Ecoterra – Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor - Part VIII. Gas-tanker MT LONGCHAMP Released

The release of the gas-tanker MT LONGCHAMP and other piracy-related news are discussed in the 8th Ecoterra – Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor Report, which was issued a few hours ago. I herewith republish it integrally.

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

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.

2009-03-27 15h41:23 UTC

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

EA Seafarers Assistance Programme Emergency Helpline: +254-738-497979

Clearing-house

News from sea-jackings, abductions or newly attacked ships --------

Breaking News

The German-owned gas-tanker MT LONGCHAMP with one Indonesian and 12 Filipinos on board, will sail free in a few hours, it is assumed after the ransom had been delivered by air today. Local marine observers reported that the ransom was delivered by an aircraft at around 14h00. If no last minute glitch occurs, the vessel should be free to sail in a few hours after the last pirate has left. The gas-tanker with highly dangerous liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as cargo was en route from Europe to Far-East when it was sea-jacked on 29th January by an armed group of Somali pirates, though it was said to have been under Indian naval escort.

The LPG-tanker is contracted out by British MPC Steamship to Bernhard Schulte Ship management and subcontracted to Bridge Marine, which is registered in the Liberian capital Monrovia - an onion-ownership whose tricky legal arrangements caused that a given window for an immediate settlement and release of the dangerous tanker was not used by the negotiators and therefore the negotiations dragged on for longer than necessary in this case. However, compared to some appalling and still pending cases like MT STOLT-STRENGTH, the tug MASINDRA 7 with its barge ADM1 or the most extreme case of the tug YENEGOA OCEAN, whose seafarers stay abducted and abandoned since almost eight months, the case of MT LONGCHAMP has been settled now in just two month, which is actually the average time most negotiations lasted.

The sea-jacked Norwegian-owned but Bahamas-registered MV BOW-ASIR, a chemicals and oil tanker, with 27 crew (Norwegian captain, one Russian, one Lithuanian and 19 Filipinos) is traveling north, the ship's owner Salhus Shipping said Friday, adding it had not yet received a ransom demand. "From the satellite we can see that the vessel is heading in a northerly direction", the company said in a statement reported by AFP. It was seized around 250 nautical miles east of the southern Somali port of Kismayo. "We have not yet received a request for ransom", company chief Per Hansen told AFP.

Mystery surrounds the abducted yacht S/Y SERENITY from the Seychelles since a now reported third passenger could not be verified by authorities in the Seychelles. So far only Gilbert Victor and Andre Conrad are listed as taken hostage and both men hail from the Seychelles. A search party to Garcad also didn't reveal the whereabouts and it might well have been the case that the pirates forced the one sailor who made a phone call home to give a wrong location.

With the latest captures and releases now still at least 11 (MT LONCHAMP already considered free) (12 with an unnamed sole Barge which drifted ashore) foreign vessels with a total of not less than 211 crew members accounted for (of which 96 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 42 averted or abandoned attacks and 11 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.

Directly piracy related news

The Government of Canada today announced that Her Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Winnipeg will be the fifth Canadian ship since 2006 to join the Standing NATO Maritime Group1 (SNMG1), this time in the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. SNMG1 is a multinational, integrated maritime force consisting of vessels from the various Alliance nations, training and operating together as a single team. HMCS Winnipeg's first mission will be to support Operation Allied Protector, the NATO approved plan for the deployment of SNMG1 vessels to conduct counter-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. The ship will be part of a naval group consisting of five vessels from Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United States.

The frigate NRP Corte Real, of Portugal is the flagship of the fleet. "The security challenges facing Canada are real and globalization means that developments abroad can have a profound impact on the safety and interests of Canadians here", said Defense Minister Peter Gordon MacKay. "Canada's participation in this maritime force is another example of our government's continuing commitment to international peace and security, which also enhances the security of Canada and Canadians at home and abroad". HMCS Winnipeg's deployment with SNMG1, conducted under Operation SEXTANT, gives Canada an opportunity to join a flexible, responsive international force, ready to execute any number of missions across a broad spectrum that includes exercises, crisis response, and maritime security operations. During this deployment, HMCS Winnipeg will also conduct diplomatic calls in several Asia-Pacific countries.

"I'm proud of our sailors and Air Force personnel of HMCS Winnipeg for their dedication to this important operation as well as the sacrifice they and their families are making", said General Walter Natynczyk, Chief of the Defence Staff. "Piracy and terrorist attacks currently occurring across the world demonstrate how instability in distant lands and merchant sea-lanes can directly affect our own security and that of our allies. HMCS Winnipeg's deployment demonstrates Canada's willingness, along with our coalition partners, to continue to fight international terrorism and make the maritime environment safe and secure for all". Commanded by Commander Craig Baines with a crew of approximately 240 officers and non-commissioned members, HMCS Winnipeg, based at Esquimalt, B.C., and her CH-124 Sea King detachment, form a highly ready and technologically advanced warship. The ship, helicopter and crew are capable of performing a variety of missions worldwide. For more information on Operation SEXTANT, see http://www.cefcom.forces.gc.ca/site/ops/index_e.asp and for still and video imagery of Canadian naval vessels at work, visit www.combatcamera.forces.gc.ca.

No real peace in sight yet

Egged on by Osama bin Laden and drawn in by Ethiopia's pullout, foreign jihadists have flocked to Somalia in recent months, joining forces with local fighters to turn the country into an Al-Qaeda haven. Somalia now shelters an estimated 450 foreign fighters who are working with the Shebab, a home-grown hard line Islamist group that has spearheaded a bloody insurgency since 2006, reports AFP. While foreign fighters wanted for links to Al-Qaeda have long used Somalia as a backyard, their numbers have swollen dramatically in 2009, experts say. "There were maybe 100 foreigners last year but now our estimate is up to 450", said Ismail Haji Noor, a former Somali security official who has established a secular militia bent on rooting out the Shebab and their foreign allies. Noor said the foreign jihadists come from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia and often enter the country on regular airlines from the northern semi-autonomous state of Somaliland. Most of them are concentrated in Garowe, in the northern breakaway state of Puntland, and the southern towns of Baidoa, Merka and Kismayo. "The risk is being taken increasingly seriously that they will look outside Somalia for their operations now", said one Nairobi-based diplomat. Stripped of their arch-enemy Ethiopia, which ended its two-year military occupation in January, the Shebab have revamped their organisation and moved closer to Al-Qaeda, intelligence officials said.

A 10-member "cabinet" includes several known Somali members who have trained in Afghanistan, including Mukhtar Robow who has been the group's main spokesman. But it is also believed to include several foreigners, from Saudi Arabia and Sudan, as well as Fazul Abdullah, a Comoran-born Al-Qaeda operative wanted over the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. "They will be targeting Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia. Western powers will focus their efforts on protecting those neighbouring countries instead of tackling the problems inside Somalia", Noor warned. He said Somalia's new moderate Islamist president, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, needed to be urgently shored up if the threat was to be neutralised.

In a recent Internet audio message addressed to "the champions of Somalia", bin Laden urged the Shebab to topple Sharif, heightening fears the group could seek to gain an Al-Qaeda "franchise" with spectacular operations. In the meantime, the Shebab are consolidating their grip on key towns. "Everyone here knows that many foreign fighters are among those who fought us in Bay and Bakol regions", said Colonel Adan Abdullahi, a police officer from the Baidoa region, where clashes have killed dozens in recent months. "A young man who talked to me said he was from Morocco but the group leader is called Mohamed and he is a white American", a local shop owner who said his life would be in danger if his name was published told AFP. Residents say many white men are among the newly-arrived Islamic fighters in Baidoa, a town 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of Mogadishu where the country's transitional parliament normally sits. "These white men are heavily armed with hand grenades and machine guns. They sometimes come to the mosque and pray with us", resident Ahmed Hasan said.

"They are more disciplined than local fighters, they look very religious, but I don't know why they are here, there is no jihad now that the Ethiopians have left", said 28 year-old Mohamud. One of the pictures featuring prominently on the Shebab website's gallery of "martyrs" is that of "Abu Horriya" (Father of freedom), a Hispanic American also known as the "Seattle Barber" who was killed in combat in 2008. His real name is Ruben Shumpert and he was once jailed on gun and counterfeiting charges. He was also wanted for showing jihadist videos to children in his Seattle hair salon. Washington earlier this month voiced concern that Somali youths in the Diaspora were being recruited by hard line groups to fight in their homeland, notably among the large Somali community in the US city of Minneapolis. Britain, which is also home to a large Somali community, warned in a report unveiling its counter-terrorism strategy and released earlier this week that Al-Qaeda activity could be heating up in Somalia.

Al-shabab militia now wants to meet with Kenyan security authorities to negotiate the release of five Kenyans kidnapped at Bulla Hawa two days ago, Kenya Government broadcaster reports. The latest development follows a one hour closed door meeting between Mandera peace community members and elders from the border town of Bula Hawa. Mandera peace security chairman Abdille sheikh said the Somali militia allied to Al-Qaeda had requested to meet the North-eastern Provincial security team over the incident. He said the education officials are being held at Al shabab cells in the border town of Bula Hawa. Abdille disclosed that the two teams will meet Saturday to start talks aimed at securing the release of the Kenyan officials. The civil servants were arrested three days ago in Somalia after they allegedly crossed the border for shopping. The Kenyan government closed its border with Somalia three years ago owing to insecurity in the war torn nation of Somalia.

Armed group have overnight attacked a base of Al-Shabab hardliners in Bardere district / Gedo region in southern Somalia. The exchange of the fire between the attacked and the attackers could be heard almost in the entire of the district. "The fighters were exchanging heavy fire using rocket propelled grenades, mortars, heavy and light machineguns. some unconfirmed reports says that the fighting was between the radical Islamic movement of Al-shabab and the town clerics who are not contented with the conduct of the movement of Al-Shabab. "Al-Shabab has absolutely no positive impact" said a resident in Bardere district speaking to Somaliweyn radio and an officer in the Al-Shabab movement has verified the skirmish in the town to the station. "It is correct that two Al-Shabab bases in the town of Bardere were attacked and the attackers were some individuals who called themselves the clerics of the town. In fact we have sustained no casualties and we lashed them out" said Farah Hish the security commander of Al-Shabab movement in Bardere district. The casualties on the other side is yet unconfirmed. The Al-Shabab movement occupies the regions of Bay and Gedo in southern Somalia. Only two days ago the residents of Baidoa, the central town of Bay region staged riots against the Al-Shabab after the fundamentalists had banned the chewing of the narcotic plant Khat, which is grown in Kenya and exported to Somalia.

Warning

Hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees will face a humanitarian emergency this year, unless urgent steps are taken to deal with a serious public health crisis in the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya, the international aid agency Oxfam warned Friday. Oxfam, in a newly published report, called on the Kenyan government, international donors and aid agencies to immediately take action to address the crisis. Dadaab is one of the world's largest concentrations of refugees. Its population now stands at more than 250,000, almost three times its intended size. Oxfam said about 100,000 more people are likely to arrive by the end of this year, as Somalis continue to flee violence and seek refuge in Kenya. "Conditions in Dadaab are dire and need immediate attention. People are not getting the aid they are entitled to", said Philippe Crosland-Taylor, head of Oxfam GB in Kenya. "Half of the people in the camp do not have access to enough water. Women and children -- who make up over half Dadaab's population -- very rarely have access to adequate latrines", said the official. The global aid agency said an assessment of the camp had uncovered "a serious public health crisis caused by a lack of basic services, severe overcrowding and a chronic lack of funding". More than 20 cases of cholera have been confirmed.

Kenya recently closed its border with Somalia, yet refugees continue to arrive daily and the border closure is actually exacerbating the crisis, the report said. Oxfam asked the Kenyan government to re-open the Kenya-Somalia border, and provide additional land near Dadaab for a new site to ease the overcrowding. It also urged the international donor governments to urgently respond to the UNHCR's appeals for more funding to deal with the crisis; "The UN and aid agencies should ensure that recent increased efforts to address the crisis are sustained, and that local Kenyan communities near Dadaab are not neglected", the aid agency said in the report. It said the Kenyan government's decision to close the border has not stopped refugees coming -- but it has made conditions much worse for them and their Kenyan neighbors, adding to health risks in the camp. According to Oxfam, reception centers on the border run by the UNHCR used to give health checks to new refugees. "However, as a result of the border closure, these centers were closed down, meaning new arrivals no longer receive the health checks before reaching the camp. In such overcrowded conditions, even a single case of cholera can spread rapidly", it warned.

Somalia has not had a central government for many years and some of its nationals have been fleeing fighting in recent days. "Until there is a lasting peace in Somalia, many more people will continue to flee. The Kenyan government must address this humanitarian crisis, rather than ignoring it", Crosland-Taylor said. "An open but managed border will allow Kenya to meet its legitimate security concerns, but also allow refugees to receive the assistance to which they are entitled under international law". Oxfam said the situation in Dadaab has led to increased tensions between Somali refugees and the local Kenyan community, particularly over rights to land and resources such as water and trees. "Dadaab is in a very poor region and the needs of the local communities must not be forgotten. More funds are needed for aid agencies to help local people as well as refugees", Crosland-Taylor said. "Scarce natural resources have to be shared by everyone, and projects are needed to explore alternative technologies and ways of ensuring that those resources are managed in an equitable and sustainable way", it added. Dadaab's refugees in northern Kenya live in shacks made from branches and plastic sheeting in one of the world's largest refugee camps.

Impacting news from the global village

Somali militia warned Kenya of revenge attacks. The abduction of five Kenyans in Somalia could have been a revenge mission by the Al Shabaab militia. It emerged that the militia had warned Kenya over what it termed harassment of Somalis at the border. In a letter, whose copy was faxed to The Standard, they said the attacks, which were to begin yesterday, would target military installations, police stations, Government vehicles and other centres. Written in Somali, the letter said: "We will assault your country with hand grenades, automatic artilleries, kidnapping and if need be, suicide bombing, which will be targeting sensitive Government bases". The letter, which was not signed, was dropped off as leaflets on the police patrol line on the border on March 23.

A top Somali administrator claimed Kenya continuously mistreated Somalis crossing the border. And the fate of the abductees will be decided after Al Shabaab’s intelligence agency completes findings over the presence of the Kenyans in Somalia. Ahmed Mohammed Yussuf Burkus, who is the Bulla Hawa DC said Kenyan security personnel on the porous border "daily mistreated and shamelessly extorted Somali nationals coming to Kenya for inter-border business". He cited an incident in which Mandera Police officers beat a woman trader after she sneaked in to sell commodities on the Kenyan side. Unconfirmed reports indicated that the militia had written to Mandera East DC on March 23 after the attack on the businesswoman. And the high-powered Kenyan security team, on a mission to negotiate the release of the abductees, has been denied entry into Somalia.

The security team led by Mandera East acting DC Benedict Nduva and area OCPD Odhiambo Akello met with Burkus at Mandera custom point but returned dejected. And Police Commissioner Maj-Gen Hussein Ali said they had enlisted two local clan elders to lead in the negotiations to release the five Kenyans. "Two prominent local emissaries are leading the talks as part of efforts to secure the release of the abducted Kenyans", he said. However other sources said local Al Shabaab agents demanded that Kenya negotiates with their bosses in Mogadishu. Kenya Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua claimed Kenya is negotiating with Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government for the release of the five.

Parliament’s Committee on Defence also denounced the kidnap and demanded their unconditional release. Wajir West MP Aden Keynan, who chairs the committee, said there was no confirmation over which group was holding the Kenyans. "We appeal to the abductors to release these innocent people unconditionally", he said adding Kenya should resist ransom demands.

For families of presently captive seafarers and in order to console their worries, Ecoterra Intl. can make contacts with professional seafarers, who had been abducted in Somalia, as well as of a Captain of a sea-jacked and released ship, who agreed to be addressed "with questions, and we will try and answer truthfully".

Ecoterra - Alerts and pending issues:

Pirate Attack Gulf of Aden: Advice on Who to Contact and What to Do http://www.noonsite.com/Members/sue/R2008-09-08-2

Natural Resources & Armed Fish Poachers: Foreign navies entering the 200nm EEZ of Somalia and foreign helicopters and troops must respect the fact that especially all wildlife is protected by Somali national as well as by international laws and that the protection of the marine resources of Somalia from illegally fishing foreign vessels should be an integral part of the anti-piracy operations. Likewise the navies must adhere to international standards and not pollute the coastal waters with oil, ballast water or waste from their own ships but help Somalia to fight against any dumping of any waste (incl. diluted, toxic or nuclear waste). So far and though the AU as well as the UN has called since long on other nations to respect the 200 nm EEZ, non of the countries to which the most notorious vessels and fleets are linked has come up with a declaration nor has any of the navies operating in the area pledged to stand against illegal fishing. So far not a single illegal fishing vessel has been detained by the naval forces, though they had been even informed about several actual cases, where an intervention would have been possible. Illegally operating Tuna fishing vessels (many from South Korea, some from Greece and China) carry now armed personnel and force their way into the Somali fishing grounds - uncontrolled or even protected by the naval forces mandated to guard the Somali waters against any criminal activity, which included arms carried by foreign fishing vessels in Somali waters.

LLWs / NLWs: According to recently leaked information the anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden are also used as a cover-up for the live testing of recently developed arsenals of so called non-lethal as well as sub-lethal weapons systems. (Pls request details) Neither the Navies nor the UN has come up with any code of conduct in this respect.

Ecoterra Intl., whose work does focus on nature- and human-rights-protection and - as the last international environmental organization still working in Somalia - had alerted ship-owners since 1992, many of whom were fishing illegally in the 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone, to stay away from Somali waters. The non-governmental organization had requested the international community many times for help to protect the coastal waters of the war-torn state, but now lawlessness has seriously increased and gone out of hand.

Ecoterra members with marine and maritime expertise, joined by it's ECOP-marine group, are closely and continuously monitoring and advising on the Somali situation.

The network of the Seafarers Assistance Programme helped significantly in most sea-jack cases. Ecoterra Intl. is working in Somalia since 1986 on human-rights and nature protection, while ECOP-marine concentrates on illegal fishing and the protection of the marine ecosystems. Your support counts too.

Please consider to contribute to the work of SAP, ECOP-marine and ECOTERRA Intl. Please donate to the defense fund. Contact us for details concerning project-sponsorship or donations via e-mail: ecotrust@ecoterra.net

Kindly note that all the information above is distributed under and is subject to a license under the Creative Commons Attribution. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/

Press Contacts:

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

ECOTERRA Intl.
Nairobi Node
+254-733-633-733

EA Seafarers Assistance Programme
SAP Media Officer
+254-733-385868

End of Ecoterra Report

Note
Picture: MT LONGCHAMP
From: http://www.eaglespeak.us/2009_02_01_archive.html
Somali Pirates: Captured LPG Ship Not "Registered" for EU cover

While the vessel’s operator, Hamburg-based Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, had access to the transit schedule via the EU Navfor website, the 4,316 dwt Longchamp was not expected by EU naval commanders overseeing the operation.

"While the ship was in the corridor, it was 20 miles behind the transit", a Navfor spokesman said. "The company was registered with us, but the vessel was not".

The spokesman, who asked not to be named, said the vessel would have been considered high risk had operators notified Navfor, headquartered in Northwood, England. "We grade ships according to risk. Given the Longchamp’s low freeboard and cargo of LPG and chemicals, it would probably have been considered a higher risk", he said.

EU Navfor is operating with a fleet of around four frigates in the Gulf of Aden region, one of which is dedicated to World Food Programme vessels. Companies which succeed in registering with the Navfor website - around half are approved for access to the restricted area - receive information on transit points, times and speeds.

EU frigates do not necessarily accompany vessels through the transit corridor, hence Navfor’s reluctance to define the transits as convoys. "But if we know where they are we can keep an eye on them," said the spokesman. "If everybody is blobbed together they can all help each other".

Initial report of capture here, according to which the ship was somewhat under the eyes of the Indian and Chinese navies, if not the EU force.
Posted by Eagle1 at 2/04/2009 08:18:00 AM