MV FAINA Negotiations Become the Target of Dark Third Party
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
December 21, 2008
More details are to be found in Ecoterra 82nd Press Release Update that I publish herewith integrally.
82nd Update 2008-12-17 23:58:12 UTC
Ecoterra Intl. - Stay Calm & Solve it Peaceful & Fast !
Ecoterra International – Update & Media Release on the stand-off concerning the Ukrainian weapons-ship hi-jacked by Somali pirates.
We also can make sea-piracy in Somalia an issue of the past - with empathy and strength and through coastal and marine development as well as protection!
New EA Seafarers Assistance Programme Emergency Helpline: +254-738-497979
East African Seafarers Assistance Programme - Media Officer: +254-733-385868
Day 84 - 1999 hours into the FAINA Crisis - Update Summary
Efforts for a peaceful release continued, but the now over two-and-a-half months long stand-off concerning Ukrainian MV FAINA is not yet solved finally, though intensive negotiations have continued.
"A third party is again trying to interfere in these talks". Mikhail Voitenko, editor-in-chief of the Morskoy Bulleten - Sovfrakht journal, told Interfax-AVN on Wednesday. "The ship's owner and all the parties concerned, including the crew members' relatives, insistently ask not to interfere in the practically finished talks", the expert said. According to the FAINA's owner, this person "simply tells the pirates that they should reject all previously reached agreements" and tries to instigate separate mediations. There is plenty of incriminating evidence against that American person, Voitenko said and added: "The media buzz about the critical state of the crew members is totally untrue. The ship's owner talked to acting captain Nikolsky once again this morning. Everything is okay with the crew. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the talks", he said.
Ecoterra Intl. renewed it's call to solve the FAINA and the SIRIUS STAR cases with first priority and peaceful in order to avert a human and environmental disasters at the Somali coast. Anybody encouraging hot-headed and concerning such difficult situations inexperienced and untrained gunmen to try an attempt of a military solution must be held responsible for the surely resulting disaster.
Clearing-house:
News from other abducted ships --------
The Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed that the crew of MV BOSPHORUS PRODIGY aka "M/V Boğaziçi Harikası" comprises of eight Ukrainian and three Turkish citizens. The ministry has instructed the Ukrainian embassy in Turkey and the Ukrainian general consulate in Istanbul (Turkey) to take urgent measures to establish contacts with the owners of the ship and facilitate early release of the ship's crew. The Ukrainian embassy in Kenya and the ministry's consular affairs department are monitoring the situation. Local reports state that it is about to anchor at Bereeda east of Caluula at the very tip of the Horn of Africa.
French TOTAL contracted, Malaysian owned tugboat MASINDRA 7, sea-jacked together with the attached, empty barge AMD 1, has 11 Indonesian crew members on board. The captors will most likely take them to Eyl, though local reports say that the barge is more or less under water. This could lead to a serious problem for ship, crew and pirates.
The Chinese heavy-lift ship MV ZHEN HUA-4 (see update 81) was attacked by nine pirates in two skiffs, it has transpired. Media reports speak of a joint EU naval operation, which came after 5 hours to the rescue of the seamen, but no official report has been provided and it is not clear if there where any casualties. In addition one could believe the Somali pirates were paid and ordered to stage an incident with a Chinese ship to also drag China into the global naval event at the Horn of Africa. In what would be the first active deployment of its warships beyond the Pacific, China appears set to send naval vessels to help in the fight against hijackers in the Gulf of Aden. A deputy foreign minister and a leading naval strategist were quoted in Chinese state media Wednesday as saying that Beijing was close to sending a naval mission to the gulf. "China is seriously considering sending naval ships to the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somali coast for escorting operations in the near future", said the Foreign Ministry official, He Yafei, as quoted by Xinhua, the official Chinese press agency.
His remarks came at a ministerial meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Li Jie, a military strategist and naval expert, told the state-run China Daily newspaper that cooperating with a multinational force operating against East African pirates would be a "very good opportunity" for the Chinese Navy. It also offers a unique training opportunity for the People´s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in dealing with the logistical challenges of a foreign deployment. "Apart from fighting pirates", he said, "another key goal is to register the presence of the Chinese Navy".
With the latest captures and releases now at least 18 foreign vessels with a total of at least 351 crew members (of which 91 are Filipinos) are held in Somali waters and 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.
Over 131 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) have been recorded to far for 2008 with until today 58 factual sea-jacking cases (incl. the presently held 18). Several other vessels with unclear fate (not in the actual count), who were reported missing over the last ten years in this area, are still kept on our watch-list, though in some cases it is presumed that they sunk due to bad weather or being unfit to sail. In the last four years, 22 missing ships have been traced back with different names, flags and superstructures.
Other related news ----------
A Yemeni security official said the Indian navy has handed over 12 Somali and 11 Yemeni pirates it caught at sea to Yemen authorities. The official says the handover took place Wednesday in the southern Yemen port of Aden. He says the pirates will be interrogated and will later face charges in court. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media pending a government statement. He spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from Aden. The 23 pirates were arrested by an Indian navy ship in the Gulf of Aden on December 13 after they threatened a merchant vessel in the lawless waters. The Indian sailors boarded two pirate boats and also seized arms and equipment at the time. Indian government statements spoke of 12 Yemeni and 12 Somali people arrested. Later Yemen's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday 12 Yemenis caught by the Indian Navy in an anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden earlier this week were fishermen and not pirates. "Preliminary investigation showed that the 12 Yemenis handed over by the Indian Navy were fishermen", the ministry said in a statement on its web site.
The ministry said the Somali pirates commandeered a Yemeni fishing dhow in the Gulf of Aden and used it as a mother ship for their attacks against ships in the area. The statement said the Somali pirates used the Yemeni fishermen as "human shields during their attack against a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden last Saturday". The attack was thwarted by an Indian Navy ship. Yemeni officials said the Somali pirates would be put on trial in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden next week. They said 12 AK-47 rifles that were seized in the possession of the Somali pirates and would be submitted as evidence against them during trial. On Monday, Yemen officially asked India to hand over the Yemeni suspects who were arrested, along with the suspected pirates, by the Indian warship INS Mysore warship on December 13. The ship foiled an attack on an Ethiopian merchant vessel and arrested the pirates about 160 nautical miles east of the Aden port. Yemen's Defence Ministry has said authorities need to ascertain the men's identities and put them on trial if claims about their involvement in piracy acts were accurate.
Chris Floyd writes in the Boston Chronicle: UN Declares Open Season on Somalia. The UN Security Council resolution is a virulent product of a global militarism, the universal warlordism that finds expression sometimes in ragged bands of fighters in desert, mountain or jungle enclaves – and sometimes in the clean and carpeted halls of vast nation-states and international institutions. With this resolution, the entire world – the entire world – has turned its back on the people of Somalia. They have been abandoned as utterly, completely – and officially -- as any people in history. At least there was some opposition in the Security Council to the American rape of Iraq; but this declaration of open season on Somalia – this universal license to kill Somalis granted to every government on earth – passed unanimously.
Without demur, without protest, with no objection. Are there pirates in Somalia? Yes. Have they hindered some commercial operations? Yes. Are there criminal organizations in the United States, in Europe, in Russia, in China, in the Middle East? Yes. Do they hinder some commercial operations? Yes. (And far more violently and extensively than the Somali pirates, we might add.) But only the Somali people are subjected to the murderous strictures of the UN's draconian edict. Only the Somali people are being condemned to die – by the United Nations – for the actions of criminals within their borders. There are many injustices in the world, of course; murder, destruction and cruelty almost beyond reckoning – and most of it slathered in pious hypocrisy and self-righteousness of one sort or another. But I've never seen anything quite like the relentless assault on the Somali people in the past two years – and the near-universal silence that has greeted this on-going abomination. It is a blot on all humanity.
Compared to disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, accused of orchestrating a $ US 71 billion fraud, who only was placed under house arrest on Wednesday with an electronic bracelet, the Somali pirates are certainly only a mini-threat to world-economy and obviously not the real reason for the naval build-up around the Horn of Africa. Ambassador David Shinn too doubts the effectiveness of the UN resolution. He once served as the State Department Deputy Task Force Director for Somalia and as an ambassador to Ethiopia. His now an adjunct professor of international affairs at George Washington university in Washington, D.C. and told VOA: "The problem with piracy", he says, "is you can not control it until you have a functional government in Somalia that controls the country and the coast line [The Transitional Federal Government does not]. So, the idea of trying to deal with the problem with a large naval presence in the Indian Ocean or permitting members of the U.N. to go on land in hot pursuit of pirates may have some impact on the margins but will not change the ultimate challenge – that will remain". "The United States", he says, "has been requesting a peacekeeping force for about a year now and the U.N. is not about to authorize it because there has been no interest shown by member nations. No nation has agreed to take the lead in such an operation. The African Union is not capable of setting up a large, well-financed force with adequate heavy equipment to conduct any peace making operation in Mogadishu. If you had a massive U.N. peacekeeping force with the idea of making peace, it might be able to do that, but it is not realistic to expect that to happen". He says any force would need to be a peace-making one, which he says "means going in to Somalia with a Chapter 7 mandate and not only being able but willing to impose force over dissident Somalia parties. That is where I think the international community is stumbling; they are not willing to do that".
Shinn says that in an effort to be even-handed, the international community should be concerned not only about piracy in Somalia, but also about complaints many Somalis have about the outside world. He says, "While everyone is talking about stopping piracy, no one is saying anything about the illegal fishing and the [alleged] dumping of toxic waste along the coast, which does not affect the West or Asia, but the Somalis. [The international community] ought to talk about ending those practices too. That means the Western and Asian countries taking it upon themselves about stopping this activity".
The German national parliament, the Bundestag, held hearings on a the government's proposal to expand the mandate of the German military to take part in the European Union-led anti-pirate mission, Operation Atalanta. The mandate under consideration, which will come to a parliamentary vote on Friday, would allow Germany to use up to 1,400 troops and a frigate stationed in the region to participate in anti-pirate operations. Bundestag approval is required for all foreign deployments of the country's armed forces, the Bundeswehr. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who, along with Jung, presented the government's proposal, assured members of parliament that the mandate would not allow German troops to pursue Somali pirates on land. Several German parliamentarians expressed skepticism about the mission, according to the magazine SPIEGEL.
Winifried Nachtwei, a military expert with the Green Party, criticized the government for focusing only on a military solution and failing to address the root causes of the "pirate epidemic". Steinmeier is set to testify Thursday before a parliamentary inquiry into Germany's role in the Iraq war. He is expected to repeat the statements he has made several times in the past -- that Germany did not relay war-relevant information to the United States before and during the so-called Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet several U.S. military sources have stated pretty much the contrary. Despite all its denials, Germany has played a key role in the U.S. war in Iraq, according to numerous U.S. military sources. This threatens to break the career of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has been hoping to displace Angela Merkel as chancellor. Merkel's conservatives have lost trust in Steinmeier, and of course they're using the affair to question his overall political credibility.
UN officials also noted that the navy task was relatively easy, compared with the challenges a peacekeeping force would face on shore. "There is a frustration that powerful states are willing to contribute to a risk-free effort but are not willing to put one foot on the ground where it´s needed", one official said. International aid groups have accused United Nations powers of headline grabbing by toughening action against Somali pirates this week while dragging their feet on the complex issue of creating a viable security plan that might lead to a political settlement in Somalia. In a statement echoed privately by some UN officials, Michelle Brown of US-based Refugees International, said: "The UN Security Council´s single-minded focus on piracy is hypocritical and underscores that economic interests are trumping humanitarian concerns". Urging the council to come up with a viable security arrangement in the face of the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces – scheduled for the end of this year – she said: "It is time that the council stops spinning the wheels and develops a coherent and unified approach to Somalia that encourages an inclusive political dialogue". UNSG Ban said the danger of anarchy in Somalia was "clear and present", and action must be taken though conditions were not in place for sending peacekeepers. "If there is no peace to keep, peacekeeping operations are not supposed to be there", the UN chief said in a rather rhetorical response. Instead, he said, more efforts were needed on an inter-Somali peace process and to bolster the current African Union force.
Well, he was not around, when third-world-country forces were left behind after the first US-led and then UN-led UNOSOM interventions failed miserably and he seem not to see what little AU forces can achieve. Instead of fostering international peace-building and development initiatives for Somalia, the UN is at present only the stir-up holder for further global militarization.
Somalis already now see the EU and other naval missions mostly as shows on the high-seas in order to get some chips on the shoulders of otherwise idling officers and not at all as a help to the raped and pillaged country and its impoverished population. Most deliveries of food aid inside the country are done by clever Somali businessmen under WFP contract with hardly any or no control where the food really goes to inland. Surely the naval escorts of food-aid-ships prevents them from being sea-jacked before delivery at the ports, but what really happens thereafter neither the world-press nor the officers from the naval armada see.
While Somalia under Siad Barre was a country which frequently resisted against dumping of WFP-food-aid deriving mostly from US-subsidized farm-stocks in order to keep local agricultural producer prices stable and to further develop their excellent own seed-varieties of staple crops, today WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon said that the number of Somalis relying on U.N. food assistance increased this year to 3.25 million. WFP did until today not agree to sign a memorandum, which would guarantee that no food from genetically modified (GM) plants would be delivered by the UN. It is believed that especially GM-maize and GM-soya deliveries meanwhile have already contaminated most agricultural areas in Somalia, but even GM-tomato seeds were brought as aid into the country.
The Djibouti peace agreement signed by representatives from the Somalia´s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) now faces major obstacles. The Somali politicians of the old generation have bequeathed to the young generation of politicians enormous political problems caused by obstinacy, clan conformity and fanaticism. One of the most enduring lessons learned from foreign sponsored conferences and political arrangements is that such efforts don´t consider the enormity and complexity of Somalia´s prolonged turmoil. Somalia needs a sustainable state born out of Somalis´ genuine conflict resolution initiatives without outside interference and political bribery.
The US government said Wednesday that it believes a new UN Security Council resolution on Somalia authorizes air strikes against pirates in Somali territory. The resolution "authorizes states cooperating with the Somali Transitional Federal Government to extend counter-piracy efforts to include potential operations in Somali territorial land and air space, to suppress acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea", the State Department said in a statement. However, contrary to an earlier draft, the final version of resolution 1851 does not explicitly say Somali air space can be used. "The resolution urges countries to establish an international cooperation mechanism as a common point of contact for counter-piracy activities near Somalia", the State Department said in response to a reporter's question to clarify the situation.
India's Defence Minister Shri A K Antony clarified in a written statement that India has been notified as a cooperating State by the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, and ships of the Indian Navy are authorized to enter the territorial waters of Somalia to prevent acts of piracy. In accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which India is also a signatory, all nations exercise jurisdiction over pirates outside the jurisdiction of any State on the high seas. Somalia has no proper coast guard, which could serve as the nodal agency for tackling piracy and armed robbery against ships at sea in the territorial waters of Somalia or its 200nm Exclusive Economic Zone.
A list compiled by defence analysts Jane's Country Risk and based on 24 factors ranked Somalia as the most volatile country in the world in a league of unstable nations. Somalia, with its internal fighting and emboldened pirates, has replaced Gaza and the West Bank as the most unsettled area on the globe. The analysis concluded that the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, which led to widespread factional fighting, had sent the country spiraling out of control. In addition there are fears that Somalia will be overrun by radical Islamic militia. Of the 10 most unstable countries, seven hail from Africa. But that the list is certainly not free from bias can easily be seen by the fact that Iraq, placed 20th last year, has miraculously improved to 57th place, irrespective of the recent violence prompted by this week's visits from President George W(eapon-of-Mass-Destruction) Bush and Mr Brown. It seems that the list reflects more likely places where the US government is neither welcome nor in control.
End of Ecoterra Press Release Update
Print
Email
