Abyssinian Thugs´ Withdrawal and TFG President´s Resignation Herald Fake War Against Somali Piracy
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
January 05, 2009
However, they are not so now, as these developments take place at a moment of machinated division of the National Liberation Forces of Somalia, namely ARS, ICJ, the Shebab, and the Ahl-u Sunna, who have all been disreputably defamed by the Freemasonic Anglo-Saxon mass media as ´Islamists´; the current multi-division of the National Liberation Forces of Somalia occurs at a moment of utmost aggravation of the parallel Somali crisis, namely the equally machinated phenomenon of piracy off the East African coast.
It is clear that the absence of Somali national unity and internationally acknowledged political authority, albeit unrepresentative, offers the necessary vacuum needed by the ´international´ neo-colonial forces in order to intervene militarily across Somalia.
In this case, the trashy explanations given by Wehade Belay, a spokesman at the Abyssinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the ludicrous analysis of Biruk Girma in the ´Daily Monitor´ have absolutely no value.
All that matters is the plan to entrap the Somali pirates´ representatives into lengthy and interminable negotiations that will take an end with the beginning of the already meticulously planned attack against all the ships nowadays controlled by the gullible Somali pirates.
The Somali pirates´ representatives should stop immediately every negotiation with any American or British citizen, and contact directly Kiev and Moscow. Any possible solution will either come from there or from nowhere.
I publish here the 89th Update of the Ecoterra Press Release with details and comments on the recent developments.
89th Update 2008-12-26 12:44:12 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 93 - 2206 hours into the FAINA Crisis - Update Summary
Efforts for a peaceful release continued, but the now three months long stand-off concerning Ukrainian MV FAINA is not yet solved finally, though intensive negotiations have continued.
Somali negotiators on the FAINA case have realized that they can no longer wait for "dreams come true" or play the "hard to get game", especially since the majority of the Somali stakeholders in the outfit of the captor-conglomerate had agreed already with the owner.
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 fully responsible for the surely resulting disaster.
Clearing-house:
News from other abducted ships --------
All sides are working together to ensure that a sailor on one of the ships held in Somalia, who is urgently required at home for the medical cancer-proceedings of his daughter, is released by the captors on humanitarian grounds.
Despite stepped-up negotiation efforts, pirates continue holding on to the Saudi oil tanker which was hijacked last month. Crude oil on board the ship alone is worth over 100-million US dollars. But ship owners and the pirates have not agreed on an exact value for a ransom.
Rescue efforts to safeguard the crew and the Malaysian tugboat with engine failure and an attached but submerged barge are ongoing.
With the latest captures and releases now at least 18 foreign vessels with a total of at least 350 crew members (of which 92 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 132 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) have been recorded to far for 2008 with until today 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases (incl. the presently held 18). Mystery mother vessels Athena/Arena and Burum Ocean and not fully documented cases of vessels are not listed in the hi-jack count any more 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.
Other related news -----
An unmanned surveillance aircraft controlled by nearby US warships, has come down yesterday in the southern Somali town of Baidoa, reports say. The drone crashed near the town's main airstrip calling the attention of the onlooking soldiers, a Press TV correspondent reported in Somalia. Holding back reporters, the soldiers took the remains to their bases, witnesses said. The aircraft, spotted by the locals on a daily basis, are suspected to be manned from the United States warships which patrol Somalia's territorial waters. The US has tasked half a dozen of the vessels with fighting the Somali pirates. However, with the piracy still going strong, speculations have been fuelled that the presence serves other motives. The drones were reportedly first operated in 2006 after an Ethiopian intervention in support of the country's embattled leadership, that was followed by the ouster of the insurgents. The reports coincide with the insurgents' regaining ground in the violence-hit country and the daily weakening of the transitional government.
A German warship and helicopter on Thursday, Dec. 25, succeeded in foiling an attempt by pirates to board an Egyptian bulk carrier travelling in the troubled Gulf of Aden off Somalia's coast. The vessel, which had a crew of 31 aboard, was headed for an Asian port from the Egyptian port of Suez when pirates approached the vessel and started firing at crew members, said Noel Choong, head of the anti-piracy International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reporting center in Kuala Lumpur. While he declined to give details of the ship and cargo, the vessel was identified as MV WABI-al-ARAB, which was under attack off the coast of Yemen at around 0745 GMT. Upon being attacked, crew members immediately called for aid from international coalition forces patrolling the troubled Somalia waters, said Choong. "The pirates were randomly firing at the ship, resulting in one of the crew members sustaining injuries to his leg", he said. However, before the pirates could board the ship, a German naval warship and helicopter, responding to the call for help, arrived at the scene and managed to chase off the pirates. Later, the helicopter returned to the Egyptian carrier and airlifted the injured crew member onto the warship, said Choong.
A statement by the German military confirmed that the pirates called off their attack after helicopters were dispatched from the Karlsruhe and a sister frigate, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, but were still in the area, the communique added. It said that the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was currently heading to the aid of another ship, called the Hatef, whose nationality was not specified, which had also called for help.Conflicting reports first revealed that German military officials said the pirates fled as the chopper reached the Egyptian ship while others maintained that the German navy disarmed the Somali pirates but did not detain them on orders of the German government. The German Navy spokesperson based in Djibouti clarified that all six Somali pirates who attacked the Egyptian vessel were captured by sailors of German Navy frigate Karlsruhe, which was operating in the Gulf of Aden. He said the Somali attackers were disarmed by German sailors but then released immediately. He said the decision not to detain or arrest them was taken by the German government in Berlin.
The resignation of Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Mohamud Guled, appointed by ailing Somali president Abdullahi Yussuf just a week ago, was confirmed, while reports by some media speaking of a resignation of Abdullahi Yussuf himself set for coming Saturday has been termed to wrong information by Somali politicians in Baidoa.
The chairman of the Sahil Region court Dr Usman Ibrahim Dahir has announced that his court has sentenced five pirates, who hail from Puntland regional state, to 20 years in prison. The pirates were arrested by Somaliland coastguards who were assisted by civilians on 13 December in Shalcow area, Xiise District, Sanaag Region [northeastern Somaliland region, northwestern Somalia]. Dr Usman said it had been proven in court and that the five men had admitted to be pirates from Puntland and were planning to seize ships off the coast of Sanaag Region. "The court has sentenced the five men to 20 years in prison as per articles 230, 234, 118 and 73 of the penal code. The court also ruled that four guns and a speedboat - used by the pirates and confiscated - be transferred to Somaliland coastguards", said Dr Usman. The five convicted pirates are: 1. Muhammad Mahmud Abdi 2. Abdi Umar Yasin 3. Abdi Ali Ilmi 4. Shu'aib Usman Yasin 5. Abdirashid Abdiqadir Ilmi. This is not the first that the Sahil Regional court has convicted sea pirates. The court sentenced five pirates from Puntland who were operating on the Somali coast to 15 years, in September this year, reports the Mareeg news agancy.
The last four years largely represented a disappointment for the people of Puntland, mainly because security and development expectations have not been met, local observers report. Pirate attacks along Somalia's Puntland coast have given the region a negative image, with international press erroneously reporting that piracy has become an "industry" in Puntland. The local economy has suffered as a direct result of Puntland President Muse's incompetent economic practices, such as the illegal printing counterfeit Somali Shillings, which has led to sky-high prices for common goods. Terror attacks, including twin suicide bombings in Bossaso in October 2008, represent the serious security challenges facing Puntland's next ruler. Today, local analysts maintain, Puntland cannot afford to test its future with a new leader whose political past is unknown and therefore whose future policy cannot be assessed. There are more than 12 presidential candidates currently in Garowe competing to unseat President Muse, but only a handful of politicians are well-known locally. Local intellectuals therefore demand that Puntland lawmakers must support the candidate who has a track record for good governance, is able to unite the local clans and can help the region's progress by reviewing and implementing the Five-Year Development Plan – the only document of its type in Somalia.
Biruk Girma reports in the Daily Monitor: Ethiopia said that it has achieved most of its goals it had set before its troops were deployed in neighbouring Somalia two years ago. "We have achieved our goals we have set to rescue our national security from potential dangers that could have arisen from Somalia", Wehade Belay, a spokesman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told journalists. He said his country was now preparing to leave Somalia with grace after dismissing the risks from the extremist groups in Somalia who were backed by the Eritrean government and other anti-Ethiopian forces like OLF and ONLF who had used the war-torn horn of African nation as their base to attack Ethiopia. Wehade said these groups had declared a war on Ethiopia. "We certainly have quailed the threat that would have come from Somalia have secured a position in a way that any anti-Ethiopia force can not attack Ethiopia from Somalia". The spokesman also indicated that his country's decision to withdraw its troops from Somalia is irreversible. "The decision to withdraw had got approval of the House of People's Representatives,...and the Ethiopian army, that successfully discharged its mission in Somalia, will be withdrawn according to plan", he stressed. "It had been long that we achieved this goal but it took us long to withdraw because we were trying to make the transitional government of the country stand on its own feet and see a more politically stable Somalia", the spokesman added. Wahde accused Somali leaders of being an obstacle to Ethiopia's efforts for peace and security in that war-ravaged country but put his country's inclination to put forth future support under the AMISOM whose mandate was extended till March 2009 as a member state.
"As the current chairmanship of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a member of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU), an active participant in the UN and international forums, Ethiopia will continue exerting efforts to help ensure peace and stability in Somalia". The spokesman put the leaders as responsible to the strengthening of Al-shabab. "The group has gained the strength because of the weakness of the transitional government not because of the support from the people". According to the spokesman, the Ethiopian force has also played a significant role in portraying that the extremist under the leadership of Al-shabab are incapable of threatening the national peace and security. Wehade also told journalists that preliminarily joint efforts inside the politically instable Somalia would ensure viable solution to curb problems regarding piracy which has hampered the international trade on the coast. "Since the long dated political instability inside the war-torn horn of Africa nation is the very basic cause putting the ship root across the Gulf of Aden the most hazardous place for the international trade, the world should act on the ground first rather than wasting millions of dollars on the pirate combating", Wehade stressed. Wehade expressed Ethiopia's interest in the international fight against piracy and ensure a peaceful and secured trade root in the coast. "The piracy should stop. We back the efforts but it is costing them a lot. We now say they should focus on the ground because it started from there", Wahde said it would have not been this much costly, if the world had showed up interests in the war inside the country two years back in the first place.
China's Rear Admiral Du Jingchen, chief commander of the mission, said two destroyers, a large supply vessel, and about 1,000 navy personnel would sail from the navy base near Sanya in Hainan province at around 1:30 pm today. And they are prepared for "complicated and long-term missions" for at least three months, he added. Though the Philippines stated that Manila is not worried about the Chinese naval mission, Beijing's opaque but quickening military build-up has contributed to a sense of unease in parts of Asia, especially Taiwan, the self-ruled island China claims as its own and has vowed to bring under mainland control, by force if necessary. "I don't think that's a cause of worry for us", Vice Admiral Ferdinand Golez, Philippine Navy chief, told Reuters in an interview at his Manila Bay headquarters on Friday. China has territorial disputes with four Southeast Asian neighbours -- Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam -- and with Taiwan, which Beijing considers as a renegade province. All these nations have conflicting claims over a chain of islands called the Spratlys in the South China Sea. The islands are believed to be rich in deposits of oil and natural gas.
"The situation in the Spratlys has improved since 1995 when China built structures on Mischief Reef," Golez said, crediting Southeast Asian states' diplomacy in 2002 to force Beijing to obey a non-binding code of conduct in the disputed territory."China is just protecting its own interest. It's a concern, but it's not a cause of worry for us because they are our good neighbours". While China is flexing it's oversees muscles in this first overseas military mission since 1949, Chinese "authorities" in Tibet have detained 59 people accused of disseminating rumours aimed at inciting ethnic tension and have cracked down on illegal downloads of "reactionary music" online, Chinese state media reported. Law enforcement officers have found 48 cases of "rumour spreading" since March. Maybe the Chinese will link up with al-Shabaab, who also are keen to suppress freedom of information, one local observer remarked.
The Pentagon said the new U.S. military command for Africa will not have responsibility for security in the Gulf of Aden, where pirates have been menacing merchant ships. Three months after fully establishing Africa Command, the U.S. Defense Department published its first map outlining the borders of the command's responsibilities. As expected, the official map shows Africa Command has responsibility for U.S. military activity throughout the continent except for Egypt, which remains part of Central Command's area. But for the first time, this map indicates that Africa Command will not have responsibility for any of the waters off the continent's north shore on the Mediterranean, its northwestern shore on the Atlantic, and its northeastern shorelines on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It is that last area where pirates have attacked dozens of ships, and still hold hundreds of hostages. The U.S. Navy and allied forces have been working to track and deter pirates in the area, with direction from Central Command's Naval headquarters in Bahrain, and that will continue.
Africa Command's maritime responsibility will be only for the southern part of the continent, south from the Kenya-Somalia border in the east and from Mauritania-Western Sahara border in the west. Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman said the updated Unified Command Plan also orders the seven top regional U.S. commanders, including the head of Africa Command, to increase their capabilities designed to promote stability and avoid conflicts. "It also assigns all combatant commanders the responsibility for planning and conducting military support to stability, security, transition and reconstruction operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief", he said. That order fits with recent directives ordering the U.S. military services to increase their ability to conduct stability operations and to build skills in a broad range of combat activities, from training and low-level conflict to major campaigns involving heavy weapons. The new plan also puts U.S. Strategic Command, which handles nuclear missiles and long-range bombers, in charge of coordinating U.S. military efforts related to missile defense, weapons of mass destruction and protection of the nation's computer networks. The document formalizes the lead roles of Special Operations Command in fighting terrorism. Whitman said Egypt was kept in Central Command because it is political and culturally linked more to the rest of the command's area in the Middle East. But Israel and the Palestinian Territories will remain part of European Command's responsibility.
U.S. officials, including Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway, reports the NavyTimes, have not indicated that Marines will be called on to fight pirates. But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other officials welcomed the resolution and look forward to addressing "this troublesome problem" with allies. In recent years, the U.S. role in fighting piracy has been almost entirely a Navy undertaking, according to Dan Lamothe from the magazine, but the Corps has helped on occasion, he says. With land-based attacks now an option, defense analysts said amphibious missions using smaller military ships seem possible. "Trying to kill pirates with a destroyer is kind of like killing an ant with a bazooka", said Benjamin Friedman, a defense analyst for the Cato Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. Retired Col. Gary Anderson, who served as the military liaison officer for the Corps in Somalia in 1993, said Marines will face familiar challenges if they are ordered to occupy coastal villages where pirates organize attacks. "If you´re going in and seen as an occupier, you´re going to have resistance, and you´re going to have an insurgency", said Anderson, now an analyst for the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank in Arlington, Va. An international response also should be appealing for the U.S. because piracy has caused little impact on the global economy, Friedman said. "It´s easy to sort of get caught up in it and miss the bigger picture, which is that it´s an annoyance", Friedman said. "We ought not to overreact too much".
The government of Japan is considering dispatching Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) destroyers to the sea off Somalia to protect Japanese civilian vessels from pirates, government sources said. The Japanese government will order the MSDF to take seaborne policing action in the area under the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) Law, possibly by the end of this year and had been considering a new anti-piracy law. However, it is difficult to have the bill cleared by the opposition-controlled House of Councillors, and as a result, government officials have deemed it necessary to invoke a seaborne policing action under the SDF Law for now in order to protect Japanese vessels in the area. Under the plan, MSDF destroyers will guard tankers and other vessels sailing in the Gulf of Aden with Japanese crewmembers aboard. To expedite deployment, the government is considering ordering destroyers and other MSDF vessels engaged in refueling operations in the Indian Ocean under the new Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law to take part.
However, MSDF vessels engaged in such actions have difficulties guarding foreign vessels, and are legally prohibited from firing shots at fleeing vessels or forcing them to stop. According to current legislation, a policing mission has to be limited to the protection of ships registered in Japan or Japanese citizens. However, in view of the rising piracy treat in the waters off Somalia, the government is believed to prepare an amendment allowing Japan's Self-Defence Forces to also aid other ships threatened by pirates. The MSDF is also considering dispatching P3C reconnaissance aircraft to the area, if a country near the area allows them to use its bases and signs a status-of-forces agreement with Japan. Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso may announce a decision on such an operation by the end of the year but ordered a probe into the possibility of having the Japanese navy join the international fight against piracy off the Somalia coast, news reports said. Aso asked Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada to look into having Japan's Self-Defence Forces join the anti-piracy mission.
The Japanese government is also making arrangements to provide patrol boats and other vessels to Yemen for use in anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. The patrol vessels are equipped with bulletproof glass and other devices that qualify them as "weapons" that would infringe on Japan's ban on arms exports, but the government plans to make an exception in this case, sources said. Even though the move is intended to fight piracy against commercial ships, including those serving Japan, some lawmakers may raise concerns that Japan's long-held weapons export ban could be undermined. It would be only the second time Japan has provided such patrol vessels. Three were given to Indonesia. The Cabinet authorized that decision in June 2006. They shall be financed by using grant aid, and the government will ask Yemen to pledge that the vessels will not be diverted for military use, Japanese sources said.
Military presence in the Gulf of Aden is not a solution, writes Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Dali in Al-Thawri Weekly and explains: We don't know what the objective of the presence of internal marine forces in the Gulf of Aden is. We don't know whether the troops came to fight the phenomenon of sea piracy in the gulf or have other purposes.
If the purpose of the presence of international marine forces is to fight piracy in the sea, which already starts from the Somali territory, such a purpose may not be achieved, provided that the relation between this military presence and the negative phenomenon (piracy) resembles that of an elephant chasing a rat.
In addition, any painkillers provided for symptoms of the disease are impossible to treat the real causes of the disease. In other words, if such an excessive presence of international marine troops has other invisible motives, be they regional or international, these motives will be uncovered by the days to come while the problem will remain unsolved. Remarkably, the rapid growth of piracy acts and development of its tactics, which pirates first employed to take control of tourist yachts until they hijacked giant oil tankers, was not expected to look like this. Even worse, the piracy operations spread over large distances in the Indian Ocean, thus targeting super tankers, which have been impossible for one to identify except through the satellite technology. The fact raises a critical question about who provides pirates with such accurate information.
Nevertheless, the international community in general and the regional community in particular are primarily accountable for the dire situations in Somalia and its negative consequences such as the poor living standards of Somali citizens, killings, civil wars, mass exodus of Somalis to neighboring states, and death of hundreds of men, women and children in the Gulf of Aden before reaching the Yemeni shores. The tragic situations of Somalis continue to worsen before eyes of the international community that doesn't react to what happens.
As a result of indifference on the part of international community toward what happens to the Somali people, the phenomenon of piracy in the Somali coast emerged. With my appreciation to all efforts expended with the intention of addressing tragic conditions of Somali people in and outside their country, those efforts did nothing for the war-ravaged nation.
Piracy fighting efforts resemble painkillers
Several battleships entrenched in front of Somali shores, as well as in international navigation routes in the Gulf of Aden in order to fight piracy, however, they eventually appeared to be like painkillers, not a real medicine for the source of the problem (the Somali crisis). The real effort to solve other problems following from the main problem must shift to tackling the Somali turmoil. The international community is responsible for this in order to help Somali people reach an agreement on forming a national unity government following a constructive dialogue to involve all the Somali factions without any exception. Before such a comprehensive dialogue begins, those involved must stop the civil fighting and pull foreign troops out of the Somali land. The international community is also required to take a true decision and show a serious will to solve the Somali turmoil, which began to diverge into various directions, thereby leaving negative impacts on the regional situations and international navigation in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. Otherwise, the currently provided painkillers will only help the Somali turmoil continue worsening and the surrounding region lose its security and stability.
Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who had set up close links with Kenya during his he-days, was believed to have $5 billion (S$7.2 billion) of overseas assets in nominal value, but with the collapse of the global financial markets and the commodity prices, Thaksin´s core money is now believed to be worth not more than US$500 million. Thaksin is on the wanted list.
End of Ecoterra Press Release Update
Note
Picture: Islamist, liberal, pro-pirate, anti-pirate, every Somali wants the total destruction of the colonial fabrication ´Ethiopia´; in this they agree with more than 82% of the oppressed and tyrannized ethno-religious groups and massacred nations that have been subjugated and by force annexed by the evil, barbaric, racist and murderous elites of the Amhara and Tigray Monophysitic (tewahedo) Abyssinians.
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