The Horn of Africa – Somalia Spring 2009 Chronicles III – Terrorist IGAD Group Fuels Bloodshed
Ecoterra Intl. – SMCM (Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor) - Issue No. 185
Ecoterra Intl. – SMCM (Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor) – 2009-06-04 THU - 21h06:42UTC
Issue No. 185
Ecoterra International – Updates & Statements, Review & Clearing-house
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 nor the humanitarian assistance to abducted seafarers and their families is receiving the required adequate attention, care and funding.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act". George Orwell
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!"
Capt. 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)
Clearing-house
Breaking:
The Indian navy on Thursday stopped Somali pirates from attacking a cargo ship registered in Slovenia, the Slovenian STA news agency reported, quoting state Radio Slovenija. The pirates on board three fast motorboats targeted the freighter MV POSTOJNA, but fled after warning shots were fired from the Indian naval vessel escorting a convoy. Nobody was hurt in the incident, Radio Slovenija said. The POSTOJNA, en route from South Korea, was headed for Saudi Arabia. So far India has not yet provided an official post-incident report concerning the previous intervention, where 2 Somalis are still not accounted for.
News from sea-jackings, abductions, newly attacked ships and vessels in distress -
MV MARATHON is now near Kulule. It is not clear yet if she will be commandeered to Burcad or Eyl since there is reportedly a conflict between two of the masterminds. One pirate had been reported as captured in the earlier stand-off with two naval vessels. Five members of the original 12 men group of sea-shifta then had left the vessel and had been arrested on land. The 2nd engineers allegedly had been killed and the captain is injured. In the moment there are said to be 6 captors and 9 crew on the vessel. Two naval vessels stay around 45nm away.
Like the crew of China-flagged vessel F/V TAWAQ, detained in jail at Dar es Salam / Tanzania for illegal fishing, the 39 Egyptian fishermen of the two illegally fishing vessels FV AHMED & SAMARA and FV MOMTAZ 1 held in northern Somalia can not hope for a quick release unless their owners pay the fines. Hassan Khalil, the owner of "MOMTAZ 1" now admitted that the 39 include 6 youngsters who are not even registered because they have no IDs and stated like Mohammed Awad, the owner of "Ahmed & Samara", that they don't have the money to pay the fine for a release. Hossam Khalil, head of the Cooperative Society of Fishermen in Egypt, had attacked the governmental officials concerned for failing even to inquire about the case, but the Egyptian Government had stated clearly that it had instructed since long all Egyptian vessels not to venture into Somali waters. Already earlier there have been angry reactions from the families of the Egyptian fishermen in Damietta, Dakahlia and Kafr El-Sheikh.
They gathered before the homes of the boat owners and the Cooperative Society of Fishermen in Damietta and called for release of their children. The people held the government responsible for what happened to their children. The people called on President Mubarak to intervene because they have no money to pay the ransom. Also in Kafr el-Sheikh, the families of 16 fishermen had called on President Mubarak to intervene to return their children. They said the young men escaped from the villages due to the numerous problems they faced, adding that they knew that their children were held in Somalia only from the media. 70-year-old Hemdan Abdel Rahman, the father of a kidnapped young man, said: "What can my son do? He traveled because the economic conditions are very bad here." Asmaa al-Qamash, the wife of a "MOMTAZ 1" crew member, said the boat owner told her that the authorities do not know the place of the two kidnapped boats and that there is no contact with the kidnapped because the captors seized their phones. While an Egyptian official stated that the government would find means to repatriate the seafarers, nobody has come forward yet to pay the fine, and the Egyptian government has the principal policy not to pay neither ransom nor fine. Since the Egyptian crew had managed to stop the cooling system all captured fish, which the captors wanted to sell, has been destroyed. The situation on board is tense. Reportedly an Egyptian journalist guided by a local stringer tried to reach the vessels today but was stopped in Lasqoray and returned to Bossaasso.
The Italian crew of the tug T/B BUCCANEER has reportedly today refused to open the hatches of the two barges it has in tow. This has raised now even more suspicion concerning the content.
With the latest captures and releases now still at least 15 foreign vessels (16 with an unnamed sole Barge which drifted ashore) with a total of not less than 210 crew members accounted for (of which 44 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 126 attacks (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 44 sea-jackings on the Somali/Yemeni pirate side as well as at least three wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) 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 incidents usually degrade during the monsoon season in winter and rise gradually by the end of the monsoon season starting from mid February and early April every year. Present multi-factorial risk assessment code: Yellow (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely). Allegedly still/again three groups from Puntland alone are out hunting on the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, and also groups from Harardheere have set out again, despite the heavy seas.
Directly piracy related reports
The Cost Of Doing Business
by strategypage.com
The anti-piracy patrol off the coast has had an impact. While last year, 40 percent of pirate attacks resulted in a captured ship, so far this year, only 25 percent of attacks have succeeded. Between the cost of the anti-piracy patrol, and the additional insurance, fuel and danger pay for the shipping companies, the Somali piracy is costing shippers, and their governments (who are paying for the anti-piracy patrol) [actually the taxpayers = You and I] over half a billion dollars a year. It is making it a little more expensive to use the Suez canal (but it is still cheaper than steaming around southern Africa.) The pirates are getting (in ransoms) less than ten percent of the money spent on dealing with the piracy. Most of the money goes to insurance companies, security firms and suppliers of fuel and other items needed to maintain the foreign warships off the coast. The shipping industry is more confident that they can deal with the pirates, while the pirates are discouraged by the lower success rate and the increasing pressure they are getting from other Somalis.
Another factor in the declining pirate success has been the increased use of aerial patrols by the foreign task force. There are at least half a dozen maritime patrol aircraft stationed in Djibouti, and dozens of helicopters aboard the ships of the task force. All these aircraft make it difficult for the pirates to sneak up on ships (who are more wary, careful and prepared these days).
Puntland, a self-declared (since 1991) independent part northern Somalia, is offering to deal with the piracy problem by forming a real Coast Guard and stronger police force. All they need is recognition from the UN that Puntland is a real nation, and about $10 million to buy patrol boats and hire crews and cops.
It's a tempting offer, which several other nations in the region have recommended, but the UN has not been eager to go this route (which means recognizing the fragmenting of Somalia into three states; Somaliland and Puntland in the north, and the other half, as Somalia, in the chaotic south). But the UN did give the Puntland government (which it talks to, even if it won't officially recognize) eleven vehicles (ten pickups and a larger truck) for their security forces. The U.S. could easily supply the money Puntland wants, but the corruption up north is a problem, as it is throughout the region. There's no assurance that the money for a Coast Guard would not largely disappear into someone's pocket.
The UN is trying to figure out how to deal with Eritrea, which is the major source of outside support for the Islamic radical groups inside Somalia. Cash poor Eritrea, in turn, is backed by oil rich Iran. The UN can't do much, unless they slap an naval and air blockade on Eritrea. This is unlikely, as the UN does not have the air and naval resources to implement this. A few press releases, calling Eritrea very naughty, are more likely.
Al Shabbab has imposed a curfew in the port town of Kiamayo, in the wake of attacks on their gunmen. The Islamic radicals have imposed strict Sharia (Islamic) law on the people of Kismayo (no booze, drugs, music, videos, dancing and so on), which is very unpopular. Now Kismayo also has problems with warships off the coast preventing cargo ships from docking there.
The activation of a new underwater fiber optic cable, being laid off the east coast of Africa, has been delayed by at least ten days (to early July) because of the pirates. The ships involved in the cable laying have had to take additional precautions to avoid being attacked. Once this cable is activated, the cost for Africans using the Internet will decline by over 40 percent. International phone calls will also be cheaper.
Russia has handed Iranians and Pakistanis, captured on a pirate mother ship, to Iran and Pakistan. Not all the pirates are Somali. A large minority are Yemeni and, as the Russian experience shows, some other nationalities as well.
Last month, the fighting in Mogadishu left over 200 dead, and caused 60,000 people to flee the city. So far this month, several thousand more civilians have fled, as government and al Shabaab militias fought over neighborhoods in the northern and southwest sections of the city. Al Shabaab is retreating this time, and there have been nearly fifty killed.
June 1, 2009: The fighting in Mogadishu resumed, after a lull of a few days. The government has brought in more men and drove al Shabaab (and related groups) out of a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. The Islamic radicals continue to use suicide and roadside bombs, which continue to kill more civilians than armed men.
May 29, 2009: The Somali government declared a blockade of ports and airports controlled by Islamic radical groups like al Shabaab. This includes the port of Kismayo, where cargo ships are now being kept away by foreign warships. There are, however, no foreign warplanes available to keep aircraft from using airports in al Shabaab territory. This is how a lot of the weapons are getting to the radicals (often from Iran, via Eritrea.)
Marine ecosystem, IUU fishing and dumping, ecology
British "Royal" Navy creates environmental hazard in fun-shooting of fuel-filled skiff in Gulf of Aden, after they took away the boat from a group of Somalis, which they presumed were pirates. see what bad shots as well as marine- and air-polluters these Brits on "mission" are: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/06/03/article-1190575-0531D015000005DC-919_634x893.jpg
Such they do and in addition they feel and are press-celebrated to be heroes - what a shame!
Suspecting that they were "not innocent fishing vessels", British Naval Commander Tim Henry oversaw this shameful action.
Maybe yes, the Somalis were on a piracy mission, but maybe not. Maybe they were arms smugglers or people traffickers, but maybe not. What would the Brits or the Americans say, if a Somali speedboat would cruise around their waters and would with military strength attack a Caucasian sailor, who happens to have arms on board, steal the weapons, shoot up and explode the vessel and sent the skipper home on a live-raft - and laugh!. Hell would break loose! The actions and behaviour of the naval armada around the Horn of Africa are a slap into face of those nations and people, who have fought for so long for the improvement of the rule of law, democratic principles and human rights.
And such navy-fellows are a disgrace for the honour of navies as well as the codex of honourable naval officers the world over. Where are the last naval commanders with some honour in their bones, who can put an end to such farce? The cop-catches-thief game has to be played also on the high-seas by the book. Though that book obviously has a lot of missing pages, the world can not tolerate that some fellows - be they UN, Government or Navy - apply their own laws and do what they want - or is it planned that the certainly following ramifications shall be used for even larger attacks against a sovereign nation and her people? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1190575/We-surrender-The-moment-Royal-Navy-captured-Somali-pirate-gang--blew-boat.html
World Environment Day Urges 'Kick the Carbon Habit'
"Our world is in the grip of a dangerous carbon habit", U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message introducing the theme, "Kick the carbon habit: toward a low carbon economy".
"The environmental, economic and political implications of global warming are profound", Ban said, citing the rapid changes "from mountain to ocean, from the poles to the tropics" documented by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC concluded that human activity is likely a major contributing factor to climate change and global warming. (See "U.S. Officials Praise Climate Change Report.")
"Low-lying cities face inundation, fertile lands are turning to desert" and unpredictable weather patterns exacerbate soaring prices for staple foods and increase the likelihood of conflict over diminishing resources, he said.
"The poor will be hardest hit", Ban said, reiterating "the damaging effect of our addiction" to burning carbon through fossil fuels and unsustainable manufacturing practices. Rampant deforestation also contributes significantly to global warming, he said.
The effect already is being felt by human populations and plant and animal species in vulnerable regions worldwide. In some of these regions, flora and fauna are being exploited to extinction by criminal traffickers in endangered species.
For that reason, to coincide with World Environment Day, the U.S. State Department is launching an initiative to raise public awareness about fighting illegal wildlife trafficking. Public service announcements by actor Harrison Ford, who donated his time, will highlight this global campaign.
U.S. Businesses, Communities Pledge Greenhouse Gas Emission Cuts
Ambassador Reno L. Harnish III, principal deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, told America.gov that WIREC "gave a strong impulse to low-carbon societies around the world".
"The United States supports the movement toward a low-carbon society domestically and abroad", he said, through targeted legislation in the United States and programs such as the Asia Pacific Partnership and the Global Village Partnership abroad. Besides reducing the carbon footprint, "these programs also provide energy security and rural development to developing countries", Hamish said.
He said the 17-nation Major Economies process aims at negotiating "to achieve a credible long-term goal and a binding medium-term goal".
Governments are urged to become energy conscious and take direct action to develop energy-efficient lifestyles that incorporate alternative energy sources, natural resource conservation and eco-friendly consumption.
Being Green is not the job of the U.S. military
by James Jay Carafano - senior research fellow for national security at The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org)
It was a momentous year. In 1973, CBS sold the Yankees to some guy named George Steinbrenner… the Supreme Court issued it Roe v. Wade ruling... America quit Vietnam.... President Nixon declared, "I am not a crook"… and, on Yom Kippur, the Arab states launched a short but vicious war against Israel.
The Arabs lost. In retaliation—and overnight—the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) doubled the price of oil.
Washington leapt into action and promptly made matters worse. New federal programs sprang into being. The best were ineffective; some were completely counterproductive. Spot shortages morphed into gas lines nationwide. Worst of all, price controls discouraged production. That led to shortages, which prompted calls for further government action to fix the shortages.
The lesson was clear: When governments trump markets, bad things happen.
Twenty-six years later, that lesson has been forgotten—at least by those whose hands control the levers of power in Washington. Government is itching to manipulate energy markets again, with laws and rules that will do everything from dictating what kinds of cars we can buy to taxing carbon emissions. The radical sheiks of 1973 have been replaced by rampaging Greens who preach that the only way to save Gaia is to drive up energy costs until we can’t afford to use fossil fuels.
The climate-change sheiks aren’t content with merely reshaping the nation’s energy and economic policies, however. Some in Washington want use the issue as an excuse to reshape national security as well.
Last year, Congress directed the Pentagon to address the national-security impacts of climate change in its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) report, due this December.
Every four years, the Pentagon must prepare a QDR for Congress, outlining the nation’s defense strategy and forecasting the requirements and forces needed to execute the strategy successfully. The QDR is a big deal. Hundreds of people work on putting it together. Defense Secretary Gates has already declared that he plans to use the result of the QDR to justify reshaping the military.
With the stakes so high, it’s risky business to introduce the climate change debate into national security decision-making. Since Al Gore made global warming a global cause celebre, stakeholders have tried to hijack the issue to drive their own agendas, be it to Save Darfur or to sell windmills. And there is no shortage of climate-change alarmists eager to dragoon military resources for service under a Green flag.
Some want to turn the military into a massive, humanitarian, peacekeeping force, standing ready to help third world states they believe may be ravaged by rising waters. Others foresee the Pentagon serving as a muscled referee wading into resource wars between poor nations battling over clean water. Others worry that global-warming induced floods will produce a succession of failed states, forcing the U.S. military to hop from one Somalia to another to restore order.
The climate change drumbeat could well seduce a Pentagon leadership intent on slashing the military’s conventional war capabilities in favor those needed to fight "irregular warfare". That would be a mistake.
The enemy of the future will want to fight exactly the kind of war we chose not to prepare for. The current obsession with irregular warfare at the expense of conventional capabilities is wrongheaded. As for climate change security, even if global temperatures rise, it will be generations before any dramatic change occurs. Even the U.S. military can adapt readily to that pace.
Unless the Pentagon wants to use climate change as an excuse to rubber stamp budget cutting, it should have no effect on defense strategy or needs in the up-coming QDR. After all, the world’s climate is always changing. Militaries must always change, too…when there is something real to adapt to.
Doomsday scenarios merit no consideration. But real developments demand a response. For example, we know the Artic is becoming navigable year round. Our ice cutter fleet is worn out and obsolete. There is no plan for new ones. Who will clear the waters for the Navy’s ships in this vital region?
Additionally, if the military wants to get serious about how global warming affects national security, it must examine the impact of rules and regulations nations are adopting to combat green house gases. These rules may well stifle economic growth, create energy scarcity, and make fragile states even more fragile.
Trying to turn back the global thermostat may lead to wider, more destructive violence, making our national security problems worse, not better. Remember the lesson of 1973.
Maybe someone should warn and stop Mr. Frank Serrano of Pawcatuck
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=b01fcf7d-2ec7-4083-bc16-b3cebcd34032
because:
a) All Somali fishing licenses for foreign vessel have been revoked by the new government until new legislations are in place and implemented.
b) "The Rainmaker will fly an American flag until it reaches Somali waters, where it will hoist the Somali flag", he says, obviously not knowing that also for a Somali flag a proper registration would be required, which is not possible in the moment.
c) He said his plan is to send divers down to find the sea cucumbers and then tow the ship's gear along the bottom to scoop them up. "In five minutes I can do what two divers do in a whole day", he said and thereby knowing obviously that such bottom trawling is one of the most damaging fishing techniques for marine ecosystems, which will not be permitted in Somalia. Even neighbouring countries like Kenya have stopped this malpractice.
d) Scallop dredges effectively plough the seabed, removing most, if not all marine life and habitats in their path. Its a total damage!
e) Even if he would not use his plough and vacuum-cleaner to steal the sea-cucumbers, the more recent intensive collection of sea-cucumbers has already caused local extinction along some areas of the coast of the Eastern African marine eco-region. Sea cucumbers are an important part of the marine ecosystem and play as detritus and suspension feeders an important role in the marine ecosystem.
f) Serrano said he is impressed by the new owner of the boat, a Somali who along with his brother spent 10 years driving cabs in Seattle. But maybe it was piracy money, which got him the sudden wealth - and if that is tracked the deal is off.
g) ... and last but not least: If the deal sounds too good - think twice! Especially if you put your live on the line of a "businessman" in the Horn of Africa.
... and to the "new owner": Sharia law is in place in Somalia and one of the most profound provision of the Holy Qur'an is: "Don’t Do Mischief!" - and dredging the seabed is environmental mischief par excellence !
Food security in eastern and western regions of the self-declared republic of Somaliland is under threat following an invasion of desert locusts, which have destroyed an estimated 3,000ha of farmland, officials told IRIN. "The locusts have destroyed both farmland and grassland across Somaliland, from west to east", said Aden Ahmed Dhola-yare, Somaliland's Minister for Agriculture. A team comprising government and non-governmental officials undertook a mission in late May to assess the impact of the invasion, which was first noted in February. Abdi-Kadir Jibril Tukale, director-general in the ministry of agriculture, said: "The locust outbreak in Somaliland will not stop in days, weeks or months; according to our assessment, which was conducted in collaboration with international organizations such as FAO Empres [Food and Agriculture Organization anti-locust project http://www.fao.org/ag/locusts/en/info/info/index.html] and other stakeholders, the desert locust outbreak will continue until September because the locusts have already buried their eggs within a 700 sqkm stretch in the west coast, particularly in Salal, Awdal, Hargeisa, and Sahel regions [west and mid-west of Somaliland]". An FAO official, who requested anonymity, said the locust invasion had destroyed several hundred farms in Qabri Bahar area of Awdal region and along the 700km coastline from Lawya-adda to Karin, east of the town of Berbera, as well as the farmlands in Berbera region and around the Golis mountains. Somaliland resident Abdi-Aziz Ahmed said: "We passed from Berbera Airport to Daraygodle village, 15km away, and in 48 hours the locusts had eaten all the leaves on the trees and the grass and they are moving towards the Red Sea".
South Africa Announces New Marine Protected Area Around Prince Edward Islands!
Penguins, albatrosses, killer whales and of course people can all jump for joy at the latest news from the Republic of South Africa! The country is set to establish one of the world's largest Marine Protected Areas (MPA) around its Prince Edward Islands. This inspiring achievement will help reduce the ecological impacts of fisheries, particularly on endangered seabirds.
Send a note to South Africa's Environment Minister thanking his department for creating this 11,846 square mile ocean sanctuary
The Prince Edward Islands in the Southern Ocean is amongst the world's most important and diverse regions. But until now, the islands have been threatened by illegal and irresponsible fishing practices.
This bold step will provide critical habitat for many unique species, including 13 percent of the world's King Penguins population, five species of Albatross, 14 species of petrels, three species of seals and killer whales.
Encourage the Republic of South Africa to keep up the good work!
This is a historic day in marine conservation in South Africa. All of South Africa's current MPAs are located very close inshore. The commitment of the first large offshore MPA moves South Africa into a new era of marine conservation.
Anti-piracy measures
Risk Management: Combating Piracy
Piracy is on the rise; so are efforts to stop it
As morning broke over the Gulf of Aden June 1, a white skiff sped toward a commercial ship en route off the East African Coast. Five Somali pirates were bearing down on their latest target, a tanker that if captured could bring them millions of dollars in ransom.
Lesson No. 1: Be Prepared
Paying for Piracy
Piracy: By the Numbers
10 Steps to Respond to Piracy
Washington Responds to Piracy
Q&A: Liability of Carrier for Piracy
Online Counter-Piracy Resources
Interview with Avalon Security (Advertorial)
The tanker’s officers increased the ship’s speed, activating high pressure fire hoses and mustering the crew while taking evasive maneuvers and alerting nearby naval forces. The pirates closed to within about 30 feet, firing automatic weapons at the ship.
This encounter ended fortunately for the tanker and its crew. "The robust anti-piracy measures resulted in the pirates aborting the attempt", the International Maritime Bureau said in its online Live Piracy Report. A warship later arrived at the scene.
The attack — the 206th in the region this year — was one more foray in what’s become a cat-and-mouse game pitting pirates operating from fishing boats against the world’s largest commercial vessels and a multinational naval coalition.
Off the coast of Somalia, piracy is a growth business. Somali pirates have been hijacking vessels since the mid-1990s, but they raised the stakes last year, attacking 111 vessels, a 152 percent increase over 2007, and hijacking 42 ships.
The Somali pirates hold more than vessels and mariners hostage — they imperil supply chains and raise transportation costs as ship owners add defensive equipment such as fire hoses, electric fencing and barbed wire to their ships and train their crews.
They cost the nations that maintain naval forces in the region untold billions of dollars.
This special online report from The Journal of Commerce examines how ship owners are protecting themselves and aiding efforts to combat piracy, starting with Peter T. Leach’s Lesson No. 1: Be Prepared and Janet Nodar’s Paying for Piracy.
Piracy: By the Numbers provides statistics and data illustrating the worsening trends toward piracy off the Somali Coast. So far this year, Somali pirates have attempted 114 attacks and hijacked 29 ships, the IMB says.
Douglas B. Stevenson of the Center for Seafarers’ Rights offers suggestions for governments, international organizations and the shipping industry in 10 Steps to Respond to Piracy . In Washington Responds to Piracy, William B. Cassidy details action on Capitol Hill and by the Obama administration, providing links to downloadable testimony from more than a dozen industry and government experts, including MAERSK ALABAMA Captain Richard Phillips.
In his Q&A: Liability of Carrier for Piracy from the June 1 issue, transportation consultant Colin Barrett explores issues of liability for cargo and ransom.
A special listing of Online Counter-Piracy Resources links you to Web sites of international organizations fighting piracy and more information on their programs that can be downloaded, as well as a list of best practices.
This special section also includes links to The Journal of Commerce's complete coverage of piracy in 2009.
Third Plenary Meeting of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia
The Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia met at United Nations Headquarters in New York on May 29, 2009, and agreed upon the following statement:
The Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (Contact Group) held its third meeting in New York City on May 29, 2009.
The Contact Group commended all members, especially Kenya, who have taken the lead in seeking justice for suspected pirates. The Contact Group endorsed the creation of an International Trust Fund to help defray the expenses associated with the prosecution of suspected pirates, as well as other activities related to implementing Contact Group objectives regarding combating piracy in all of its aspects. The International Trust Fund will be voluntary, open to contributions from governments, industry and others, who may make earmarked contributions. The Contact Group asked Working Group 2 to oversee all legal aspects of the International Trust Fund’s formation and management. The UN offered to provide assistance to administer the fund.
Panama, Liberia, the Bahamas and the Marshall Islands signed the New York Declaration, in which they state that they will promulgate internationally recognized best management practices for protection of ships against piracy attacks and require that all vessels flying their flags adopt and document self-protection measures as part of their compliance with the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code. Together, Panama, Liberia, the Bahamas and the Marshall Islands account for more than fifty percent of the world’s shipping by gross tonnage. The Contact Group welcomed this declaration along with International Maritime Organization efforts and encouraged other nations to adopt and implement piracy counter-measure guidance.
The Contact Group heard presentations from the European Union’s Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) and Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) Bahrain concerning operational coordination through the Shared Awareness and De-confliction (SHADE) meetings in Bahrain. SHADE meetings include military representatives from Contact Group nations with military counter-piracy operations in the Horn of Africa and Somali Basin. SHADE meetings have included representatives from EUNAVFOR, CMF, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Turkey, the United States, INTERPOL and industry. The Contact Group recognized the success of ongoing military coordination in contributing to lowering the rate of successful pirate attacks. The Contact Group noted the continuing development of the SHADE mechanism and its open and inclusive structure as one means of making effective use of military assets deployed in the region.
Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) Foreign Minister Mohamed Omaar thanked the Contact Group for its efforts in support of Somalia. He encouraged further support from the international community for the development of the Somali Coast Guard, and also reiterated the concern of Somalia regarding illegal fishing and dumping of toxic waste and called for more effective action by the international community in response. The Contact Group thanked Foreign Minister Omaar for his presentation and agreed with his assertion that the ultimate solution to piracy would come on land with a stable Somali government.
The United Kingdom reported on the May 7-8 Working Group 1 meeting in London. It reaffirmed the importance of non-duplication of mechanisms and structures and the integrity of military chains-of-command. Working Group 1 commended the existing military contributions by a number of Contact Group countries and encouraged these and others to provide additional assets to the fight against piracy. It welcomed the ongoing work in assessing regional capacity development in pursuit of Working Group 1’s mandate on regional capacity building. Working Group 1 discussed armed security on merchant vessels, noting the strong concerns of industry representatives and some member states while underscoring the importance of future dialogue on the issue. The Contact Group asked Working Group 1 to continue to review operational coordination, including the proposal from China to establish areas of responsibility for escort operations and agreed that it should continue to consider the potential need for a regional counter-piracy coordination center. The Contact Group also asked Working Group 1 to continue to address regional capacity development as a matter of priority.
Denmark reported on the May 5-6 Working Group 2 meeting in Copenhagen. Working Group 2 stressed the need for cooperation to the fullest possible extent with all states and international and regional organizations concerning the facilitation of arrest, detention and prosecution of suspected pirates. The importance of shared responsibility among states for prosecution was highlighted. In addition to agreeing on a recommended legal framework for an ITF, Working Group 2 produced two papers that were distributed to the Contact Group. The first included a list of impediments to prosecution that have to date made prosecution efforts less effective than necessary. The second provided a checklist of steps states might take to ensure that they are able to prosecute suspected pirates. A number of countries made proposals concerning the establishment of an international or regional mechanism for the prosecution of pirate suspects, while other states highlighted the difficulties in establishing such a mechanism.
The Contact Group tasked Working Group 2 to report back at its next meeting on further progress made by states in efforts to facilitate prosecution of suspected pirates and, in particular, efforts by Contact Group states to overcome the impediments listed by Working Group 2, including by use of the checklist. It also tasked Working Group 2 to draw up detailed terms of reference for an international trust fund to defray the expenses associated with the prosecution of suspected pirates, as well as other activities related to implementing Contact Group objectives regarding combating piracy in all of its aspects; develop a generic template for use by interdicting states in collecting evidence in piracy incidents; further examine the concept of "ship riders"; and invite the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to continue gathering information on relevant national legal systems, including those of coastal states. The Contact Group also asked Working Group 2 to continue consideration of possible international or regional mechanisms for the prosecution of suspected pirates.
The Contact Group asked Working Group 3, working principally through correspondence, to review on a quarterly basis progress of gathering lessons learned from vessel owners/operators, crew, and military involved in pirate attacks and updating maritime advisories to vessel masters with pertinent lessons learned. It was asked to review to what extent the BMPs are being used onboard vessels transiting off the coast of Somalia and the progress of disseminating Piracy Counter-Measure Guidance. The Working Group was also asked to identify labor issues and to develop labor related guidance in support of crew training and post event activities.
Egypt reported on the May 25 meeting of Working Group 4 in Cairo. Working Group 4 reported on the communications strategy it developed and identified the key messages that should be delivered to target audiences. It welcomed the presentation by Somali Deputy Prime Minister, Abdel Ibrahim, and the report by the United Nations Political Office for Somalia. The Contact Group endorsed the communications and media strategy and tasked Working Group 4 to continue to oversee the implementation of the Contact Group Communications Strategy and to continue its effort on improving the diplomatic and public information efforts on all aspects of piracy and to develop further ideas to that end.
The Contact Group agreed to remain seized with understanding informal financial systems as well as the formal systems that are funding and facilitating piracy off the coast of Somalia.
The United Nations Secretariat made a presentation of a package of land-based counter-piracy projects as requested by the Contact Group meeting in Cairo. The Contact Group agreed that the United Nations Secretariat will make a written proposal on how the Contact Group can establish coherence between land-based counter-piracy initiatives and its activities.
The Contact Group is a group of countries and organizations with a common interest in eliminating the scourge of piracy from the Gulf of Aden and Somali Basin. Different countries will choose to contribute to efforts to eliminate piracy in different ways. Some might be able to contribute naval assets to patrol in the region; others might prosecute suspected pirates in their national courts, while still others might choose to contribute to the anti-piracy international trust fund or assist with capacity building efforts in the region. Since all countries bear the burden of piracy, the Contact Group encourages all countries to participate through material contributions in any way that they can. The Contact Group plans to meet again in September 2009 in New York City to review the progress and direction of the four working groups and other developments. Japan will Chair this meeting.
Federal authorities ordered the captain of the MAERSK ALABAMA to stay mum about the disappearance of thousands of dollars in pirate booty, fearing it could blow a hole in the prosecution of the alleged hijacking mastermind, the Chuck Bennet reported for the New York Post.
"They tell you not to say anything. It just feeds the defense", Capt. Richard Phillips, told The Post. His story whereby he volunteered himself as a hostage to Somali pirates to save his crew, already has been refuted buy other crew members.
He said that federal investigators told him: "It will only cloud the case".
Eighteen-year-old Somali national Abudwali Abdulkadir Muse faces trial in Manhattan federal court on piracy charges but a key piece of evidence -- the $30,000 he allegedly looted from the safe of the MAERSK ALABAMA -- vanished.
That prompted an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which was first reported by The Post on Monday.
Navy personnel, including an elite SEAL squad, members of the international anti-piracy Combined Task Force 151, and Maersk crew are being questioned, federal sources said.
Phillips will likely be the star witness in the trial that begins Sept. 17.
The missing money could be ripe for exploitation by defense lawyers.
"I would have a ball with that on cross", said attorney Jeffrey Lichtman, who is not involved with the Muse case. "It harms the veracity of the entire case".
The US Attorney's Office declined to comment.
Muse and his marauders boarded the MAERSK ALABAMA, a freighter with a cargo of relief supplies, off the coast of Somalia on April 8 and captured Phillips at gunpoint.
"The captain opened the safe and took approximately $30,000 in cash. Muse and the two other pirates then took the cash", FBI Special Agent Steven Sorrells said in a criminal complaint.
The pirates then retreated to a lifeboat with Phillips as hostage.
After a five-day standoff during which injured Muse gave himself up, SEALs and shot dead three pirates.
The $30,000 was never recovered.
Muse's public defender, Deirdre von Dornum, did not return calls for comment.
The British Royal Navy announced the HMS Cumberland frigate has been deployed to the volatile Horn of Africa for counter-piracy operations. The HMS Cumberland, a British Royal Navy Type 22 frigate, has deployed from Plymouth, England, to the Gulf of Aden, marking the second counter-piracy mission for a naval vessel off the coast of Somalia, the British Ministry of Defense reported.
The deployment of the HMS Cumberland follows recent maintenance work on the frigate's propulsion and weapons systems ahead of operations to crack down on piracy and potential terrorist threats in the Horn of Africa region.
"Cumberland is well prepared for this deployment … (and the) United Kingdom is committed to maintaining a national and coalition presence in the region and all of us in Cumberland are looking forward to and ready to face the challenges ahead", Capt. David Dutton, HMS Cumberland commanding officer, said in a statement.
No real peace in sight yet
The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, today condemned the death of two Somali journalists, Abdirisak Warsameh Mohamed, shot on a street in Mogadiscio on 22 May, and Nur Muse Hussein, who died this week of injuries sustained in April when he was shot in the town of Beledweyne. "I condemn the attacks which have taken the lives of Nur Muse Hussein and Abdirisak Warsameh Mohamed", declared the Director-General.
"Few places are as dangerous for journalists as Somalia, which is prey to unending conflicts", he added. "Dedicated professionals such as Nur Muse Hussein and Abdirisak Warsameh Mohamed nevertheless continue doing their job to ensure that we are kept informed. It is our right to freedom of information that these brave journalists risk their lives to defend". Veteran Somali reporter, Nur Muse Hussein, 56, was covering the fighting between the provincial authorities and the Hisbul Islam movement for Voice of the Holy Quran radio.
He was targeted along with three colleagues despite the fact that they were identified as journalists. Seriously hit in the leg, Nur Muse Hussein died this week. Abdirisak Warsameh Mohamed of Radio Shabelle was killed when he was hit by several bullets in the chest on 22 May in Mogadiscio, in a street near the Bakara Market, fiefdom of a Moslem militia organization. It is impossible to know whether the journalist was singled out to be killed considering the intensity of the fighting in the area and the large number of civilians hit. According to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), four reporters have been killed in Somalia since January. Moreover, two freelance journalists Amanda Lindhout of Canada and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan, abducted last August near Mogadiscio, are still held by their kidnappers who are demanding a ransom.
UNESCO is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom. Article 1 of its Constitution requires the Organization to "further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations". To realize this purpose the Organization is required to "collaborate in the work of advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, through all means of mass communication and to that end recommend such international agreements as may be necessary to promote the free flow of ideas by word and image…"
We the Somali journalists are condemning the kidnapping of the Universal TV director Mr. Ibrahim Mohamed Ali (Jekey) who was abducted by unknown gunmen, who were armed with pistols and had their faces masked, states Abdirahman Hussein Fure. We are demanding his release unconditionally.
It is really unacceptable to us seeing our colleagues being killed and kidnapped every other day while they are doing their duties of covering the events that is occurring different places across the country.
We are requesting whoever kidnapped our colleagues that they should release them without any demands.
We also wish to see our colleagues being released while he is safe and sound, it is really worrying us a lot and we are stunned that we don’t really know why the gunmen kidnapped our colleagues, although there have been attacks, killings and abductions against the Somali journalists recently.
We the Somali journalists do work in one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists to work. Four of our Somali colleague journalists were killed in Somalia in 2009 alone.
Elsewhere, individual journalists face a wide range of problems preventing them from doing their jobs. From direct attacks by the authorities and others to the use of libel laws, we the Somali journalists face often insurmountable obstacles to fulfilling the tasks that are so necessary for the defense of human rights.
Journalists in Somalia continue to face targeted killing, death threats, arbitrary detention and intimidation by all parties to the conflict. There were some 30 detentions of Somali journalists (lasting between four and 115 days), and journalists suffered more than 30 death threats, two killings and several injuries in 2008, with no means of bringing perpetrators to justice. Since the beginning of 2009, there have been several attacks and killings.
Nur Muse Hussein of Radio Holy Quran was shot in the leg in Beletweyne on 20 April 2009 when he was covering fighting between the local government and armed militia in the area. Hassan Bulhan Ali, Director of Radio Abudwaq, was knifed five times in the abdomen by a single attacker in Galgadud on 7 February 2009 at a clan reconciliation meeting.
Three men with pistols killed Said Tahlil Ahmed, Director of HornAfrik in Mogadishu, when they shot him four times in the head at Bakara Market in Mogadishu on 4 February 2009. He was on his way with other media directors to a meeting with local al-Shabab.
Hassan Mayow Hassan, with Radio Shabelle, was shot twice in the head after being stopped at a roadblock by a local government-affiliated militia and died in Afgooye on 1 January 2009 on his way to cover armed conflict in the area.
And now the director of Unversal TV has been kidnapped and his kidnapping has increased our worries and safeties but we will never give up our coverage and promoting the freedom of press no matter what happens.
Unknown gunmen have abducted two prominent clerics in Mogadishu’s north district of Heliwa, witnesses said on Wednesday. Relatives said, Sheik Mohamed Wehliye Dol, and Sheik Mohamed Abshir Aden were taken from their houses by unknown gunmen armed with pistols with two cars they were traveling in on Tuesday evening. Abdishakur Sheik Mohamed Wehliye, a son of Sheik Mohamed Wehliye told reporters that the gunmen injured another Sheik who came to visit his father when they opened fire to the Sheiks. Abdishakur said he did not know why his father was kidnapped and added that his father was not belong to any of the rival groups in the country. Scores of foreign as well as local journalists and aid workers have been kidnapped in Somalia in recent months.
Joint Statement by
The IGAD Facilitator for Somalia Peace and National Reconciliation
The African Union Special Representative for Somalia and
The United Nations Special Representative for Somalia
Press Release 001/2009
Nairobi 27 May 2009: Following the extra ordinary session of the IGAD Council of Ministers on the security and political situation in Somalia held in Addis Ababa on 20 May 2009, we, the representatives of IGAD, the African Union and the United Nations, met to discuss developments in Somalia and examine the situation further.
We have noted with great interest and appreciation the Communiqué which resulted from the IGAD meeting. Furthermore we noted with equal satisfaction the supportive Communiqué adopted by the African Union Peace and Security Council of 22 May. We consider these important contributions particularly given IGAD’s close geographical and cultural ties to Somalia and its member states’ knowledge of the country. We have no doubt that all IGAD member states and civil society organizations will support the Communiqués and we urge the UN Security Council to give them immediate and due consideration and discuss them further.
We have further agreed for our three institutions to continue to work together in close partnership to deliver on our mandates and implement future decisions made by the UN Security Council.
Plans to Stabilize Somalia On Course, Says Minister. Somalia's new administration says it will continue with its national stabilization plan despite intensified attacks by hard-line Islamic insurgents, including al-Shabab. This comes after government forces drove out insurgents from two districts of the capital, Mogadishu, Tuesday during a day of heavy fighting. Insurgents have been controlling some sections of the capital, but the new administration says it is determined to take back those areas. Somali government spokesman Abdi Kadir Walayo told VOA that the administration's plan to restore peace and stability is on course. "Last night there was some armed confrontation between the government force and the opposition. And it happened in two residential areas, the eastern and northern parts of Mogadishu.
The government forces repulsed the opposition armed groups", Walayo said. He said President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's government will continue with its stabilization plan. "The government has worked out a national stabilization and security plan, and in accordance with that plan, it plans to totally free the whole of Somalia from the opposition stronghold", he said. Walayo said the government is mandated to protect the lives of Somali citizens. "In accordance with that plan, the government is duty-bound to get rid of the menace of the opposition armed groups", Walayo said. He said the government would gradually take over control over the capital, Mogadishu and the entire country.
"The government is planning to make counteroffensive on a step by step approach to minimize the casualties of the civilian population. And now there is plan to be implemented to restore peace and order, not only in Mogadishu but throughout Somalia", he said. Walayo said the new Somali administration is enjoying support from the international community who back the government to succeed after at least 18 years without an effective government. "The government has the support of the international community, and I believe that that assistance is forthcoming. And I'm sure that we will get support from the international community which expresses total support to the Transitional Federal Government", Walayo said.
Yusuf Mohamed Siyad known as Indha Adde, former Islamist leader who recently defected to the government of national unity will be appointed as the minister of defense, a report said last week. Sources close to the office of Somalia's premier told Waagacusub Media that Yusuf Indha Adde is to due to be named for the post of defense minister replacing the current defense minister Mohamed Abdi Gandi, who is a French passport holder and resident of Besançon in France. Mohamed Hassan Gamaey who also was among the defectors to the government will be chosen as the deputy minister of justice, the report added. The move came after the government, which is now battling with the rebel Islamists in the Somalia capital, was unsatisfied with the leadership of the current defense minister Mr. Gandi who is said to be inexperienced concerning military skills. The nomination of Indha Adde as the new defense minister for the TFG government will happen in the next few days, but it is not clear whether the incoming minister will defend the government against the advance of the radical Islamists, says Mahamed Abdi of Waagacusub.
Al Shabaab reject Aweys 'unity' proposal. Somali opposition figure Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys had publicly stated that there are ongoing talks to unite the political and military strength of Somali opposition groups Hizbul Islam and Al Shabaab, but his proposal has already been rejected, Radio Garowe reports. Sheikh Aweys, who returned to the Somali capital Mogadishu in April, was crowned the new leader of Hizbul Islam, a rebel coalition of four Islamist factions that merged in January to fight against the interim government led by President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, formerly a close ally of Aweys. "Talks to unite Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam are in the finals stages", Sheikh Aweys told reporters Wednesday. But Al Shabaab guerrilla leaders who refused to be identified rejected Sheikh Aweys' claims, saying that Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam do not share a common name but have agreed to share weapons to overthrow President Sheikh Sharif's U.N.-backed interim government and African Union peacekeepers (AMISOM) protecting the government. Sheikh Aweys has not commented on Al Shabaab's rejection of his unity proposal yet, but divisions linger within the opposition, who are only united in overthrowing the government but have different ideologies about Somalia's political future.
Islamists briefly re-took an area of Mogadishu on Wednesday in street battles that killed 14 people, wounded dozens more, and added to an exodus of residents from the coastal Somali capital, residents said. Insurgents from the militant al Shabaab movement, whom Western security services say are al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia, are battling government forces for control of Mogadishu in the biggest test to date for President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. Since early May, Mogadishu street battles have killed more than 200 people and 86,000 people have fled, according to witnesses and the U.N. refugee agency. Two years of Islamist-led insurgency in Somalia have killed nearly 18,000 people, allowed piracy to flourish offshore, made more than 1 million people internal refugees, sent hundreds of thousands more across borders, and created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
No more talks with insurgents, as embattled Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on Thursday vowed to fight insurgents to the bitter end and fresh clashes erupted in the south of the capital.
"We will fight to death until peace is assured", Sharif told reporters as his forces and hard line Islamist militants exchanged mortar shells and heavy fire in parts of the capital. "We will fight them until our last man dies". "Anyone who changes his mind would be welcomed. But as long as they carry on this wrong ideology, the only option open for us is to fight against them", said Ahmed. Ahmed's government, which aims to rule Somalia with a moderate version of Islam, controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu and a border town. His allies control pockets of southern and central Somalia.
Sharif spoke after talks with around 150 clerics from a moderate but influential Sufi religious sect who pledged to take up arms to shore up his shaky administration.
In a boost to the government, the moderate The Ahlu Sunna Waljamea group, which controls swaths of central Somalia, strongly backed the government at Thursday's meeting. "From now on we are ready to stand by the government of Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. We will defend it and we will fight the rebels", Sheikh Ali Dhere said after meeting the president.
The Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa sect is a national Sufi movement which had not been known to engage in armed action in recent years.
But some of its members in a region near the border with Ethiopia in January took up arms against al-Shabab, whose ideology is closer to the more rigorous Wahhabi brand of Islam. "There is no need to fight against the government because it has adopted Sharia law. We will stand by it and we will defend it", Sheik Sharif Sheik Moyuddin told the meeting at the presidential palace, as reported by AP.
Fighting on Thursday spread to several neighborhoods in southern Mogadishu after government forces using anti-aircraft weapons and mortar shells targeted insurgents' positions.
"Our forces are advancing onto the rebel controlled positions in Hodon district, two of our soldiers were injured so far", said Abukar Adan, a Somali government security officer.
Witness Farah Mohamed also reported heavy clashes and seeing several wounded civilians.
"I saw seven civilians who were injured near Albaraka, mortar shells hit several locations in the neighborhood", he told AFP.
"The government forces in armed vehicles attacked the rebel positions near Tarbunka and Kpp, there was heavy exchange of mortars and anti-aircraft weapons", added Abdulahi Madobe, a local resident.
Backed by African peacekeepers securing the presidential palace, as well as the sea port and the airport, Somali government forces launched a counter-offensive almost two weeks ago and regained some ground.
"It is our responsibility as a government to fulfill our duties and commitments, we will not keep our hands folded and we will defend our sovereignty", said president Sharif as loyalist forces near his palace fired heavy artillery shells targeting rebel positions. Somalia's president vowed that his forces would fight to the last man against hard line Islamist rebels because of their continued refusal to discuss peace.
Battles over so-called control of districts have generally boiled down to skirmishes around an area's main police station, with neither side proving it had the ability to conquer and hold more than a handful of strongholds.
More than 200 people have been killed and 91,000 uprooted from their homes in the month-old battles initially launched by extremists advocating the imposition of strict Sharia law in the Horn of African nation.
The Somali military prevails over al-Shabaab insurgents, forcing them to retreat from the key town of Mahaday in the Shabelle region. Backed by the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), Somali government forces managed to kill 32 al-Shabaab fighters and injure dozens more in fierce clashes on Thursday morning. In an exclusive interview with Press TV, senior UIC official Farhan Ali Mohamud said the Somali government has managed to gain full control over the city. According to Mohamud, the Somali government has launched a 100-day battle against insurgents in order to bring order back to the restive region --which has been mired in a civil war since 1991. He warned that the humanitarian situation in Somalia is currently at its worst with thousands of civilians in desperate need of emergency food and medical supplies. Both sides have claimed control over Dharkeenley and Yakhshid district on north Mogadishu, which has been a scene a violent attacks ever since President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed declared an all-out war on the rebels in order to uproot the insurgency in the war-torn nation.
Ethiopian Authorities have now at last admitted having military presence in Somalia contradicting their own earlier rejections of reports that it has redeployed its troops back to the Horn of Africa state. Two weeks ago, Ethiopia which withdrew all its troops from Somalia in January this year, after backing the Somalia Transitional government to oust the hard-line Islamist rebels, said the reports of its army presence were untrue, further stating that it has no intention to invade the Somali territories.
Information Minister Bereket Simon told afrol reporters in Addis Ababa today that the country has no plans to go back to Somalia, but said there are inspection missions by the Ethiopian troops and Somalia. Somalis near the central town of Beletweyne had reported earlier that Ethiopian troops had landed in the town when clashes between government and rebels intensified in the country’s capital Mogadishu. Last month the clashes between Allied fighters of Al-Shabaab and Hezbul Islam and the Somali government led to the capture of a number of key positions in Mogadishu and two main central Somalia towns from government forces, raising fears the government could collapse.
"During the past weeks, many civilians were killed, hundreds injured and thousands displaced by clashes between pro and anti-government forces in Mogadishu", U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay said. "Women are particularly at risk of violent attacks for which they have no effective recourse. The fighting must be stopped. Countering impunity of perpetrators for their past and current atrocities must be a priority in order to achieve justice and deter further violations".
UNPOS seems to have run out of ideas. Former senior army officers from Somalia are slated to meet in Washington D.C. on Thursday for United Nations-backed talks aimed at bolstering security institutions in the strife-torn nation, UN spokesperson Michele Montas announced here on Wednesday. The two-day gathering, arranged with the support of the Somali Ministry of Defense and the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS), will look at the structure of Somalia's military before the collapse of the State and the best ways to address the country's current and future security needs, Montas said. "We are expecting this to be the first of several fruitful meetings", said Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN secretary-general's special representative for Somalia. Stressing that this is a "great opportunity for Somalis to find within their past some solutions for the future", Ould-Abdallah noted that the former Somali military officers participating in this meeting are respected for their experience in training soldiers from other African nations.
UNPOS said in a press release that the meeting will serve to prepare for follow-up discussions with Somalia's top military officials, expected to take place in late July, as part of the Government's commitment under the Djibouti Agreement to strengthen its defense forces. Ould-Abdallah told a news conference at the UN Headquarters in New York last week that after visiting the Horn of Africa nation, it was "very sad to see how the city (Mogadishu), the population and the country are taken hostage by those who have been fighting and destroying their country over the last 20 years". During his visit, he had spoken with government leaders about the latest developments there, including the breakout of intense fighting in early May between government troops and the opposition Al-Shabaab and Hisb-ul-Islam groups. He said that up to 75,000 people, who had fled the country and returned earlier this year, had fled again because of the renewed fighting.
Critique: While Somali children die of starvation and adults are killing each other in the country over misguided affiliations, the outside and foreign players waste tons of money in useless and mostly counter-productive meetings in New York, Rome, London, Djibouti, Cairo, Kuala Lumpur and other far-flung places, while many Somali MPs hide in Nairobi hotels ready to fly out at a moments notice and serve for a per-diem as décor on the stage of such ill-conceived meetings of global shakers, which keeps them busy but only makes the organizers rich.
Somalia: sharp deterioration in humanitarian situation. Dozens of people have been killed in the capital Mogadishu since the intensification of armed clashes at the beginning of the month. Hundreds have been wounded and thousands more have been forced to flee their homes. "Some of the displaced had only recently returned to Mogadishu. They were hoping to be able to rebuild their lives in a more stable environment", said Pascal Mauchle, who heads the ICRC delegation for Somalia. "Their hopes have now been shattered, and their painful ordeal continues". Many of those fleeing are women and children. They are joining hundreds of thousands of displaced people in camps on the outskirts of the city and other areas of the country, or even in already overpopulated refugee camps in neighbouring countries. "The situation is a cause for major concern", said Mr Mauchle. "The displaced usually leave their homes with very few belongings, and struggle to survive. In Somalia's makeshift camps they don't have suitable food and clean water. Insalubrious conditions put their already weakened health further at risk" .There are also pockets of violence in other parts of the country. Armed clashes have driven people from their homes in several cities in central and southern Somalia. Host communities are not able to help them as they would like to do, in accordance with Somali tradition. The effects of years of armed conflict and a chronic shortage of rainfall as well as the ongoing economic crises have exhausted the resources of the resident population and have made it difficult for any family to feed its own children. Many of the displaced therefore remain without any protection, shelter, food or even utensils with which to prepare a meal.
As intense violence once again rocks Somalia’s capital, MSF teams continue working throughout the country
Many of those fleeing Mogadishu are seeking refuge in the ‘Afgooye corridor’, a stretch of road leading from the capital to the town of Afgooye, around 25km to the northwest of Mogadishu.
Scope of injuries faced after the fighting
Mahmud Sheikh Mohammed Hassan, Deputy Field Coordinator for one of MSF’s projects in Mogadishu, describes what the past few days have been like.
"The fighting’s still going on. Between May 22 to 27, we received 75 casualties. People couldn’t get to the hospital on Friday morning, but they came in the afternoon.
We started operating in the afternoon and didn’t finish until ten o’clock on Saturday morning. It was a long night. Unfortunately three of our patients died in the operating theatre; their injuries were too severe and they just couldn’t get to the hospital in time. There was nothing we could do.
One was a little girl, she must have been no more than 13 years old. I think she was in a minibus that was hit by a shell.
Three others had head injuries so they are in intensive care now. But there are no hospitals in Mogadishu that can do operations for this kind of injury, so we just have to make them as comfortable as possible. The other patients are in recovery and are doing well.
Near to the hospital there are a lot of displaced people. They come here because it’s on the outskirts of Mogadishu and they feel safer. There are around 18,000 living out in the open, in different areas around the hospital. In the past few days, I would say that around 5,000 to 10,000 more people have arrived. They have nothing with them when they come. We distributed plastic sheeting to around 2,000 families last week. People make some shelter for themselves. They put up the sheeting using branches and then cover it with plastic bags and rags. But it’s been raining heavily lately and people are really suffering".
In Mogadishu’s Daynile district, where MSF supports a community hospital, medical teams treated 218 people suffering from trauma injuries caused by shelling and gunshots between May 7 and 22. Of these, 81 were women and children under age of 14. On May 14 MSF was forced to close its outpatient clinic in Yaqshid, northern Mogadishu, for two days to ensure its medical staff were not caught in the cross fire during the heavy fighting. The clinic has since reopened.
Since the fighting started on May 7, MSF staff have treated 14 people with trauma injuries. Nine patients had gunshot wounds and five had secondary injuries caused by shelling. Five of the patients were children, including one six month old baby. Another clinic in Lido has seen a sharp increase in activities as people flood to the area to try and escape the fighting. In the past two weeks 22 people with trauma wounds have been treated. The 50 bed in-patient ward in Lido has been packed, with an average admission of 120 patients per week. Over 1,200 outpatient consultations for children under five were done in the week ending May 15.
In contrast, the number of consultations in MSF’s maternity and child care clinic in Jowhar, 90km north of the capital, actually decreased following fighting in the town on May 17, as people were too afraid to travel to MSF’s health centers.
Admissions to the nutrition programme went down by 30 percent compared to the previous week, and 40 percent fewer women were seen in the maternity clinic in the same period.
Many of those fleeing Mogadishu are seeking refuge in the ‘Afgooye corridor’, a stretch of road leading from the capital to the town of Afgooye, around 25km to the northwest of Mogadishu. Since 2007 MSF has worked in Afgooye, providing outpatient and nutritional care. On May 18, MSF teams distributed blankets, plastic sheeting, soap and buckets to 2,500 families who had recently arrived in Afgooye. MSF also supports a private clinic in nearby Hawa Abdi, which is about 15km from Mogadishu, and is working on building a permanent in-patient therapeutic feeding centre, as the tents that were previously used have been badly damaged by the rain.
Elsewhere in Somalia MSF teams are seeing increasing numbers of children suffering from malnutrition.
In Marere, in the Lower Juba region, admissions to the in-patient therapeutic feeding centre, where patients are admitted as they need 24 hour care, have increased from 45 to 130 in May alone. A further 400 children are being treated on an out-patient basis in nearby Jilib. In South Galcayo admissions have also increased with 75 patients currently receiving treatment in the inpatient therapeutic feeding centre compared to a monthly average of 40. In North Galcayo patient numbers have doubled since March/April, with around 300 children currently receiving treatment on an ambulatory basis and 40 children receiving in-patient care.
Measles is also a concern. In Belet Weyne, which is in Hiraan region close to the border with Ethiopia, MSF teams started a measles vaccination campaign in mid-April, vaccinating 26,000 children aged between six months and 15 years. However, recently cases have been detected in other areas of central Somalia, in Adado, Guri El, Dhusa Mareb and Galcayo. MSF has set up isolation centers to treat people. In March medical staff treated five cases in South Galcayo. In April, it rose to 50 cases and 73 in May. MSF will continue to monitor the situation closely.
MSF works in the Bakool, Banadir, Bay, Galgaduud, Hiraan, Lower Juba, Middle Shabelle, Lower Shabelle and Mudug regions of Somalia. All MSF’s projects are currently run by Somali staff, supported by international staff based in Nairobi who visit whenever security allows.
Impacting reports from the global village
Kenya, Somalia seek to solve territorial dispute
by Ally Jamah
Kenya and war-torn Somalia have locked horns over a large swathe of territory in the Indian Ocean.
This controversy emerged as the two countries submitted maps to the UN showing the extent of their maritime frontiers as recommended by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Like much of Kenyan borders, the boundary between Kenya and Somalia in the Indian Ocean has not been officially demarcated yet.
The latest disagreement hints at future boundary disputes as Kenya prepares to start demarcating land and sea borders.
Full demarcation
Only the Kenya-Ethiopia boundary has been demarcated fully.
The maritime maps submitted by Kenya and Somalia to the UN includes the vast sea territory that both countries claim, stretching for 350km at the widest point.
Kenya submitted maps on May 6 and Somalia on May 13. The UN is expected to make a binding decision in September.
But the decision will only affect the outer limits of territorial waters, which both countries seek to extend into the sea.
It will be up to Kenyan and Somali maritime officials to determine where the dividing line between the two countries lies, opening a potential flash point like the one in Migingo Island claimed by Uganda and Kenya.
An agreement on the maritime border between the two countries reads in part: "The delimitation of the continental shelf between the Republic of Kenya and the Somali Republic has not yet been settled. This unresolved delimitation is to be considered a maritime dispute".
But Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula denied there was a dispute between the two countries.
"There is no dispute whatsoever between us and Somalia. The MoU was signed in good faith in the interests of both countries", he said yesterday after a meeting with visiting Somalia Prime Minister Omar Ali Sharmarke.
Al Qaeda's North African wing said Wednesday it had carried out its threat to kill a British hostage it was holding in the Sahara. Britain said it had reason to believe the hostage, Edwin Dyer, had been killed and Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the killing as "a barbaric act of terrorism". An official source in Algeria told Reuters: "The Briton, according to our information, has been killed by AQIM (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) in Mali". The group had said it would kill the Briton if the British government did not release Abu Qatada, a Jordanian Islamist it is holding in prison. Dyer was killed on May 31 after a second deadline for the group's demands expired, it said in a statement on a website used by al Qaeda-linked groups. "The British captive was killed so that he, and with him the British state, may taste a tiny portion of what innocent Muslims taste every day at the hands of the Crusader and Jewish coalition to the east and to the west", the statement said. "Let Gordon Brown and his aggressor government reap the fruits of their thoughtless policies toward Muslims". The announcement of the killing came as U.S. President Barack Obama headed to the Middle East hoping to start mending U.S. ties with the Islamic world in a speech that will tackle issues including extremist violence.
The British Foreign Office said Dyer was kidnapped on the border between Niger and Mali in late January, but declined to give any more details about him. According to The Times newspaper, Dyer was one of a group of European tourists kidnapped after attending the African music "Festival in the Desert" near Timbuktu. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed responsibility for kidnapping two Canadian diplomats and four European tourists in the past five months. The two diplomats and two of the tourists were freed in Mali in April, leaving Dyer and a Swiss citizen in captivity. Last month, Algerian media reported AQIM was demanding 10 million euros ($14 million) in exchange for Dyer and the Swiss national. Brown said in a statement: "We have strong reason to believe that a British citizen, Edwin Dyer, has been murdered by an Al Qaeda cell in Mali. I utterly condemn this appalling and barbaric act of terrorism".
Obama warns Kenyan president and prime minister
President Obama issued a "stern warning" to President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga of Kenya, according to news reports. He called on the politicians "to lower the political tension" (resolve differences), and to ensure that neither departed from the "spirit of the National Accord as crafted by former UN chief Kofi Annan". There have been rumblings of discord in the effort to pull the competing leaders together for the good of the country. Violence exploded after January 2008 presidential balloting with Mr. Kibaki accused by Odinga supporters of stealing the election. On his second stop after attending the inauguration of President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, Johnnie Carson, the new U.S. assistant secretary of state, responded to the recent bickering in Kenya. "The U.S. is ready to take necessary steps should the coalition fail to implement the Annan agreement", he said.
Kenya summons U.S. envoy over Delta flights.
Kenya has summoned the United States ambassador to explain the last-minute cancellation of new Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) flights to the capital Nairobi, a government minister said on Wednesday. "It is unjustified ... it amounts to a travel advisory against the country. Yes, I have (summoned the ambassador)", Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula told Reuters. Kenya borders Somalia, a lawless country whose 18-year-old civil strife is seen by the international community as offering a haven for al Qaeda-linked militants. Their strongholds are in the south of the country, near Kenya's porous north-eastern border. TSA, part of the Department of Homeland Security responsible for the security of America's transportation systems, said it and other federal agencies had been assessing threats to civil aviation in east Africa.
"Credible Threat"
"TSA, along with key partners within the U.S. government, assess a credible threat", it said in a statement. "At this time, the current threat is too significant to permit these flights. TSA and its partners will continue to closely monitor this situation". An al Qaeda truck bomb killed more than 200 people at the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in August 1998. Eleven people were killed in another attack on the U.S. embassy in neighbouring Tanzania on the same day.
Suicide bombers struck again four years later, killing 15 people at an Israeli-owned hotel on the Kenyan coast. At almost the same time, attackers tried to shoot down an Israeli jetliner as it left Mombassa airport. Both missiles missed.
Airlines that transported aid involved in arms trafficking
A just released study said 90 percent of air carriers "involved in arms trafficking were also used by aid groups and peacekeepers". The Swedish-based Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said "the worst case was Sudan. All air firms there listed for illicit arms transfers were also used for aid".
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U.S. security firms push arms to ‘global terrorists'?
According to the online service Sudan Watch, U.S. private security firms, including Dyncorp, hired air cargo carrier Aerolift to assist in handling "the trafficking of arms to militias which the U.S. government have designated ‘global terrorists'". In 2006, the UN Security Council accused Aerolift of being involved in arms trading, and supplying "weapons to an Islamist militia that controls much of Southern Somalia".
African Union held infrastructure investment talks
According to an article published in the Tripoli Post, "Africa needs about $20 billion" annually for infrastructure development, "and the African Union is in talks with donors, including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Union. Finance is a big issue. Our infrastructure requirements now would be something between $15 billion and $20 billion a year", AU Commissioner for Economic Affairs Maxwell M. Mkwezalamba, told Down Jones Newswire.
Call for Hope and Dignity for Every Child. In a telegram sent to the United Nation's in Geneva today, Pope Benedict XVI added his voice to the call for hope and dignity for every child, as the UN marked the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The a document has been ratified by all but two countries of the world, Somalia and the United States - and Somalia would has signed and ratified it if there would have been a proper government in place. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi is the Holy See permanent observer to the United Nations in Geneva says two decades on, many of the goals enshrined in that convention are denied on a daily basis
Hege Storhaug reports from Norway: Its an absurdity that the Islamic Cultural Center (ICC) and other totalitarian faith communities in Norway receive millions of kroner annually in government support. The ICC is directly linked to the Pakistani religious-political movement known as Jamaat-i-islami; its founder, Abu Ala Maududi, is the foremost Islamist ideologue in Pakistani history, and thus ICC's top ideologue. Norwegian taxpayers' money, in short, is funneled into the pockets of people who are fully engaged in a struggle against freedom and democratic values. Indeed, as will be detailed in a forthcoming report from Human Rights Service, the Oslo think tank for which I work, a Somali mosque in Oslo, which receives government funds, is in turn providing financial support to Al-Shabab, the extreme Islamist militia group in Somalia. This same mosque supports female genital mutilation and helps marry off congregants' little girls as wife number two, three, or four to men old enough to be their grandfathers. We have informed top Norwegian government officials about these facts in recent meetings. Whether they will do anything about this grotesque state of affairs remains to be seen. I am not holding my breath.
Djibouti – Forgotten by Amnesty Int´l Report 2009, A Hell for the Tyrannized Afar Minority
by Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
In order not to disturb the evil colonial policy of the Freemasonic regime of Paris in East Africa and the criminal Anglo-French alliance, Amnesty International Report 2009 contains no chapter on Djibouti.
This does not mean that Djibouti is a Paradise on Earth; on the contrary. It is actually a Hell for the Afar minority that has peremptorily been annexed to this former French colony. One could compose an entire encyclopedia about the persecution of the Afars in Djibouti and in Abyssinia (fallaciously re-baptized Ethiopia).
To amend the obstreperous stance of the London-based international NGO, after publishing the Amnesty International chapters on Abyssinia, Kenya and Sudan, I republish here – in guise of rectification – two reports published about Djibouti, East Africa’s tiniest dictatorship and colonial pseudo-state.
I also call upon your sensitivity for persecuted nations, and suggest you to visit the following Afar friends website (http://afed.asso.free.fr/index1.html), and express your willingness to help Djibouti’s persecuted Afars (contact: AFED51@hotmail.fr).
There are other informative portals as well (indicatively: http://www.afarfriends.org/).
Djibouti
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100478.htm
Djibouti is a republic with a strong elected president and a weak legislature. It has an estimated population of 660,000. In 2005 President Ismail Omar Guelleh won reelection unopposed amidst an opposition party boycott. International observers considered the election to be generally free and fair. The civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces.
The government's human rights record remained poor although there were improvements. Problems included abuse of detainees; harsh prison conditions; corruption; official impunity; arbitrary arrest and detention; prolonged pretrial detention; interference with privacy rights and restrictions on freedom of the press, assembly, and association. Other abuses included female genital mutilation (FGM), discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and nationality, and restrictions on unions.
During the year regional council members - who were elected in the first-ever regional elections in 2006 – took office and began working with government officials to implement decentralization. Prison conditions improved with the construction of new facilities, and the government also publicized women's rights and supported a new center to protect women at risk from abuse.
Respect For Human Rights
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person Including Freedom From:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There were no reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings.
b. Disappearance
There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The constitution and the law prohibit such practices; however, there continued to be reports that police and gendarmes beat detainees.
Members of police vice squads continued to detain suspected prostitutes on the streets, and some were reportedly raped as a precondition for release.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prison conditions improved; additional buildings were constructed to alleviate overcrowding. Access to sanitary facilities and water for washing improved. Conditions at Nagad detention center, where foreigners were held prior to deportation, also improved. Detainees had access to water, food, and medical treatment. Most detainees were deported within 24 hours of arrest.
Unlike in previous years, juveniles were held separately from adult prisoners. Children under the age of five were allowed to stay with their mothers.
The government granted prison access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for annual inspections.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention; however, the government did not uniformly respect these prohibitions.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
Security forces include the National Police Force (FNP) under the Ministry of Interior, the army, the Gendarmerie Nationale under the Ministry of Defense, and an elite Republican Guard which protects the president. The FNP is responsible for internal security, border control, and prisons. The Gendarmerie Nationale is responsible for external security but also has some domestic responsibilities.
Police were generally effective; however there were reports of corruption, particularly in the lower ranks where wages were low. Official impunity was a problem. There were no mechanisms available to investigate and resolve claims of police abuse.
Arrest and Detention
The law requires arrest warrants and stipulates that the government may not detain a person beyond 48 hours without an examining magistrate's formal charge; however, the law was not always enforced in practice. Detainees may be held another 24 hours with the prior approval of the public prosecutor. All persons, including those accused of political or national security offenses, must be tried within eight months of arraignment. The law also provides for bail and expeditious trial; however, police occasionally disregarded these procedures. Detainees have the right to prompt access to an attorney of their choice; in criminal cases the state provides attorneys for detainees without legal representation. Lengthy pretrial detention was a problem; however, no statistics were available.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The constitution and law provide for an independent judiciary; however, in practice the judiciary was not independent of the executive. Constitutional provisions for a fair trial were not universally respected. The judiciary was subject to inefficiency and corruption. A government audit of the judicial function resulted in the dismissal of two magistrates for corruption in March.
The judiciary is based on the French Napoleonic code and is composed of a lower court, an appeals court, and a Supreme Court. The Supreme Court may overrule lower court decisions. Magistrates are appointed for life terms. The constitutional council rules on the constitutionality of laws including those related to the protection of human rights and civil liberties; however, its rulings did not always adequately protect these rights.
The legal system is based on legislation and executive decrees, French codified law adopted at independence, Islamic law (Shari'a), and nomadic traditions. Urban crime was dealt with in the regular courts in accordance with French-inspired law and judicial practice. Civil actions may be brought in regular or traditional courts. The Family Code governs the majority of cases pertaining to family and personal matters including marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance. Issues that fall under the Family Code are brought to civil court.
Trial Procedures
Trials generally were public, but in politically sensitive cases, security measures limited but did not prevent public access. Legal counsel was supposed to be available to the indigent in criminal and civil matters, but defendants often did not have legal representation. The law states the accused is innocent until proven guilty; however, defendants were not always presumed innocent. A presiding judge and two accompanying judges heard court cases. The latter received assistance from two lay assessors who were not members of the bench but who were considered to possess sufficient legal knowledge to comprehend court proceedings. The government chose lay assessors from the public, but reports indicated that political and ethnic affiliations played a role in the selection. Defendants have the right to be present, confront witnesses, have access to government-held evidence, and have a right of appeal.
Traditional law often applied in conflict resolution and victim compensation. For example, traditional law often stipulated that a price be paid to the victim's clan for crimes such as murder and rape.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
There were no reports of political prisoners or detainees.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
A civil court deals with all matters related to the Civil Code. Citizens do have access to the courts in cases of civil rights violations. There is arbitration of civil disputes if the parties agree. In rural areas traditional courts resolve many civil disputes. An administrative law chamber exists but does not function, and such matters are resolved in civil court. Court decisions are not always enforced.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy Family Home or Correspondence
The constitution and the law prohibit such actions; however, the government did not respect these prohibitions in practice. The law requires that authorities obtain a warrant before conducting searches on private property, but the government did not always respect the law in practice.
According to government opponents, the government monitored their communications and sometimes cut telephone or electricity service.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The constitution and the law provide for freedom of speech and of the press; however, the government did not respect these rights in practice. There were few media outlets, and as a result of the application of media and slander laws, journalists practiced self-censorship.
The law prohibits dissemination of false information and regulates publication of newspapers. The government owns the principal newspaper La Nation which is published three times a week. Each registered political party is permitted to publish a public journal or newspaper. There were several opposition-run weekly and monthly publications that circulated freely and openly criticized the government.
The government also owned the radio and television stations. The official media generally did not criticize government leaders and government policy. Radio Television Djibouti, the official government station, broadcast 24 hours a day in four languages on the radio. Foreign media also broadcast throughout the country, and cable news and other programming were available.
The government has used several tactics to intimidate journalists including surveillance and the removal from newsstands of publications that criticized the government. On February 1, police seized printing equipment from the opposition political party Movement for Democratic Revival, publisher of the newsletter Le Renouveau. Houssein Ahmed Farah, the acting director of the newsletter, and three of his editorial staff were arrested and charged with defamation of character for publishing a report of a sex scandal, detained for two days, and released. A court ordered Le Renouveau to halt production for three months.
In May 2006 the government suspended Kaltoum Ali, a journalist for Radio-Television Djibouti and a correspondent of the BBC Somali service, for broadcasting a report that the Ministry of Health falsely claimed a case of avian flu to obtain foreign aid. Kaltoum Ali resumed work after a three-month suspension.
Internet Freedom
There were no government restrictions on access to the Internet or reports that the government monitored e-mail or Internet chat rooms. In January 2006 government authorities reportedly blocked the website of the Association for Respect of Human Rights in Djibouti (ARDHD), an association that is often critical of the government. ARDHD claimed access to its website was blocked by the local Internet provider, although surfers with satellite connections were able to enter the site. The government denied it was blocking the site, although at the end of the year the site was not available from local Internet connections.
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
The government generally did not restrict academic freedom, and teachers could speak and conduct research without restriction provided that they did not violate sedition laws.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Freedom of Assembly
Although the constitution and the law provide for freedom of assembly, the government limited this right in practice. The Ministry of Interior requires permits for peaceful assembly and monitors opposition activities. Some opposition leaders reportedly refrained from organizing popular demonstrations for fear of reprisal.
Police dispersed several demonstrations during the year including protests against widespread electricity shortages, tuition hikes, and the trial of nongovernmental organization (NGO) leader Jean Paul Noel.
Freedom of Association
The law provides for freedom of association provided that certain legal requirements are met; however, the government restricted this right in practice. Opponents claimed that the government continued to harass and intimidate members of opposition groups.
c. Freedom of Religion
The constitution, while declaring Islam to be the state religion, provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respected this right in practice. The government did not sanction those who ignored Islamic teachings or practiced other faiths. More than 99 percent of the population was Sunni Muslim.
There is no legal prohibition against proselytizing, and while the government did not discourage it, cultural norms effectively discouraged public proselytizing.
Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There was no known Jewish community and there were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.
For a more detailed discussion, see the 2007 International Religious Freedom Report.
d. Freedom of Movement, Internally Displaced Persons, Protection of Refugees, and Stateless Persons
The constitution and other laws provide for freedom of movement within the country, foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation; however, the government at times limited these rights in practice.
The law prohibits forced exile, and the government did not use it.
Protection of Refugees
The law provides for the granting of asylum or refugee status in accordance with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol. In practice, the government provided some protection against refoulement, the return of persons to a country where there is reason to believe they feared persecution.
The government did not routinely grant refugee or asylum status and the government did not accept refugees for resettlement during the year. Cooperation between the government and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees improved during the year in providing assistance to refugees and asylum seekers and in organizing the repatriation of refugees from Somalia. Refugees reported that while they could not obtain work permits, many, especially women, worked on the open economy to find additional means of support. With the lack of work permits, however, they were unable to challenge poor working conditions or ensure fair payment for services rendered.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government
The constitution and the law provide citizens with the right to change their government peacefully; citizens could exercise this right through periodic elections based upon universal suffrage. A multiparty system exists, and citizens are free to align themselves with the party of their choice.
Elections and Political Participation
In March and April 2006 the country held its first regional elections. While opposition parties boycotted the two-round election citing problems with electoral lists, independent candidates took part and won in Djibouti City and in several regions. In Djibouti City one opposition list of independent civic leaders won a plurality of the first round vote, and several of its candidates were elected.
In 2005 President Guelleh won reelection unopposed as the candidate of the Union for a Presidential Majority (UPM) a multiparty coalition that included Guelleh's own Rally for Progress (RFP) and the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy, the minority Afar-dominated party that had been the leading opposition party before it joined the governing coalition. The RFP and now the UPM have ruled the country since independence in 1977 and hold all seats in the national legislature. Opposition parties boycotted the election charging that the government ignored their demands for electoral reform. International observers considered the election generally free and fair; however, there were irregularities including double voting, the presence of campaigners in and around polling stations, and the absence of blank ballots for those who did not want to vote for President Guelleh.
There were seven women in the 65-seat legislature; these seats were reserved for women by presidential decree. There were also two women in cabinet or sub-cabinet posts, and the president of the Supreme Court was a woman.
The legislature includes members of all clans with nine minority group representatives. Elected as a single list, the legislature's composition reflects the governing coalition's intent to ensure balance. The president's own sub-clan, the Issa Mamassan, was disproportionately represented. Five members of minorities in the Cabinet were Afars and included the prime minister, the defense minister, the foreign minister, the minister of agriculture, and the labor minister; however, Afars were not as well represented at lower levels. Somali clans other than the Issa clan, and citizens of Yemeni origin were limited unofficially to one ministerial post each. There also were informal limits on the number of seats in parliament for each group to preserve balance.
Government Corruption and Transparency
The law provides criminal penalties for official corruption; however, despite increased efforts, the government did not implement such laws effectively, and officials sometimes engaged in corrupt practices with impunity. According to the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators, government corruption was a serious problem.
The government continued to take steps to combat corruption. In June two magistrates were dismissed for corruption following investigations by the government's accounting office. In 2006 the head of the Office of Social Security was charged with corruption, detained in prison, and dismissed. Privatization of port, airport, and customs operations resulted in substantially increased transparency and rising government revenues in the most important sector of the economy. The Chamber of Public Accounts and Fiscal Discipline conducted public expenditure audits in an effort to fight corruption and promote transparency.
There were no laws to provide public access to government information, and it was unclear whether persons would be granted such access if requested.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
A few domestic human rights groups generally operated without government restriction, conducting limited investigations and sometimes publishing findings on human rights cases. Government officials generally disregarded their views.
The leader of the local human rights group Ligue Djiboutienne des Droits de l' Homme (LDDH) was tried for libel during the year, and that had a chilling effect on his activities, as well as those of other human rights groups. On March 9, Jean-Paul Abdi Noel, president of the LDDH, was arrested and charged with dissemination of false information. Noel had written a report that a member of the Republican Guard raped a young girl, and he also reported what he called a mass grave for victims of extrajudicial killings during the 1992-2000 civil war. The court found Abdi Noel guilty after the girl's family denied the rape had taken place, and after former combatants and others concluded the grave was not that of extrajudicial victims of the civil war. On April 11, the court sentenced Noel to imprisonment for a year and to a fine of $1130 (200,000 DF). Citing Abdi Noel's poor health, the government released him after two months and permitted him to leave for medical attention in Europe.
Although there were more than 900 civil society organizations, many, if not most, had links with the government.
The ICRC maintained a small office staffed with locally hired personnel. The ICRC regional representative based in Nairobi visited the country monthly.
There was a government ombudsman who also served as a legislator in the parliament and whose specific responsibilities included mediation between the government and non-governmental organizations.
Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
The constitution and the law prohibit discrimination on the basis of language, race, or gender; however, government enforcement of such laws was ineffective. The government took steps during the year to increase protection of women, including establishment of a center to assist female victims of violence and ongoing campaigns against FGM, but discrimination against women and ethnic minorities persisted.
Women
The law includes sentences of up to 20 years for rapists. The number of such cases prosecuted during the year was unknown. There is no law against spousal rape. Domestic violence against women existed but few cases were reported. The law prohibits "torture and barbaric acts" against a spouse. Violations are punishable by 20 years' imprisonment. Violence against women generally was addressed within the family or clan structure rather than in the courts. Police rarely intervened in domestic violence incidents, and the media reported only the most extreme examples such as murder.
An estimated 98 percent of females in the country have undergone FGM, which traditionally was performed on girls between the ages of seven and 10. During the year the government increased efforts to end this practice with continued high-profile publicity campaigns in health centers around the country, in public statements by the president and first lady, and by enlisting the support of Muslim religious leaders to speak out against the practice. These actions built on efforts begun in 2005, when the government ratified the Maputo Protocol outlawing FGM. The efforts of the Union of Djiboutian Women and other groups to educate women against the practice were having some effect in the capital where reported rates of FGM among young women declined. However, infibulation, the most extreme form of FGM, continued to be widely practiced, especially in rural areas, despite the government anti-FGM campaign efforts there.
The law states that violence causing genital mutilation is punishable by five years' imprisonment and a fine of $5,650 (one million DF); the government had not yet convicted anyone under this statute.
Prostitution is illegal, but it was a significant problem. In general there were two categories of prostitutes: those with apartments and those on the streets. The first group was largely tolerated and catered to the foreign (particularly military) community. In 2006, there were reports that police vice officers beat prostitutes found on the streets and even raped them as a condition of their release. Police officials said such actions would not be tolerated and agreed to work with NGOs to improve protection of persons detained on suspicion of being prostitutes. Refugees and girls from poor families were at greater risk of becoming street prostitutes.
The law does not prohibit sexual harassment, and it was a problem.
Women legally possess full civil rights; however custom and traditional societal discrimination in education resulted in a secondary role for women in public life and fewer employment opportunities.
The increased presence of women in the government, the legislature, and business has had a significant positive effect. The Family Code governs the majority of family and personal matters but inequities still exist. Male children inherited larger percentages of estates than did female children. Educated women increasingly turned to the regular courts to defend their interests.
Children
The government devoted almost a fourth of its budget to education, particularly primary education, and to increased spending on rural health care, particularly for mothers and infants. It relied on a few charitable organizations to support children and encouraged others to join the effort. In June the president inaugurated a large new orphanage in Djibouti City funded by Kuwaiti charities.
The government, in cooperation with international NGOs, has been working to implement a new comprehensive birth registration program.
Primary education was compulsory, and the government provided tuition-free public education, but extra expenses could be prohibitive to poor families. As part of a nationwide initiative during the year, the government increased access to primary school and urged attendance. The overall gross enrollment rate increased from 57 to 67 percent between 2006 and this year. Enrollment in first grade increased 19 percent. Attendance of girls also increased significantly. The highest level of education reached by most students was completion of primary school. The educational system did not discriminate against girls, but societal attitudes resulted in differences in the attendance and treatment of girls in school. The government provided a satchel of essential school supplies to children in poor areas, paid salary arrears for teachers, and authorized a premium for teaching in rural areas. The government also established parent-teacher associations in every school system.
Boys and girls had equal access to state medical care. Medical care in rural areas remained poor but improved because of a new network of rural clinics and significant increases in hiring and training of nurses and doctors.
Child abuse existed but was not frequently reported or prosecuted. In 2006 the government arrested and tried Christian George, a French national, for child abuse; he fled the jurisdiction while on bail. During the year, he returned, was re-arrested, and was in prison at year's end.
FGM was performed on as many as 98 percent of young girls.
Child marriage occurred in rural areas and among some tribal groups; however, it was not considered a significant problem. The government worked together with several NGOs to increase school enrollment for girls in part to reduce the likelihood that parents would force young girls into marriage. The Ministry for the Promotion of Women, Family, Well-Being/Welfare, and Social Affairs also worked actively with women's groups throughout the country to protect the rights of girls, including the right to decide when and whom to marry.
There were credible reports of child prostitution on the streets and in brothels despite increased government efforts to stop it, including keeping children at risk off the streets and warning businesses against permitting children to enter bars and clubs.
Child labor existed.
Trafficking in Persons
The law prohibits trafficking in persons. On December 8, the National Assembly passed a law on combating trafficking in persons that includes provisions on prevention, prosecution, and protection of victims. The penal code states that increased penalties apply in cases of trafficking with respect to a person who is enticed to engage in prostitution either outside the country or upon the person's arrival within the territory.
Despite the prohibition there were credible reports of child prostitution during the year, and some of those involved reportedly came from neighboring countries. Although there were no other known reports of persons being trafficked to, from, or within the country, there was continued speculation that the country was a destination and transit country for small numbers of individuals trafficked from Ethiopia and Somalia to the Middle East.
In connection with the new anti-trafficking law, the government enacted a public awareness campaign, and government officials, police, and NGOs met to consider means to improve protection for victims.
Persons with Disabilities
Although persons with disabilities have access to education and public health facilities, there is no specific law that addresses the needs of persons with disabilities, and there are no laws or regulations that prevent job discrimination against persons with disabilities. During the year, government and NGOs organized a series of seminars and awareness campaigns aimed at public officials to improve legal protections and workplace conditions for the persons with disabilities. There was societal discrimination against persons with disabilities. The government did not mandate accessibility to buildings or government services for persons with disabilities.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
The governing coalition is a coalition of the country's clan and ethnic groups with minority groups represented in senior positions. Nonetheless there continued to be discrimination on the basis of ethnicity in employment and job advancement. Somali Issas were the majority ethnic group; they controlled the ruling party and dominated the civil service and security services. Discrimination based on ethnicity and clan affiliation declined, but affiliation remained a factor in business, government, and politics.
Other Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There was no known societal violence or discrimination based on sexual orientation or against persons with HIV/AIDS.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
The law and the constitution provide for the right to form and join unions; however, the government restricted these rights in practice. Under the Labor Code a union must have the approval of three government ministries as well as the labor inspectorate and the public prosecutor to exist. Unlike in the previous year, there were no reports that the government suppressed independent representative unions by firing their leaders, preventing them from holding congresses, or creating government-sponsored shadow unions to replace them.
In February 2006 Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed and Djibril Ismail Egueh were charged with sharing classified information with a foreign government during their January-February 2006 visit to Israel. They participated in a conference sponsored by the Center for International Cooperation of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
After their return they were sentenced to one month in prison and released in April 2006. The government confiscated their passports and required that they report to the police weekly. That same month the government also refused to allow entry to three International Labor Organization representatives who tried to visit the country to investigate the incident. In March 2006 Aden Mohamed Abdou and Hassan Cher Hared, president and vice-president respectively of the Djiboutian Workers Union, were arrested for facilitating the departure for Israel of their colleagues. At year’s end, both Abdou and Hared were still under court order to report weekly to the court; however, Hared departed the country and authorities did not object.
The law prohibits antiunion discrimination, and employers found guilty of discrimination were required to reinstate workers fired for union activities; however, the government neither enforced nor complied with the law.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
Although the law allows unions to conduct activities without interference, the government did not protect this right in practice. Collective bargaining did not occur.
Relations between employers and workers were informal and paternalistic. Employers generally established wage rates based on labor ministry guidelines. In disputes over wages or health and safety problems, the Ministry of Labor encouraged direct resolution by labor representatives, who could be and were chosen by the government, and employers. Workers or employers could request formal administrative hearings before the ministry's inspection service. Critics claimed that inspection and dispute settlement suffered from poor enforcement due to their low priority and inadequate funding.
The law provides for the right to strike and requires representatives of employees who plan to strike to notify the Ministry of Interior 48 hours in advance; workers exercised this right in practice.
The law confers upon the president broad powers to requisition public servants who are considered indispensable to the operation of essential public services.
A special labor law which is more flexible applies in the Duty Free Zone, an export processing area.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor including by children, and there were no reports that such practices occurred.
d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
The law prohibits all labor by children under the age of 16, but the government did not always enforce this prohibition effectively, and child labor existed. Children were involved in the sale of drugs and prostitution. Family-owned businesses such as restaurants and small shops employed children at all hours. Children were also involved in activities such as shining shoes, washing and guarding cars, selling items, working as domestic servants, working in agriculture and with livestock, and other activities in the informal sector. The Ministry of Labor is responsible for monitoring work places and preventing child labor, but a shortage of labor inspectors reduced the likelihood that reports of child labor would be investigated. There is no program undertaken by the government to enforce the work of inspectors.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
Only a small minority of the population was engaged in wage employment. The 2006 Labor Code canceled minimum wage rates for occupational categories and provided that wages be set after common agreement between employers and employees. The former national minimum wage did not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family, and it was unlikely that such common agreements would provide a minimum standard of living.
By law, the workweek has been augmented to 48 hours, normally spread over six days. The law mandates a weekly rest period of 24 consecutive hours and the provision of overtime pay. The Ministry of Labor is responsible for enforcing occupational health and safety standards, wages, and work hours. Because enforcement was ineffective, workers sometimes faced hazardous working conditions. Workers rarely protested due to fear that others willing to accept the risks would replace them. There were no laws or regulations permitting workers to refuse to carry out dangerous work assignments without jeopardizing their continued employment.
Djibouti: What are the authorities hiding? http://www.fidh.org/Djibouti-What-are-the-authorities
The Djibouti authorities have arrested and expelled an ILO representative tasked with investigating the trade union situation in that country and are refusing entry to a joint FIDH/ICFTU mission to Djibouti.
The FIDH and ICFTU have condemned the arrest and today’s expulsion of a representative of the International Labour Office (ILO) by the Djibouti authorities.
Mr Ibrahim Mayaki, an ILO official and holder of a diplomatic passport, had been on an official visit to Djibouti since Saturday, 1 April 2006. His brief was to meet with human rights defenders, including trade unionists, pursuant to complaints reported to his organization about violations of trade union rights and legal harassment targeting several trade unionists in the Djibouti courts. To this end, he met with representatives of civil society, trade unionists and representatives of the national authorities, specifically the minister for justice.
According to information received by the Djibouti Human Rights League (an FIDH member organization) and by the Djibouti Labour Union (an ICFTU affiliate), Mr Mayaki was arrested at his hotel on Monday morning at 8.30 by two members of the National Police General Intelligence Service, who had no special warrant to do so. He was interrogated by the security forces for more than three hours at the General Intelligence Directorate about his activities in Djibouti. Before being released, the Djibouti authorities forced him to sign an expulsion order, effective today.
The FIDH and ICFTU stress that the expulsion comes in the wake of the refusal by the security forces to let two FIDH/ICFTU investigators enter Djibouti territory on Saturday 1 April 2006, despite a verbal agreement by the minister for the interior that there would be no obstacles to their application for a visa at Djibouti airport. They were jostled, insulted and forcefully returned to the airplane that brought them to Djibouti. The investigators submitted a new visa application at the Djibouti embassy in Ethiopia, so far to no effect.
These events demonstrate the reality of repeated violations of the rights of human rights defenders in Djibouti and portend an increasingly repressive approach by the Djibouti authorities to trade unionists and human rights defenders. The attitude of the Djibouti authorities confirms the fears of the FIDH and ICFTU about the highly political nature of the current trial against four trade union leaders who are being prosecuted for "secret contacts with a foreign power" [1]
The trial is only the latest episode in the campaign of harassment against Djibouti trade unionists, as condemned in the annual reports issued by the ICFTU and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders for many years now [2]
The FIDH and ICFTU condemn the attitude of the Djibouti authorities towards the ILO representative and its investigators and request that the government and legal authorities stringently apply international human rights instruments, specifically International Labour Organisation Conventions No 87 and No 98 as well as the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (1998).
The FIDH and ICFTU call on the Djibouti authorities to authorise free access to the country´s territory for human rights NGOs and INGOs. They will continue to inform the international and regional organisations of the human rights situation in Djibouti.
Notes :
1] See the urgent appeal of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and the ICFTU dated 9 March 2006, Arbitrary arrests / Legal prosecution - DJI 001 / 0206 / OBS 016.3 (in French), .
2] See the 2005 Annual Report of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.
Militarization of the Arctic
... and while even the African lands are more or less already staked out by the takers, the next frontiers are the oceans, sea-beds and the Arctic.
Canada: Battle Line In East-West Conflict Over The Arctic
by Rick Rozoff
Referring to newly released documents, though not revealing what they were, a major Canadian press wire service reported on May 26 that the government plans to acquire a "family" of aerial drones over the next decade.[1]
The dispatch was only two paragraphs long and could easily be overlooked, as one of the two intended purposes for expanding Canada's reserve of military drones was for "failed or failing states". Afghanistan is unquestionably one such deployment zone and Ottawa sent its first Israeli-made Heron drones there this January for NATO's war in South Asia.
Another likely target for "dull, dirty and dangerous" missions suited for unmanned aircraft is Somalia, off the coast of which the frigate HMCS Winnipeg, carrying a Sea King helicopter it's had occasion to use, is engaged with the Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1) in forced boarding and other military operations. The use of unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs) in a likely extension of military actions on the Somali mainland would, unfortunately, not raise many eyebrows.
The last sentence in the brief report, though, says that "Senior commanders also foresee a growing role for drones in Canada, especially along the country's coastlines and in the Arctic".
To provide an indication of what Canada's Joint Unmanned Surveillance Target Acquisition System (JUSTAS) has in mind for future use in the Arctic, a likely prospect is the "Heron TP, a 4,650-kilogram drone with the same wingspan as a Boeing 737", which can "can carry a 1,000-kilogram payload and stay aloft for 36 hours at an altitude of about 15,000 meters" for "long-range Arctic and maritime patrols". [2]
Project JUSTAS will "cost as much as $750 million and...give the Canadian military a capability that only a handful of other countries possess...." [3]
The day after the first news story mentioned above appeared the same press source summarized comments by Canadian Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay as affirming "The global economic downturn won't prevent the Canadian Forces from spending $60 billion on new equipment".
Although Canada's federal deficit is expected to rise to $50 billion this year from $34 billion in 2008, "MacKay said the government's long-term defense strategy would grow this year's $19-billion annual defense budget to $30 billion by 2027. Over that time, that will mean close to $490 billion in defense spending, including $60 billion on new equipment". [4]
It's doubtful that many Canadians are aware of either development: Plans for advanced drones designed not only for surveillance but for firing missiles to be used in the Arctic and a major increase in the military budget of a nation that has already doubled its defense spending over the last decade.
Of those who do know of them, the question should arise of why a nation of 33 million which borders only one other country, the United States, its senior partner in NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and since 2006 increasingly the Pentagon's Northern Command (NORTHCOM) would need to spend almost half a trillion dollars for arms in the next eighteen years. And why in addition to acquiring weapons for wars and other military operations in Europe, Asia and Africa, Canada would deploy some of its most state-of-the-art arms to the Arctic Circle.
A French writer of the 1800s wrote that cannon aren't forged to be displayed in public parks. And the deployment of missile-wielding drones to its far north are not, contrary to frequent implications for domestic consumption by members of the current Stephen Harper government, meant to defend the nation's sovereignty in the region; only one state threatens that sovereignty, the United States, and Ottawa has no desire to defend its interests against its southern neighbor.
Recent unparalleled Canadian military exercises and build-up in the Arctic, of which the proposed use of aerial drones is but the latest example, are aimed exclusively at another nation: Russia.
A document from 2007 posted on a website of the Canadian Parliament states, "In recent years, Canada has been asserting its nordicite (nordicity) with a louder voice and greater emphasis than before. Such renewed focus on the Arctic is largely linked to the anticipated effects of climate change in the region, which are expected to be among the greatest effects of any region on Earth. By making the region more easily accessible, both threats and opportunities are amplified and multiplied. Canada’s claims over the Arctic are thus likely to emerge as a more central dimension of our foreign relations. Hence, it appears timely to highlight the extent of Canada’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over Arctic waters and territory, and to identify issues that are controversial". [5]
Canada's Arctic claims extend all the way to the North Pole, as do Russia's and Denmark's, as long as Copenhagen retains ownership of Greenland.
The basis of the dispute between Canada and Russia is the Lomonosov Ridge which runs 1,800 kilometers from Russia's New Siberian Islands through the center of the Arctic Ocean to Canada's Ellesmere Island in the territory of Nunavut, part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Russia maintains that the Lomonosov Ridge and the related Mendeleyev Elevation are extensions of its continental shelf. Russia filed a claim to this effect in December of 2001 with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), renewing it in late 2007.
The answer to what is at stake with control of this vast stretch of the Arctic Ocean and that to the earlier question concerning Canada's military escalation and expansion into the Arctic are both threefold.
Strategic Military Positioning For Nuclear War
Nine days before vacating the White House on January 20th, US President Bush W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 66 on Arctic Region Policy. [6]
The document states that "The United States is an Arctic nation, with varied and compelling interests in that region" and "The United States has broad and fundamental national security interests in the Arctic region and is prepared to operate either independently or in conjunction with other states to safeguard these interests. These interests include such matters as missile defense and early warning; deployment of sea and air systems for strategic sealift, strategic deterrence, maritime presence, and maritime security operations; and ensuring freedom of navigation and over-flight". [7]
US Arctic claims are based solely on its possession of Alaska, separated from the rest of the continental US by 500 miles of Canadian territory.
National Security Directive 66 exploits Alaska's position to demand US rights to base both strategic military forces - long-range bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons and warships and submarines able to launch warheads - in the Arctic within easy striking distance of Russia, both to the latter's east and over the North Pole.
It also, as indicated above, reserves the right to station so-called missile defense components in the area. The words missile defense are not as innocuous as they may appear. In the contemporary context they refer to plans by the United States and its allies to construct an international interceptor missile system connected with satellites and eventually missiles in space to be able to paralyze other nations' strategic (long-range and nuclear) military potential and to prevent retaliation by said nations should they be the victims of a first strike.
US and NATO interceptor missile silos and radar sites in Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway and Britain to Russia's West - already in place and planned - and an analogous structure in Alaska, Japan and Australia to the east of both Russia and China aim at the ability to target and destroy any intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and long-range bombers left undamaged after a massive military first strike from the US and allied nations.
The term interceptor missile is deceptive. As America's so-called missile defense plans prepare for knocking out ICBMs in not only the boost and terminal but the launch phases, it's a single step from striking a missile as it's being launched to doing so as it's being readied for launch and even as it is still in the silo.
Although in theory both a first strike missile attack and an interceptor missile response need not involve nuclear warheads, they are almost certain to if aimed against a nuclear power, which would be expected to retaliate with nuclear weapons.
The third leg of a nation's nuclear triad, in addition to long-range bombers and land-based missiles, are ballistic missile submarines equipped with submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) capable of carrying nuclear warheads. These could be tracked by space surveillance and in the future hit by space-based missiles.
Russia is the only non-Western, non-NATO country with an effective nuclear triad.
Under the above scenario there is one spot on the earth where Russia could maintain a credible deterrent capability: Under the Arctic polar ice cap.
A report in 2007 said that "Amid great secrecy, NATO naval forces are trying to control the Arctic Ocean to continue the military bloc’s expansion to[ward] Russia", the newspaper Military Industry Herald reported....
"Like in the tensest times of the Cold War, troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are trying to take control of the Arctic route, said the newspaper....[T]he US Navy, in conjunction with its British allies, is meeting the challenge of displacing Russian submarines from the Arctic region". [8]
The US and Britain held Operation Ice Exercise 2007 under the polar cap and repeated the maneuvers earlier this year with Ice Exercise 2009.
During the 2007 exercises a US Navy website revealed that "The submarine force continues to use the Arctic Ocean as an alternate route for shifting submarines between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans....Submarines can reach the western Pacific directly by transiting through international waters of the Arctic rather than through the Panama Canal". [9]
The subject of employing the Arctic, especially the long-fabled and now practicable Northwest Passage, for both civilian and military transit will be examined with the second component in the battle for the Arctic.
Also in 2007 Barry L. Campbell, head of operations at the U.S. Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory, in referring to joint NATO war plans for the Arctic, said: "’We’re a worldwide Navy and the Navy’s position is we should be able to operate in any ocean in the world .... When you go through the Arctic, no one knows you’re there .... We expect all our subs to be able to operate in the Arctic. …. Our strategic position is to be able to operate anywhere in the world, and we see the Arctic as part of that....[I]f we ever did have to fight a battle under there it would be a joint operation’". [10]
In a previous article in this series, NATO’s, Pentagon’s New Strategic Battleground: The Arctic [11], it was observed that "with US and NATO missile and satellite radar and interceptor missile facilities around the world and in space, the only place where Russia could retain a deterrence and/or retaliatory capacity against a crushing nuclear first strike is under the polar ice cap....[W]ithout this capability Russia could be rendered completely defenseless in the event of a first strike nuclear attack".
In 2006 a Russian military press source quoted Navy Commander Admiral Vladimir Masorin commenting on the requirement for Russian submarines to maintain a presence under the Arctic polar ice cap: "[T]raining is needed to help strategic submarines of the Russian Fleet head for the Arctic ice region, which is the least vulnerable to an adversary’s monitoring, and prepare for a response to a ballistic missile strike in the event of a nuclear conflict. In order to be able to fulfill this task – I mean the task of preserving strategic submarines – it is necessary to train Russian submariners to maneuver under the Arctic ice". [12]
Northwest Passage Could Transform Global Civilian, Military Shipping: Canada Confronts Russia
In recent years a direct shipping route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific in the Northern Hemisphere through the Northwest Passage has presented the prospect of cutting thousands of kilometers and several days if not weeks for ships - civilian and military - from the traditional routes through the Panama and Suez canals and for larger vessels even having to round the southern tips of Africa and South America.
Arctic melting has reduced the ice in the area to its lowest level in the thirty three years satellite images have measured it, with the Northwest Passage entirely open for the first time in recorded history.
US National Security Presidential Directive 66 also includes the intention to "Preserve the global mobility of United States military and civilian vessels and aircraft throughout the Arctic region" and to "Project a sovereign United States maritime presence in the Arctic in support of essential United States interests". [13]
Canada claims the Northwest Passage as its exclusive territory but Washington insists that "The Northwest Passage is a strait used for international navigation, and the Northern Sea Route includes straits used for international navigation; the regime of transit passage applies to passage through those straits. Preserving the rights and duties relating to navigation and over-flight in the Arctic region supports our ability to exercise these rights throughout the world, including through strategic straits". [14]
That is, the US bluntly contests Canada's contentions about the passage, which runs along the north of that nation and no other, being its national territory and insists on internationalizing it.
Notwithstanding which there is no evidence that any member of the Canadian government, the ruling Conservative Party, its Liberal Party opposition or even the New Democratic Party has responded to the US National Security Directive, the first major American statement on the issue in fifteen years, with even a murmur of disapprobation.
Instead all concern and no little hostility has been directed by Canadian authorities, particularly the federal government, at a nation that doesn't assert the right to deploy warships with long-range cruise missiles, nuclear submarines and Aegis class destroyers equipped with interceptor missiles only miles off the Canadian mainland in the wider Western extreme of the Passage and other naval vessels between the mainland and its northern islands: Russia.
The threats and bluster, insults and provocations staged by top Canadian officials over the past three and a half months have at times reached an hysterical pitch, not only rivaling but exceeding the depths of the Cold War period.
The current campaign was adumbrated last August after the five-day war between Georgia and Russia when Prime Minister Stephen Harper "accused Russia of reverting to a 'Soviet-era mentality'" [15] and Defense Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said "When we see a Russian Bear [Tupolev Tu-95] approaching Canadian air space, we meet them with an F-18" [16] and has not let up since.
After then recently inaugurated US President Barack Obama make his first trip outside the United States in mid-February to the Canadian capital of Ottawa, Defense Minister MacKay stated regarding an alleged interception of a Russian bomber over the Arctic Ocean - in international, neutral airspace - shortly before Obama's arrival:
"They met a Russian aircraft that was approaching Canadian airspace, and as they have done in previous occasions they sent very clear signals that are understood, that the aircraft was to turnaround, turn tail, and head back to their airspace, which it did. I'm not going to stand here and accuse the Russians of having deliberately done this during the presidential visit, but it was a strong coincidence". [17]
Russia has routinely flown such patrols over the Arctic Ocean, the Barents and North Sea and off the coast of Alaska since the autumn of 2007. Moreover, depending on where in the Arctic the Russian bomber was at the time, it may well have been 6,000 kilometers from Ottawa, thereby posing no threat or constituting no warning to either Obama or Canada.
Prime Minister Harper echoed MacKay's tirade with:
"I have expressed at various times the deep concern our government has with increasingly aggressive Russian actions around the globe and Russian intrusions into our airspace. We will defend our airspace, we also have obligations of continental defense with the United States. We will fulfill those obligations to defend our continental airspace, and we will defend our sovereignty and we will respond every time the Russians make any kind of intrusion on the sovereignty in Canada’s Arctic". [18]
After Russia announced that it planned to have a military force available to defend its interests in the Arctic by 2020 - eleven years from now - Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon followed the lead of his predecessor and current Defense Minister MacKay and Prime Minister Harper and said, "Let's be perfectly clear here. Canada will not be bullied. Sovereignty is part of that (Northern policy). We will not waiver from that objective. Sovereignty is uppermost for us, so we will not be swayed from that". [19]
Cannon left it unclear in which manner Russia had questioned his country's sovereignty, except perhaps by not gratuitously ceding it the Lomonosov Ridge, though if Cannon had bothered to read US National Security Directive 66 he would have received a blunt introduction to the genuine threat to Canada's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
It will be seen later how Canada has matched the action to the word.
Control Of World Energy Resources And NATO's Drive Into The Arctic
A U.S. Geological Survey of May of 2008 on the Arctic "estimated the occurrence of undiscovered oil and gas in 33 geologic provinces thought to be prospective for petroleum. The sum of the mean estimates for each province indicates that 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids may remain to be found in the Arctic, of which approximately 84 percent is expected to occur in offshore areas". [20]
"The unexplored Arctic contains about one-fifth of the world's undiscovered oil and nearly a third of the natural gas yet to be found....The untapped reserves are beneath the seafloor in geopolitically controversial areas above the Arctic Circle". [21]
Four days ago Science magazine published a new US Geological Survey study that "assessed the area north of the Arctic Circle and concluded that about 30% of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil may be found there, mostly offshore under less than 500 meters of water. Undiscovered natural gas is three times more abundant than oil in the Arctic and is largely concentrated in Russia". [22]
The full report is only available to subscribers, but the Canadian Globe and Mail provided this excerpt: "Although substantial amounts as may be found in Alaska, Canada and Greenland, the undiscovered gas resource is concentrated in Russian territory, and its development would reinforce the pre-eminent strategic position of that country". [23]
In addition to estimating that the Arctic Circle contains 30% of the world's undiscovered natural gas, the survey increased its figure for potential oil there from 90 billion barrels last year to as many as 160 billion in this year's report.
A news report summarized the findings on the region's natural gas potential by saying "The Arctic region may hold enough natural gas to meet current global demand for 14 years and most of it belongs to Russia...." [24]
A website report adds this perspective on the importance of the new estimate: "The new discovery amounts to over 35 years in US foreign oil imports or 5 years’ worth of global oil consumption. Canada, Greenland/Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States, all of which border the Arctic Circle are racing to compete for the untapped resource. The oil reserves could fetch a price of $10.6 trillion dollars at current oil prices. Most of the reserves are in shallow waters - less than 500 meters (about 1/3rd of a mile) - making extraction relatively easy". [25]
And a Canadian newspaper offered this terse reminder: "The updated estimates of the North's promising oil and gas resources comes as Canada and its polar neighbours aggressively pursue competing claims to vast areas of continental shelf under the Arctic Ocean". [26]
Where vast, previously unexploited hydrocarbon reserves are discovered or suspected NATO is never far behind, from the Caspian Sea to Africa's Gulf Of Guinea to the Arctic Ocean. On January 28-29 of this year the North Atlantic Treaty Organization held a meeting on the Arctic in the capital of Iceland entitled Seminar on Security Prospects in the High North.
It was attended by the bloc's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO's two top military commanders and the Chairman of the Military Committee "as well as many other decision-makers and experts from Allied countries". [27]
Scheffer's address was marked by a fairly uncharacteristic degree of candor, at least when he said, "[T]he High North is going to require even more of the Alliance’s attention in the coming years. As the ice-cap decreases, the possibility increases of extracting the High North’s mineral wealth and energy deposits. At our Summit in Bucharest last year, we agreed a number of guiding principles for NATO’s role in energy security....NATO provides a forum where four of the Arctic coastal states [Canada, Denmark, Norway, the United States] can inform, discuss, and share, any concerns that they may have. And this leads me directly onto the next issue, which is military activity in the region. Clearly, the High North is a region that is of strategic interest to the Alliance". [28]
Also addressing the meeting was NATO Supreme Allied Commander and the Pentagon's European Command chief General Bantz John Craddock, who "opined that NATO could contribute greatly to facilitating cooperation in areas such as the development and security of shipping routes, energy security, surveillance and monitoring, search and rescue, resource exploration and mining....". [29]
Craddock inherited his dual assignments from Marine General James Jones, the architect of the new US African Command and current National Security Adviser, who is certainly overseeing the role of the US military and NATO in securing control of world energy supplies.
Peaceful Multilateral Development Or War In The Arctic?
US and NATO designs on the Arctic for strategic military purposes, for the potential of the Northwest Passage to redefine international shipping and naval commerce and for gaining access to and domination over perhaps the largest untapped oil and natural gas supplies in the world are hardly disguised.
As with numerous energy transportation projects in the Caspian Sea Basin, the Caucasus, the Black Sea region and the Balkans, Iraq and Africa, for the West oil and gas extraction and transit is a winner-take-all game dictated by the drive to master others and share with none.
The recent US Geological Survey study suggests that the Arctic Ocean may contain not only one-third of the world's undiscovered natural gas but almost two-thirds as much oil as Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer, is conventionally estimated to possess: 160 billion barrels to somewhere in the neighborhood of 260 billion barrels.
That Russia might gain access to the lion's share of both is not something that the US and its NATO allies will permit. The latter have fought three wars since 1999 for lesser stakes. Iraq, for example, has an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil.
Last month Russian President Dmitry Medvedev approved his nation's National Security Strategy until 2020 document which says that "the main threat to Russia's national security is the policy pursued by certain leading states, which is aimed at attaining military superiority over Russia, in the first place in strategic nuclear forces. The threats to military security are the policy by a number of leading foreign states, aimed at attaining dominant superiority in the military sphere, in the first place in strategic nuclear forces, by developing high-precision, information and other high-tech means of warfare, strategic armaments with non-nuclear ordnance, the unilateral formation of the global missile defense system and militarization of outer space, which is capable of bringing about a new spiral of the arms race, as well as the development of nuclear, chemical and biological technologies, the production of weapons of mass destruction or their components and delivery vehicles". [30]
The strategy also, in the words of the Times of London, "identified the intensifying battle for ownership of vast untapped oil and gas fields around its borders as a source of potential military conflict within a decade".
"The United States, Norway, Canada and Denmark are challenging Russia's claim to a section of the Arctic shelf, the size of Western Europe, which is believed to contain billions of tonnes of oil and gas". [31]
In a foreign ministers session of the Arctic Council in late April Russia again warned against plans to militarize the Arctic. Its plea fell on deaf ears in the West.
On May 28 the Norwegian ambassador to NATO took his British, Danish, German, Estonian and Romanian counterparts on a "High North study trip" near the Arctic Circle where the Norwegian foreign minister "emphasized the importance of NATO attention to security issues of the High North". [32]
Three days earlier the same nation's State Secretary, Espen Barth Eide, addressed the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Oslo and said, "Russia has shown an increased willingness to engage in political rhetoric and even use of military force. …. NATO has a very important role to play and Norway has argued the case for a long time. The Alliance is at the core of the security and defense strategies of all but one Arctic Ocean state. NATO already has a certain presence and plays a role in the High North today, primarily through the Integrated Air Defense System, including fighters on alert and AWACS surveillance flights. Some exercise activity under the NATO flag also takes place in Norway and Iceland....We would like to see NATO raise its profile in the High North". [33]
Canada: West's Front Line, Battering Ram And Sacrificial Offering
As tensions mount in the Arctic, especially should they develop into a crisis and the military option be employed, Norway will play its appointed role as a loyal NATO cohort, as will its neighbors Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the last two rapidly becoming NATO states in every manner but formally.
Yet the battle will be joined where three of the four NATO states with Arctic territorial claims - the United States, Canada and Denmark - base them, in the northernmost part of the Western Hemisphere.
And having by far the largest border with the Arctic and the most sizeable portion of its territory, Canada is the shock brigade to be used in any planned provocation and open confrontation.
Nine days ago it was reported that "Canada's mapping of the Arctic is pushing into territory claimed by Russia in the high-stakes drive by countries to establish clear title to the polar region and its seabed riches. Survey flights Ottawa conducted in late winter and early spring went beyond the North Pole and into an area where Russia has staked claims, a Department of Natural Resources official said Sunday".
The account continued by stating, "If Canada eventually files a claim that extends past the North Pole, it could find itself in conflict with Russia. Canada and Russia have both committed to a peaceful resolution of conflicts over claims submitted under the international process, a pledge [that] will be put to the test if Ottawa and Moscow submit overlapping stakes. Canadian scientists contend that the underwater Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of the North American continental shelf. It is estimated that a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas lies under the Arctic" [34]
Canadian military and civilian leaders have been laying the groundwork for this confrontation since the advent of the Harper administration.
In August of 2007 the prime minister "announced plans to build a new army training centre in the Far North at Resolute Bay [east end of the Northwest Passage] and to outfit a deep-water port for both military and civilian use at the northern tip of Baffin Island. His trip to the Arctic earlier this month was accompanied by the biggest military exercise in the region in years, with 600 soldiers, sailors and air crew participating". [35]
A year later the Harper and Bush governments laid aside a long-standing dispute in the Arctic's Beaufort Sea "in the name of defending against Russia’s Arctic claims, which clash with those of the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway". [36]
In the same month Canada conducted what it called the first of several military sovereignty exercises in the Arctic, a full spectrum affair including "In addition to the army, navy and air force, several federal agencies and departments are participating, including the Coast Guard, RCMP, CSIS, Canada Border Services Agency, Transport Canada and Health Canada. Military officials say this year's exercise involves the most number of departments and agencies ever". [37]
Later in August of 2008 Harper and Defence Secretary MacKay visited the Northwest Territories to inspect "four CF18 Canadian military jets sent to Inuvik in response to what officials said was an unidentified aircraft that had neared Canadian air space". [38]
Last September the Canadian Defence Ministry launched "Operation NANOOK 2008, a sovereignty operation in Canada's eastern Arctic. Not only that, but Harper also voiced support for plans to build a military port and a military base beyond the Polar Circle".
This at a time when "The United States has joined the race, too, teaming up with Canada to map the unexplored Arctic sea floor". [39]
On September 19th Harper was paraphrased as saying "Canada is stepping up its military alertness along its northern frontier in response to Russia's 'testing' of its boundaries and recent Arctic grab. We are concerned about not just Russia's claims through the international process, but Russia's testing of Canadian airspace and other indications...(of) some desire to work outside of the international framework. That is obviously why we are taking a range of measures, including military measures, to strengthen our sovereignty in the North". [40]
In December of last year defense chief MacKay "singled out possible naval encroachments from Russia and China, saying, 'We have to be diligent'". [41]
This March MacKay "announced...the locations of the two satellite reception ground stations for the $60 million Polar Epsilon project designed to provide space-based, day and night surveillance of Canada's Arctic and its ocean approaches". [42]
In April Canada held Operation Nunalivut 2009, the first of three "sovereignty operations" scheduled in the Arctic this year.
MacKay said of the exercises, "Operation Nunalivut is but one example of how the Government of Canada actively and routinely exercises its sovereignty in the North. The Canadian Forces play an important role in achieving our goals in the North, which is why the Government of Canada is making sure they have the tools they need to carry out a full range of tasks in the Arctic, including surveillance, sovereignty, and search-and-rescue operations".
Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, Commander of Canada Command, added:
"In keeping with the Canada First Defense Strategy, we are placing greater emphasis on our northern operations, including in the High Arctic. This operation underscores the value of the Canadian Rangers, our eyes and ears in the North, which at the direction of the Government are growing to 5,000 in strength".
Brigadier-General David Millar, the Commander of Joint Task Force North, contributed this:
"This operation is a golden opportunity to expand our capabilities to operate in Canada’s Arctic. In addition to air and ground patrols, this operation calls on a range of supporting military capabilities–communications, intelligence, mapping, and satellite imaging". [43]
The Commander of Greenland Command, Danish Rear-Admiral Henrik Kudsk, attended the exercises to "discuss military collaboration in the North". [44]
To further demonstrate NATO unity in the face of a common enemy, Russia, "A Canadian research aircraft is expected to fly over 90 North this month as part of a joint Canada-Denmark mission to strengthen the countries' claims over the potentially oil-rich Lomonosov Ridge". [45]
In the same month, April, this time in a show of bipartisan unity, a Liberal Party gathering in Vancouver discussed "a tough Arctic policy that calls on the government to 'actively and aggressively' enforce Canada's sovereignty in the North, including expanding its military role". [46]
A major Canadian daily revealed information on the Canadian Department of National Defense’s Polar Breeze program, referring to it as a $138 million "military project so cloaked in secrecy the Department of National Defense at first categorically denied it even existed.
"Today - apart from backtracking on their denial - the military is refusing to answer any questions on the project that experts believe has a role to play in protecting Canada's Arctic sovereignty and security". [47]
The newspaper also said that the project "involves the Canadian Forces' secretive directorate of space development, computer networks and geospatial intelligence - data gathered by satellite" and that it "could have farther ranging functions including sharing sensitive military intelligence across the various branches of the Canadian Forces and with key allies". [48]
In early May the Canadian Senate issued a report demanding that "Canada should arm its coast guard icebreakers and turn the North's Rangers into better-trained units that could fight if necessary." [49]
Slightly later in a news report called "After Russian talk of conflict, Tories say military is prepared", Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said the "government's defense strategy will help the military 'take action in exercising Canadian sovereignty in the North', and highlighted plans for a fleet of Arctic patrol ships, a deepwater docking facility at Baffin Island, an Arctic military training centre and the expansion of the Canadian Rangers...." [50]
The repeated, incessant references to Russia and to no other nation while Canada boosts military cooperation with fellow NATO Arctic claimants leave no room for doubt regarding which nation Canadian military expansion in its north is aimed against. Recent deployments and new and upgraded installations cannot be used to fight a conventional conflict with any modern military adversary. But they are indicative of an intensifying campaign to portray Russia as a threat - as the threat - to Canada.
Piotr Dutkiewicz, director of Carleton University's Institute of European and Russian Studies, is quoted in a Canadian online publication recently as worrying that "There is a very strange rhetoric that is coming in recent months as to portray Russia as a potential enemy...." [51]
The rhetoric is backed up by action and it isn't strange but perfectly understandable.
Canada is primed for a role much like that of Georgia in the South Caucasus has been for the past several years, as a comparatively small (in terms of population) nation close to Russia which will be employed to play a part on behalf of far more powerful actors. And should Russia respond in any way to attempted Canadian efforts to "stand tall" against it, from scrambling jets to shooting down a bomber - bravado can always go awry - the US and NATO will be compelled to offer support and assistance, including military action, under the provisions of NATO's Article 5. In fact that may be exactly what Washington and Brussels have planned.
Rather than continuing to lend Georgia diplomatic and military support, it would behoove Canadians to borrow a lesson from last August's war in the Caucasus: A war can be launched on an aggressor's terms but end on someone else's.
Notes:
1) CanWest News Service. May 26, 2009
2) Canwest News Service, December 11, 2008
3) Ibid
4) Canwest News Service, May 27, 2009
5) Library of Parliament, December 7, 2007
6) National Security Presidential Directive 66 on Arctic Region Policy
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.htm
7) Ibid
8) Prensa Latina, March 29, 2007
9) Navy NewsStand, March 20, 2007
10) Navy NewsStand, March 29, 2007
11) Stop NATO, February 2, 2009
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/37104
12) Interfax-Military, September 26, 2006
13) National Security Presidential Directive, January 9, 2009
14) Ibid
15) Canwest News Service, August 19, 2008
16) Canwest News Service, September 12, 2008
17) CBC, February 27, 2009
18) Ibid
19) Vancouver Sun, March 27, 2009
20) U.S. Geological Survey, May, 2008
http://geology.com/usgs/arctic-oil-and-gas-report.shtml
21) Live Science, July 24, 2008
22) Science, May 29, 2009
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/324/5931/1175]
23) Globe and Mail, May 28, 2009
24) Bloomberg, May 29, 2009
25) Daily Tech, June, 1, 2009
26) Globe and Mail, May 28, 2009
27) NATO International, January 29, 2009
28) Ibid
29) NATO International, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe,
January 29, 2009
30) Itar-Tass, May 13, 2009
31) The Times, May 14, 2009
32) Barents Observer, May 28, 2009
33) Defense Professionals, May 25, 2009
34) Globe and Mail, May 24, 2009
35) Canadian Press, August 19, 2007
36) Financial Times, August 18, 2008
37) Canwest News Service, August 19, 2008
38) Reuters, August 28, 2008
39) RosBusinessConsulting, September 18, 2008
40) Agence France-Presse, September 19, 2008
41) Canwest News Service, December 15, 2008
42) Daily Gleaner (New Brunswick), April 22, 2009
43) Department of National Defence, Canada Command, April 2, 2009
44) Ibid
45) Canwest News Service, April 5, 2009
46) Edmonton Sun, April 13, 2009
47) Globe and Mail, April 27, 2009
48) Ibid
49) Canadian Press, May 7, 2009
50) Canwest News Service, May 15, 2009
51) Embassy, April 29, 2009
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Note
Picture: The gangsters of IGAD are the real butchers of Mogadishu, the criminals who must be held responsible for the lasting bloodshed of Somalia.
From: http://www.bartamaha.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/igad.jpg
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