MV FAINA Crisis - Minister Rejects the Michele Lynn (Golden) Ballarin Initiative
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
January 05, 2009
More details on the issue and other related news can be found in the 90th Ecoterra Press Release Update that I herewith publish integrally.
90th Update 2008-12-27 23:44:12 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!
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Day 94 - 2239 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.
Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko hopes that seamen from the captured FAINA vessel will return home before the New Year holiday. Ohryzko, as stated by Ukraine's official agency UKRINFORM, also explained: "When I said [earlier] two or three days were left to the release, it was true. Unfortunately, in the course of those few days, a person interfered with the affair, having actually frustrated the final stage of the operation because of inadequate performance". The minister noted that his office was doing the utmost to neutralize the negative impact of third parties' interference with the negotiations. Yet, Ohryzko did not specify who namely hampered the release. "We are proceeding from the promise that the operation is at its final stage, and I wish to believe that our citizens will come and see their near and dear before the end of the year", he emphasized.
In the same official Ukrainian publication was stated: Earlier the authorities said the talks on the release of the ship were at their final stage. A ship with a ransom of USD 3.5 million had set off for the FAINA back on December 7, the governmental press agency stated. Pirates captured the FAINA off Somalia in September, with 20 crewmembers, including 17 Ukrainians, and defense technologies aboard.
Local reports, however, confirmed that the reported level of ransom allegedly agreed and prepared is completely out of bound and does not reflect the reality of the money-sum really available from the insurance, the owner, the involved political party or collected by the families. That the negotiations are for such a long time in limbo appears to have its reason not only in the sensitivity of the cargo, but also because all sides in the money-related negotiation roulette still try to gain personal advances for slices of the cake, which as such can no longer be increased in volume.
Fact seems to be that the owner of the vessel actually had reached an agreement with the ones in charge for holding the FAINA, but several brokers interfered and thereby created only a situation, where the owner could back off and blame them for interference. In addition the present political turmoil in Ukraine, the hackles in Kenya and the interference by Sudanese and Russian interests created one of the most difficult ship-hostage situations on the Somali coast. The most influential Somali elders - tasked to create a peaceful situation on the ground for a smooth release - state therefore that they have distanced themselves from being involved any longer, which as such has created another problem.
It is therefore high time that the tool of total transparency is used to solve the riddles and as well as to expose the gamers, the false prophets and money-greedy mediators in order to allow for a clear and final push in getting the crew and the vessel free. Traditional Somali leaders have pledged their renewed support for a peaceful solution, if the Ukrainian side as well as the captors would follow now a straight line.
Ecoterra Intl. repeats 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 or by those who believe they are capable 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 --------
Ransom bargaining for two Turkish ships taken hostage in the Gulf of Aden has concluded and now debates continue regarding how the ransom will be delivered. If an agreement is reached, 34 personnel will be set free in January, the Turkish Sabah newspaper reports. The route to freedom has begun for two Turkish ships, the Neslihan and Karagöl that were hijacked by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. It has been made known that the two ships have been brought to the Eyl port and ransom bargaining has come to an end, while now delivery methods are being deliberated. The lawyer for the Ya-Sa Denizcilik Company, which owns the Neslihan ship that has been hijacked with 20 crew members, Fehmi Ülgener, in an explanation given to Sabah, stated that he had spoken to the captain again the night before last, and emphasized; "We have now reached the end of the road. I am hoping they will be set free in the beginning of the New Year. They are all in good health condition. Now, we are discussing how to deliver the ransom. "The attorney for the Karagöl ship", Kubilay Marangoz, stated; "we are expecting that the ship and its 14-member crew will be freed in January". Negotiations are continuing regarding how the money will be delivered to the pirates. There are two methods which have been approved by the pirates. They are demanding the money be dropped by air from a helicopter or plane in a balloon that will not sink, or for the ransom to be delivered by ship. At the moment the delivery from the air is the most probable method to be used.
According to representatives of ISKO Marine Shipping, a mediator hired by the company has contacted pirates and launched talks to release hostages onboard the Bosporus Prodigy ship, Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs informs. The crew consists of 8 Ukrainian and 3 Turkish Nationals. On the request of the company-mediators, the company leadership had refused to provide any third party, including Ukraine's Consulate General in Istanbul, with any information on the talks progress. The company's representatives assured that there is no concern about health condition of the sailors. The business-oriented "mediators" thereby obviously try to topple the international principle whereby the next of kind of hostages have the superior rights in all these negotiations and must be informed at all stages if they consent to negotiations by a company on their behalf.
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 133 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 ------
Finally we received some clarification concerning an attack on a motorized larger Yacht, which we reported on 17th December but for which we hadn't received any confirmation earlier. It has become clear now that the private but commercially used tourist-yacht had Yemeni coastguard officers contracted as ship-riders, who opened fire on an approaching skiff after radio-warnings were not adhered to and the skiff maintained collision course even after course adjustments of the yacht. The skiff after several shots were fired then turned away and didn't return while the yacht - even after dropping the guards at a Yemen border-port proceeded undisturbed to Salalah in Oman.
They allegedly planned over-flight by Turkish F 16 fighter planes, which as such has not been permitted by the Somali parliament, did not happen on Friday as was warned for Puntland region and especially the pirate den of Eyl.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero refused to accept any inmate from the Guantánamo prison and thereby snubbed a request in this regard by US president-elect Barack Obama, who announced his decision to close the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, soon after his taking office. Several European countries such as Portugal and Germany have expressed their readiness to receive some of those prisoners, while France is for discussing the issue within the European Union (EU) to give a coordinated answer. But, Zapatero said, his government is committed to the battle against Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean and that he would consider providing troops for an eventual U.N. peacekeeping force in Somalia. The Spanish frigate Victoria, with 200 sailors and marines aboard, is to set sail in early January for the Indian Ocean to join the European Union force protecting shipping off the coast of war-torn Somalia, Defense Minister Carme Chacon said recently.
She announced earlier this month that the Socialist government planned to abandon its self-imposed ceiling of 3,000 on the number of Spanish troops serving abroad. Chacon told lawmakers that from now on, the number of Spanish soldiers participating in international military missions will be limited only "by the legality of the mission, by Spaniards' will and by the capability of the armed forces". She also said Spain has the capability to maintain up to 7,700 soldiers deployed on missions abroad. Her naval officer Captain Andres Breijo recently exposed the real thoughts of many Spaniards and thereby disqualified himself with ludicrous utterances in the context of the European Union's naval mission for Somalia - Atalanta. The Spanish defense chief emphasized, however, that when the new statute enters into force it will be Parliament that authorizes each mission and fixes the number of troops. Spain currently has some 3,000 troops assigned to U.N.-authorized missions in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Kosovo, Bosnia and Chad. Spain, which is one of the largest interested parties in the Indian Ocean Tuna fishing industry, has yet to recognize the 200nm Exclusive Economic Zone of Somalia officially.
Several Spanish trawlers, some of whom fly a flag of convenience, were arrested over the years for illegally fishing in Somali waters and numerous incidences were recorded, where Spanish-owned fishing vessels entered into fights with local fishermen. Though Spain maintains that they would keep their fishing vessels on a leach using AIS to monitor the vessels' whereabouts via satellite, the many Spanish-owned vessels, which are not operating under Spanish flag, as well as the missing transparency of Spain's monitoring system as such give reason to doubt that the Spanish would really be willing to respect the Somali EEZ and Somalia's national fishing grounds.
The Dutch cabinet decided to take part in Operation Atalanta, the EU's anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia. From mid-August to mid-December 2009, the Netherlands will be leading the operation, and deploying air defence command frigate MS Evertsen in the trouble spot.
The cabinet's decision is in line with proposals put forward by foreign minister Maxime Verhagen, defence minister Eimert van Middelkoop and development minister Bert Koenders.
Eugene Puryear writes on the PSL website: The Piracy smokescreen is used to step up military action. The U.S. and other imperialist governments have a long history of carrying out destabilization campaigns to undermine independence and non-compliant governments all over the world. The instability in Somalia is in no small way a consequence of this history. The chaos in Somalia has enabled imperialism to gain a greater foothold in the region. Now the instability and the related issue of piracy has become an obstacle to the plans of Western imperialism in general and Washington in particular. While political stability in Somalia would facilitate the end of piracy, the only government that had a shot at stability — under the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) — was undermined by U.S. intervention. Stability will not satisfy Washington if a compliant regime is not in place.
Charges of terrorism are the alleged reason the U.S. opposes the UIC. Terrorism is only a smokescreen. The U.S. government wants a stable, yet pro-Western, government in Somalia. The country occupies a key position along major international shipping lanes and sits very close to the critical Middle East region. Piracy is still a relatively minor disruption in the bigger geo-strategic picture; nevertheless, the U.S. government and its allies are not too fond of having the resources they so diligently loot and plunder from other countries taken by "pirates". As these great power games play out, the people of Somalia will continue to suffer from immense economic hardship, the ravages of war and the negation of their self-determination. Progressive and revolutionary forces in the United States and around the world should oppose all imperialist interference in Somalia, whether in the form of puppet governments, or extra-territorial interference in Somalia´s land, air and sea space.
"I think it is finally starting to sink-in in Washington, two years too late, that sending in the Ethiopians as a proxy force to deal with the Islamists was just madness", said Andrew McGregor, terrorism editor at the Jamestown Foundation, a right-wing think tank in Washington. There is some hope that once the Islamists seize control – and few doubt that they will – they will curb their insurgency, which largely targets the Ethiopians, and that Somalia might enjoy a level of stability as was seen under the Islamic Courts Union. But there are concerns whether al Shebab, whose name means "the youth" and whose forces are largely illiterate and disaffected young men, can peacefully consolidate their power once they are in charge, writes the Tekegraph, and quotes Rashid Abdi, Somalia analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group: "Unless they can reach out and form some new alliances, which is not an easy thing to do among Somalia's clans, they will fail and we will see the start of yet another civil war", said Mr Abdi.
The Lebanon, based, but US-operated website tactical report claims: A group calling itself the Movement of the Islamic Somalia Land is reportedly preparing to declare Naval Jihad against the foreign cargo ships as well as against the cargo ships that belong to pro-US Arab or Islamic countries. It tries to sell a 180-word newswire included in Tactical Weekly of December 26, 2008 which is said to focus on the issue and would tell what the Movement is teaching its members and how it is going to carry out its naval jihad.
The self-declared Republic of Somaliland recorded a sharp drop in landmine-related accidents in 2008 compared with 2007, a mine clearance organisation official has said. Hassan Ahmed Kosar, operations officer for the Halo Trust, the only international mine clearance organisation currently operating in Somaliland, said 15 accidents - down from 45 in 2007 - were recorded in Somaliland in 2008.
Oil marketers align themselves side-by-side with the US military strategy on global militarization by trying to coerce more and more countries into a regional and global stream. The oil barons now target Tanzania, which has so far stayed out of the regional quagmire involving Somalia. There they say now that unless the piracy is stopped on the Gulf of Aden, Tanzania was likely to experience critical fuel shortages in the near future and claim that the effects of the hijackings have become apparent in the cancellations of trips to the east African region by some bulk oil transporters. "The situation is fast becoming critical and we are expecting the worst to come in a short while", an oil marketer with Chevron Tanzania Limited said. "We have just received communication from the owner of some tankers, which were destined for the region, that they have cancelled their trip due to major security worries", he said on condition of anonymity, and declined to name the vessels that called off their trips, which is not short of scaremongering.
Chevron, which imports about 70 per cent of Tanzania's petroleum products, recently told The Citizen newspaper that fuel supply into Tanzania was fast becoming erratic since most suppliers were refusing to risk their tankers on the Gulf of Aden. In Kenya a similar scam was tried and a fuel shortage artificially created over Christmas, but the Kenyans know the games better, which unveiled rather quickly that the so called piracy induced oil shortage was a hoax and officials had to admit that the shortages were mainly due to the ongoing repairs of the Mombasa-Nairobi pipeline and failures by Kenya Power & Lightning Ltd. to supply uninterrupted electricity. Also the Tanzania Peoples Defence Forces allayed fears of piracy on Tanzanian waters, saying it was well equipped to handle any ship attack and Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority director-general Haruna Masebu said no oil importer had proposed to increase insurance charges as a result of high risk. This is where the double game comes in too: Some sources in the oil transport business said insurance charges had been increased to between $1 and $2 per metric tonne, and maintain that due to piracy, most tankers now wait for escorts in the Gulf of Aden for up to a week, which was putting extra costs on ship owners who have to pay about $25,000 a day a vessel for medium-range vessels and $30,000 a day for long-range vessels. But like in Kenya, the effects of piracy on local oil prices have not yet manifested themselves in Tanzania, since prices are currently on a downward trend following a slump in global crude oil prices. Pump prices have fallen from an average of Sh1,900 a liter in July 2008 to the current average of Sh1,500, and frantic efforts by the oil-marketers to create any kind of shortage of supply can be observed, which then could be used as argument to trigger a fresh rise in prices. The appropriate reaction for Tanzania certainly would be to get rid of the near monopoly of Chevron in Tanzania in order to maintain low prices and flowing supply.
End of Ecoterra Press Release Update
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