions in which one can carry out targeted killings and bombing? Puntland has moved from honesty and self-criticism based positive clan consensus that gave the Puntlanders the relative peace they enjoyed for ten years. If Puntlanders see that public resources are being misused, Puntland government will be gradually paving the way for the break up of Puntland into clan fiefdoms, each using a system of self-rule —traditional or religion based –to try to coexist with each other peacefully.
Somali president appeals for Saudi investment (AFP)
Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed urged Saudi Arabia Sunday to invest in his war-ravaged nation and appealed for help from the kingdom in his battle against hardline insurgents.
Sharif arrived in the Ethiopian capital on Friday to attend the "Saudi-East African Forum", a four-day gathering that aims to bolster trade partnerships between Riyadh and seven countries in the region.
"Piracy and terrorism have obstructed all kinds of development in Somalia, but there are mechanisms put in place to tackle these issues," he told the participants, which included government officials and representatives of 50 Saudi companies.
"Somalia has never been short of resources. I urge all of you to consider taking advantage of Somalia's long coastline, as well as its livestock resources which amount to 55 million (heads)," he added.
Sharif also urged Saudi support for his administration, which has failed to assert its authority on the country and has been pinned back by insurgents into a few blocks in Mogadishu under the protection of the African Union.
Saudi Minister for Commerce and Industry, Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Zainal Ali Reza, said trade between his country and east Africa reached three billion dollars in 2008, and announced his government's intention to scale up commercial ties.
Somalia has been gripped by civil wars and insurgencies and bereft of stable government since the overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
The capital Mogadishu has been ravaged by violence that worsened in May when the insurgents stepped up an offensive against Sharif's internationally-backed government.
Impacting reports, news and views from the global village
It is obvious why are the neo-colonialists, the EU, the U.S. of America etc. are opposing - they live their self-determination by aggression, expansion and oppression! Luckily history shows that all the mammoth-state-conglomerates collapse and get extinct.
UN panel adopts draft on self-determination rights
Text to come up for endorsement in UN General Assembly next month
A committee of the UN General Assembly on Friday adopted a Pakistan-sponsored resolution, reaffirming people´s right to self-determination, and called for cessation of foreign military intervention, occupation and repression.
The resolution, approved by consensus, seeks to draw the world's attention towards the struggle by the people for their inalienable right to self-determination, including those in Kashmir and Palestine.
Next month: Pakistan has been tabling this draft in the 192-member assembly's Third Committee since 1981, and each year it passes without a vote. The text – sponsored by over 50 Asian, African and Latin American countries – will come up for endorsement in the General Assembly next month. The resolution reaffirms the universal rights of people to self-determination as enshrined in the UN Charter and international covenants on human rights. Through the text, the assembly reaffirmed that the universal realisation of the right of all people – including those under colonial, foreign and alien domination – to self-determination was a fundamental condition for the effective guarantee, observance, preservation and promotion of human rights.
The assembly also declared its firm opposition to acts of foreign military intervention, aggression and occupation, since those have resulted in the suppression of the people´s right to self-determination and other human rights in certain parts of the world.
It also called on the states, responsible for the invasion, to immediately cease their military intervention in, and occupation of, foreign countries and territories, as well as all acts of repression, discrimination, exploitation and maltreatment.
The assembly also deplored the plight of millions of refugees and displaced persons who had been uprooted as a result of these acts, and reaffirmed their right to return to their homes voluntarily in safety and honour.
It also requested the Human Rights Council to give special attention to the violation of human rights, especially the right to self-determination, resulting from foreign military intervention, aggression or occupation.
The co-sponsors of the resolution include Albania, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Bolivia, Brunei Darussalam, Cameroon, Central African Republic, China, Comoros, Congo, Ivory Coast, Dominica, Egypt, El-Salvador, Eritrea, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Iran, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Malaysia, Mali, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Thailand, East Timor, Togo, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Ethiopia's ONLF rebels say captured seven towns
By Barry Malone (WP/Reuters)
Ethiopian rebels fighting for independence for a region with potentially significant oil and gas reserves said on Saturday they had captured seven towns near the border with neighboring Somalia.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) wants autonomy for the Ogaden region, whose population is ethnic Somali. The area is drawing interest from foreign oil and gas companies who think its deserts might be rich in mineral deposits.
"The operation ... to capture Obolka, Hamaro, Higlaaley, Yucub, Galadiid, Boodhaano and Gunogabo involved thousands of ONLF troops and resulted in two days of heavy fighting," the rebels said in a statement.
"A significant number of Ethiopian troops have been killed and their military hardware captured or destroyed."
Ethiopian government officials were unavailable for comment, but they routinely deny ONLF statements and say the rebels have been defeated.
Addis Ababa says the ONLF are "terrorists" supported by regional rival Eritrea. The ONLF accuses the Ethiopian military of killing and raping civilians and burning villages in the region as part of its effort to root out insurgents.
The regular accusations from both sides are impossible to verify. Journalists and aid groups cannot move freely in the area without government escorts.
The ONLF statement said its fighters had been "warmly welcomed" by residents in the seven towns and were giving treatment to civilians hurt in the fighting.
The Ogaden region is said to contain mineral deposits and international firms including Brazil's Petronas and Sweden's Lundin are exploring its deserts for oil. The ONLF regularly warns foreign companies against prospecting.
Ethiopian forces launched an assault against the rebels -- who have been fighting for more than 20 years -- after a 2007 attack on an oil exploration field owned by a subsidiary of Sinopec, China's biggest refiner and petrochemicals producer.
The separatist cause has gained momentum due to a low level of development. Until Chinese engineers arrived in the remote region in 2007, the entire area had only 30 km (20 miles) of tarmac road in an area of about 200,000 sq km.
ONLF Captures Seven Main Towns
By Abdalle Muumin (RBC Radio)
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) launched an offensive in the oil-rich Ogaden region, which lies in the border region with Somalia and is inhabited mainly by Somalis, the ONLF said in a statement and that towns were liberated from the government forces last week.
The ONLF confirmed that a large number of Ethiopian soldiers were killed and their equipment destroyed or seized during the fight.
The front said in its statement that thousands of fighters participated in this attack and confirmef that the ONLF has captured the towns of Obolka, Hammaru, Hegelali, Yucub, Galadiid, Bodhano and Gunogaabo.
The ONLF was founded in 1984 in an effort to obtain the independence for the Ogaden region inhabited by Somalis.
The Ethiopian government has rejected to negotiate with the ONLF and said that the movement is weak and divided.
The rebels have warned oil companies wishing to work in this area that it is in "war and that the companies should not work there unless a political solution to the conflict was achieved."
The attacks escalated after 70 people, including workers and and a number of security guards from China´s active oil exploration company were killed in the region,.
The Addis Ababa government described the ONLF as "terrorists" and imposed a blockade on the region while observers accuse the Ethiopian government of violating human rights.
Kenya warned against courting militia
By Murithi Mutiga
Kenya could be sucked into the Somalia conflict unless the recruitment of youths to take part in the war stops, analysts have warned.
Rashid Abdi, the Horn of Africa analyst for the International Crisis Group, told the Sunday Nation that the drive to prop up the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu risks destabilising the North Eastern Province which has enjoyed relative peace for the past 15 years.
Al Shabaab militants, who some say have links with international terrorist groups, last week threatened they would hit targets in Kenya unless the government stops supporting the TFG. A parliamentary team has been set up to investigate reports that Kenyan youths are being recruited to fight against the Islamist militia.
On Saturday, members of the Defence committee visited the Manyani training camp at the Coast where it has been reported that the youth are receiving training before being dispatched to Somalia. "There appears to have been a major security breach that has occurred on Kenyan soil," said committee chairman Adan Keynan.
The MP for Wajir West said they had received credible reports that up to 48 youths who had been in the camp were moved out on Friday night in anticipation of the committee´s visit.
"It is becoming clear that Kenya has taken sides in this war, which is very serious for us because we are a frontline state and share a long and porous border with Somalia," he said.
He declined to disclose preliminary findings of the investigations due to parliamentary rules that forbid divulging such information before it has been tabled in the House.
300 youths
The Nation reported on October 7 that up to 300 youths had been recruited from Garissa to take part in the war in Somalia. The story was based on witness accounts from family members and local leaders.
Garissa mayor Mohamed Gabow said he had personally seen recruiters at work. "It has been going on. The boys who have been recruited have talked to us. They say they have been promised a $600 (Sh44,000) monthly salary," Mr Gabow said. He claimed that those carrying out the recruitment were senior Kenyan military officers, adding that the hiring was done under the cover of darkness.
Provincial administration officials have consistently denied these reports, although those denials have been contradicted by a growing body of evidence, including witness accounts and admissions by military officials in the TFG that they are receiving Kenyans into their ranks.
Mr Abdi said Kenya´s decision to become directly involved in the conflict was dangerous. "It is a foolish and potentially disastrous policy that will backfire spectacularly," he said. "Kenya has traditionally been a neutral arbiter in the conflict and has avoided taking an interventionist approach like Ethiopia. This was a far better stance than what we are seeing now."
Mr Abdi said the danger was that the youths being recruited to fight in Somalia would return, having acquired military skills but with no obvious alternative forms of employment into which to channel their skills. Some could also defect to fight with Al Shabaab, he said, due to the fluid nature of the Somalia conflict. Such recruits into the ranks of the Al Shabaab would pose a serious threat to the country, he said.
Bitter battle
Three separate fighting forces are currently locked in a bitter battle for the control of Somalia. The TFG, headed by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, is propped up by African Union troops from Uganda and Burundi. Two major Islamist groups are vying to topple the TFG: the Hizb ul Islam, a group of mostly nationalist Islamists led by Sheikh Dahir Aweys, and the Al Shabaab, an extremist organisation which includes many foreign fighters.
Mr Abdi said Kenya should keep out: "The fact we are stepping in to back the TFG shows the fragile nature of the administration and might give the Al Shabaab reason to retaliate against Kenya. "It is a sign of desperation because the TFG has failed to win legitimacy from the people and faces a major challenge from the Islamists who have an advantage in the unconventional war that is the Somalia conflict."
Saudi vows to boost investment ties with East Africa (APA)
Saudi Arabia vowed on Sunday to boost its trade and investment ties with East African countries, APA learns on Sunday at the Saudi East African Forum (13-15 November) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The officials from Saudi Arabia and East African countries discussed issues on how to boost the two side investment and trade relationship.
Djiboutian President Esmael Oumar Gulleh, Rwandan Prime Minster Bernard Makuza, Somali president Sheik Sharif and Kenya Deputy President Uhuru Kenyatta attended the forum where they expressed their readiness to open their door to Saudi investment.
"Saudi Arabia is committed to combating hunger, to provide support for the host country but also generate exports. We are not here to impose our needs above the needs of local populations," Saudi Commerce and Industry minister Abdullah Bin Ahmed Zainal Ali Reza said.
He said that Saudi Arabia is ready to engage in various development activities in Africa as a whole, mainly in East African region because of its geographical ties with Saudi Arabia.
Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi who appreciated the initiatives called on Saudi investors to invest in Ethiopia and in the region as a whole.
Officials from the East African countries on their part assured the Saudi officials of their respected countries´ readiness to boost their ties with the Arab nation.
Iran Raises Rate of Smuggling Weapons to Target Sana´a and Riyadh: Expert (YemenPost)
Strategic experts who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the Iranian Fourth Fleet access to the Gulf of Aden would increase the process of smuggling weapons to rebel militants, subversive groups, and terrorist organizations in Somalia, North and South Yemen.
When speaking to Akhbar Al-Yaum Newspaper earlier this week, they pointed out that the arrival of the Iranian task force to the Gulf of Aden, including a large number of pieces of weapons, and 256 people, made a clear threat to Yemen and neighboring countries, particularly Saudi Arabia.
The coincided of Iranian official´s remarks together with warnings made by Iranian Friday sessions´ scholars to some neighboring countries of Yemen and in which they warned about the bad consequences of the killing of Shiites in Sa´ada in north of Yemen, reveals the scope of the evil Tehran plans to both Riyadh and Sana´a, the experts said.
They further said that the arrival of the Iranian Fourth Fleet to the Gulf of Aden would enhance weapons delivery to the province of Sa´ada in the north and the provinces of Hadramout and Mahra in the south of Yemen.
The Iranian Navy, which is now in Amman uses Somali pirates, number of workers in the field of fishing, and Eritrean marines to smuggle arms to three governorates of Yemen, they said.
Moreover, they said that the provinces of Hadramout and Mahra have recently witnessed series of unrivaled activities of arms smuggling, which indicates that Iran would ignite the situation in a number of southern provinces over Al-Qaeda sleeping cells on the one hand and the subversive elements on the other.
During three recent weeks, Al-Qaeda has began implementing a number of crimes and armed attacks against military personnel, security forces, government buildings, and private interests consequently, they added.
Earlier last week, opposition parties in Eritrea said that Iran was using Eritrea base to transfer arms to the rebels in Yemen, confirming that the rebel militants in Yemen were receiving weapons from Iran through Eritrea.
Iran move arms to the coastal cities in Eritrea, mainly the city of Assab of which smugglers smuggle weapons at night to Houthis, they said.
Al Qaeda opens new training camp in Yemen
By Bill Roggio (longwarjournal)
Abu Hareth Muhammad al Awfi and Said Ali al Shihri - members of al Qaeda in Yemen - announced the merger with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, while sporting brand-new AK-103-2s, a newly modified version of the AK-47 capable of firing three-round bursts.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has opened a new training camp in the South. The new camp highlights Yemen's value to al Qaeda in waging its global terror campaign.
The camp is based in the Al Jaza area in the district of Mudiyah in the southern province of Abyan. The camp is said to house more than 400 local and foreign fighters. Yemenis, Saudis, and Somalis make up the vast majority of the fighters.
The camp was established with the approval of the central government, according to a report in Saru Hamyir, an Arabic-language Yemeni news website. The existence of the camp was confirmed by US military and intelligence officials familiar with the region.
The weak Yemeni government is known to support al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula while targeting jihadi groups that do not adhere to a peace agreement signed in January.
The government supports the group in exchange for trained fighters to battle the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Sa'dah in the North. The government is currently battling the Houthi rebels in a fight that dragged in the Saudis when the Houthis attacked and took control of a border checkpoint.
This is the second known camp in operation in Abyan. In the spring, al Qaeda opened a camp in the Ahboosh mountains, north of the city of Ja´ar.
Earlier this week, the government claimed to have detained Sami Dayan, al Qaeda's leader in Abyan province, along with six other al Qaeda operatives. Dayan was captured at the border with Saudi Arabia while attempting to flee Yemen, The Yemen Post reported.
The military launched a major operation in Abyan in the spring under the guise of restoring its writ in the province, but targeted only the groups that deviated from the January peace agreement.
Yemen has become one of al Qaeda's most secure bases as well as a hub for activities on the Arabian Peninsula and on the Horn of Africa.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is based in Yemen and carries out its attacks against the Saudi government from there. The group is also known to operate terror camps in Aden, and in the Alehimp and Sanhan regions in Sana'a. It has conducted attacks on oil facilities, tourists, Yemeni security forces, and the US embassy in Sana'a.
The terror group has also been instrumental in supporting al Qaeda's operation in Somalia, US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. Yemen serves as a command and control center, a logistics hub, a transit point from Asia and the Peninsula, and a source of weapons and munitions for the al Qaeda-backed Shabaab and Hizbul Islam.
"Yemen is Pakistan in the heart of the Arab world," one official said. "You have military and government collusion with al Qaeda, peace agreements, budding terror camps, and the export of jihad to neighboring countries."
Ethiopia Leases Land for Agriculture to Earn Foreign Exchange and to Further Oppress Indigenous Peoples
Ethiopia plans to lease 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land to foreign and domestic investors for agriculture over the next three years to increase productivity and earn foreign exchange, the government said.
The state has already leased land - taken away from local communities - for meagre 15 birr (U.S. $1.19) per hectare per year in some parts of the country in an effort to attract foreign investment.
Eyesus Kebede, an agricultural-investment coordinator in the ministry, is the key culprit and the government is also attempting to woo investors by offering incentives such as grace periods on payment.
"There is ample amount of land which is not cultivated yet," Eyesus said in an interview in his office in Addis Ababa, the capital, to Bloomberg. "We are preparing the land and we have given the comprehensive support for the agricultural investors."
Foreign investment in agriculture in Africa has drawn criticism from many aid groups, that are concerned about the use of farmland to produce food for export from countries with widespread hunger. In Ethiopia, an estimated 13.7 million people, about one-sixth of the population, are dependent on foreign food aid in a vicious circle maintaining their dependency with mainly USAID sponsored grain-deliveries by WFP.
Eyesus said such concerns were outweighed by the plantations´ capacity to bring foreign exchange and technology into the Horn of Africa country, as well as creating employment.
Among foreign investors that have acquired land in western Ethiopia are Karuturi Global Ltd., an Indian food processor, and Saudi-based billionaire Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, Eyesus said.
Regional governments have already transferred 1.7 million hectares of land to Ethiopia´s central government and surveyors are in the process of delineating additional land, he said.
Ephrem Hassen, coordinator of biofuels development in the Ministry of Mines and Energy, told Reuters in an interview that Ethiopia was developing biofuel crops on more than half a million hectares of arid land.
Ephrem said investors were developing biofuels on tens of thousand of hectares of land in the western regions of Gambella and Benishangule and in the Tigray and Amhara regions.
In addition, four state-owned sugar estates at Methara, Wonji, Finchaa and Tendaho, have been scaled up to boost their ethanol output, he said.
Among the land currently being advertised on the ministry´s Web site is 180,625 hectares along the Omo River in southern Ethiopia. South Omo Zone, as it is known, is home to pastoralists from the Hamer, Dasenech and Gnangatom ethnic groups, considered among the world´s most threatened indigenous peoples, according to Survival International, ECOTERRA Intl. and FdN, groups that campaign on behalf of ethnic minorities.
Ignorant Eyesus said the land in South Omo was "empty" and that the government had taken environmental and social considerations into account when allocating land for investors.
The Omo River feeds Lake Turkana in Kenya and ecologists fear an environmental disaster, if the river-water is used up in Ethiopia for modern agriculture.
Reflections from the Mirror
By Raul M. Gonzalez / Philippines
It is ironic that high officials from Somalia are in town to discuss the problem about piracy in the high seas.
I wonder what these Somali authorities can discuss with us considering that Somalia is the notorious haven of mostly Somali pirates preying on ships plying the African coastline up to the Indian Ocean, and who have been wreaking havoc on international shipping.
As a consequence, the international community sent warships to the area to interdict the activities of Somali pirates.
In fact, several Filipino seamen were held captive by these pirates, which makes me wonder what issues the Somalis can raise in the discussions that could bring forth a resolution to this problem.
More than 1 Million Africans fought for the Allies in WWII with no Thanks – Where is their Remembrance (BBC)
The 70th anniversary of World War II is being commemorated around the world, but the contribution of one group of soldiers is almost universally ignored. How many now recall the role of more than one million African troops?
Yet they fought in the deserts of North Africa, the jungles of Burma and over the skies of Germany. A shrinking band of veterans, many now living in poverty, bitterly resent being written out of history. For Africa, World War II began not in 1939, but in 1935. Italian Fascist troops, backed by thousands of Eritrean colonial forces invaded Ethiopia.
Emperor Haile Selassie was forced to flee to the UK, but others, known as Patriots, fought on. Among them was Jagama Kello. Fifteen years old at the time, he left home and raised a guerrilla force that struck at the Italian invaders.
Other Africans learnt what Fascism could mean for them. Among them was John Henry Smythe of Sierra Leone. His teacher gave him Adolf Hitler''s book, Mein Kampf. "We read what this man was going to do to the blacks if he gets into power and he attacked the British and Americans for encouraging the blacks to become doctors and lawyers," Mr Smythe said.
He volunteered to join the Royal Air Force, becoming a navigator, flying bombers over Germany. Others took a similar view. Joe Culverwell, who went on to fight for the liberation of Zimbabwe, volunteered the day war was declared in 1939. "Don''t forget in those days we were very loyal Brits - stupid as that may sound now," Mr. Culverwell says. "We were brainwashed into being little brown Britishers."
Others were conscripted. They were picked up when they went to visit a local market or on the orders of a local chief. Many found that once they enlisted they were badly treated. The reality of military life for African soldiers like Nigerian Marshall Kebby was very different from the propaganda. "As a colonial soldier I had very rough treatment. At that time we hadn''t even a single Nigerian officer, all were British. And many of us revolted against injustice, what I might call man''s inhumanity to man."
Once the fighting began there was little time for protest. For men like Mr. Culverwell, serving in Somalia, being bombed by the Italians was a terrifying experience. Mr. Smythe took part in air-raids over enemy territory but on the night of 18 November 1943 his plane was shot down over the German city of Mannheim. He spent 18 months in a prisoner of war camp, where the Germans tried to extract intelligence from him.
"You must use some special instruments to navigate your way here," his interrogator told Mr. Smythe. "He said: ''I want you to co-operate to get you out of this place.'' I said: ''I will give you my name and number''. He started to scream at me; became a real Nazi officer.
"He said: ''You know they are talking about whether to execute you tomorrow or not because you, as a black man, should not involve in white man''s war.''"
On the other side of the world, Mr. Kebby was meeting Indians. Among them was the leader of India''s independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, who was addressing a crowd of one million people in Madras. Mr. Kebby worked his way to the front.
"It was one of the greatest things I did as a soldier. I greeted Gandhi with a military salute and asked him: ''What are you going to do for Africa now that India is going to be free?'' He said:
India will not do anything for you but India will give you moral support on condition you fight the British non-violently''."
By 1945 the war was over, 1,355,347African troops had helped the allied powers defeat Germany, Italy and Japan. Mr. Culverwell remembers talking to other black soldiers he met about what would happen to them now but for most Africans independence was still 15 years away. In the meantime, the veterans had to get home and find a job.
Many found little gratitude for their years of service and no work. In February 1948 veterans from Ghana, among them Kalimu Glover went to petition the governor but instead of receiving them, police opened fire. It sparked off an outpouring of anger on the streets of Accra. Mr. Kebby is convinced that he and others like him helped end colonial rule.
The World is Pentagon's Oyster
By Rick Rozoff
"Not only does one country account for the overwhelming plurality of world military expenditures, but that nation also has troops and bases on all six habitable continents (as well as a 54-year military mission in Antarctica, Operation Deep Freeze) and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups and six navy fleets that roam the world's oceans and seas at will. It is also expanding a global interceptor missile system on land, on sea, in the air and into space that will leave it invulnerable to retaliation."
On January 20, a changing of the guard occurred in the United States White House with two-term president George W. Bush being replaced by former freshman senator Barack Obama.
Bush had continued the policies of his predecessor Bill Clinton in relation to the Balkans, Iraq and Latin America - with troops and a massive military base in Kosovo, regular bombings of Iraq and a monumental expansion of military aid to Colombia - and in addition launched two wars of his own, those against Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq two years later.
Obama, so thoroughly does U.S. polity predetermine individual administrations' policies, entered office by intensifying the deadly drone missile attacks in Pakistan begun by Bush in late 2008 and announced that he was doubling the number of American troops in Afghanistan.
Already presiding over the world's largest military budget, officially 41.5% of world expenditures in 2008 and far larger with non-Defense Department spending factored in, in April the new president requested from Congress an additional $85 billion in supplemental funding for the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq.
U.S. lawmakers were more than accommodating and on July 24 Obama signed Iraq and Afghanistan War Supplemental Appropriations amounting to $106 billion.
On October 28, he signed the $680 billion 2010 National Defense Authorization Act which includes another $130 billion to fund what his administration now calls overseas contingency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
With the authorization of $106 billion in July, the last official supplemental appropriation for the wars, and $130 billion last month for Afghanistan and Iraq the combined official spending for both wars will exceed $1 trillion. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 2009 Year Book, total international military spending for 2008 was not much more than that: $1.464 trillion.
Eight days after the authorization of the $680 billion Pentagon budget for next year, the New York Times reported that the top American military commander, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, said "he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," with the newspaper estimating the size of the demand to be $50 billion. [1]
Despite the Obama administration's pledge to the contrary, July's war supplement may not be the last one. It will simply be renamed an emergency appropriation. The first of many more to come.
Not only does one country account for the overwhelming plurality of world military expenditures, but that nation also has troops and bases on all six habitable continents (as well as a 54-year military mission in Antarctica, Operation Deep Freeze) and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups and six navy fleets that roam the world's oceans and seas at will. It is also expanding a global interceptor missile system on land, on sea, in the air and into space that will leave it invulnerable to retaliation.
Reports from the first twelve days of November indicate the global scope of the first attempt in history by one nation to achieve uncontested worldwide military power.
A survey of that period will trace recent trends across the globe with the alphabet as a compass.
Afghanistan
Any day now Washington may announce plans to add 40,000 or more troops to the 68,000 already there. [2] Plans are underway to accommodate that influx.
The American military compound at and fanning out from the Bagram Air Field has been expanded from 3,993 to 5,198 acres since 2001 and is in the process of further enlargement. It already hosts some 25,000 U.S. troops and contractors and "a new parking ramp supporting the world's largest aircraft is to be completed this spring....[I]t is continuing to grow to keep up with the requirements of an escalating war and troop increases." [3]
Regarding non-military personnel at Bagram and elsewhere in the nation, "Contractors in Afghanistan outnumber U.S. troops there" [4] as they do in Iraq.
The Army Times recently reported on the main purpose of the airbase at Bagram. Last month the number of U.S. and NATO air strikes in Afghanistan was the highest since July of 2008, with 647 bombs dropped in October compared to 752 a year ago July. "The airstrike numbers don´t include strafing runs, attacks by special operations AC-130 gunships, launches of small missiles or helicopter attacks." [5]
Africa
A U.S. Defense Department news source reported on November 5 that Air Forces Africa commanders visited Mali and Senegal in West Africa. Vice commander Michael Callan "visited Mali's 33d Parachute Regiment, a unit that carries out operations using tactical vehicles and communication equipment provided by the U.S. Defense and State Departments." The Malian military is involved in a counterinsurgency war in the nation's north aided by Washington.
A commander of Mali's armed forces said, "Ninety-five percent of our soldiers were trained by the U.S, and we've engaged with you in exercises like Flintlock, Joint Planning and Assessment Teams and special bilateral training." [6] Flintlock military exercises have been held in different locations on the African continent for years, this year's being conducted by the new Africa Command (AFRICOM) for the first time. The U.S. also recently led multinational military exercises in Gabon and Uganda on both ends of the continent. [7]
The USS San Juan, "a fast-attack submarine," arrived in South Africa on November 4, "setting the stage for a series of first-ever, at-sea engagements with the South African Navy submarine force." [8]
Armenia
Robert Simmons [9], NATO's special representative to the South Caucasus and Central Asia - former Senior Adviser to the United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs on NATO - was in this South Caucasus nation earlier this month and announced that he had recruited an initial contingent of Armenian troops for the war in Afghanistan. This marks the first deployment to that nation of soldiers from the Russian-led seven-nation Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a potential counterbalance to NATO in post-Soviet space.
"Simmons expressed NATO's 'appreciation to Armenia for its strong contributions' to alliance missions, which he said began in Kosovo and will now be repeated in Afghanistan." [10]
In reference to his mission of pulling yet another Russian ally into the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization orbit, Simmons said, "We are continuing cooperation with the Armenian Defense Ministry. NATO assists the implementation of reforms and the development of strategically important documents." [11]
Baltic Sea
After participating in NATO war games off the coast of Scotland, the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole paid visits to the capitals of Finland and Estonia in the Baltic Sea. "Cole hosted a reception in Helsinki, which was joined by Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, U.S. Naval Forces Africa and Allied Joint Forces Command Naples.
"Immediately following the departure from Helsinki, Cole arrived in Tallinn, Estonia, a few hours later." [12]
The beginning of this month the guided-missile frigate USS John L. Hall with sailors of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 48 "completed a theater security cooperation (TSC) port visit to Klaipeda, Lithuania."
A U.S. Navy official stated: "We are here as part of the United States Navy's continuing presence in the Baltic Sea....We are also here to work with the Lithuanian Navy, who has been a valuable partner and our visit here is part of the ongoing relationship between our two countries and our two navies." [13] [14]
On November 3 Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo was at the Pentagon to meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Associated Press reported on the occasion that he was "discussing with the United States why NATO needs plans in case his region is attacked." [15]
Bangladesh
In early November three high-ranking American military officials arrived in the country. The three - U.S. Army Lieutenant General Benjamin R. Mixon, Commanding General of U.S. Army, Pacific, Vice-Admiral John M. Bird, Commander of U.S. Navy 7th Fleet, and U.S. Marine Corps Major General Randolph D. Alles, Director for Strategic Planning and Policy at the U.S. Pacific Command - engaged in discussions focusing "on interoperability, readiness in the region, security-force assistance, and bilateral approaches to maintaining regional stability." [16]
On November 12 the U.S.-led Tiger Shark military exercises to train Bangladeshi naval commandos ended. A press release on the operation stated: "The training demonstrates the United States government's commitment to Bangladesh and to regional security by promoting military-to-military relationships throughout Asia and the Pacific." [17]
Black Sea
The Pentagon's European Command (EUCOM) reported on November 2 that its Joint Task Force-East had completed an almost three-month series of trainings in Bulgaria and Romania which began on August 7 and included Stryker and Airborne units destined for the war in Afghanistan. [18] "Nearly 600 members of the Romanian Land Forces, 500 Bulgarian Land Forces, and more than 1,500 U.S. service members participated in this year's combined training." [19]
After U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden's visit to the country on October 22, a news source in Romania wrote of Washington's new interceptor missile plans: "A strong and modern surveillance system located in Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey could monitor three hot areas at once: the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian and relevant zones in the Middle East." [20]
Colombia
The Obama administration signed a ten-year military treaty with the Alvaro Uribe government on September 30 which "gives American military forces access to seven Colombian army, navy and air force bases, but also to major international civilian airports in the country. In addition, U.S. personnel and defense contractors will enjoy diplomatic immunity under the agreement." [21]
A copy of the pact surfaced on November 4 and detailed that it "allows Washington access to civilian airports as well as military bases" and as a result "the US will have access to all international airports across the Andean nation including airports in the cities of Barranquilla, San Andres, Cartagena, Bogota, Cali, Medellin and Bucaramanga." [22]
In the initial phase an estimated 1,400 U.S. personnel will be assigned to the seven bases with the likelihood that the number will be increased as Washington sees fit. [23]
Eva Golinger observed that one of the newly acquired bases, that at Palanquero, was identified by a American Air Force document as providing the Pentagon "an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America...." [24]
Two South American nations bordering or near Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia, were not slow to respond.
Earlier this month Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stated in his weekly radio and television address that "We cannot waste one day to fulfill our mission: to prepare for war and help the people to get ready for war," [25] warning that an armed conflict with the U.S. client regime in Bogota "could extend throughout the whole continent." [26]
Days earlier two Venezuelan National Guard troops were killed at a checkpoint near Colombia and Caracas deployed 15,000 troops to the border.
In his November 13 address Chavez added. "Don't make a mistake, Mr. Obama, by ordering an attack against Venezuela by way of Colombia." [27]
On the same day his Bolivian counterpart, President Evo Morales, warned "I am convinced that where there are military bases, the social peace, the democracy and the development of the nations as well as their integration are not guaranteed. These facilities are an open provocation against the peace."
Morales also said that he failed to comprehend how the American head of state could have been awarded the Peace Nobel Price "when his country does everything to promote wars and conflicts.
"Obama must justify that award by withdrawing all the troops of his country from around the world...." [28]
Czech Republic
Following up on his visit to Prague in late October, on November 5 U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden hosted Czech President Vaclav Klaus at the White House and "they mostly discussed the U.S. plan for a new missile defence architecture."
The two "also talked about the situation in Afghanistan and Iran" and "Klaus said the United States knows that it is necessary to continue with the anti-missile project in Europe." [29]
The next day U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Alexander Vershbow met with Czech defense officials in their nation to discuss new American missile plans for Eastern Europe, ones intended to be "stronger, smarter, and swifter" than the previous Bush administration version and to incorporate all of Europe under a NATO umbrella.
Vershbow characterized the content of the talks as having presented "some concrete ideas to begin that process of developing the Czech role in the new approach" and said that the Czech contribution could include "potential facilities here on the territory of the Czech Republic." [30]
On November 4 the local press announced that "A few U.S. delegations will visit the Czech Republic in November, following up on the recent visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, including an expert military team that arrives in Prague this Friday."
One of those delegations will include Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher, who "recently said the command for the managing and control of elements of the new version of anti-missile defence could be stationed in the Czech Republic."
"The USA wants to build the system in cooperation with NATO." [31]
Georgia
Earlier this week U.S. Marines completed the two-week Immediate Response 2009 military training exercises in the South Caucasus nation of Georgia. The preceding maneuvers of the same name, those of 2008 in which over 1,000 American troops participated, ended one day before Georgia started shelling neighboring South Ossetia and killed several people including a Russian peacekeeper. [32]
Days after that the U.S. client regime launched an all-out invasion of South Ossetia, triggering a five-day war with Russia.
The official purpose of this year's exercises was to train Georgian troops to serve under NATO command in Afghanistan, but a Russian news source saw matters differently:
"Immediate Response was clearly designed not to fight against the Taliban or al-Qaeda.....Commander of US Army in Europe General Carter Ham visited Georgia to inspect the exercises but no one came from Afghanistan.
"Perhaps, the exercises were aimed at issuing a warning to Russia." [33]
As the drills were ending Alexander Shliakhturov, chief of Russia's military intelligence, said "that he did not rule out that Georgia might again use force against breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia." [34]
A lengthier account of Shliakhturov's concerns appeared in the Georgian media and included these quotes:
"According to our information, Georgia is still getting military aid from Ukraine, Israel and NATO. NATO countries, especially Eastern European countries, provide Georgia with arms and equipment, Israel provides Georgia with air equipment, the USA trains Georgian troops and Ukraine provides Georgia with heavy equipment, namely, tanks."
"The Russian Intelligence Service is addressing other dangers too, namely, the efforts being made by the USA and NATO to bring Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance and the new US plan to locate anti-missile systems in Europe." [35]
Four days later other Russian sources revealed "that the United States plans to supply weapons, including a Patriot-3 air defense system and shoulder-launched Stinger missiles, worth a total of $100 million, to Georgia." [36]
The next day Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov "recalled the situation in the summer of 2008 when many countries ignored Russian warnings that modern arms in Saakashvili´s hands might prompt this man to unleash military aggression." [37]
The chief of the Russian General Staff, General Nikolai Makarov, said "Georgia is getting large amounts of weapons supplied from abroad" and "Georgian military potential is currently higher than last August [2008]." [38]
India
Shortly after the Pentagon wrapped up the largest joint U.S.-Indian military exercises ever, Yudh Abhyas [Preparation for War] - which featured the first deployment of new American Stryker armored combat vehicles outside of Iraq and Afghanistan - at the end of October [39], it was announced that "India is negotiating with the United States to acquire state of the art Javelin anti-tank missiles worth several million dollars for large-scale induction." [40]
Days earlier former president George W. Bush was in India and called on his host nation to join in the war in Afghanistan, urging the U.S. and India to "work together to win the war in Afghanistan." [41]
Iraq
In early November Arabic language news sources revealed that "The US military has finished erecting an advanced radar system in Iraq to monitor the border with Iran, Syria and Turkey" and that "the radar is a preparatory measure aimed at providing the United States and its allies advanced control capabilities in event of a US military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities." [42]
Israel
The largest-ever joint American-Israeli military exercises, the two-week Juniper Cobra 10, ended on November 3. They concentrated on live-fire missile interception exercises described by many observers as a test run for the new continent-wide NATO missile shield planned for Europe. [43]
Over 2,000 troops from the two nations and 17 U.S. warships participated in the war games to create "the infrastructure that would be necessary in the event that the Obama administration decides to deploy US systems here in the event of a conflict." [44]
The top military commander of United States European Command and of NATO, Admiral James Stavridis, paid a three-day call to Israel for the occasion and met with "Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Gantz and several other commanders." [45]
On November 1 American arms manufacturer Raytheon Company announced that it had secured contracts worth $100 million for a joint interceptor missile program of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the Israel Missile Defense Organization.
The Pentagon's European Command has over 100 troops stationed in Israel's Negev Desert manning an advanced missile radar site there.
Korean Peninsula
The South Korean Yonhap News Agency reported on November 1 that "The US and South Korea have completed joint action plans for responding to a regime collapse and other internal emergency situations in North Korea...." [46]
Citing an unidentified South Korean official, the report contains these details:
"South Korea and the US had long worked on Concept Plan 5029, to prepare for a regime collapse and other internal emergencies in North Korea.
"Since its inauguration last year, the [South Korean President] Lee Myung-bak government has pushed to convert the concept plan into an operational plan and it was recently completed.
"If the South Korea-US combined forces intervene in North Korea's internal instabilities, the South Korean military will assume the leading role in consideration of neighboring countries, while the US military will be responsible for the removal of the North's nuclear facilities and weapons." [47]
On the final day of last month Washington expressed its satisfaction at South Korea redeploying troops to Afghanistan shortly after Pentagon chief Robert Gates' visit to Seoul and the South Korean defense ministry on October 22.
"Washington supports and welcomes South Korea's plans to deploy troops to Afghanistan...the U.S. Department of State said." [48]
Kosovo
This month began with former U.S. president Bill Clinton arriving in the capital of Kosovo for the unveiling of a gaudy 11-foot gold-sprayed bronze statue of himself on November 1. [49]
He was being hailed by the breakaway entity's nominal prime minister, former Kosovo Liberation Army chieftain Hashim Thaci, for his role in launching the 78-day NATO air war against Yugoslavia in March of 1999. That sustained bombing campaign, Operation Allied Force, inaugurated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as an active war-making machine and issued in the ten-year war cycle that continues to this day with no indication of it ever abating.
A Russian commentary of the following day put the ceremony in perspective:
"Over the course of the 10-week conflict, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions; even the German Luftwaffe had its first taste of combat over the skies of Yugoslavia since having its wings clipped in World War II.
"The ensuing 78-day aerial bombardment campaign, which grew continuously more aggressive and reckless, spared little infrastructure: factories, bridges, roads and power stations were all bombed with deadly accuracy. As a result, thousands of innocent civilians suffered great deprivation on both sides of the battle.
"In perhaps the worst public relations disaster for NATO during the conflict, five US 'smart' bombs severely damaged the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists. NATO officials, in an effort to cool Chinese outrage, blamed the error on outdated maps. Chinese officials rejected both the apologies and explanations." [50]
Pakistan
Over the past year the nine-year-long U.S. and NATO war in Afghanistan has been extended into Pakistan, the so-called AfPak theater of operations.
On November 4 the U.S. launched its latest drone missile attack into North Waziristan, killing two Pakistanis.
"According to independent reports, since August 2008 alone, around 70 cross-border predator strikes carried out by American drones have resulted in the death of 687 Pakistani civilians." [51]
The Nation, a Pakistani daily newspaper, reported on November 12 that the massive increase in NATO convoys crossing the country en route to Afghanistan are overwhelming the country's highways and that "Pakistani authorities are simply helpless in checking truckloads of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces badly damaging the Indus Highway, the repair of which would cost billions of rupees to the national exchequer....NATO trucks and trailers have not been [held accountable] even once for the repair and maintenance work, while cracks are developing on the Indus Highway after every three to four months due to overloading...." [52]
Persian Gulf
A local news sources wrote on November 9 that "The US has deployed a new expeditionary force in the Persian Gulf - the first time a permanent self-sustaining US naval force has been set up in the region.
"The newly established Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 5 will serve in the area of responsibility of the US Navy 5th Fleet Combined Task Force (CTF) 51 in Manama, Bahrain," where the entire U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. [53]
The Philippines
Two American servicemen were killed in a mine attack in Mindanao in late September, the first official deaths in the U.S.-assisted counterinsurgency war against not only the Abu Sayyaf Group but also the Moro National Liberation Front and the New People's Army.
Filipino senators "called for the abrogation of the [Visiting Forces Agreement], saying the US Seabees killed in the explosion weren't supposed to be there, as...the presence of the alleged land mine constitutes the area as a war zone." [54]
Pentagon chief Robert Gates insisted earlier in the month "that some 600 US counter-terrorism troops will remain in the southern Philippines...." [55] An opponent of the active American military involvement in the country said that "the US military has established its permanent presence in the Philippines through the auspices of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). Many of the US soldiers are currently deployed in Mindanao under the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines headquartered in Zamboanga City." [56]
On November 12 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Manila after the Philippine Senate recently passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the government to renegotiate the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement, "which enables U.S. forces to train and assist Philippine troops" and "vowed...to continue American military support." [57]
Poland
Before departing for the Philippines Clinton hosted Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in Washington "to discuss the new anti-missile shield plan." [58]
On the same day, November 2, U.S. Air Force personnel transferred five C-130 Hercules military cargo planes from the Ramstein Air Base in Germany to the Powidz Air Base in Poland.
A U.S. Air Force website offered these details: "Prepping Polish aircrews and maintainers for the transition to the larger Lockheed-Martin built Hercules has been accomplished with a blend of English language and specialty knowledge training at bases in Texas and Arkansas and through a type of work mentorship exchange between U.S. and Polish air force personnel...."
A Polish air force officer revealed the purpose of the U.S. transfer in stating "The main task for the C-130s is to support our contingency operations in Afghanistan, Chad, Africa and everywhere Polish troops and supplies are needed." [59]
After NATO defense chiefs, including the U.S.'s Gates, met in Slovakia late last month and U.S. Vice President Biden visited Poland at about the same time, Warsaw announced that it was deploying 600 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing the nation's total toward the 3,000 mark.
Sweden
Sweden's Chief of Defense Staff General Sverker Goranson was in Washington, D.C. in early November and was interviewed by Defense News.
His nation, which has for decades presented itself as neutral, has 500 troops serving under NATO command in Afghanistan - Sweden and Finland are in charge of four northern provinces for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force - and five Swedish soldiers were injured in a roadside bomb explosion on November 11, two them seriously.
Goranson's comments demonstrate how far from anything resembling neutrality Sweden has recently strayed:
"The transformation we are conducting is a huge turnaround, and as I told Adm. [Michael] Mullen [U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman], we know where we are going....The major shift is globalization and the fact that most of the things we are dealing with aren't necessarily about national boundaries.
"What turned Sweden around is not focusing on national defense, but being a part of this globalized world and solving issues together, because wherever conflicts are, whether in the Balkans or Afghanistan...."
When asked about the potential for a showdown in the Arctic Circle with Russia, he spoke about starting "discussions between the United States, Norway, Denmark and Canada [all NATO members] about what are the borders....As part of the Nordic Battle Group, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark are already sharing the operational picture in the air and on the sea, and that can be extended to the High North."
Lastly, the Swedish visitor, whose meetings included one with the U.S.'s top military commander, acknowledged: "We had a defense resolution in 1996 that said the Swedish armed forces should be completely NATO-interoperable, which is the standard we have worked to accordingly, to make sure that wherever we go, as we did to Afghanistan." [60]
Yemen
The government of Yemen is waging military operations against Shiite rebels in the north of the country and neighboring Saudi Arabia started launching air strikes against them earlier this month.
On November 10 Yemen's official news agency, Saba, announced that the U.S. has signed a military cooperation agreement with the nation.
The news agency also quoted Brigadier General Jeffrey Smith, the commander of the U.S. 5th Signal Command, "as renewing Washington's support for Yemen's unity, security and stability." [61]
One account of the agreement was provided under the headline "Yemen, US sign military deal to fight rebels." [62]
As the rebels are Shiite Muslims, Washington is exploiting the conflict to recruit Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations against Iran.
Yemen, on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, lies directly across from Djibouti where the Pentagon maintains its only permanent base in Africa, Camp Lemonier, and from Somalia, which U.S. warships periodically shell from the Indian Ocean.
Notes:
1]. New York Times, November 5, 2009
2]. Afghanistan: West´s 21st Century War Risks Regional Conflagration, Stop NATO, October 12, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/yfh65p7
3]. Associated Press, November 1, 2009
4]. Reuters, November 3, 2009
5]. Army Times, November 11, 2009
6]. U.S. Department of Defense, American Forces Press Service, November 5, 2009
7]. AFRICOM Year Two: Seizing The Helm Of The Entire World, Stop NATO, October 22, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/yk4ljbx
8]. Navy Newsstand, November 5, 2009
9]. Mr. Simmons´ Mission: NATO Bases From Balkans To Chinese Border, Stop NATO, March 4, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/yh7cqqj
10]. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, November 9, 2009
11]. PanArmenian.net, November 6, 2009
12]. United States European Command, November 3, 2009
13]. United States European Command, November 2, 2009
14]. Baltic Sea: Flash Point For NATO-Russia Conflict, Stop NATO, February 27, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/yccrh52
Scandinavia And The Baltic Sea: NATO´s War Plans For The High North, Stop NATO, June 14, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/yfpme5z
15]. Associated Press, November 2, 2009
16]. All Headline News, November 2, 2009
17]. Financial Express, November 13, 2009
18]. Bulgaria, Romania: U.S., NATO Bases For War In The East, Stop NATO, October 24, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/yf5f3zj
19]. United States European Command, November 2, 2009
20]. The Diplomat, November, 2009
21]. AllGov, November 6, 2009
22]. Press TV, November 4, 2009
23]. Twenty Years After End Of The Cold War: Pentagon´s Buildup In Latin America, Stop NATO, November 4, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/ygf9eyk
24]. VHeadline, November 5, 2009
25]. Xinhua News Agency, November 9, 2009
26]. Press TV, November 9, 2009
27]. Ibid
28]. Xinhua News Agency, November 10, 2009
29]. Czech News Agency, November 6, 2009
30]. Associated Press, November 6, 2009
31]. Czech News Agency, November 4, 2009
32]. NATO War Games In Georgia: Threat Of New Caucasus War, Stop NATO, May 8, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/ylfq2r8
33]. Voice of Russia, November 9, 2009
34]. Civil Georgia, November 5, 2009
35]. Interpressnews, November 6, 2009
36]. RosBusinessConsulting/Komsomolskaya Pravda, November 10, 2009
37]. Voice of Russia, November 11, 2009
38]. Voice of Russia, November 10, 2009
39]. U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia, Stop NATO, October 16, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/ye743gv
40]. Daily Times, November 11, 2009
41]. Indo-Asian News Service, October 31, 2009
42]. Press TV, November 2, 2009
43]. Israel: Forging NATO Missile Shield, Rehearsing War With Iran, Stop NATO, November 5, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/ydq6z57
44]. Jerusalem Post, October 31, 2009
45]. Israeli Defense Forces, November 3, 2009
46]. Press TV, November 1, 2009
47]. Yonhap News Agency, November 1, 2009
48]. Russian Information Agency Novosti, October 31, 2009
49]. Kosovo: Marking Ten Years Of Worldwide Wars, Stop NATO, October 31, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/yzxf3ng
50]. Russia Today, November 2, 2009
51]. Press TV, November 4, 2009
52]. The Nation, November 12, 2009
53]. Press TV, November 9, 2009
54]. Business Mirror, September 30, 2009
55]. Mindanao Examiner, September 13, 2009
56]. Ibid
57]. Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2009
58]. Polish Radio, November 2, 2009
59]. U.S. Air Forces in Europe, November 12, 2009
60]. Defense News, November 2, 2009
61]. Agence France-Presse, November 10, 2009
62]. Daily Times, November 12, 2009
And on the line of the American-Arab axis:
Arabs´ Mortal Hatred and Enslavement of the Black Race
By Naiwu Osahon (*)
Jerusalem was captured by the Arabs in 638 CE. Alexandria in Egypt fell to them in 643 CE. In 698 CE, they captured Carthage thus ensuring their political influence in all of northern Africa around the Mediterranean. Arabs did not move into the region until much later but tried to control it at the time with language and the Islamic religion. The Arabs began to invade Africa in large numbers from 749 CE when they settled in Alexandria, Egypt. They were mistakenly seen as African cousins and were welcomed as saviours from the oppressive rule of the Byzantium (Graeco-Roman domination.) The Arabs did not directly force their religion on the African Egyptians at first, that followed later, but unlike Christianity, Islam could not be translated into local languages.
With the Africans, looking for something to replace their banned traditional religion, and imposed Graeco-Roman Christianity, literacy in Arabic soon spread, and assisted by inter-marriages and Christian apostasy, (the reverse was punishable by death in Islam) to gain relief from taxation, Islam quickly became the religion of the land.
Although the Qur'an does not distinguish between races, there is a strong legacy of racism against Africans from early Islam because the language, traditions and customs of the Arabs supports the down grading of the African race. Dr. Azumah in his book: The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa provides several examples of Islam's hatred of Blacks. There is the example in the hadith in which an Ethiopian woman laments her racial inferiority to Muhammad, who consoles her by saying, "In Paradise, the whiteness of the Ethiopian will be seen over the stretch of a thousand years."
Another hadith quotes Muhammad thus: "Do not bring black into your pedigree." In fact, the Arabic word for slave, "Abd," became equated with Africans and Blacks with the advent of Islam. Osama Bin Laden, in a discussion with the Sudanese-American novelist, Kola Boof, in Morocco in 1996 said, "when next you meet an Arab, you should ask what is the Arabic word for slave, you'll discover that the words are the same "abeed." Which is why, when an Arab looks at a black African, what he sees is a slave."
Muhammad owned and sold Black slaves. In fact, he ordered and built the pulpit of his mosque with African slave labour. The Qur'an encourages sex with female slaves in several places. Classical Islamic law allows a light-skinned Muslim man to marry a Black woman, but a Black Muslim man is restricted from marrying a light-skinned woman. As the literature of the time put it, "only a whore prefers blacks; the good woman will welcome death rather than being touched by a black man."
So interwoven is slavery with Islam that Islams' holiest city, Mecca (site of the Haj pilgrimage), was a slave trading capital. Quoting Azumah again, up until the 20th century, Mecca served as the gateway to the Muslim world for slaves brought out of Africa. "It became a custom for pilgrims to take slaves for sale in Mecca or buy one or two slaves while on Haj as souvenirs to be kept, sold or given as gifts."
Muslim Arab and Persian literature depicts Blacks as "stupid, untruthful, vicious, sexually unbridled, ugly and distorted, excessively merry and easily affected by music and drink." Nasir al-Din Tusi, a famous Muslim scholar said of Blacks: "The ape is more capable of being trained than the Negro." Ibn Khaldun, an early Muslim thinker, writes that Blacks are "only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings."
Ibn Sina (Avicenna 980–1037), Arab's most famous and influential philosopher/scientist in Islam, described Blacks as "people who are by their very nature slaves." He wrote: "All African women are prostitutes, and the whole race of African men are abeed (slave) stock." He equated Black people with "rats plaguing the earth." Ibn Khaldum, an Arab historian stated that "Blacks are characterized by levity and excitability and great emotionalism," adding that "they are every where described as stupid."
al-Dimashqi, an Arab pseudo scientist wrote, "the Equator is inhabited by communities of blacks who may be numbered among the savage beasts. Their complexion and hair are burnt and they are physically and morally abnormal. Their brains almost boil from the sun's heat….." Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani painted this no less horrid picture of black people, "…..the zanj (the blacks) are overdone until they are burned, so that the child comes out between black, murky, malodorous, stinking, and crinkly-haired, with uneven limbs, deficient minds, and depraved passions….."
Arabs' attitude to blacks derives from Genesis' racist fiction of the three sons of Noah – Ham, Japheth and Shem. Arabs claim that "the accursed Ham was the progenitor of the black race; that Japheth begat the full-faced, small eyes Europeans, and that Shem fathered the handsome of face with beautiful hair Arabs," of course.
After the Arabs had conquered Egypt and shortly after Muhammad's death, they began demanding Nubian slaves from the south. This continued for 600 years. Dominated African kingdoms were forced to send on a regular basis, tributes of slaves to the Arab ruler in Cairo. From as early as the 6th century CE, they had developed slavery supply networks out of Africa, from the Sahara to the Red Sea and from Ethiopia, Somalia and East Africa, to feed demands for slaves all over the Islamic world and the Indian Ocean region. The African male slaves were castrated and used as domestic servants or to work the Sahara salt deposits or on farms all over the Islamic world.
The African female servants were continuously raped before being sold to households to be used as sex labour. Of springs from the illicit encounters were largely destroyed as unworthy to live. Between 650 CE and 1905 CE, over 20, 000,000 African slaves had been delivered through the Tans-Sahara route alone to the Islamic world. Dr. John Alembellah Azumah in his book: The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa estimates that over 80 million more died en-route. A text from Dr. Azumah books, provides this quote from a Zanzibar observer about the travails of African slaves en-route to slave markets around the Arabic world.
"As they filed past, we noticed many chained together by the neck... The women, who were as numerous as the men, carried babies on their backs in addition to a tusk of ivory or other burden on their heads... It is difficult to adequately describe the filthy state of their bodies; in many instances not only scarred by [the whip], but feet and shoulders were a mass of open sores... half-starved ill-treated creatures who, weary and friendless, must have longed for death."
A Muslim herdsman, in Dr. Azumah's book described the fate of those who became too ill or too weak to continue the journey as follows: "We speared them at once! For, if we did not, others would pretend they are ill in order to avoid carrying their loads. No! We never leave them alive on the road; they all know this custom."
When asked who carries the ivory when a mother gets too tired to carry both her baby and the ivory, the herdsman replied, "She does! We cannot leave valuable ivory on the road. We spear the child and make her burden lighter."
Between 9th and 10th centuries, several millions of Zanjs (Black) slaves were imported from Zanzibar to Lower Iraq where they constituted more than half the total population and worked to clear saline lands for irrigation and to cultivate sugar. The African slaves were transported through Mombasa, Zanzibar and the Sudan. More millions of African slaves were involved in the Islamic experience on the East African route than in the West African/Sahara route. At first, they were used largely for military purposes then as domestic servants, concubines or eunuchs, in affluent Muslim households. In Northern Africa, many became galley slaves, and in the Persian Gulf, pearl divers, port labourers, sailors, or date farmhands. Some notable Africans from the Arab slavery experience included the Nubian eunuch, Abu I-Misk Kufur, who became regent of Egypt in the 10th century, and Sidi Badr, who briefly seized the throne of Bengal in the 1490s. There was also the 17th century great African Muslim general, Mails Ambar, who led the resistance of the Deccans against the Mughals. A distinctive African community has survived culturally in a place called Jiruft in Iran.
With the death of Askia Muhammad, the Emperor of Songhai, in 1528 CE, Songhai Empire started falling apart. This was the opportunity Ahmad al-Mansur, the Emperor of Morocco had been waiting for to conquer Western Sudan after his Spanish humiliation. He took his time to plan his invasion and when he felt ready in 1591 CE, he sent an army of some four thousand musketeers under the leadership of a Spanish mercenary officer called Judar Pasha. The army crossed the Sahara and was on the border of Songhai before serious attention was given to it. Songhai's ruler, Askia Ishak II, called up a superior number of army but relying on traditional weapons. The two armies met on April 12, 1591, at a small town called Tondibi, about fifty miles from the capital city of Gao. Inspite of the brave stand of the Songhai army, the Moroccan soldiers overwhelmed them and moved into the country to wreck havoc.
Prof. Clarke informs us that: "The Moroccan invasion of Songhai and eventually, other nations of the Western Sudan was made all the more tragic because in most cases it was Muslim against Muslim. The invaders from North Africa and their European mercenary troops did not spare any one, not man, woman or child. They pitilessly slew the now demoralized citizens who cried out to them; we are Muslims, we are your brothers in religion. The war brought no honour to either side and in the years that followed, an appreciation of African intellectual and material contribution to Spain and the other nations of the Mediterranean sphere was lost from the respectful commentary of human history."
The mid 18th century saw the growth of Islamic Tariqa, an aggressive form of religious worship intolerant of traditional or other religions, culture or customs. Tariqa had two divisions, Tijaniyya and Qudiriyya, and were usually led locally by charismatic, learned and well-travelled clerics, determined to purify and cleanse fellow Muslims and conquer non-believers through the jihad (holy war.)
Usman Dan Fodio of Sokoto (Northern Nigeria) and Umar Ibn Said Tall of Tukolor (Western Sudan) were two of such leaders who started out as reformers and ended as rulers of large tracks of land and people. Many African Muslim leaders have used the rhetoric of jihad to capture power for themselves. When the Yoruba leaders in western Nigeria were fighting each other for supremacy in the 1820s because of the breakdown of Oyo kingdom, jihad leaders invited from Northern Nigeria to intervene, grabbed the leadership of northern Yoruba land instead. Their advance southwards, "to dip the Koran into the sea," as they called it, was only stopped after a hard fight at the edge of the forest into southern Yoruba land.
Samori Toure used jihad to take over control of a large portion of the Upper Niger region in the 1870s and 1880s. In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad, having conquered eastern Sudan, declared himself the Madhi only to be succeeded after his death by another Muslim leader, Khalifa Abdallahi. Rabih, after taking over leadership of Central Sudan (i.e., south-west of Darfur) in 1893, advanced westwards to take control of Bornu in Nigeria from another Muslim leader who had himself dethroned the ancient Saifawa Dynasty founded in the 8th century CE. By the end of the 19th century CE, nearly all of Sudan from the Nile to the Atlantic was under Muslim leaders.
The chaos and devastation that followed the invasions finally set up Africa for the intense Islamic and European slave trade that followed. As the Muslim conquest and religion spread throughout North Africa and across the Sahara into West Africa, so did Arab hunger to enslave the Africans increase.
This trade in African slaves, begun by the Arabs, went on uninterrupted from the 6th century CE, to the 19th century CE, softening Africa militarily, culturally, economically, socially and politically, for the joint European and Arab onslaught on African people and economy, from the 15th century CE.
Arabs were the principal raiders and middle men for the Atlantic slave trade that decimated populations in West African. In the late 18th century CE, with most of the slave trade along the West African coast dominated by Christians, the bulk of the Arab slave trade shifted to Zanzibar, conquered then by Omani Arabs. Omani Sultan-Seyyid Said, an Arab, as the new ruler of Zanzibar, expanded the business in slavery and the trade in Ivory considerably in 1840, by re-opening and developing old established routes into the interior, to the Great Lakes and the Congo. While retaining some slaves to staff their expanding clove plantations in Zanzibar and neighbouring Pemba, they as usual, exported the great majority of their African slaves. Omani Arabs, as the Sultan's invaders were known, raided villages, killing and maiming thousands of people in the interior of the African continent, to capture and sell some 20,000 of them yearly at their notorious Zanzibar slave market. From there, slaves were sold and cargoed all over the Mediterranean, Europe, the Persian Gulf, and Asia. Those destined for Sindh in Pakistan, for instance, first arrived in the Omani port of Muscat from where they were shipped to Karachi. Some reached Sindh through owner-to-owner transactions, originating from points along the Makran coast of the present day Pakistani and Irani Baloshistans.
The African slaves involved, were mainly Swahili from areas now known as Kenya and mainland Tanzania. The Muslim African captives faired no better than their West African kith and kin enslaved by the West in the 'New World.' Arabs did not only start and sell African slaves from the 6th to the 19th century in the Islamic world; they were the principal raiders, merchants and middle men for the Atlantic slave trade. In fact, even now, hundreds of years later, millions of African settler slaves are still being discriminated against and treated as the scum of the earth (untouchables) in Pakistan, India, Iran, Iraq, and all the Muslim states of Asia, the Persian Gulf, and Northern Africa.
Expansion of Western influence all over Africa, especially after the European partition in 1884 CE, tended to restrict Islam to purely missionary activities. During the period of sharing influence with the West over the direction of African destiny, Islam did not suffer the disadvantage of Christianity's link with the conqueror regimes and so was able to consolidate and expand. By the 19th century, for example, 65%- 90% of the Swahili Moslem population of Zanzibar was enslaved, close to 90% on the Kenyan coast and in Madagascar was enslaved and in Ghana, 30% of the African Muslims were enslaved. Since the dawn of flag independence in Africa from the 1960s, it has been business as usual with regular threats of Jihad. Several African youths are being recruited into guerrilla activities after training in Libya, or deceived with promises of better wages, and smuggled out of Africa to the Arab world, particularly to Lebanon and Afghanistan, to work as domestic servants, behind iron walls of seclusion, deprivation, abject misery, and poverty.
Arab enslavement of Black Africans continues to this day in the Muslim world, particularly in the Sudan, Niger, and Mauritania. To admit that it is a mistake would be to admit the fallibility of the Qur'an and bring its divine origin into question. Even today, Muslims act as if Islamic slavery was a favor done to the millions of unfortunate men, women and children who were forcibly uprooted from their native lands and sent to lives of sexual and mental servitude deep in the Islamic world.
Arab imperialism is worse than European imperialism, only that the latter is less subtle and more widespread. Europeans relatively, have some conscience, not much, but they are, at least, slightly more tolerant of dissent than the Arabs. Europeans did not completely destroy African cultures. Our history and religions yes, while our cultures and traditions were largely derided as primitive and banned, ignored or marginalized. In all areas conquered by Islam, the natives lost their ethnic names, religions, and peculiar way of life, to those of their Arab masters. The slaves or the religiously colonized Muslims are left bare, without a past or future of their own, a worse form of slavery and emasculation.
The Arabs stripped us totally of everything, our history, religions, cultures, names, languages and traditions. Their religion overwhelmed our cultures and traditions wherever they conquered us, to the extent that Africans in Arab governed states today, no longer bear their original African names, nor do they remember their history. They cannot even recall that they were Black, independent and thriving communities, before the Arabs colonized them. They cannot imagine that they were the original settlers and masters of the entire Arab world. All African natives in Arab governed countries, think that Allah ordained their inferior status to the Arabs.
Egypt is still so intimidated by its glorious Black African past that its Arab government would not allow thorough research into Egypt's past. President Gamal Abdel Nasser falsified Egyptian history when he declared Egypt an Arab Republic. Anwar Sadat was forced to divorce his Black wife, denounce his Black children and marry a light-skin cousin before becoming Egypt's President. Egyptian authorities refused to allow American film makers to make a film on the life of Anwar Sadat in Egypt on the ground that the actor chosen for Sadat's role was Black.
When Morocco left the OAU in 1984, it aspired to become a member of the European Union. In Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Mauritania and the rest of the Arab world, Africans are treated as the scum of the earth. They are second-class citizens at the very best in their own countries. Blacks in these countries cannot aspire to positions of respect or authority. There are hardly Africans in high government positions in Arab governed African countries. Like Brazil, which is just as racially cruel against their Black natives, there is no legislation favouring slavery (except in Mauritania.) It is simply a way of life that's all. Blacks do not really exist or at best are not humans.
Mauritania left the Economic Community of West African States to join the union formed by the Arab North African States. A few years ago, Mauritania sacked all Black natives from their civil service positions. Black Mauritanians protest their plight to the African Union (AU) without receiving attention, because AU Black leaders fear offending their Arab colleagues in the AU. In Mauritania, they have had to declare an end to slavery six times in this century alone, and still nothing has changed for the captive majority African natives. African slavery is still in their statute books. African slavery in Mauritania is what the on going quarrel between Mauritania and Senegal is about. The quarrel forced Black African refugees to pour across the border from Mauritania into Senegal. In Algeria, Arabs throw stones at Black people, including diplomats, in markets and other public places.
To quote Prof. Clarke, "Arabs always act as though they are not in Africa. Once when I was visiting Egypt, I told my Egyptian Arab host to get a cab ready for the next morning that I was going to Kenya. So you are going to Africa to visit your people? We got no diseases here, why are you leaving us?" the host asked. Across the Red Sea, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Blacks are treated worse than animals after using their life's savings to go there on pilgrimage. Hundreds of Blacks who have lived all their lives in Saudi Arabia are being repatriated daily after loosing an arm or a leg for some minor or trumped up offense and without regard for their comfort, welfare or rights. Racism towards Black Muslims in Saudi Arabia is so strong it makes one wonder if making pilgrimage to Mecca should be one of the five pillars of the Muslim faith, and why Blacks bother to be Muslim.
Col. Gadhafi saw vicious White racism in the tragic death in August 1997, of Princess Diana of Wales, the mother of a future king of England, and her Arab lover. What no one remembered to ask Gadhafi was whether he himself was disposed to allowing any daughter of his to marry even the richest Black man in the world let alone a Black Libyan. If one were to ask Gadhafi why Africans are not high up in his government, he might balk that all Libyans are Africans. In that case, one should go and find out the truth for oneself in the poor sections of town. One would be shocked by the plight of our African kith and kin that constitute the bulk of the population in oil rich Libya and other Northern African countries similarly afflicted with Arab racism. While pretending to champion pan-African interest, he is busy deporting Black immigrants.
On 9 May, 1997, in flagrant defiance of a UN embargo on flights in and out of Libya, Col. Gadhafi invaded Nigeria with his planes carrying 1,000 members of his rag-tag army, plus 500 journalists. They strategically occupied the Kano airport and his other reception facilities, with the connivance of the Nigerian Muslim dictator host. The purpose was to launch a jihad in supposedly religiously secular Nigeria, or at least precipitate a serious schism between the predominantly Moslem north of the country and the Christian and animist south. Right now the Moslem world is trying to use 'Sharia' to dismember Nigeria. Pakistan, Libya and Saudi Arabia, to name a few, have pumped substantial funds into Zamfara, the first of Nigeria's Sharia states, to start the process of Islamizing, (or at least trigger mayhem and civil war) in Nigeria as in Sudan.
No nation in Africa has suffered more in the hands of the Arabs than Ethiopia. It has been going on since Arabs first invaded Africa in the 7th century CE. Recently, with Libya supporting the people of Eritrea, they destroyed the basic structure of Ethiopia, to cut her from the sea and weaken this section of Africa, and eventually all of Africa, for further Arabization. They did this mercilessly with religion.
In the last 38 years, Gadhafi at one time or the other, tried to force Libya's unification with Egypt, Algeria etc., and has continued the effort since with Sudan. He forcibly annexed the Auzon Strip from Chad, and sponsored destabilization in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Mali, Cote d' Ivoire, Niger, etc in pursuance of his Arabization of Africa policy, laced with inordinate imperial personal ambition. In 1998, his strategy got a fillip with the founding of his community of Sahel-Savannah States (CEN – SAD) which he was hoping to use to control the envisaged African Union (AU.) The CEN – SAD, at the moment, ropes in 25 African states from West, East, and Central Africa, and includes Senegal, Cote d'Ivore, Chad, Sudan, Somalia, Comoro Islands etc. Most of these unsuspecting African countries were stable until they joined CEN – SAD.
Col. Muammar Gadhafi pushed desperately for a United States of Africa government to be approved, set up, and launched right there and then, at the 9th ordinary Session of the Assembly of the heads of states of the African Union (AU) held in July 2007, in Accra, Ghana. He has heightened his Arabization policy pursuit at the AU level since 2001, pretending to be promoting the Pan-African agenda of Kwame Nkrumah. Chinweizu, the renowned scholar, described Gadhafi's Arab-Black Africa government plan at the time, "as unification of nigger monkey with python." Arabs themselves divide Africa into North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa to instigate a division and as long as the invaders continue to occupy our land and treat us as slaves in North Africa, the two segments of the continent cannot cohabit.
In a paper presented at the meeting of the Arab league in Amman, Jordan, in 2001, Muammar Gadhafi spelt out the Arabization agenda against Africa in language reminiscent of Adolph Hitler's Lebensraum, (Hitler's sick obsession to secure a living space for political and economic expansion in Europe) for the Germans, (the superior race.) Gadhafi in his address during the Amman's Arab conference, invited his Arab brothers outside of Africa to come to Africa in the following words. "The third of the Arab community living outside Africa should move in with the two-thirds (about 250 million) on the continent and join the African Union, which is the only space we have."
Gadhafi's unbridled urge in modern times to enlarge Arabia inside Africa, is a continuation of the Arab war against Africans and the Arabization of African lands that started in the 7th century CE. Arabs have since settled on one-third of Africa, pushing continuously southwards towards the Atlantic Ocean. Arabs' racial war against Black Africa started with their occupation and colonization of Egypt between 637 and 642 CE, decimating the Coptic or Black population.
Between 642 and 670 CE, more Arab invaders poured into Africa and occupied areas known today as Tunisa, Libya, Algeria and Morocco, where they physically eliminated most of the native (Berber) inhabitants. The Berbers that escaped death ran westwards and southwards towards the Sahara.
In the 11th century CE, fresh Arab migrants of nomadic origin, migrated into North Africa to displace and drive the remaining pastoral Berbers deeper into the Sahara desert. With Arab consolidation and backing in Northern Africa, new waves of Arab invaders and migrants pushed deeper into the Nile banks, inhabited then by the Nilotic Shiluk, and continued all the way down to where Dueim stands today, belonging then to the Dinka and Furnawi autochthons. The entire territory was known at the time as Bilad as-Sudan (the Arabic for land of the Blacks) and currently includes the Republic of Sudan.
Continuing with their Arabization of African land policy through elimination, displacement, separation, marginalization and suppression, the Arab invaders of Bilad as-Sudan, over the passage of time, decimated the population of (the Nilotic Shiluk, Dinka and Furnawi autochthons) owners of the land, and pushed to restrict the rest waiting for elimination to Darfur area and the South of the country, which the Arab invaders are now intent on taking from the native Black Africans. This is the genesis of the war in Sudan. It is a racial war. The Arabs want the Republic of Sudan, which by land mass is the largest country in Africa, to be an entirely Arab state, by exterminating the Black native population gradually to the last person.
The war in Sudan is our modern day Haiti war in terms of Black liberation, and our recent fight against apartheid. Arabs are carrying out ethnic cleansing right now in Southern Sudan, with the financial support of the Arab world, particularly Libya and Saudi Arabia. China is backing them against Africa. The Janjaweed, with Sudanese and Arab governments' backing, are trying to wipe out the Black population so as to expropriate their lands, but Africans, including Nigerians, do not know where their interests should reside. The Arabs succeeded in doing the same thing in Northern Africa where the original Nubian African owners of the land have almost all been wiped out and the rest marginalized (enslaved) by their Arab invaders/settlers since 642 CE.
Islamization is not the problem in Sudan because the majority Furnawi people of Darfur are Muslims. Arabs do not consider Black Muslims authentic or of consequence. At best, they concede to Blacks, the role of ordained slaves or animals, to be used as beasts of burden by the "superior Arab race." The rule applies to all Blacks, whether Muslims or non-Muslims and whether of Nigerian (Hausa/Fulani or Yoruba extractions) Tanzanians, Ugandans, Malians or African-Americans.
A traveller in Sudan observed in 1930 that "In the eyes of the Arab rulers of Sudan, the Blackslaves were simply animals given by Allah to make life of Arabs comfortable." In 1962, the Arab Sudanese General, Hassan Beshir Nasr, while flagging off his troops to the war front against Black Africans in South Sudan, declared: "We don't want these Blackslaves…….what we want is their land."
A coalition of 50 charities in Darfur, Sudan, published a study in mid December, 2008, confirming what the world already knew that the Janjaweed and the Sudanese army, with the backing of their government, during joint or individual attacks, raped, tortured and killed Sudanese Africans and razed their villages to repopulate them with Arab nomads. They rounded up and abducted escapees from hide-outs in the bush, and at other times raided refugee camps to kidnap Africans as sex and labour slaves, working them to the bones as domestic and farm labour. The army flew their captives in planes to Khartoum at night and shared them among soldiers, like you allocate bags of commodities, and used them as sex and domestic servants. Kidnapped victims interviewed, said their captors told them that 'they were not human beings and that they were there to serve them.' In the five years between 2003 and 2008, over 300,000 Sudanese Africans were killed, 100,000 abducted and 2.7 million rendered homeless refugees, with their land appropriated by Arabs. The Khatoum government admitted 14,000 kidnaps. You can imagine what happened when the world turned a blind eye on Sudan, in the twenty years between 1983 when the conflict began, and 2003. You have to ask yourself what African leaders are doing in AU with Arabs. Arabs are Africans' mortal foes.
Al Qaeda's bombing of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, left 260 Black civilians that included 12 Americans, dead. Over 4,000 Kenyans and Tanzanians were wounded. A remorseless top Arab journalist justified the attack by quoting Stalin: "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."
(*) Naiwu Osahon, renowned author, philosopher of science, mystique, leader of the world Pan-African Movement.
NAIWU OSAHON Hon. Khu Mkuu (Leader) World Pan-African Movement); Ameer Spiritual (Spiritual Prince) of the African race; MSc. (Salford); Dip.M.S; G.I.P.M; Dip.I.A (Liv.); D. Inst. M; G. Inst. M; G.I.W.M; A.M.N.I.M. Poet, Author of the magnum opus: 'The end of knowledge'. One of the world's leading authors of children's books; Awarded; key to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Honourary Councilmanship, Memphis City Council; Honourary Citizenship, County of Shelby; Honourary Commissionership, County of Shelby, Tennessee; and a silver shield trophy by Morehouse College, USA, for activities to unite and uplift the African race.
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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