The MSC MELODY of the Somali Piracy – Ecoterra Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor. XXV

All the latest developments off the Somali coast and around the Horn of Africa, along with various commentaries, analyses and republications, are to be found in the latest Ecoterra press release that I herewith republish integrally.

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

Ecoterra International – Updates, Statements & Clearinghouse Citations

A Voice from the Truth- & Justice-Seekers, who sit between all chairs, because they are not part of organized white-collar or no-collar-crime in Somalia or overseas, and who neither benefit from global naval militarization, from the illegal fishing and dumping in Somali waters or the piracy of merchant vessels, nor from the booming insurance business or the exorbitant ransom-, risk-management- or security industry, while neither the protection of the sea, the development of fishing communities or the humanitarian assistance to abducted seafarers and their families is receiving the required adequate attention, care and funding.

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act". George Orwell

2009-04-27 22h15:38 UTC

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

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

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

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)

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

Clearing-house

News from sea-jackings, abductions or newly attacked ships

Yemen's special forces have recaptured an oil tanker hijacked off its coast and arrested four pirates, a source with the Yemeni defense ministry said on Monday. "A group of commandos stormed the ship right at 5:30 in the morning and fought with the pirates, killing three, wounding two and capturing four others, and liberated the ship", the source was quoted by the defense ministry's website as saying. The Yemeni tanker, named MT QANA [which is not to be found in any shipping register], apparently belonging to Aden refineries, was allegedly seized by 16 Somali pirates on Sunday some 10 nautical miles off the Yemeni coast, on its way back from the port of Muqalla to Aden after having unloaded its oil cargo, the source said.

The tanker, Qana, can carry 3,000 tonnes but was not carrying a cargo when it was seized off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula country, an official told Reuters. The vessel has a 23-strong crew, of which three are Indian and the rest Yemenis. According to a military source the group of commandos found today four of the crew members and an Indian wounded after the operation. A soldier was also injured in the process which was finished early Monday, the sources said. The Yemeni navy forces had earlier freed three commercial vessels seized by pirates, the website quoted another source as saying. The operation was carried out in collaboration with the Yemeni coast guard helicopters, said the source, adding that the navy forces captured four pirates, killed two and injured another. Earlier the defense ministry's website, www.26sep.net, posted a report on Sunday saying that two pirates were killed in the confrontation over the tanker, and three other pirates and two coast guards were wounded, while at the same time the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, a member of the international counter-piracy naval force Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, said it had no details on Sunday's attack. Somali pirates seized the empty Yemeni oil tanker in a deadly clash with coast guards and Mohammed Abdul-Rahman, the head of the company that owns the ship, said the tanker was among four other vessels being escorted by a Yemeni coast guard boat. The three other vessels escaped the attack, other sources confirmed. The hijacked and recaptured tanker was not carrying any oil at the time of the incident. Worried family members of the Indian crew-members could not get so far not any clarification from their governmental offices.

The captain of an Italian cruise ship carrying more than 1500 people, whose Israeli security guards fought off alleged marauding Somali pirates, said the attack had felt like "war". Ciro Pinto, captain of the Melody, said one passenger and one crew member were injured by broken glass from windows shattered by gunfire as the pirates closed on the white-hulled vessel and opened fire late on Saturday. "It was as if we were at war", Pinto told Italy's ANSA national news agency as he described the clash in which his ship - carrying 991 passengers and 536 crew - sustained smashed windows and bullet holes in the hull and a lifeboat. The master of the luxury cruise-liner, told the media that six pirates armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles on a small craft approached the vessel late on Saturday and opened fire, which was returned by Israeli private security personnel on board. Water hoses were also deployed. Captain Pinto: "I had no idea where they came from. We were 1,100km away from the Somali coast. Without support a small speed boat can not get so far out, but no other ship was seen on the radar. They could have come from the Seychelles". A number of passengers observed the incident, and some even tried to throw deckchairs at the pirates as they tried to attack a ladder to the ship. "After four or five minutes, they tried to put a ladder on the bow", Pinto said. However, the Israeli security guards on the ship "opened fire, and when they saw we were shooting, they abandoned their effort and went away". "They still followed us for about 20 minutes and continued to fire at us", he added. MSC managing director Domenico Pellegrino confirmed the Melody was protected by Israeli security guards and said: "We use them because they are the best. And we have had a demonstration of that".

MSC MELODY attack and response triggers controversy. MSC Cruises chief executive Pierfrancesco Vago has conceded the need for an industry-wide debate on the deployment of firearms aboard cruise-ships following Saturday’s abortive pirate attack on the MSC MELODY, writes John McLaughlin in Lloyds List. The 35,000 gt vessel, with 991 passengers and 536 crew on board, was attacked by pirates 180 miles north of the Seychelles on Saturday as it was heading for the Gulf of Aden. The vessel’s crew and security guards drove the pirates off using fire hoses and, controversially, live rounds from pistols carried on board. Mr. Vago insisted that the company only carried arms onboard under exceptional circumstances, attributing the storage of "just a few pistols" aboard the MSC Melody to the recent escalation of pirate attacks off the horn of Africa. He also claimed that, contrary to some press reports, security guards aboard the vessel had no independent access to the weapons. The pistols were kept in a safe on the bridge and released only at the discretion of the master.

At the same time, he admitted that the controversial issue of deploying firearms on passenger ships, which some believe will only lead to an escalation of pirate violence, must be debated. He would not be drawn on the merits or otherwise of company policy on the issue. "It is too soon after the event for me to comment now, though certainly I can’t think of what it would have been like to have 1,000 hostages taken. It would have been a disaster. But we need to sit down and discuss this internally, and we need to discuss it as an industry". He described next month’s European Cruise Council meeting in Rome as the perfect venue for such talks. In the meantime, Mr. Vago said MSC would pull its vessels out of east African waters immediately. From now on, he said, the company will access South Africa via the Mediterranean and west Africa, calling in Morocco, Senegal and Namibia on its way to Cape Town and Durban. Mr. Vago also insisted that the company had not taken needless risks with its passengers. "We would never take such risks", he said. "We are selling holidays, not adventures". He said the company had recently changed its two itineraries to South Africa precisely because of the escalation of piracy in the region, and after consultations with the Maritime Security Centre for the Horn of Africa, run by EUNAVFOR, and the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

The new route took the MSC Melody considerably further from the coast of Somalia, adding 400 miles to the trip and forcing the ship to drop the Egyptian port of Safaga. In recompense, MSC added an overnight call at Port Victoria in the Seychelles. The MSC Rhapsody followed a similar course in March without incident. Mr. Vago also praised the professionalism of the MSC Melody’s master and crew in averting disaster, and the performance of its onboard security guards. MSC Cruises has a long-standing contract with an Israeli security firm. He said the pirates announced their presence at around 1945 hrs GMT by aiming automatic weapons fire at the ship. The master immediately ordered the guests to their cabins, instructing them to turn out the lights. The master also ordered the high-pressure fire hoses to be trained on the aft side, the only feasible area of access to the MSC Melody as it headed north in heavy seas.

After the bridge came under fire, he handed out pistols to the security guards, Mr. Vago said. He then maneuvered the vessel back and forth in order to enhance the impact of the waves, while the crew used the fire hoses and the security guards fired several shots into the air. "[The pirates] were wet, in huge waves, amidst all this commotion, and then they realized we were armed", Mr. Vago said. "I think they were shocked at that". As the assailants departed, the MSC Melody headed east with its lights out. Separately, wire service AFP quoted Mohamed Muse, reportedly the head of the pirate group, as lamenting their failure to take the vessel due to "technical reasons". "The capture of such a large vessel would have represented a major step forward for pirates off the Somali coast, but unfortunately their tactics were good and we could not board. It was not the first time we have attacked this kind of boat and we were very close to capturing it", Mr. Muse told AFP.

The alleged claim by this fictive "Mohamed Muse" is, however disputed by several other sources close to the pirate groups, whereby some likewise are claiming that it were their "boys" staging the daring attack, while [more credible and senior] others even believe that the attackers were not from Somalia at all. One analyst is wondering if it could have been a staged attack by guns-for-hire in order to drive insurance charges further up and revive the debate about guns, since one other such report of an "attack" on a cruise ship was later disputed by the cruise-liner's company and at least one other story hawked at a NATO meeting turned out as a complete hoax. The anti-piracy Maritime Security Center Horn of Africa confirmed the distress-call concerning the attack as reported at an location between 300 km north of the Seychelles and 800 km east of Somalia. The cruise liner Melody continued its trip Sunday toward the Jordanian port of Aqaba and will rendezvous with international naval vessels in the Indian Ocean which shall escort the vessel.

The media hype and hastily launched, often contradictory reports over the attack on the cruise-liner as well as the two day battle the Yemeni coastguard fought brushed aside the information on the secure release of MT SEA PRINCESS II after difficult mediations. The vessel is currently in Bossasso harbour, while captain and crew have undergone medical examination and stay at a local hotel before they will return under guard to Yemen.

At the request of the Philippines, a Chinese naval frigate came to escort a Philippine-flagged chemical tanker which has just been released from pirates in Somali waters, according to the press office of China's Ministry of National Defense. The Chinese frigate FFG-570 Huangshan, which was on escorting commission in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters, came to the Hobiya waters on Saturday night to escort the 32,400-ton Philippine merchant ship which was just released from Somali pirates, and provide it with supplies including food and medicine. The released Philippine-flagged chemical tanker MT STOLT STRENGTH, with 23 Filipino sailors on board, is on its way under the escort of the Chinese naval frigate, according to sources with the Ministry of National Defense. The chemical tanker with phosphoric acid might now go directly to Kandla / India, her original destination.

According to information from the EU, NATO's Counter Piracy Operation Allied Protector considers the Italian tugboat T/B BUCCANEER, as well as the Egyptian fishing vessels FV SAMARAH AHMED and FV MOMTAZ 1 as being confiscated by Puntland Coast Guard not hijacked by pirates. Currently this information cannot be confirmed [at least for the tug], says NATO, since pictures of the BUCCANEER indicates a hijacking rather than a detention. According to Chinese governmental media Xinhua the Italian Foreign Ministry said on Friday former foreign undersecretary Margherita Boniver would travel to Somalia to seek the release of the crew of an Italian tugboat seized off the African country's northern coast. This, and rumours that she actually already would have been seen in Somalia, were not confirmed by Italian officials, who wouldn't comment if the former official of the Craxi government, which became infamous with shady deals with Somalia, would come at all to address the situation. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, however, declared that the barges the tugboat was pulling were empty, which did so far not calm down worries that the vessel had been used for dumping of toxic waste, because the company has not provided any document where the barges were loaded or off-loaded before. The Italian government has instigated an official investigation by a parliament select committee.

Navies have apparently still not stopped Murder Ship MT Agia Barbara: still at large !

Crew Wanted for Murder

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

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

The sender further stated that the current owners are WORLD CHAMPION MARINE (the Buyer) not MEADOWLARK SHIPPING & TRADING CO. (the Seller). WORLD CHAMPION MARINE, however, could so far not be traced. Unconfirmed reports warn that the vessel if not stopped immediately could reach Eritrea or Sudan and the crew disappear from there.

The Somali Government has officially requested all navies and coastal authorities to immediately impound the vessel and to arrest the crew. Vessel picture: http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=70209

With the latest captures and releases now still at least 16 foreign vessels (17 with an unnamed sole Barge which drifted ashore, 18 with JAIKUR I who with its last 5 members of the original crew are still held in Mogadishu harbour) with a total of not less than 273 crew members accounted for (of which 84 are confirmed to be Filipinos (plus maybe 16 of newly captured MV PATRIOT) are held in Somali waters and are monitored on our actual case-list, while several other cases of ships, which were observed off the coast of Somalia and have been reported or had reportedly disappeared without trace or information, are still being followed. Over 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) have been recorded for 2008 with 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases (for Somalia, incl. presently held ones) and the mistaken sinking of one vessel by a naval force. For 2009 the account stands at 69 averted or abandoned attacks and 31 sea-jackings on the Somali/Yemeni pirate side as well as at least two wrongful attacks (incl. friendly fire) on the side of the naval forces. Mystery pirate mother-vessels Athena/Arena and Burum Ocean as well as not fully documented cases of absconded vessels are not listed in the sea-jack count until clarification. Several other vessels with unclear fate (also not in the actual count), who were reported missing over the last ten years in this area, are still kept on our watch-list, though in some cases it is presumed that they sunk due to bad weather or being unfit to sail. In the last four years, 22 missing ships have been traced back with different names, flags and superstructures.

Anti-piracy measures

War on Piracy: The Enemies Within

Written by Modupe Ogunbayo - NewsWatch Magazine

In and outside Somalia, those who want piracy in the Gulf of Aden to continue are as many and well connected as those who want to see it end
Piracy in Somalia’s Gulf of Aden is far more complex than it seems. A permanent solution may therefore take a lot more effort and time in coming. This is because the network of contacts used by the masterminds is far more sophisticated than it is usually known to those seeking to end the menace.
The pirates use highly trained Western agents in the process of demanding and collecting ransoms. After notifying the ship’s owners through the satellite phones in the seized ship, the pirates contact their Western collaborators to negotiate with the ships’ owners. These professional negotiators are mainly retired SAS British agents or retired intelligence officers of the Australian or South African armed forces. Sometimes they are aboard the ship or are in one of the coastal Somali towns.

After a successful negotiation, pirates also hire Western private security outfits to secure the area designated for the collection of the ransom. This precaution is taken because the ransom is mainly dropped in isolated areas. At times, the ransom is paid through bags of $100 or $50 bills dropped via an airplane to a designated place or taken to the pirates’ ship on the high seas through a smaller life boat. The ship owners used to pay the ransom through wire transfers but the pirates stopped doing so because of the risks involved with cashing the money.
To avoid being duped, the pirates have equipment for detecting fake currencies. They also have counting machines to aid quick tabulation of the ransom. Once it has been satisfactorily counted, the ship and its hostages are freed. The negotiator, the security agencies and the pirates then take their percentages of the ransom. So, if an arrangement to stop this collaborative effort is found, the rate of piracy in Somalia would lessen.

But, it is not only the Western negotiators that benefit from the increased wave of piracy in Somalia. Britain also benefits. London, its capital, also doubles as the maritime capital of the world. Therefore, top maritime law firms, insurers and security agencies are located there. The fees charged by these firms, out of which they pay tax, at times, almost double the ransom.

Roger Middleton, a Horn of Africa specialist at the Chatham House, says the fees paid by these London-based institutions could be as high as one million dollars apart from the ransom. "The professional negotiators, acting on behalf of the ship owners get about $100,000 for their services and the lawyers receive a fee of about $300,000 for ensuring that the shipping companies are not putting themselves in any dubious positions", he said. On the secret legal and insurance matters which often result from these hijackings, Middleton says it would be fair to say that, "most of it happens in London". Curiously, none of Britain’s ships has navigated the route in recent times. It has also not officially raised eyebrows at the hijackings.

Ever since a civil war brought down Somalia’s last legitimate government in 1991, the 3,330 kilometre of the country’s coastline which is the longest in continental Africa, has been taken over by foreign vessels. A 2006 United Nations, UN, report said that in the absence of monitoring at the country’s coastline, Somali waters have become the site of an international "free for all", fishing expeditions. Fishing fleets from around the world illegally plunder Somali high seas and send the country’s own poorly-equipped fishermen out of business. Another UN report said an estimated $300 million worth of seafood is stolen from the country’s coastline each year. "In any context", says Gustavo Carvalho, a London-based researcher with Global Witness, an environmental NGO, "that is a staggering sum".

Somali fishermen, who lack the advanced boats and technologies of the foreign vessels, also complain of being shot out by foreign fishermen with water cannons and firearms. The first gang of pirates emerged in the 1990s to protect local fishermen against foreign trawlers. Some of them known as the National Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia or Somali Marines, later jettisoned the original aim when younger pirates joined these unions.

The waters these pirates seek to protect are coveted in fishing circles. Somalia’s seas are rich in tuna, sardines and mackerel and other lucrative species of seafood, including lobsters and sharks. In other parts of the Indian Ocean region, such as the Persian Gulf, which is also patrolled by fishermen for these fishes and seafood, they had to resort to dynamite and other extreme measures to pull in the kinds of catches that are easily got off the Somali coastline.

The UN says high seas trawlers from countries as far flung as South Korea, Japan and Spain have operated down the Somali coast, often illegally and without licenses, for the better part of two decades. They often hoist flags of convenience from sea-faring friendly nations like Belize and Bahrain. Tsuma Charo of the Nairobi-based East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, which monitors Somali pirate attacks and liaises with the hostage takers and the captured crews, says "illegal trawling has fed the piracy problem".

In the early days of Somali piracy, owners of seized trawlers without licenses always made quick ransom payments, since the boat owners and companies backing those vessels did not want to draw attention to their violation of international maritime laws. Charo said this trend allowed the pirates to build up their tactical networks and also encouraged them to take more vessels.

Apart from illegal fishing, foreign ships have also long been accused by local fishermen of dumping toxic and nuclear waste off Somalia’s shores. A 2005 UN Environmental Programme report cited uranium radioactive and other hazardous deposits leading to a breakout of respiratory ailments and skin diseases in villages along the Somali coast. At the time of the report, it cost $2.50 per ton for a European company to dispose nuclear wastes off the Horn of Africa whereas it costs $250 per ton to dispose of them properly in Europe.

The alleged illegal fishing and dumping of toxic wastes in the country worsened after the 2006 US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somali. Piracy in Somalia was also aided by corruption because many local officials in Mogadishu and in ports in Puntland region reportedly accept bribes from foreign fishermen and pirates' elders. It got so bad that UN monitors in 2005 and 2006 suggested an embargo on fish taken from Somali waters, but their proposals were overruled by members of the UN Security Council.

But the vessels themselves insist that they ply the Gulf of Aden route because it is the route to the Suez Canal, a strategic route to European waters. Ships carrying aids to Somalia and Darfur have to pass along the route
Wealthy businessmen in the United Arab Emirate, UAE, which has a large Somali community, also provided financial backing for the pirates at the onset. The businessmen were suspected of having funded the pirates in the past through the informal Islamic money contributing system of Hawala. They also provided equipment like speedboats and ammunition. But the pirates are now thought to largely manage their own affairs. They can afford to do so now. In 2008, one official estimates that they netted nearly $150 million through piracy.
America is determined to fight piracy. Last week, the trial of Abdiweli Abdilkadir Muse, a captured Somali pirate, commenced in America. Muse, 16, was injured and captured when he and his co-conspirators made a botched attempt to hijack Maersk Alabama, an American ship.

In the statement released by PAS, Abdilkadir Muse, the pirate’s father, condemned piracy. To his knowledge, his son had been a student in Galkayo, Somalia, until he was told of his arrest. "For someone who has not witnessed hunger in his house, who knows about religion…what caused him to go on the seas? The only thing I can think of is that because of his young age, he was led into mistaken action", adding, "You would never expect things like these would be possible from him. He is not a troublesome boy".
The older Muse is a nomad who spends time in the eastern part of Ethiopia while his son lived with his mother in Somalia.

Nine Somali pirates have been jailed for 15 to 20 years by a court in the breakaway northern state of Somaliland, an official said on Sunday. "The nine pirates were found guilty of piracy and seven of them were given a jail term of 15 years, while two others were sentenced to 20 years", Mohamed Hashi, a Somaliland police officer, told AFP from Berbera, Somaliland's main port where the court hearing was held on Saturday. The accused were arrested initially on April 18 by a Dutch navy warship patrolling the Gulf of Aden as part of NATO's anti-piracy mission. Sixteen Yemeni fishermen they were holding were freed in the operation triggered by a distress call from a Greek merchant vessel. The Dutch navy let the pirates go because they could not be prosecuted under Dutch law, the commander of the NATO fleet explained. But the pirates were apprehended by Somaliland authorities.

NATO to return pirate fighting ships to gulf, reports AP. NATO says it is sending four of its anti-piracy ships back to the Gulf of Aden sooner than planned because of the surge of attacks by Somali brigands there. Last week, four of the flotilla's five ships in the waterway left to visit Karachi, Pakistan, and they planned to travel from there to Southeast Asia and Australia. But NATO's naval spokesman Cmdr. Chris Davies said Monday that the ships will return to the waters off Somalia this week. Davies says the surge of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, a major commercial shipping route, is a cancer, and that NATO wants to play its part in the international effort to fight it. Many nations, including the U.S., the EU, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea _ have deployed warships to the region to fight piracy.

Remarks to the International Conference in support of the Somali security institutions and the African Union Mission in Somalia by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

On behalf of the United Nations system, I want to express my deepest thanks to all who have worked to make this conference a reality - the Government of Somalia, the African Union and the European Union. Many actors, are here with one common purpose: securing peace for the people of Somalia. In a larger sense, the issues before us highlight the inter-connected nature of the challenges of our age. Unattended problems rise and reverberate in various corners of the globe. They spill into the seas. I speak, here, of lawlessness and insecurity, state collapse, the crisis of refugees and the internally displaced; the economic and ecological crisis; and, of course, piracy. All have an impact beyond borders. All are linked. After all, piracy is not a water-borne disease. It is a symptom of anarchy and insecurity on the ground. Dealing with it requires an integrated strategy that addresses the fundamental issue of lawlessness in Somalia. That is why we are here -- to get beyond the headlines and write a new chapter for Somalia's future. Despite the obstacles we know well, there is hope in the Horn of Africa.

Somalia is at a crossroads. The UN-sponsored Djibouti peace process has produced a broad-based government. That government is taking the hard road to peace. It is reaching out to forge national reconciliation, making difficult but necessary concessions, broadening the base of support. We should give strong credit to the progress the new government has made in two short months. As a result, the Somali people have the best chance in a generation to end their suffering and move toward a better and more stable future. We must push open this window of opportunity.

Somalia needs support in key areas: First to establish the Transitional Federal Government's authority throughout the country; Second, to rebuild state institutions; Third to address the humanitarian emergency; and to facilitate economic recovery. This will not happen overnight. Today we take a vital step by helping the new leadership meet the first responsibility of any government: keeping its people safe and secure. This requires a prudent political strategy. I urge all parties to work with the Government to solidify the consensus for reconciliation.

Let us show those Somalis still outside the Djibouti process that the time for peace has come. At the same time, the Somali people must see the clear dividends of national reconciliation reflected in their communities and in their lives. Our support -- and this conference -- is therefore designed first and foremost to enhance the security of Somalia. It is based on two pillars: strengthening Somalia's security institutions, and supporting AMISOM's ability to help the country.

First and most critically, the development of Somali security institutions: With the assistance of international partners, the Government has begun the process of building the National Security Force and the Somali Police Service. This is crucial to the future of Somalia. It is also central to providing the safety and security needed for humanitarian workers to continue their life-saving activities. The Somali government has presented a specific and credible action plan for the next three months. We should encourage them and help them succeed. Today, I call on donors to contribute, through the United Nations Trust Fund, to Government efforts to strengthen the capacity of the Joint Security Committee. I also urge bilateral partners to step forward with support for training and development for Somali security forces.

At the same time, the Government must establish solid procedures to ensure that these forces are inclusive, and that they protect civilians and respect human rights and the rule of law. The only lasting solution for security in Somalia is one that is owned by the Somalis. This process will take time. It will be costly. But above all, it will be an investment - a vital investment at a crucial time to nurture a fragile process and secure a long troubled part of the world. Let me turn to the second pillar of this conference: strengthening AMISOM. African Union troops in Somalia are serving bravely under very difficult and even dangerous conditions. They are there to help the people of Somalia develop their own security. They come from countries which have themselves suffered conflict. Many soldiers have lost their lives in service. The United Nations provides logistical assistance. But help is also urgently needed to pay allowances for troops and police and acquire essential equipment such as tents and armored vehicles.

We must ensure that AMISOM has what it needs to fulfill the mandate authorized by the African Union and the UN Security Council. The support we are offering today must not, however, come at the cost of humanitarian assistance. Nearly half of the Somali population is now facing a humanitarian emergency or acute food and livelihood crisis. I therefore take this opportunity to remind all member states of the critical funding shortage for the World Food Programme's Emergency Operation, which still requires $168 million through the end of 2009.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In the eyes of some, Somalia may have become synonymous with hopelessness and lawlessness. Yet the same might have been said not long ago about Sierra Leone or Liberia. Change can happen – but not on its own. It takes determined leadership and international partnership. By showing strong, tangible, practical support, the international community can help the new Somali Government advance from a position of strength. By acting together, we can show the people of Somalia that dialogue delivers clear returns in their daily lives. Our strategy for Somalia is based on a new partnership among the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, the donors and the Somalis themselves.

Strong coordination is critical. I urge all to work together to ensure that we maximize investment, minimize gaps and avoid duplication of effort. By helping the Government gradually extend its authority, we are taking direct aim at global challenges such as piracy. The equation is clear: more security on the ground will mean less piracy on the seas. In this connection, I wish to thank Member States who, in cooperation with the Government of Somalia, have provided and continue to provide naval escorts for ships carrying WFP humanitarian food to Somalia.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I look forward to the day when we focus on the longer-term - creating livelihoods and rebuilding infrastructure. To get there, we here today must act.
The risks of not supporting the new government are too high and the costs of failure too enormous. We have a unique opportunity to support leaders who have shown a commitment to building peace and rebuilding the Somali state. By opening the space for security, we open the door to a better life for Somalia's people. Now is the time. Let us make the investment.

Unconfirmed reports speak of plans to finance the Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca groups, a government-allied Sunni Islamist group, as countermeasure to the fundamentalist Al-Shabaab, which is listed by the US as a terrorist organization, as well as to combat piracy with at least parts of also EU generated funds from the donor conference in Brussels, channeled through the UN. A further secession of Somalia with Central Somalia - as expansion of the Galmudug state from Galkayo south to Balcad - becoming an autonomous region like Puntland and Somaliland is discussed again.

Neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya seem to support and foster the secessionist ideas. Meanwhile the Somaliland Foreign Minister, Abdillahi Mohamed Du’ale said the Somalia’s minister of foreign affairs have been faking information that Somaliland is ready to have talks with Somalia after things settle down there. In a press conference in his office today, Mr. Du’ale said Somaliland is an independent country and there is no reason to talk to Somalia about unity. The minister praised the Somaliland’s relationship with Djibouti which improved in the last few months. He said Djibouti is one of our good friends in the region. He said there is no way Somaliland would go back to unite with Somalia.

Illegal fishing and dumping

International firms stand accused of fish piracy
By Kevin Kelley - Sunday, April 26 2009

Lawlessness off the Somalia coast involving over-fishing and toxic-waste dumping is being ignored amidst the uproar over attacks on international shipping, some analysts are charging.

For years, Somalis had complained to the United Nations and the European Union "when the marine resources of Somalia were pillaged, when the waters were poisoned, when the fish was stolen, creating poverty in the whole country", Kenyan writer Mohamed Abshir Waldo, told a national radio audience in the United States last week. "They were totally ignored".

Beth Tuckey, an activist with the African Faith and Justice Network in Washington, wrote in a recent commentary that focusing solely on one kind of piracy – "holding ships and people for ransom" – distorts the actual situation of Somalis living on the coast.

"Having over-fished in their own oceans, many European, Middle Eastern and Asian fishing companies perceived the 1991 state collapse in Somalia as an opening to begin business in foreign waters," Ms Tuckey said. "Large trawlers appeared off the coast, scraping up $300 million worth of seafood every year, depriving coastal Somalis of their livelihood and subsistence. Foreign corporations also saw it as a great location to discreetly dump barrels of toxic waste, thereby causing death and disease among the Somali population".

Taking a similar perspective, the US-African Chamber of Commerce is calling on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to address all forms of "international maritime violations off the Somali coast".

In addition to stopping the seizure of vessels, the United States and other powers should prevent "illegal dumping of chemical toxic waste [and] illegal fishing", says Martin Mohammed, the chamber’s president.

He traces the upsurge in Somali pirate attacks to the 2006 US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia that initially routed an Islamist force that had established control over broad parts of the country.

The Islamists had provided much of Somalia "with rule of law and a functional society", Mr. Mohammed says.

Chaos have returned to the country in the past two years, "leaving the people of Somalia in dire conditions [and] leaving the coast unprotected", Mr. Mohammed adds. Allegations of illegal fishing in Somalia waters were raised last year by the United Nations’ special envoy for Somalia. "Because there is no government, there is so much irregular fishing from European and Asian countries," Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah told reporters in July 2008.

He added that the proceeds from illegal fishing help perpetuate the violence that has reigned in Somalia for the past 18 years. Illegal fishers are paying corrupt officials or warlords for protection or to secure fake licenses, Ould Abdallah said.
A UN report two years ago estimated that poaching in the rich fishing grounds off Somalia amounts to a $300 million a year enterprise.

"It’s been like a long gold rush for Thai, European, Yemeni and Korean boats", Abdulwali Abdulrahman Gayre, the Puntland vice minister of ports and fisheries, told a Chicago Tribune reporter last October.

"We have some of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Scientists say it is like a rainforest of fish. But our fishermen can’t compete with the foreigners in big ships who come to steal from our waters".

How Somalia's Fishermen Became Pirates
Source: Time.com

Amid the current media frenzy about Somali pirates, it's hard not to imagine them as characters in some dystopian Horn of Africa version of Waterworld. We see wily corsairs in ragged clothing swarming out of their elusive mother ships, chewing narcotic khat while thumbing GPS phones and grappling hooks. They are not desperate bandits, experts say, rather savvy opportunists in the most lawless corner of the planet. But the pirates have never been the only ones exploiting the vulnerabilities of this troubled failed state — and are, in part, a product of the rest of the world's neglect.

Ever since a civil war brought down Somalia's last functional government in 1991, the country's 3,330 km (2,000 miles) of coastline — the longest in continental Africa — has been pillaged by foreign vessels. A United Nations report in 2006 said that, in the absence of the country's at one time serviceable coastguard, Somali waters have become the site of an international "free for all", with fishing fleets from around the world illegally plundering Somali stocks and freezing out the country's own rudimentarily-equipped fishermen. According to another U.N. report, an estimated $300 million worth of seafood is stolen from the country's coastline each year. "In any context", says Gustavo Carvalho, a London-based researcher with Global Witness, an environmental NGO, "that is a staggering sum".

In the face of this, impoverished Somalis living by the sea have been forced over the years to defend their own fishing expeditions out of ports such as Eyl, Kismayo and Harardhere — all now considered to be pirate dens. Somali fishermen, whose industry was always small-scale, lacked the advanced boats and technologies of their interloping competitors, and also complained of being shot at by foreign fishermen with water cannons and firearms. "The first pirate gangs emerged in the '90s to protect against foreign trawlers", says Peter Lehr, lecturer in terrorism studies at Scotland's University of St. Andrews and editor of Violence at Sea: Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism. The names of existing pirate fleets, such as the National Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia or Somali Marines, are testament to the pirates' initial motivations.

The waters they sought to protect, says Lehr, were "an El Dorado for fishing fleets of many nations". A 2006 study published in the journal Science predicted that the current rate of commercial fishing would virtually empty the world's oceanic stocks by 2050. Yet, Somalia's seas still offer a particularly fertile patch for tuna, sardines and mackerel, and other lucrative species of seafood, including lobsters and sharks. In other parts of the Indian Ocean region, such as the Persian Gulf, fishermen resort to dynamite and other extreme measures to pull in the kinds of catches that are still in abundance off the Horn of Africa.

High-seas trawlers from countries as far flung as South Korea, Japan and Spain have operated down the Somali coast, often illegally and without licenses, for the better part of two decades, the U.N. says. They often fly flags of convenience from sea-faring friendly nations like Belize and Bahrain, which further helps the ships skirt international regulations and evade censure from their home countries. Tsuma Charo of the Nairobi-based East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, which monitors Somali pirate attacks and liaises with the hostage takers and the captured crews, says "illegal trawling has fed the piracy problem".

In the early days of Somali piracy, those who seized trawlers without licenses could count on a quick ransom payment, since the boat owners and companies backing those vessels didn't want to draw attention to their violation of international maritime law. This, Charo reckons, allowed the pirates to build up their tactical networks and whetted their appetite for bigger spoils. Beyond illegal fishing, foreign ships have also long been accused by local fishermen of dumping toxic and nuclear waste off Somalia's shores. A 2005 United Nations Environmental Program report cited uranium radioactive and other hazardous deposits leading to a rash of respiratory ailments and skin diseases breaking out in villages along the Somali coast. According to the U.N., at the time of the report, it cost $2.50 per ton for a European company to dump these types of materials off the Horn of Africa, as opposed to $250 per ton to dispose of them cleanly in Europe.

Monitoring and combating any of these misdeeds is next to impossible — Somalia's current government can barely find its feet in the wake of the 2006 U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion. And many Somalis, along with outside observers, suspect local officials in Mogadishu and in ports in semi-autonomous Puntland further north of accepting bribes from foreign fishermen as well as from pirate elders. U.N. monitors in 2005 and 2006 suggested an embargo on fish taken from Somali waters, but their proposals were shot down by members of the Security Council.

In the meantime, Somali piracy has metastasized into the country's only boom industry. Most of the pirates, observers say, are not former fishermen, but just poor folk seeking their fortune. Right now, they hold 18 cargo ships and some 300 sailors hostage — the work of a sophisticated and well-funded operation. A few pirates have offered testimony to the international press — a headline in Thursday's Times of London read, "They stole our lobsters: A Somali pirate tells his side of the story" — but Lehr and other Somali experts express their doubts. "Nowadays," Lehr says, "this sort of thing is just a cheap excuse". The legacy of nearly twenty years of inaction and abuse, though, is far more costly.

No real peace yet

Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke has officially said on Sunday evening that his government will rule the war strife country Somalia under Islamic law. "My government will rule this government in the Holy Quran and there is no one single time when we shall hesitate in the governing the country in the Islamic Sharia law. As you are aware the Somali legislators have recently in one voice agreed in ruling the country in the Islamic law which I myself see it as one major factor which is good in the stability in the war torn country. We have been in anarchy for almost a period of two decades, it is upon the concerned ministries to show effectual and transparent to the Somali population wherever they are and it would gradually reach in every portion of the country. Rome was not built in a day so thus I hope that the rule of the Islamic law will start right from the city and reach on the other edges of the country in the shortest possible time", said the Somali Prime Minister, himself in his third month of office in a press conference in Mogadishu.

The premier also said at his office that groups with specific interests have misinterpreted a statement, which he has given to the press and he denounced the shelling towards the Somali parliament when the Somali parliamentarians were on the verge to conclude their session on Sunday, which has claimed the lives of at least 9 innocent civilians residing in the villages near the parliament building.

Lawmakers and clan elders from Haji Suleyman clan announced on Saturday they were planning to reopen Shikole Islamic court in Mogadishu. The minister for justice of the Somali government, Sheik Abdirahman Mohamud Farah Janaqow, who held a press conference in his house in Mogadishu, said it was not a good idea to reopen clan Islamic courts in Mogadishu this time since the government is implementing the Islamic Sharia. Sheik Abdirahman said opening courts is the work of the ministry for justice and that the ministry would soon start opening district courts in the country. Separately, Imam Omar Moalin Abshir who attended Saturday’s meeting of Haji Suleyman clan said that the people had misunderstood the idea and that the government and the clan have the same aim of implementing Islamic Sharia in the country.

At least six people were killed Saturday afternoon in the Somali capital Mogadishu after Islamist hardliners attacked African Union peacekeepers (AMISOM), according to local radio. The fighting began after armed groups launched mortars at an AMISOM base home to Burundian soldiers, witnesses said. Several mortars hit residential areas in Hodan and Howlwadaag districts, killing at least six civilians and wounding nearly 25 people. "Two people were killed in Howlwadaag [district] including my brother", witness Ahmed Salad told Mogadishu-based radio stations. Another witness said he saw three dead civilians at Bakara Market, the country's largest marketplace, saying that shells hit inside the market causing civilian deaths. Workers at Daynile Hospital and Medina Hospital in Mogadishu said tens of wounded civilians were admitted for emergency treatment. An officer who spoke for AMISOM said no peacekeepers were hurt during the attack, but noted that three civilians who came to the AMISOM medical center for medicines were hurt. No group has claimed responsibility for attacking AMISOM peacekeepers, but the deadly attacks come at a time Islamist opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has returned to Mogadishu and has demanded the withdrawal of AMISOM from Somali soil.

Impacting news from the global village

Who are the real 'pirates' in Africa?, asks Matt Murray on pslweb.org and elaborates:

Capitalists demonize Somalis, hide their own blood-soaked history. Recent news coverage has been dominated by sensationalized stories of Somali pirates hijacking ships and taking hostages in order to secure large ransoms. Most recently, the Maersk Alabama, a U.S.-based container ship, was hijacked and its captain, Richard Phillips, was taken hostage. After a five-day standoff, Navy SEAL snipers shot and killed three pirates while freeing him. The U.S. mass media has portrayed the killings as a heroic military action. In fact, the teenage Somali hijackers were out of fuel and ammunition, and had been frantically pleading to give up Phillips to save their own lives. The United States refused to negotiate. Two days earlier, French navy commandos stormed a hijacked sailboat and killed one hostage and at least two pirates while freeing four French hostages.

Prior to the killings by the U.S. and French navies, there had been no fatalities in any of the hijackings. Somali pirates had never harmed any captives, and in fact, many former hostages have said they were treated extremely well. Yet the Western media has relentlessly demonized Somalis involved without making any attempt at understanding the larger political context behind these actions. Rather, the Somalis have been accused of looting and plundering and have been falsely accused of being terrorists. They have been purposely associated with al-Qaeda to justify their inclusion as targets in the criminal "Global War on Terrorism". The United States is attempting to use the situation to further justify their bloody imperialist intervention in Somalia and the region. There is deep irony in the accusations of barbarity and brutality being hurled at Somali pirates: The world’s largest banks and corporations, whose interests are faithfully protected by the media, also have a history of piracy. A gruesome and bloody history that is little known to the modern world because it has been so carefully hidden, but it is in fact the fundamental basis for the original accumulation of the vast sums of wealth responsible for the dominant position held by imperialist countries.

Primitive accumulation: the roots of capitalism

In his landmark work "Capital", Karl Marx attacks the mythology-presented-as-fact concerning the origins of the capitalist system. We are led to believe that it was the hard work, diligence and frugality of the capitalists that enabled them to amass vast sums of wealth. Marx, however, exposes the lie of this narrative. He demonstrates that the capitalist mode of production only began to develop after centuries of enormous "accumulation", the brutal result of piracy, raids, pillage, rape and massacres of whole peoples. Marx writes: "The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. … If money ‘comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,’ capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt".

Dutch colonialism, according to the lieutenant governor of the island of Java, was "one of the most extraordinary relations of treachery, bribery, massacre and meanness". In acquiring slaves, Dutch colonizers rounded up entire populations and locked them in secret dungeons before sending them off in slave ships. In 1750, the Javan province of Banjuwangi had a population of 80,000. But by 1811 the murderous Dutch occupation had left only 18,000 inhabitants, a reduction of over 75 percent of the population. As a result of such genocidal atrocities, Holland by the mid-17th century had fully developed the colonial system and was at the peak of its commercial supremacy. It dominated the trade between East India and Europe, and its fishing, marine and manufacturing industries were far ahead of any of its competitors. Yet the masses of the Dutch people were, according to Marx, "more over-worked, poorer and more brutally oppressed than those of all the rest of Europe put together". In the early 17th century, the English wrested control of the Spanish slave trade to the Americas.

As a result, their share in the sordid industry grew enormously. In Liverpool in 1730, 15 slave ships were active, but by 1792 the city’s slaving fleet had ballooned to include 132 vessels. The English East India Company dominated Indian and Chinese commerce. Its monopoly of unparalleled sources of wealth, including salt, opium and countless other commodities were the result of wholesale theft and slaughter. In India between the years 1769 and 1770, the company bought up all supplies of rice to artificially create a shortage. The result was a devastating famine that caused massive suffering and death. In the Americas, the British colonial settlers were no different. They participated in the annihilation of entire populations. In 1744, when Puritans in Massachusetts declared the indigenous population "rebels", they set prices for their scalps and capture: 100 pounds for the scalps of males 12 and over; 105 pounds for male captives; and 50 pounds for the capture or scalping of women and children.

Marx writes: "The British Parliament proclaimed … scalping as ‘means that God and Nature had given into its hand’". To transform the English manufacturing industry into factory production, mass enslavement of children became commonplace. Starting as young as seven-years-old, children were snatched from their homes and forced to work grueling hours under dismal conditions. "They were harassed to the brink of death by excess of labor ... were flogged, fettered and tortured in the most exquisite refinement of cruelty; ... they were in many cases starved to the bone while flogged to their work and ... even in some instances ... were driven to commit suicide. ..." ("Capital", volume I, chapter 31) Plunder, slavery, genocide, forced labor and piracy: these are the true origins of capitalism.

The roots of Somali piracy

While the Western media focuses on isolated incidences of piracy off the coast of Somalia, it deliberately ignores the political and historical background of the situation. Today, Somalia is completely surrounded by U.S. forces and its many proxies in the region. To the east, the U.S. Navy’s fifth fleet patrols the country’s coastline. On its northern, western and southern borders lie Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, all of which are U.S. client states. In the aftermath of a total governmental collapse in 1991 and a criminal U.S. invasion in 1992, Somalia was left with no central government. Lacking forces to patrol its shoreline, Somalia’s territorial waters were soon plundered by commercial fishing fleets from around the world. The country’s coastline, the largest in the African continent, became an easy target for commercial vessels carrying nuclear waste to unload their toxic cargos with impunity.

In response to these flagrant violations of Somalia’s national sovereignty, fishermen stepped in to fulfill the role of naval and coast guard forces, arming themselves and protecting their territory by confronting illegal vessels. "We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits", said Sugule Ali, a spokesman for the "so-called" pirates. "We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard". To the United States, Somalia—one of the poorest countries in the world—is of key geopolitical importance. It lies at a commercial crossroads between the Middle East and Asia. A large portion of the world’s oil tankers, particularly European and Chinese, pass along its coast.

The Union of Islamic Courts, a coalition of Somali judges and courts, began to emerge as Somalia’s functional government, especially in the southern parts of the country. By 2006, the UIC, with overwhelming popular support, was able to effectively unify the country for the first time since 1991. However, the UIC did not sufficiently bow down to U.S. dictates, opening it up to being targeted for regime change. In coordinated actions by the United States and Ethiopia in late 2006 and early 2007, Somalia was bombarded, invaded and occupied.

The aim was to overthrow the UIC and replace it with the Transitional Federal Government, a U.S. proxy regime lacking any popular support. As a direct result of U.S.-Ethiopian aggression, over 400,000 Somalis had been displaced without access to food, clean water, shelter or medicine by November 2007. Without any form of state structure to defend Somalia’s territory, its national sovereignty has been violated time and time again. Foreign vessels, including U.S. ships, illegally fish, dump toxic waste and even mount full-scale invasions of the country from Somalia’s coastal waters. Somalia is roughly 8,000 nautical miles distant from the United States. In this context, what the Somali pirates have done is completely understandable. The U.S. response to the Somali pirates is saturated with racism with the aim of thoroughly demonizing a targeted people.

Kenya ready to counter attacks - deputy minister. The Kenyan government has ruled out threats by the Somali radical Islamist group, Al Shabaab, to invade Kenyan territories and introduce the Sharia law, reports afrolNews. According to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the country has declared its readiness to counter attacks on its boundaries to protect its people. The threats by the group comes after senior Kenyan officials jetted into Somalia for a week-long training for civil servants to enhancing good relations with neighbouring states and regional cooperation. The Foreign Affairs Assistant Minister, Richard Onyonka, warned that Kenya is a sovereign country which its boundaries should be respected. "We have the capacity and ability to stave off any incursions from anybody else", he said.

Mr. Onyonka said that the threats would not deter Kenya from ensuring that the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia is successful in achieving its agenda. He further urged the militia and the transitional government to consider dialogue as a means of resolving their disputes for long lasting peace for the troubled Horn of Africa state. "We hope the group will resolve conflict diplomatically; going to war will not help anyone", he told local news reports. Somalia which has not had an effective national government since 1991 when militias ousted the then dictator Siad Barre, has seen more attacks on government forces and unarmed civilians. "The TFG is the only way out and we will not accept any other way. It is in the best interest to ensure peace and security of the Somalia", said Mr. Onyonka. The recent election of president Sharif Sheik Ahmed has sparked a row with government forces and radical al Shabab waging attack on government demanding the re-establishment of the very strict Shariah court in the Muslim dominated Horn of Africa state.

A crewman of the American ship overtaken by pirates off the coast of Africa earlier this month filed suit against his employer this morning in Harris County, asking for at least $75,000 for pain and suffering, alleging that the ship’s owner did not take proper precautions against high seas attacks. Florida resident Richard Hicks, chief steward of the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama freighter, sued Mobile, Ala.-based Waterman Steamship and Maersk Line, Limited, asking for money for medical costs and lost earnings because of injuries. At a press conference this morning, Hicks said he was suing to improve conditions for other seafarers traveling in pirate-infested waters off of Somalia, the Huston Chronicle reports. Pirates tried to take over the cargo ship April 8, but were fought off after about 12 hours. They took the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips, hostage, holding him for five days before U.S. Navy snipers freed him by killing three pirates simultaneously. The companies relied "on the United States military (and taxpayers) to provide after-the-fact rescue operations at substantially more cost and risk to human life than what would have been incurred by defendants had they provided appropriate levels of security in the first place", Hicks said in his complaint. Hicks "sustained and suffered physical pain" and "mental anguish," according to his petition. He seeks compensation for medical costs and other damages. The companies didn’t provide adequate protection to the crew, according to the petition.

Kidnap and ransom cover gives ship owners certainty, says lobbyist Zack Phillips in Business Insurance and elaborates: The standoff with Somalian (sic!) pirates holding the captain of the MV Maersk Alabama hostage on a lifeboat is an example of why ship owners should buy kidnap and ransom insurance, providers say. Because the hostage was off the insured vessel and the cargo ship itself was not in peril, the scenario might not be covered by the ship's war risk insurance, some underwriters say. Observers say the number of ship owners buying K&R insurance has increased markedly in recent months, but it is difficult to determine the total number using the coverage because the policies mandate secrecy. Disclosure of K&R coverage typically voids the policy. In some ways, K&R cover could be considered double insurance, because the cost of paying ransom typically also is covered under the piracy peril in a war risk policy. But the breadth of war risk policies has been a source of debate.

Theoretically, war risk insurance covers damage to a ship or cargo by an act of war, and Somali pirates mostly have returned hijacked ships and cargo undamaged in exchange for ransom. Insurers say K&R provides coverage certainty of the cost of ransom, as well as the costs of negotiating, delivering the ransom, providing counseling for hostages, and related expenses that a war risk policy might cover in part or not at all. "(K&R) policies remove any doubt as to whether that event is covered and where that money is coming from", said Derek Rogers, managing director of the kidnap and ransom team at Hamilton, Bermuda-based Hiscox Ltd. War risk policies carry a list of risky waterways.

A ship owner that wants vessels to transit one of the listed areas must alert the underwriter and typically must pay an additional premium. K&R insurance can cost $30,000 for a single voyage in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia, said Peter Townsend, head of marine hull for Chicago-based broker Aon Corp. Mr. Rogers said additional premiums for a war risk policy on the same voyage can be even higher. The price for war risk coverage can increase immediately based on recent events. Steve Lewis, VP of marine at New York-based Navigators Group Inc., on April 15 said the additional premium for steaming through the Gulf of Aden rose 40% the previous week. Mr. Lewis said that ambiguities over how piracy is covered would decrease as ship owners buy more K&R insurance. "You wouldn't have heard about K&R six months ago at all in the marine market", Mr. Lewis said. "Now certainly it's very popular with ship owners".

Comment: We wonder how much kick-back or provisions the Somali Pirates are paid to generate all this golden business !

International security agencies citing Kenya as a hub for piracy-related money laundering activities disputed. A report by the US State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs says Kenya’s financial system may be laundering more than $100 million (Sh7.8 billion) each year due to the government’s failure to develop an effective anti-money laundering (AML) regime. "Kenya lacks the institutional capacity, investigative skill and equipment to conduct complex investigations independently. There have been no arrests or prosecutions for money laundering or terrorist financing", the report says. It adds that even for the existing regulations, there is little enforcement. It cites the cross-border currency controls that require any amount of cash above $5,000 (Sh393,000) to be disclosed at the point of entry or exit for record-keeping purposes, but says this provision is rarely enforced, and authorities keep no record of cash smuggling attempts.

Recent investigations in which a local bank was linked to laundering of tax evasion proceeds illustrate Kenya’s vulnerability to money laundering, the report adds. "This case illustrates that criminals have been taking advantage of Kenya’s inadequate AML regime for years by evading oversight and/or by reportedly paying off enforcement officials, other government officials and politicians". It also says that Kenya has not criminalized the financing of terrorism as required by the United Nations, adding that with the exception of intercepted drugs and narcotics, seizures of assets are rare. Somali MP Awad Ahmed Ashareh denied reports that proceeds from piracy were being laundered in Kenya, saying investigations indicated that none of the Somalis who had invested in the country had links with pirates.

Another MP, who sought anonymity, named Puntland in Somalia, Djibouti and unidentified Western countries as among those benefiting from piracy, according to the report in The East African. "These pirates are well-connected and some work with mafias and other international criminals who supply them with arms through countries like Yemen", the MP, who was in Nairobi for a recent IGAD meeting, said. The pirates, he said, were organized into three groups: those with military tactics who launch the first attack; educated ones with technological know-how who use satellite phones and computers to communicate with owners of the ships and demand ransoms; and those who collect the ransom. Former fishermen who understand the waters help them navigate routes. Mr. Ashareh said piracy erupted in Somalia in the 1990s when Somalis organized themselves to fight fishermen from Western countries who were fishing in Somali waters. Once they had this under control, some of the Somalis resorted to hijacking ships and found it to be lucrative. Now, maritime experts warn that for as long as ship owners continue to pay the huge ransoms demanded, piracy will continue to thrive. Mr. Ashareh called on the international community to help the troubled country establish governing institutions to curb piracy, saying the Somali Transitional Federal Government urgently needed help to establish court systems, and police and coastal guards.

Press Contacts:

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

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

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

End of Ecoterra Press Release

Note
Picture: MSC MELODY - From: http://suomenkuvalehti.fi/s/mediagallery/2009/4/27/142598/wq27175ww.jpg