Somali Piracy After the End of the MV FAINA Crisis. Part V
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
March 04, 2009
(http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/93171), and ´Somali Piracy After the End of the MV FAINA Crisis. Part IV´ (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/93255), I published the first four press releases issued by the leading environmental NGO Ecoterra after the peaceful happy end of the MV FAINA crisis. In the present article, I go on with the next Ecoterra press release, which offers across-the-board information about the Horn of Africa region.
Ecoterra Intl. – SMCM (Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor) Part IV
Ecoterra International – Update & Media Release
A Voice for the Voiceless, who sit between all chairs, because they are not part of organized white-collar or no-collar-crime in Somalia or overseas and 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 funding.
2009-02-24 21h22:14 UTC
EA Illegal Fishing and Dumping Hotline: +254-714-747090 (confidentiality guaranteed) - email: somalia@ecoterra.net
EA Seafarers Assistance Programme Emergency Helpline: +254-738-497979
Clearing-house:
News from sea-jackings, abductions or newly attacked ships --------
Three Indian seafarers, who had been abducted from a vessel on the Kenyan side of the Kenyan-Somali border have been released and were quickly ushered out of Kenya. The three were kidnapped under mysterious circumstances from a MV Victoria 4, a fish collector operated by Southern Engineering Company (SECO) of Mombassa / Kenya and kept hostage near Kismaayo in Southern Somalia since 7th January. MV VICTORIA 4 was said to have been anchored in front of the most northern base of the Kenya Navy when 7 attackers stroke. One person had been detained by the authorities in connection with the case. The company SECO Ltd. is a Kenyan company and part of Alpha Group, infamous for illegal fishing in Somalia and observers believe the case has a reason in settling old scores.
MV BLUESTAR has been transferred to Eyl in a move to supply food and water and to prepare for the release of the vessel.
MV SALDANHA, abducted en route from Newcastle / Australia to Slovenia, has arrived very close to Eyl with 19 Filipinos, two Romanians and one Ukrainian seafarer on board.
A shooting among pirates on T/B Masindra 7 luckily did not hurt anybody, but the crew of 11 Indonesian sailors is now extremely anxious because the captors obviously get impatient. Observers are worried that the situation might get worse after the Malaysian owner tried two times unsuccessfully to sideline the captors of the vessel. Meanwhile also the tug-boat's attached Barge ADM1 is reported to have been fortified against any commando operation.
Leonito Mirande, the captain of M/T CHEMSTAR VENUS, speaking after he and his Filipino crewmen were released after three months of captivity by Somali pirates said that despite the cruelty shown by their captors, no one was really hurt among them, although many suffered such traumatic experiences that they no longer want to sail again. Mirande was among the 18 Filipino seamen who arrived on Monday from Abu Dhabi on an Emirate Airlines flight. According to foreign affairs officials who welcomed the group at the airport, 35 Filipino seamen remain in Somalia aboard two cargo vessels. In 2007, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) recorded 263 piracy cases and armed attacks on ships worldwide, including 43 in Indonesia, 42 in Nigeria, and 31 in Somalia. The IMB reported 120 pirate attacks in African waters last year. Filipino seafarers have the greater chance of being pirate victims because they make up one-third of the world´s merchant seamen. The Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) said there were more than 300,000 of them all over the world in 2008.
With the latest captures and releases now still at least 11 (possibly 12 with a mystery ship off Hafun) foreign vessels with a total of not less than 175 crew members accounted for (of which 35 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 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) have been recorded for 2008 with 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases (for Somalia, incl. presently held ones) and the mistaken sinking of one vessel by a naval force. For 2009 the account stands at 32 averted or abandoned attacks and 6 sea-jackings on the Somali/Yemeni pirate side as well as one wrongful attack by friendly fire on the side of the naval forces. Mystery pirate mother-vessels Athena/Arena and Burum Ocean as well as 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.
Illegal fishing, dumping and trafficking news -----
Neither COMESA nor IGAD, the regional body where also Somalia is a member state, have so far agreed on measures to curb illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and the landing and marketing of such catches at their ports. The coastal member States of SADEC have last year adopted a Statement of Commitment that includes measures on the development of national and regional port State measures, and the implementation of a progressive ban on trans-shipment of fish at sea, the eastern and north-eastern African countries, including Sudan, lack any such agreement. It is important that the Ministers of these countries finally go ahead and also commit themselves to set penalties for vessels caught with illegal catches and adopt measures to prohibit such vessels to enter their ports.
Meanwhile FAO consultations made progress on draft treaty to combat IUU fishing. The Technical Consultation to draft a legally-binding instrument on port State measures to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing took place at UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome, Italy, from 26-30 January 2009. The meeting, which was chaired by Fabio Hazim (Brazil), brought together representatives from over 60 States and put in place the general outlines for an international agreement or treaty on "port State measures" that would deny vessels engaged in IUU fishing access to fishing ports. According to the draft elements of the treaty, fishing vessels that wish to land will be required to request permission from specially designated ports ahead of time, transmitting information on their activities and the fish they have on board, thereby providing authorities an opportunity to assess and detect possible illegalities prior to docking. In addition, information-sharing networks will enable countries to deny port access to any vessel previously reported as involved in IUU fishing by other agreement participants or by regional fisheries management organizations. Final details of the agreement will be laid out in a future round of talks, whose date has yet to be determined.
Somali waters must not become a dumping ground to get rid of chemical weapons. Some 186 countries have ratified the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) that bans, with international verification, a whole category of mass-destruction weaponry, leaving only nine outside, mainly in the Middle East and East Asia. The world financial crisis may make it harder for nations to foot the multibillion-dollar costs of eliminating chemical arms stocks by a 2012 treaty deadline, the director of a watchdog agency said on Tuesday, as reported by Reuters. The CWC has made great progress with 43 percent of known chemical weapons stockpiles already verifiably destroyed and 61 of 65 production plants converted irreversibly to peaceful uses, treaty organisation chief Rogelio Pfirter said.
Russia and the United States, the two biggest chemical weapons holders, had scrapped 30 percent and 58 percent of their arsenals respectively and recommitted to finishing the job by 2012, he told reporters during a visit to Vienna. But the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said chemical disarmament was "an enormously expensive business" for ecological and legal reasons and the worsening financial crunch "certainly does not help us". "I would say it will cost tens of billions of dollars for the United States, and several billions for Russia", which has also depended on Western financial aid to carry out the task. Costs were aggravated, Pfirter said, by the need for chemical weapons to be destroyed one by one, not in bulk, for safety reasons, and by litigation, especially in the United States, spurred by environmental fears.
Other countries with declared chemical weapons now close to scrapping them were India, Albania and Libya, said the veteran Argentine diplomat, who is based in The Hague. CWC member states at a review conference last year called on all outsiders to ratify the pact quickly without preconditions. Holdouts are mainly in violence-ridden regions -- North Korea, Myanmar, Somalia, Angola, Egypt, Israel, Syria -- as well as the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. Pfirter conceded unresolved conflicts were major obstacles to disarmament in these areas but said there was no strategic rationale for shunning the treaty since chemical weapons could do little but terrorize civilians. The last known use of chemical weapons was in 1988 when Iraq under then-dictator Saddam Hussein attacked Kurds with poison gas, killing tens of thousands of people. Pfirter would not be drawn on suggestions he could become a compromise candidate for head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, given indications neither of the two declared candidates can garner a winning majority in a coming election. "You can't predict the future. We'll see", said Pfirter, who was a veteran nuclear treaty negotiator before taking the chemical agency helm in 2002. His tenure expires next year.
Traffickers carrying a boatload of migrants forced their passengers to jump overboard in deep water off the coast of Yemen, causing up to 17 to drown, the United Nations said Tuesday. The 52 Somali and Ethiopian passengers in one of seven boats crossing the Gulf of Aden were made to jump after the smugglers spotted police and refused to sail closer to shore, the U.N's refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement. It said 35 people made it to land, six drowned and 11 others were missing presumed dead. The plight of the refugees has been overshadowed by the dozens of pirate attacks off Somalia's coast that have grabbed international headlines in recent months, according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders. "A lot of attention has been paid lately to tackling the issue of piracy in the waters off the Horn of Africa", the organization's Yemen mission leader Francis Coteur said in November. "Unfortunately, little attention is paid to the drama of the refugees crossing the same waters in horrific conditions. Much more needs to be done to address this issue".
Directly related news --------
The pirate threat off the Horn of Africa is now so bad that the Pentagon has deployed a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the area. Rear Adm. Kurt W. Tidd, commander of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, has announced that the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower has been dispatched to patrol nearly 7.5 million square miles in the Middle East region, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Sunday. The obvious reason for this is that American nuclear-powered super-carriers, because they are much larger than the far smaller conventional carriers that the rest of the world operates, can carry a far larger and more formidable complement of aircraft. They therefore can patrol far larger areas of sea at the same time and launch fast response attacks with powerful squadrons far more often and easily. But nuclear-powered super-carriers have other advantages as well. Because they are nuclear-powered, they can stay at sea for an infinite period of time without being refueled. That vastly reduces the logistical problems of keeping them operationally active and deployed on station for long periods of time, and, sure enough, the Eisenhower has been sent to the Gulf for a five-month mission, its captain said. Tidd said the Eisenhower, which left its home port in Norfolk, Va., Saturday, will offer a strong message to U.S. naval allies, "standing shoulder by shoulder with them in some of the dangerous parts of the world". However, the pirates are hard to combat. Armchair strategists repeatedly have suggested reviving the World War I British expedient of "Q-ships" -- apparently harmless merchantmen that can open fire on pirate attackers with devastating force. But this is a pipe dream. The pirates attack their targets in extremely fast speedboats, and all they would have to do is speed off like lightning when the "Q-ships" revealed their true nature. More and more details are revealed concerning a pending major attack by naval and special forces against pirate land-bases like Eyl in March.
Andrew Mwangura, Chairman of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, and following his application through his attorney at the High Court Mombassa seeking to be issued with bail on apprehension that he could be re-arrested, was granted by the High Court on 12. 02. 2009 protection against possible Police arrest. But High Court judge Justice Leonard Njagi ordered that he executed a personal bond of Kshs. 100,000.- (USD 1,300.-) before the deputy registrar of the courts. The intention to re-arrest Mr. Mwangura is believed to restrict his movements and contact with international seafarers organizations and foreign media. Kenyan security agents visited his residence and were looking for him soon after the release of MV FAINA.
When he was arrested on October 1st last year and while being first detained at the Mombassa central police station security agents wanted to take him to an unknown destination in the middle of the night, which was only prevented by one unbending police officer, fellow inmates and the presence of human rights activists. The High Court also certified the matter as urgent and ordered that the Attorney General be served with the order within seven days to prepare for hearing between the parties. Mr. Mwangura also attended the High Court in Mombassa on 18th February 2009 for the hearing of his notice concerning a constitutional motion dated 11th February 2009, whereby the same was adjourned at the instance of respondent.
The matter has been fixed for inter parte hearing on 27th February 2009. This case shall clarify that his outspoken activities to safe the lives of seafarers on hijacked ships off Somalia are based on and protected by the constitution of the Republic of Kenya, which guarantees the right to free speech. Mr. Mwangura had been detained in connection with the MV FAINA saga - the ill-fated weapons transporter from Ukraine - first in a police-station and then in Kenya's infamous maximum security prison Shimo-la-Tewa for allegedly "making alarming statements". This case is still pending too. Though the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (a governmental body) had been urged even by the Ukrainian Parliamentarian and Human Rights Obudswoman Nina Karpachova to assist Mr. Mwangura, the commission has been inactive, claiming that the pending case would prevent to give Mr. Mwangura protection status under the witness protection act, which - if true - actually would render this piece of Kenyan legislation inefficient.
Fierce clashes killed at least 23 people Tuesday in Mogadishu as Islamist insurgents marred newly-elected President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's first days in the Somali capital. The fighting was the worst in weeks and came two days after a suspected suicide bombing against African Union forces left 11 dead, in the deadliest such attack since the peacekeepers were deployed two years ago. Heavily armed fighters loyal to Hizb al-Islamiya (Islamic Party) ambushed government troops in Mogadishu's southern Taleh district, sparking a fierce exchanges in which at least 90 civilians were also wounded, witnesses said. At least 18 civilians and five security forces were killed in the bloody clashes claimed by the Hizb al-Islamiya militia, one of the two main groups in Mogadishu opposed to the government. Four more civilians died of their injuries in Mogadishu's main Medina hospital, raising an earlier toll of 14, said Ali Ade, the hospital's chief of staff. Many civilians died in the crossfire or were killed when mortar shells crashed onto their homes, mainly in southern Mogadishu, according to witnesses. Ade said 77 wounded people were taken for treatment at Medina, while officials in Deynile hospital in the east of Mogadishu said they received 14 injured civilians.
Police officer Colonel Mohamed Abdi claimed victory over the attackers, but added that five members of the security forces had been killed. "Our police forces were attacked in Taleh area and they defeated the terrorists who attacked them", he told AFP. "We killed many of them and we have lost five men, including three policemen and two soldiers". Hizb al-Islamiya spokesman Muse Abdi Arale said: "We destroyed armoured vehicles and we killed many of those who are claiming to be government forces". The group is allied to Eritrea-based Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a designated terrorist by the United States. Tuesday's fighting was the most intense since Ethiopian troops completed their pullout from Somalia last month. Mogadishu had enjoyed a relative lull in violence since Sheikh Ahmed was elected on January 31. After a string of regional consultations which saw the young cleric choose a prime minister and bolster support for a UN-sponsored peace initiative, Sheikh Sharif returned to the war-wracked capital on Monday. The Islamic Party, made of a coalition of Islamist groups formed on February 2 claimed the attack. Dr Omar Iman Abubaker, the leader of the Islamic Party, has stated that his group sees no difference between the government led by former President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed who resigned in December 2008 and the new government of national unity led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
Canadian journalists have urged the government to step up efforts to win the release of two colleagues who were apparently kidnapped in Pakistan and Somalia. The Canadian Association of Journalists said in a written statement that Prime Minister Stephen Harper should "redouble efforts" to free Khadija Abdul Qahaar, who was abducted in Pakistan last fall, and Amanda Lindhout who disappeared in Somalia last August. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said Tuesday that a government official responded that it had not forgotten about the pair but could not discuss details of their efforts to find them due to security concerns. Lindhout has not been heard from since her disappearance, however Qahaar has appeared in a video in which her kidnappers demand a ransom and the release of Taliban prisoners held in Afghanistan.
Impacting news from the global village ------
South-African Fisherfolk is protesting over Abalone problems. Organized crime, since years on the rampage in South-African its harbour has since many years also targeted the mostly illegal harvesting of wild abalone along the cold water coasts of the country. The meat of this large sea snail is liked by gourmets all over the world. Over-fishing and poaching have reduced wild populations to such an extent that farmed abalone now supplies most of the abalone meat consumed. The South African subgenus is called Perlemoen (Haliotis midae - Midas ear abalone) and fetches high prices on the black market also for its highly iridescent inner nacre (mother-of-pearl) layer of the shell and unround perls. The wholesale price for abalone meat, which is mainly sold from South-Africa illegally to Asian countries, has gone above US$ 50.- per kilogram and for its shell more than US$ 1,500.- are fetched per metric tonne. With its scarcity and impending extinction Abalone poaching and illegal trade are in South Africa closely linked with Chinese gangs and the trade in illicit drugs. While legal licences are withheld from the traditional fishermen, the illegal trade flourishes unabated. Abalone fishers from across the Western Cape of South Africa protested now at Kleinmond harbour last Saturday and State Minister Marthinus Van Schalkwyk had been addressed with a memorandum from the disgruntled fisher-men, which states:
1) Governments continued closure of the wild abalone fishery which has left hundreds of small scale fishers without livelihoods and negatively affected thousands of previously disadvantaged.
2) Governments continued failure to implement a promised "Social plan" to assist those affected by the closure.
3) Governments continued failure to demonstrate the will to effectively deal with the rampant and increasing poaching of abalone.
4) Governments continued failure to properly manage the wild abalone resource.
5) Governments inappropriate profiteering from abalone poaching and their resultant lack of incentive to curb this poaching.
The governments of different South-African regions where the abalone occurs have not responded so far.
Press Contacts:
ECOP-marine
East-Africa
254-714-747090
www.ecop.info
ECOTERRA Intl.
Nairobi Node
africanode@ecoterra.net
254-733-633-733
EA Seafarers Assistance Programme
SAP Media Officer
254-733-385868
sap@ecoterra.net
Note
Picture: Another fake picture of Somali pirates that was released by the militarist block and their online lackeys who try again to propagate the false image of a Somali pirate looking like "Islamic terrorist"…..
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