Ecoterra SMCM Part XXII - The Return of the Great Old Man: Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys in Somalia

Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys is back in Somalia!

With the influence the great old man can exercise over the Al Shabaab and the Hizb ul Islami parties, with the fast failure of the appointed TFG president Sheikh Sharif, with the recent rekindling of the piracy off the Somali coast, with the negative developments throughout Somalia (criminal traitors and warlords in Bakol cooperating with the dictatorial, racist and Anti-Somali regime of Abyssinia, chaos in Somaliland, Puntland’s obvious involvement in the piracy, ongoing divisive clashes between the Al Shabaab, the Hizb ul Islami and the Ahlu Sunna traitors and servants of the warlords and the Abyssinians) and with the problematic relationship between Somalia and the two neighboring colonial tyrannies, Abyssinia and Kenya, there could not be better moment for Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys to come back.

It is clear to all that Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys has to save Somalia – not to help the unelected TFG president survive. In fact, the last of the Somali Mohicans has to reunify the Somali people. And the Somali people in their outright majority know that their 18-year long civil war and misfortune is due to the perfidious Anglo-French Anti-Somali plans that have been carried out by Washington.

There can never ever be peace in Somalia as long as there are Somalis communicating in any possible way with any representatives of England, France and the US. The only possible result of any Somali contact with the colonial enemies of the Horn of Africa Nation can be only similar to the recent shameful agreement on maritime boundary, signed by Kenya’s unrepresentative tyrants and Somalia’s TFG administration of colonial puppets: a national disaster of Somalia.

Peace among the Somalis is what matters most. Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys can achieve this by first uniting the Al Shabaab and the Hizb ul Islami parties under his political umbrella, and then talking to all the Somali Elders. Then, foreign supporters must be identified: not in the dreams of the masterly failed Sheikh Sharif (Arab League, Libya and the like) but in the reality of the international arena. China, Italy, Poland, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Nigeria are countries that people around Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys must contact in order to explain why and how Somalia is strategically important to them.

Somalia cannot and will not exist under the colonially imposed TFG pseudo-regime; Sheikh Sharif is in fact accepted only by some of the Diaspora Somalis who are out of contact with the down to earth bitter reality. The colonial powers that now support him want to merely use him until they don’t need him anymore; then they will properly dispose of him, and the world will forget him according always to the wishes of his current Freemasonic promoters.

But a confrontation should not come now.

What comes first is the physical annihilation of any Somali warlord who maintains any sort of contact with the racist, anti-Islamic, tyrannical regime of Abyssinia.

Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys will be successful when he will enforce the Dogma that Somalia’s existence imposes the total destruction and the ultimate dissolution of the Satanic state of fake Ethiopia. Weapons must therefore be distributed to all the tyrannized subjugated nations of Abyssinia, the Somali Ogadenis first, but also the Oromos, the Sidamas, the Afars, and the rest, and their rebellion must be coordinated with the gradual rise of Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys to power in Somalia.

Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys has the chance to become Somalia’s new Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim. To do so, he has to mobilize the entire Somali Nation around a promising vision. What can be better than the removal of the Abyssinian evil that tormented all the Somalis for several decades?

I herewith publish the latest Ecoterra press release Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor that avails all the recent developments around thwe Horn of Africa.

Ecoterra Intl. – SMCM (Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor). Part XXII

Ecoterra International – Updates, Statements & Clearinghouse Citations

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 overseas, 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.

2009-04-25 11h24:12 UTC

EA Illegal Fishing and Dumping Hotline: +254-714-747090 (confidentiality guaranteed) - email: somalia@ecoterra.net

EA Seafarers Assistance Programme Emergency Helpline: SMS to +254-738-497979 or call +254-733-633-733

"The pirates must not be allowed to destroy our dream!"

Cpt. Florent Lemaçon - F/Y Tanit - killed by attack of French commandos - 10. April 2009

Non A La Guerre - Yes To Peace

(Inscription on the sail of F/Y TANIT shot down on day one of the French assault)

None of the various, local or foreign pirate outfits we like to add -

Clearing-house

Breaking:

Pirates sea-jacked a cargo ship believed to be German owned and/or flagged and captured its 17-strong crew overnight in the Gulf of Aden, a Kenyan official said Saturday. "A 31,000-tonne cereal carrier has been seized overnight (Friday to Saturday) in the eastern part of the Gulf of Aden", said Andrew Mwangura, of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme. "It seems that its 17 crew members are unhurt", he said. The nationality of the crew was not immediately known. Later U.S. Navy 5th Fleet's spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen confirmed to AP that pirates seized the cargo ship early Saturday in the Gulf of Aden about 150 nautical miles (280 kilometers) southeast of the coastal Yemeni city of Muqalla. The ship, MV PATRIOT, is Maltese flagged. Christensen could not give the number or nationalities of the crew nor say what the ship's cargo is, but other sources speak of a high number of Filipino seafarers. The bulk carrier with a gross tonnage of 19,795 is owned by PATRIOT SCHIFFAHRTS GmbH of Germany and managed by BLUMENTHAL JMK of Hamburg and local reports say it is commandeered towards the Haradheere / Hobyo coast of central Somalia.

News from sea-jackings, abductions or newly attacked ships

MT STOLT STRENGTH, which was stranded in the western part of the Indian Ocean, has started moving after being replenished with fuel on Saturday, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) reported. "The MT STOLT STRENGTH is now on the way to its next port of call", the DFA said in a statement. Other sources disclosed that the vessel is now heading to Oman. DFA said the fuel and other provisions were delivered to the Philippine flag registered cargo vessel by a US navy vessel. "We wish to extend our gratitude to our partners for the immediate provisioning of and round the clock security protection to the STOLT STRENGTH, notably Germany, the US, China, NATO and many others", the DFA said. Earlier Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo on Friday had formed a task force to help secure the cargo vessel's 23 Filipino crew. The cargo vessel was released by Somali pirates on April 20 but obviously provisions had not been made to secure the crew of the stranded Philippine-flagged chemical tanker with beneficial Japanese ownership.

The ship and its 23-man Filipino crew was stranded off the coast of Somalia, its captain told AFP Thursday. After her renewed distress call MT STOLT STRENGTH was being constantly monitored by NATO airplanes and a German naval vessel. The tanker was released on Tuesday after being held by pirates for five months due to unprofessional negotiations and a pirate gang which misused the vessel in the meantime as pirate mother-ship, leaving it low on fuel and supplies. However, the German naval vessel 'is in constant communication with and continuously monitoring the MT STOLT STRENGTH', the Foreign department said in a statement Saturday. It said the recently-released ship also received food, water and first-aid supplies from the German boat last Wednesday. 'German navy doctors checked on the health of the seafarers', the statement said. Manila had earlier imposed a deployment ban to the Gulf of Aden for Filipino sailors amid strong opposition from manning agencies. Groups feared that thousands of Filipino seamen would lose their jobs if the plan be pushed through, saying almost 40 percent of the global merchant marine fleet traverses the risky waters of the Gulf of Aden for the lucrative trade between Europe and Asia.

Navies have apparently still not stopped murder ship MT Agia Barbara: Crew wanted for murder

The position and route of the vessel with a crew of 6 Syrians and 6 Indians - wanted for murder in Mogadishu harbour - as well as at least one Somali business-agent on board are now roughly known. The small tanker with the IMO number 7616004 and call sign HO4050 flies a Panama flag (possibly now changed). Registered ship owner and manager is MEADOWLARK SHIPPING & TRADING CO. of Piraeus in Greece and the tanker is operated from an office in the UAE. Please report any sighting.

Meanwhile MEADOWLARK SHIPPING & TRADING CO. claims that it is no longer the owner of the vessel. In an unspecified e-mail an unidentified sender claimed that MEADOWLARK SHIPPING & TRADING CO. is incorrectly registered as owner in the shipping register and that the MT AGIA BARBARA was sold to new owners and would be managed by new managers since September 2008.

The sender further stated that the current owners are WORLD CHAMPION MARINE (the Buyer) not MEADOWLARK SHIPPING & TRADING CO. (the Seller). WORLD CHAMPION MARINE, however, could so far not be traced. Unconfirmed reports warn that the vessel if not stopped immediately could reach Eritrea or Sudan and the crew disappear from there. The Somali Government has officially requested all navies and coastal authorities to immediately impound the vessel and to arrest the crew.

Vessel picture: http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=70209

With the latest captures and releases now still at least 17 foreign vessels (18 with an unnamed sole Barge which drifted ashore, 19 with JAIKUR I who with its last 5 members of the original crew are still held in Mogadishu harbour) with a total of not less than 288 crew members accounted for (of which 99 are confirmed to be 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 69 averted or abandoned attacks and 31 sea-jackings on the Somali/Yemeni pirate side as well as at least two wrongful attacks (incl. 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.

Piracy related news

The mother of Abdiweli Abdulkadir Musse (in Somali language written: Cabdiweli Cabdulqadir Muse, nicknamed "Cadiweli Walo" after his father's nickname "Walo") Mrs. Adar Abdirahman Hassan continues to demand that she be brought to the United States too in order to stand by her son, who has not even been given an interpreter at his jail. Imposed Federal Defence Lawyers Philip Weinstein and co-counsel Deirde von Dornum couldn't even achieve this yet and they can therefore only rarely meet with Abdiweli at a courthouse to consult, a procedure with complicated transport and security arrangements. Abdiweli is locked up in an isolated 2.3 x 2.4m cinderblock cell with only a bunk-bed, a sink and a toilet at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, in lower Manhattan in the same jail as investor swindler Bernie Madoff.

"It just shows that the only difference between civilization and Somalia is a salad fork", remarked humorist Argus Hamilton in "How to become a banana republic". The space given to the world’s most famous Somali pirate is similar to what German laws prescribe as minimum space for a German shepherd dog. Prosecutors have trumped up their charges: http://www.exportlawblog.com/docs/muse.pdf, while it turned out that the story about Captain Richard Phillips exchanging himself to pirates for the safety of his captured crew as one of the great stories of high seas heroism is not true. The saga told in media reports and lauded on social network sites like Facebook, a story which made the country feel good, is simply untrue, according to crewmembers of the Maersk Alabama. "The captain was captured from the beginning", said chief engineer Mike Perry of Riverview. Not to be misunderstood: Criminal sea-bandits must be properly brought to book and piracy against truly innocent merchant ships has to be stopped by all means worldwide - not just in Somalia-, but neither humanity or true justice or the rule of law must be sacrificed to the phony "war on piracy".

Anti-piracy measures

A UN maritime court is ready to judge the growing cases of piracy off Somalia's coast, its president said in an interview. "The (International) Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is ready to judge each piracy case that states want it to deal with", Jose Luis Jesus, president of the Hamburg-based organization told the daily Die Welt.

Jesus also suggested that states that capture alleged pirates should seek legal advice from the tribunal. A number of countries have reinforced their military presence in the pirate-infested Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden but what to do with suspected pirates they nab is often fraught with legal questions. A majority of those captured are turned over to authorities in Somalia's breakaway state of Puntland — whose self-proclaimed autonomy is not recognized internationally.

In March, however, the European Union signed an agreement with Kenya for Nairobi to judge suspected pirates captured by EU vessels. Other suspects have been transferred to the countries whose forces have caught them — notably France and the United States. Pirate attacks off Somalia have increased tenfold in the first quarter of 2009, jumping from six to 61 compared to the same period last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Any of the 157 countries that have signed the United Nations Law of the Sea convention can bring a case to the court.

Japan's lower house passed an anti-piracy bill that will allow the country's two destroyers off Somalia wider scope to use force and protect foreign-flagged ships, AFP reported. Japan last month was coerced to join the United States, China and other countries in the maritime operation against pirates who have attacked ships in the Gulf of Aden, a key maritime route leading to the Suez Canal. Because of limits on Japan's military imposed under the post-World War II pacifist constitution, the destroyers so far have no mandate to use force except in self-defense and to protect Japanese interests. The new government-sponsored bill will widen their rules of engagement and allow them to fire at the hulls of pirate vessels -- but not at the pirates themselves -- after repeated warnings and as a last resort. If enacted, the new bill will also allow the Maritime Self-Defense Force to protect any commercial ships, not just those under a Japanese flag or carrying Japanese nationals or cargo. The opposition-controlled upper house may reject the bill after lawmakers voiced concern about expanding Japan's military reach -- but the lower house can then override the veto and turn the bill into law. Conservative Prime Minister Taro Aso, who faces an election this year, has strongly promoted the bill. "Public safety and maintaining security and order are very important for Japan", he told a parliamentary committee. "The world expects Japan to make a further contribution and we have a duty to respond", He added: "Japan is an island nation surrounded by sea, a resource-poor trading nation which relies on imports of resources from abroad. Consequently, security of marine transport is one of our high priorities". Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada earlier said the destroyers had on three occasions helped foreign ships by scaring off suspicious vessels with the use of loudspeakers and by deploying their helicopters.

Freight shippers at a maritime conference in Singapore yesterday ruled out arming sailors to deter increasingly sophisticated and well-armed pirates in the Gulf of Aden, leaving vessels to resort to such measures as propping up mannequins in military fatigues holding fake guns. Navies have bolstered their presence in the area this year in a bid to fend off attacks, but shippers said it had not been enough. Pirates have found enough holes in the protection to make attacking ships a lucrative job, said Commander Steve Fry, who is based in Dubai with the British Royal Navy. "Pirates can now afford the latest automatic weapons, navigation aids and communications", said Wang Cheng, secretary-general of the Asian Ship-owners' Forum, whose members account for about half of the world's merchant fleet. "The situation is much more serious this year". Steffen Tunge, managing director of 14 tankers and ships for Singapore-based B+H Equimar said his company had spent about $350 000 since October on unarmed security teams. Shippers have resisted arming crew members, arguing such a move could make pirate attacks more deadly.

Illegal fishing and dumping

Somalia: Pirates or Patriots of the Sea?
by Alie Kabba in Chicago Defender

It is disheartening, once again, to see the butchery of truth by an over-simplification of complex phenomena in a place that has become a metaphor for the grave ills of postcolonial Africa - Somalia.

As we say out here, don’t believe the hype! Or, as Bob Marley and the Wailers succinctly put it, half the story has never been told.

Let’s get through the debris of Gaza, the wasteland of Eastern Congo and the blighted plains of Darfur to get to the facts about Somalia and the Great Pirate Threats to Western Civilization as we know it.

First, the Good News: Somalia is not the Democratic Republic of Korea. The Somalis, struggling to hold on to the last trappings of sovereignty, don't have nukes or threats of nukes or long range missiles to police their waters. Yes, the country has fallen on hard times, very hard times since 1991, when a brutal dictatorship imploded and the Somalis chose fragmentation over national unity.

Second, the Cold Fact: Like Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and other places that have witnessed civil wars and collapse of all institutions of governance, greedy armies of foreign corporate interests saw the chaos in Somalia as an opportunity to loot the natural resources of this warring nation. It was blood diamonds in the case of Sierra Leone, timber and gold in the case of Liberia, and enormous amount of mineral wealth in the case of the Congo. It's the old law of the jungle: You fall on your back, the vultures soon land for a good meal. Somalia has no diamonds, gold, oil and other strategic minerals ready for easy exploitation on land. What it does have, however, is the open sea with fish…tons of fish - for European markets.

Third, the Hard Truth: We live in a world with tons of nuclear waste, too. The waste was not created in Somalia. Remember, Somalia is not Iran or Pakistan or India or China or France or Britain or the US. But some of the nuclear waste has found its way to the open seas of Somalia…polluting the coastlines and destroying the livelihood of thousands of Somali fishermen. Someone is making lots of money for dumping nuclear wastes in Somali waters, but we are certain that the Somalis are not among the Dumping Mafia.

No real peace in sight yet

Sheikh Aways arrived in Mogadishu Friday for the first time since two years. Ismial Haji Adow a spokesman of his group confirmed that Aways coming from Asmara, Eritrea landed at the km 50-airport in Lower Shabelle Region and was escorted to the capital Mogadishu. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aways was the leader of the Council of the Union of Islamic Courts until December 2006. Since then he lived in exile in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. "Sheikh Hassan is a Somali patriotic and I am ready to talk with him directly or indirectly but he does not have a right to say the government is illegitimate", said president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed according to Mareeg media. Islamist opposition leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys returned from exile in Eritrea on Friday and said he would not talk with the government till the African troops leave the country. Mr. Aweys, who is on the US terror list, is an influential cleric amongst Islamist insurgents opposed to the present government. The two men headed the Union of Islamic Court (UIC), which ruled most of the country for the second half of 2006 before being ousted by US-American-backed Ethiopian forces. They fled to the Eritrean capital Asmara, where they formed the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS). They split after Sheikh Sharif agreed to UN-led talks with the government that brought him to power in January 2009 and saw Ethiopia withdraw its troops. President Sheikh Sharif called for Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys to take part the peace efforts and take the responsibility of his side towards the constructive approach and not to be a destructive person.

Mogadishu police chief says a mortar attack on the Somali parliament has missed the building and hit a residential neighborhood. Police Chief Abdi Hassan Awale says the mortars were aimed at the parliament, where diplomats were meeting Saturday. He says the mortars landed nearby in a neighborhood of private homes. Witness Abdirahman Hassan who was in the residential neighborhood at the time of the attack at about noon local time says he saw five dead civilians. He says the five include three children from the same family, according to AFP.

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has warned against sending a UN peacekeeping force to Somalia. He said a UN force should remain the UN's goal, but that deploying now could worsen the country's conflict. Mr. Ban said the goal would only be achieved after progress on political reconciliation and restoring peace after two decades of conflict. He spoke ahead of a donor conference aiming to raise 200m euros ($260m) for peacekeeping and national security. The international donor conference is seeking to raise funds for the African Union peacekeeping effort and to create national security forces. Those forces could include a 6,000-strong national security force and police force of 10,000 officers. Only about 4,300 peacekeepers from an intended 8,000-strong AU force are currently deployed in Mogadishu.

In a second drowning incident in a couple of weeks, a further 35 migrants, believed to be Somalis and Ethiopians, drowned as a smuggling boat carrying 110 people capsized off Yemen, bringing the number of the African who died trying to get Yemen to 131 people so far this year, according to the UNHRC. 13 others were announced missing when the boat overturned about 250 kilometers off the Aden port while 62 migrants including an eight-year Somali child made it to shore, officials at the UNHRC said on Thursday. Five women bodies were among the bodies washed up on shore. The drowning is the second in a single month and the fourth so far this year. Another boat which was carrying 105 African migrants could continue its trip safely, the officials said, adding the two boats came from a Somali port. About 131 African migrants, mostly from Somalia, drowned while trying to reach Yemeni territories through sea and 66 others went missing during the first months of 2009, the UNHRC says.

According to the UNHRC statistics about 387 boats carrying 20.000 African migrants arrived in Yemen in 2009. Many of the African migrants fleeing deteriorating situations in their homelands die as boats capsize or as smugglers force passengers to swim in fear the authorities could arrest them. Yemen says over 700.000 is the number of those African displaced people who have already reached its territories coming from Horn African countries. While the UNHRC argues the number is much exaggerated. Yemen has recently started measures to deport illegal migrants to their countries, the Yemen Post reports, in a move that comes as the influx of the African people lays more burdens on its fragile economy.

Impacting news from the global village

U.S. African Chamber of Commerce President Martin Mohammed Says Somali Problem is Bigger Than You Think

Martin Mohammed, President of the U.S. African Chamber of Commerce, comments on the UNPOS Media Summary on Somalia Brussels Meeting
The United Nations Political Office for Somalia, otherwise known as UNPOS, recently released what it termed as a Media Summary on Somalia Brussels Meeting. In it, UNPOS announced that on April 22-23, 2009, a who-is-who of world leaders will converge on Brussels and ostensibly, the primary objective of this gathering will be to raise funds for Somalia and for the African Union (AMISOM) forces currently stationed in the country.

The coupling of the much-anticipated international fundraising effort for Somalia with the running operational cost for the 4000-plus African Union troops in Somalia seem a bit out of place. The real shocker of the UNPOS statement comes to the fore, however, when one reads the last two paragraphs of the one-page media release. UNPOS states that the priority of Somalia is a mere 31 million dollars for 16 thousand police and security personnel for Mogadishu compared to the whopping 134 million financial requirements of the 4300 Ugandan and Burundi troops in Somalia.

Ambassador Ould-Abdallah, the United Nations Special Representative for Somalia and the top diplomat of UNPOS, brokered the peace that led to the establishment of the current government of national unity in Somalia. One would have hoped, since the ambassador accumulated extensive experience of what ails Somalia, that he would take the next logical step and implore the international community to provide the billion dollars that Somalia desperately requires in order to sustain the current peace and build functioning national institutions. Instead, the UNPOS office opted to lump up Somalia's pressing life and death needs with the financial requirements of the African Union troops. Moreover, in the UNPOS calculation, each of the 4300 Ugandan and Burundi soldiers could earn $2,600.00 per month while the projected funding for each Somali soldier is $1,900.00 per year.

Martin Mohammed, President of the U.S. African Chamber of Commerce, said, "One would assume that an international gathering of such stature and magnitude would seriously focus on the need to resuscitate the Somali state, for Somalia is shattered for decades by civil war and political turmoil. Since everything is indeed a priority of priorities for the fledgling Somali government, even a detached observer could easily appreciate that a token 31 million dollars would not make a dent in ushering a genuine peace and lasting political solution in Somalia".

The globally felt negative consequences of the twin scourges of radicalization and piracy prove to the international community that the multifaceted Somalia challenge could no longer be contained within the Somalia borders. In order to therefore end the catastrophic humanitarian crises unfolding in Somalia since 1991, and at the same time, prevent the existing lawlessness in Somalia to threaten international peace and security, the participants of the Brussels Somalia Donor Conference must go beyond the meager UNPOS Somalia projections.

Among the core and immediate needs of the three-months old Somali government include, institution building, security, justice sector reconstitution, coastal protection and anti-piracy programs, rehabilitation of physical infrastructure, emergency humanitarian relief, demobilization of two hundred thousand ex-combatants and rapid reconciliation programs.

Somalia priorities are much broader than UNPOS projections

The USACC is the leading advocacy organization for U.S. African relations and emerging African markets. The USACC is the umbrella organization for African chambers of commerce and professional trade and business associations throughout the United States and abroad.

The deputy commander in chief of Dubai police has denied allegations published in a UK-based newspaper that the emirate has been laundering money belonging to Somali pirates. The Independent ran a story on Tuesday claiming that huge amounts of money taken in ransom from vessels hijacked off the Horn of Africa were being laundered in Dubai and other Gulf countries. The paper, quoting investigators hired by the shipping industry, said around $80 million (£56 million) has been paid out in ransom to pirates in the past year. The paper added that the so-called "godfathers" of the illicit operations include businessmen from Somalia and the Middle East, as well as people of South Asian nationalities. Maj. Gen. Khamis Mattar Al-Mazinah gave a statement to the Arabic daily Al-Emarat Al-Youm saying the report was baseless and untrue. He stressed that the UAE is the only country in the region that has prosecuted money launderers and issued rulings against them. He pointed out that in the UAE any amount over 40,000 dirhams is considered questionable until proven otherwise. The Independent quoted Christopher Ledger, manager of Royal Marine Company, as saying that "there is evidence that those groups are active in Dubai and play a fundamental role in the piracy taking place in the Horn of Africa. Huge amounts of money the pirates receive facilitate their access to the latest technology when it comes to ransoms".

The report added that while some of the money has ended up in Somalia, millions have been laundered through bank accounts in the UAE and other parts of the Middle East. Al-Mazinah noted that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — an inter-governmental body whose purpose is the development and promotion of policies, both at national and international levels, to combat money laundering and terrorist financing — includes the UAE. FATF issues periodic reports about countries that do not cooperate in monitoring money laundering. "We did not receive any report about money laundering taking place in the UAE", Al-Mazinah said. He added that Dubai police have been cooperating with other countries in detecting money laundering and fraud that have taken place in those countries. Al-Mazinah said certain parties, which he declined to mention, were targeting the UAE’s reputation by disseminating unfounded rumors. He reiterated that there are competent authorities tasked with holding non-cooperating countries accountable and that the media is not among those authorities. He underlined that Dubai police did not bar any journalist or any media outlet from seeking verification of stories before publication. He added that people are at liberty to log into the FATF website to read reports about the UAE before propagating rumors. The Independent published its report without any comments from the security authorities in Dubai or from the UAE Central Bank.

Yemen is to participate in the foreign ministers conference of the Non-Aligned States to be held in Havana, Capital of Cuba, on April 27 – 30, the weekly 26Septmber reported on Thursday. Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Muthana Hasan, who will lead the Yemeni delegation, will head for Cuba to take part in the conference. Hasan said that Yemen will present its vision on some international and regional issues, topped by activating the role of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The meeting will also address the situations in Palestine, Sudan and Somalia, combating piracy, United Nations reform and reducing of poverty as well as bridging the gab between the developing and the developed countries, Hasan said. He said Yemen stands beside Palestine, calling on lifting the siege on the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza. Yemen will call upon NAM to support Sudan and refuse any interference in its interior affaires, affirming that Yemen strongly rejects the arrest warrant of Sudanese President. The Yemeni official said that Yemen would also call on supporting the elected new government in Somalia chaired by Shaikh Sharif Ahmed to realize stability and security in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and combating all kinds of piracy in the territorial waters of Somalia, he said. The Deputy Foreign Minister emphasized that Yemen would renew its strongly condemnation on terrorism and its all forms.

Press Contacts:

ECOP-marine
East-Africa
+254-714-747090
marine[at]ecop.info
www.ecop.info

ECOTERRA Intl.
Nairobi Node
africanode[at]ecoterra.net
+254-733-633-733

EA Seafarers Assistance Programme
SAP Media Officers
+254-722-613858
+254-733-385868
sap[at]ecoterra.net

End of Ecoterra press release

Note
Picture: Sheikh Hassan Dakhir Aweys