U.S. and Oman Navy Rescue Indian Dhow from Somali Pirates - One Sailor Dead
Somalia – (sap/ecoterra) The president of the Kutch Vahanvati Association (KVA) Kasam Ali Bholim said the vessel ‘Faiz-E-Osmani’, was rescued by a joint operation of US and Oman navies.
The navies could easily catch up with the small cargo vessel, which has a maximum speed of 6-7 knots only.
The white-green Indian-flagged dhow MSV OSMANI (aka MSV FAIZ-E-OSMANI, aka MSV FEIZE-E-OSMAN), a launch of 500 tons with 8 sailors was sea-jacked on March 28, March 28, 2010 at 1530 hrs at position S 05-11-517 E51-17.
One of the sailors died as he jumped into the sea fearful of getting hurt, a shipping association today said.
“The navies which were searching for pirates in the sea near the Somalia coast spotted the vessel and cautioned the Indian sailors on board to take cover before the rescue operation began,” Bholim told PTI.
“One of the sailors Sultan Ahmed Khijja jumped into the sea fearing that he might get hurt during the operation.
He was rescued but could not be saved as he had gulped water in large quantity,” he said.
No information was immediately available on the fate of the Somalis.
Bholim said that they came to know about the incident when the US Navy called the vessel’s owner in Dubai and informed them about the rescue. The owner also informed the KVA about the entire incident, he said. All the sailors rescued are from Mandvi taluk in Kutch district, including Khijja, he told NDTV.
“The body of Khijja has been taken to Muscat. I got a phone call from the Indian Embassy there informing about the incident,” Bholim said.
“They would be soon sending the body to Mumbai, and would be informing us about the date,” he said.
Sultan is survived by his wife and a small girl, who live in Mandvi.
Bholim said he had no information about any capture of pirates.
KVA has already approached the port authorities in Gujarat and the Director General Shipping in this regard.
Following concerns raised by the sailors’ association, India has approached the Somalian government for help to ensure the release of the captured dhows and over 80 Indians still in the captivity of pirates.
The spree of hijackings in the last week of March has triggered concerns as the incidents took place quite away from the Gulf of Aden near the Somalian coast which is notorious for piracy.
An attempt by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden to hijack an Iranian oil tanker was nipped in the bud after an Iranian fleet of ships present in the region rushed to the scene and attacked the buccaneers’ vessels, the Iran’s Fars News Agency reported Sunday.
The Iranian fleet which was patrolling in the area rushed to the scene after it received an SOS message from the Iranian tanker and curtailed the attempted hijack through a timely and swift operation.
Iran Faraz is now heading to Turkey without having sustained any damage.
The Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008, when Somali raiders hijacked the Iranian-chartered cargo ship, MV Delight, off Yemen’s coast.
The Iranian Navy has recently dispatched a seventh flotilla of ships to the Gulf of Aden to defend the country’s cargo ships and oil tankers against continued attacks by Somali pirates.
The Iranian Army’s Navy announced in a statement in mid March that it dispatched forces to the Gulf of Aden and northern Indian Ocean after a special ceremony in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas attended by Commander of the Navy’s Southern Fleet Admiral Ebrahim Ashkan and other senior commanders.
The Iranian Navy’s seventh fleet is comprised of two destroyers named “Sabalan” and “Khark” which were dispatched from the first naval zone.
According to U.N. Security Council resolutions, different countries can send their warships to the Gulf of Aden and coastal waters of Somalia against the pirates and even with prior notice to Somali government enter the territorial waters of that country in pursuit of Somali sea pirates.
The Gulf of Aden – which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea – is an important energy corridor.
Iranian Navy foils pirates’ attempt to hijack oil tanker (MehrNewsAgency)
Iran’s navy has thwarted attempts by Somali pirates to hijack an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden. The tanker, named Iran-Faraz, was heading toward Turkey when it was attacked by four speedboats belonged to the Somali pirates.
However, the speedboats fled the area after an Iranian navy fleet carried out a military operation against them.
Iran has sent a number of warships at different stages to the Gulf of Aden in order to provide security for the national and international ships sailing in the area.
Piracy has flourished over the past 2 years off the busy Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean shipping lanes and seaborne gangs have seized several cargo ships and collected tens of millions of dollars in ransom for the safe release of crews and cargoes.
Another vehicle Carrier Attacked in Gulf of Aden
At 08h40 UTC on 06.04.2010 and at position:14:06.8N – 051:51.8E pirates in skiffs attempted to board a vehicle carrier underway in the Gulf of Aden. The master reported the incident to the coalition forces and enforced anti piracy measures. The skiffs aborted the chase.
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Seized S.Korean ship heading for Hobyo (AFP)
The South Korean supertanker Samho Dream, captured Sunday by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, was heading for the port of Hobyo, a pirate chief said Tuesday.
“The supertanker is coming here. There are dozens of pirates onboard,” Abdi Yare told AFP by telephone from Hobyo.
Fishermen in Hobyo, a pirate stronghold 300 kilometers north of Mogadishu, confirmed the tanker was expected to arrive there shortly.
“I’ve seen dozens of pirates heading out to sea this morning to escort the ship into land. But I think it’s still some way from the coast,” said Jama Hussein Adan, a Hobyo fisherman.
A Nairobi-based maritime group also confirmed the tanker had been seized by Somali pirates.
The South Korean-operated, Singapore-owned Samho Dream, which can carry more than 2 million barrels of crude, was seized on Sunday en route from Iraq to the United States.
Earlier Tuesday, a Foreign Ministry official in Seoul said a South Korean destroyer had caught up with Samho Dream but was keeping its distance from the vessel for the sake of the crew’s safety.
The operator, Samho Shipping, denied reports that it has been in contact with the pirates or started negotiations for the release of the crew and the ship. Attempts to reach the crew have so far been unsuccessful, a Samho official said.
A South Korean warship has caught up with a supertanker hijacked by Somali pirates but is keeping its distance from the vessel for the sake of the crew’s safety, officials said Tuesday.
The destroyer has tracked down the 300,000-tonne South Korean tanker Samho Dream, which is heading for Somali waters, a foreign ministry official said.
“At around 1:20 am (16:20 GMT Monday), the destroyer… arrived in waters where the Samho Dream was sailing and she is now operating near the tanker,” he told reporters on condition of anonymity.
“The hijacked vessel is now moving towards Somalia.”
A defence ministry official was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying the warship was staying about 30 miles (50 kilometres) from the Samho Dream for fear of endangering its crew of five South Koreans and 19 Filipinos.
The tanker, carrying an undisclosed amount of crude oil, was seized Sunday on its way from Iraq to the US state of Louisiana.
The 4,500-ton South Korean destroyer, which was in the Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy operations with about 300 soldiers on board, was ordered to move towards it.
A spokesman for tanker owners Samho Shipping said there had been no word from either the crew or hijackers since Sunday, after the ship sent a distress call to the South Korean destroyer saying three pirates had boarded it.
The foreign ministry has said the Seoul government would not engage in any negotiations with the pirates and would leave it to the ship’s owner.
Somali pirates, targeting one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes, raked in an estimated 60 million dollars in ransoms last year.
A South Korean tuna ship with 25 crew was hijacked by Somali pirates in April 2006. The ship and its crew were released after four months when a ransom was paid.
In 2007 Somali pirates seized two South Korean vessels and 24 crew. The crew were released after six months in captivity.
Pirates also hijacked a South Korean cargo ship with 22 sailors in September 2008. The crew were released after the ship’s owner paid a ransom.
Warship reaches VLCC pirates (SeaSenteniel)
A South Korean warship today caught up with Samho Dream, the VLCC that was hijacked by pirates over the weekend.
“The destroyer Chungmugong Yisunshin arrived in waters near the Samho Dream at around 1:20 am [Seoul time] and is now operating in its vicinity,” a Korean foreign ministry official told the country’s Yonhap news agency today.
The warship is keeping a close watch on the 319,360dwt vessel, the report said. Government officials earlier said there would be no attempt to intercept or board the hijacked vessel lest the crew be endangered.
The Korean-operated tanker has 19 Filipino and five Korean crew members. It was seized in the Indian Ocean on 4 April while en route from Iraq to the US. The tanker’s cargo of 2M barrels of crude, worth up to $170M at current market prices, is owned by Valero Energy of San Antonio, Texas, and destined for a refinery on the Gulf of Mexico, according to IHS Global Insight.
The ship’s operator, Samho Shipping, said the pirates have not made contact to demand a money to release of the ship and crew, Yonhap reported. IHS Global Insight warned: “Somali pirates up to now have shown themselves to be unafraid of firing relatively heavy weapons on and from crude tankers. Maintaining presence will still, however, make it somewhat more difficult for the pirates to operate on and around the vessel.”
Meanwhile, a Dutch warship has recaptured a German-flagged box ship soon after its hijacking in the Indian Ocean, EU NAVFOR reported today. The 12,612dwt Taipan was hijacked yesterday about 500 n-miles off Somalia, forcing its crew to stop the ship’s engines, hide in a secure strong room and alert the anti-piracy force.
EU NAVFOR sent the light cruiser Tromp to find Taiwan. Marines boarded the ship, took control and detained the suspected pirates onboard.
Also, ‘K’ Line said its box ship Hamburg Bridge was attacked by pirates off Somalia yesterday, but the crew steered clear of capture with minor damage and no injuries.
—- news from sea-jackings, abductions, newly attacked ships as well as seafarers and vessels in distress —-
Gaining fast on the pirates who had seized a German freighter, Dutch naval captain Col. Hans Lodder had no time to waste on bureaucracy.
Sidestepping the command of the European Union’s anti-piracy task force, he went instead to his own government for authorization to recapture the ship by force.
Lodder first ascertained that the Taipan’s crew had locked itself in a bulletproof room. Then he launched his ship’s Lynx helicopter with a team of six special forces marines.
With troops providing cover fire from the helicopter, the marines rappelled onto the ship’s deck of the MV Taipan to shoot it out, if need be, with the pirates. But they met no resistance. The 15-man crew was rescued, and 10 Somali pirates were captured.
“The pirates surrendered the moment they saw the marines,” Lodder said in a telephone interview Tuesday from the Dutch frigate Tromp. No one was injured.
Monday’s successful rescue showed that, when swift decisions are needed, it can be quicker to work around the European Union’s command.
It was the first time a Dutch ship involved in the EU mission had used force to recapture a hijacked ship. An EU spokesman could not immediately recall any incident when troops under EU command had boarded a seized ship under the threat of fire.
Lodder said he decided to seek permission from his own command for an “opposed boarding” — one where pirates may resist — rather than act under procedures laid down by Brussels.
“We just told my force commander we would operate under national command until after the boarding,” Lodder told The Associated Press. “We kept everyone in the EU informed of everything we did.”
A spokesman for the EU mission acknowledged the Dutch action avoided a delay and was legitimate.
“For speed of reaction, if you’re on the spot … (and) dispatched at haste to react to something immediately, the best thing to do is to go under national command,” said Cmdr. John Harbour, U.K.-based spokesman for the European Union Naval Force Somalia.
“If we were about to conduct an operation with a bit more time on our hands then we may well have gone through the standard EU process with a view to consulting,” he added. “That consultation just takes a bit longer.”
Harbour also said the Taipan was sailing outside the zone covered by the EU mission when it was rescued, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of Somalia.
Dutch Defense Ministry spokesman Robin Middel said EU authorization was sidestepped to speed up the rescue.
Bibi van Ginkel, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael think tank’s Security and Conflict Program in the Netherlands, said opting out of a multinational mission was possible at sea because ships are sailing under their national flags anyway.
It would be more difficult in land-based peacekeeping missions because the nations involved operate under the jurisdiction of the country they are deployed to, she said.
The Tromp may turn over the 10 captured Monday to German or Dutch prosecutors for what would be a rare European piracy trial.
Pottengal Mukundan, director of the Commercial Crimes Services of the International Maritime Bureau in London, which monitors pirate attacks, praised the Dutch rescue operation.
“It is unusual and very welcome” that a navy recaptures a ship from pirates, he said. “That is absolutely the right thing to do. By denying the pirates their prize it does deter them from taking these actions.”
Harbour, of the EU naval force, said the Dutch mission highlighted not the EU’s laborious decision-making processes, but rather its ability to navigate a way quickly through them.
The Dutch rescue mission came a day after suspected Somali pirates hijacked a South Korean-operated supertanker carrying about $160 million of crude oil in the Indian Ocean. A South Korean navy destroyer caught up with the tanker on Tuesday and was sailing nearby.
South Korea’s navy received a call Sunday from the South Korean-operated 300,000-ton Samho Dream, sailing from Iraq to the United States, saying three pirates had boarded it and then lost contact.
At the time, the tanker was about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) southeast of the Gulf of Aden. It has 24 crew — five South Koreans and 19 Filipinos.
The destroyer caught up and began operating near the hijacked supertanker as of early Tuesday South Korean time, which was late Monday where the ships were operating, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The tanker was sailing toward Somalia’s coast, the ministry said.
Mukundan said his organization has logged 42 attacks on shipping off the Horn of Africa so far this year including 10 hijackings.
(*) Associated Press Writers Sangwon Yoon and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, Tom Maliti in Nairobi, Kenya and Amy Shafer in Chicago contributed to this report.
[N.B.: Boxship TAIPAN is expected at Mombasa port in Kenya in about a week's time.]
Details of yesterday’s ATTACK REPORT
05.04.2010: 03h13 UTC: Posn: 18:21N – 059:01E: 110 nm south of Masirah island, Sultanate Oman.
Three skiffs chased a chemical tanker underway. The master sent a distress message requesting for help. Two skiffs came very close to the tanker and pirates placed a ladder on the vessel’s side to board. Due to evasive manoeuvres pirates failed to board the vessel. A warship arrived in the vicinity to assist the vessel. No injury to crew but RPG damage to vessel.
Combined Maritime Forces Flagship Intercepts Somali Pirates (defpro)
The Flagship of Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, USS Farragut (DDG 99), intercepted suspected pirates in the Somali Basin yesterday.
The Sierra Leone-flagged tanker MV Evita came under attack 500 km north-west of the Seychelles by three suspected pirate skiffs. During the attack, the pirates fired rifles and aimed rocket propelled grenades at the vessel in an attempt to force it to stop. The MV Evita was able to evade attack by adopting industry recommended ‘best management practices’; increasing its speed and firing flares at the pirates to warn them off.
The Master of MV Evita informed the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) based in Kuala Lumpur and the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) office in Dubai. Upon receiving the piracy report, UKMTO contacted coalition forces operating in the area.
A Swedish Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPRA), from EUNAVFOR, contacted the MV Evita and subsequently located the suspected pirate skiffs. A SH-60B Seahawk helicopter, from Farragut, was immediately dispatched to monitor the pirates while the suspected pirate skiffs were boarded.
Eleven suspected pirates were aboard the skiffs, along with fuel drums and grappling hooks. The MPRA had previously witnessed the suspected pirates throwing ladders and equipment overboard.
After ensuring that the suspected pirates had no means to conduct any more attacks, all 11 were released on the two small skiffs, while the mother skiff was destroyed and sunk.
Commander, CTF 151, Rear Adm. Bernard Miranda, Republic of Singapore Navy, applauded the response to the incident, and said: “Today’s successful disruption operation was the result of close cooperation and swift responses from many parties, including the merchant ship MV Evita, the maritime organizations IMB and UKMTO, USS Farragut and the EU NAVFOR Swedish MPRA. The pirates have become bolder and are attacking ships further away from the Somali shores. This makes it even more important for all stakeholders to play their role and work closely together to deal with the piracy problem. What we witnessed today is a good example of how this can be achieved.”
The Master of MV Evita, CAPT Norberto Grubat from the Philippines, expressed his gratitude for the assistance rendered by the coalition forces and the maritime organizations, saying: “In future emergencies, I would definitely give you a call for assistance. Thank you very much for your help.”
CTF 151 is a multi-national task force established in January 2009 to conduct counter- piracy operations under a mission based mandate to actively deter, disrupt and suppress piracy in order to protect global maritime security and secure freedom of navigation for the benefit of all nations. CTF 151 is part of Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) which patrols more than 2.5 million square miles of international waters working to defeat terrorism, prevent piracy, reduce illegal trafficking of people and drugs, and promote the maritime environment as a safe place for mariners with legitimate business.
Dhow continues escape run to Sharjah by Charlie Hamilton and Loveday Morris (TheNational)
The crew of a Dubai-registered dhow that escaped Somali pirates is expected to arrive in Sharjah by the end of the week.
The 11-man crew of the MSV Al Kaderi contacted the boat’s owner, Ghani Khanani, about 3am yesterday to say the vessel had just passed Muscat.
“The captain rang me early [yesterday] morning,” he said. “They are still running on one engine. We are expecting them in the next two to three days but they are only travelling at about two or three knots.”
“They are heading to Sharjah,” he said, adding that would be the boat’s first stop.
The 500-tonne green-and-white vessel was attacked by three skiffs as it sailed close to the notorious pirate port of Hobyo, Somalia, on March 28.
It was met by the Omani coastguard on Monday, who provided the crew with food and water.
[N.B.: While showing compassion to poor seamen on board MSV AL KADERI (aka MSV AL KADRI) is certainly the right thing to do and only humane, the captain and the vessel must be immediately impounded upon arrival at the next harbour for illegal export of charcoal from Somalia, endangering the crew in smuggling operations and the attempt to illegaly import the consignement into the Gulf state country. India as flag-state should likewise immediately revoke the registration-licence for that vessel and assist the sailors to be repatriated.]
Sailor is freed (7Days)
The brother of a sailor taken by pirates has spoken of his relief after his Dubai-registered dhow was set free.
The MSV Al Kaderi was seized en route from Somalia to Dubai on March 28.
Ismail Mohammed Subhaniya, a family member of one of the sailors, said: “I spoke to my brother and he is doing good. We have been feeling tense for the past week as there was no word from him.”
About 80 sailors are still believed to be held on six other Dubai-bound dhows seized at the same time.
With the latest captures and releases now still at least 22 seized foreign vessels (24 sea-related hostage cases since yacht SY LYNN RIVAL was abandoned and taken by the British Navy) with a total of not less than 339crew members (incl. the British sailing couple) plus at least 9 crew of the lorries held for an exchange with imprisoned pirates, are accounted for. The cases 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 too. Over 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) had been recorded for 2008 with 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases for Somalia and the mistaken sinking of one sea-jacked fishing vessel and killing of her crew by the Indian naval force. For 2009 the account closed with 228 incidences (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 68 vessels seized for different reasons on the Somali/Yemeni captor side as well as at least TWELVE wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) on the side of the naval forces.
For 2010 the recorded account stands at 63 attacks resulting in 29 sea-jackings as well as the sinking of one merchant vessel (MV AL ABI) by fire from the Seychelles’s coastguard boat TOPAZ and the wrongful attack by the Indian navy on a Yemeni fishing vessel.
The naval alliances had since August 2008 and until March 2010 apprehended 826 suspected pirates, detained and kept or transferred for prosecution 419, killed at least 53 and wounded over 22 Somalis. (Actual independent update see: http://bruxelles2.over-blog.com/pages/_Bilan_antipiraterie_Atalanta_CTF_Otan_Russie_Exclusif-1169128.html).
Not fully documented cases of absconded vessels are not listed in the sea-jack count until clarification. Several other vessels with unclear fate (although 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 – like the S/Y Serenity, MV Indian Ocean Explorer.Present multi-factorial risk assessment code: GoA: RED / IO: RED (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely). Piracy incidents usually degrade during the monsoon season and rise gradually by the end of the monsoon. Starting from mid February until early April every year an increase in piracy cases can be expected.
If you have any additional information concerning the cases, please send to office[at]ecoterra-international.org – if required we guarantee 100% confidentiality.
For further details and regional information see the Somali Marine and Coastal Monitor at www.australia.to and the map of the PIRACY COASTS OF SOMALIA.
—————- directly piracy, abduction, mariner or naval upsurge related reports ——————–
PIRACY AND ILLEGAL TRADE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
That the smuggling of blood-diamonds, blood-gems and bloody ivory out of Africa as well as the trafficking of drugs, humans and arms is a serious problem in the trade by air and sea and much wider than commonly thought is shown once again by the report below. The positive and proactive example set by the Indian government to ban all the Indian-flagged motorized dhows from plying the waters west and south of a line Salalah (Oman) and Malé ((Maldives) until law and order are re-established in Somalia and the waters around the Horn of Africa therefore should be followed swift by other flag-states.
Four Thais Arrested For Smuggling Rubies In Mozambique (Bernama)
The Mozambican police have arrested four Thai citizens who were trying to smuggle rubies out of the country Saturday, Mozambique news agency (AIM) reported, citing the independent daily “O Pais”, as saying.
The four were detained at the airport in the northern city of Pemba, with the possession of over 30 kilogrammes of rubies valued at more than US$120 million, according to the police.
Rubies vary enormously in price depending on their quality. High quality stones can sell at over US$5,000 a carat.
One carat equals 200 milligrams, and so 30 kilos of rubies is an enormous 150,000 carats. If the weight given by the police is accurate, US$120 million is not an entirely fantastic estimate of the value, AIM reported.
According to the police, the four Thais were catching a Mozambique Airlines (LAM) flight from Pemba to Nairobi, and would then make their way back to Thailand.
“O Pais” adds that a Mozambican national was recently caught red-handed at the casino in the Nautilus hotel in Pemba trying to sell five kilos of rubies to Thai purchasers. Those rubies, plus the ones seized at the airport, now revert to the Mozambican state.
The paper cites anonymous sources who claim that members of the state security service, SISE, have been keeping a close eye on the Thais since they arrived in Pemba about a week ago.
The rubies come from the mines at Namanhumbir, in Montepuez district, some 200 kilometres west of Pemba.
On another incident, the police in the central province of Zambezia have arrested 29 Somali citizens (27 men and two women) who had entered the country illegally.
According to the police, the group came by boat down the east African coast and disembarked near the mouth of the Rovuma river in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. They then made their way through Nampula province into Zambezia, where they were arrested in Ile district on 30 March.
They were traveling in two vehicles, driven by Mozambicans – one of whom was a policeman named as Afonso Marrula.
The drivers claimed they had no idea the group were illegal immigrants. They were just giving them a lift from Nampula to Zambezia, because they took pity on them when they saw them at the side of the road, trying to flag down lifts.
They claimed they had received no money from the Somalis.
The police believe that this group of Somalis, like many others before them, were simply using Mozambique as a corridor, and that their final destination was South Africa.
Pirates’ plans go up in smoke by Asma Salman (gulfweeklyworldwide)
Audacious pirates who are continuing to plague the high seas have been taught a tough lesson by the Bahrain-based Combined Maritime Forces.
Tanker MV Evita came under rifle and rocket propelled grenade attack by three pirate skiffs in the Somali Basin at the weekend. The tanker radioed for assistance and the Flagship of Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, USS Farragut (DDG 99), was called into action.
A Seahawk helicopter, from Farragut, was immediately dispatched to monitor the pirates while the suspected pirate skiffs were boarded. Eleven pirates were found aboard, along with fuel drums and grappling hooks. They were also spotted throwing ladders and equipment overboard.
A Swedish Maritime Patrol Aircraft, from EUNAVFOR, contacted the MV Evita and subsequently located the suspected pirate skiffs.
After ensuring that the pirates could not conduct further attacks, all 11 were released on the two small skiffs, while the mother skiff was destroyed and sunk.
CTF 151 is a multi-national task force established in January 2009 to conduct counter-piracy operations under a mission based mandate to actively deter, disrupt and suppress piracy in order to protect global maritime security and secure freedom of navigation for the benefit of all nations.
The task force’s Bahrain-based spokesman Lieutenant Commander C F Woodman of the Royal Navy, added: “Pirates are becoming more aggressive and reaching further away from their base camps in Somalia to attack merchant and civilian ships.
“Attacks have been reported more than 2,000 kilometres away from the Somali coastal town of Harardheere with pirate activity being reported around 2,655km from Harardheere, reaching deep into the Somali Basin and far into the Indian Ocean.”
Recently Somali pirates seized a Turkish-owned cargo ship loaded with fertiliser in the Indian Ocean, well outside the patrolled zone.
Faced with increased insurance costs and having paid out millions of dollars in ransom demands, private merchant ships are now employing their own tactics to counter the gun-totting pirates.
According to recent reports, private security guards aboard one merchant ship shot and killed a Somali pirate after a group of pirates attacked their vessel.
Lt Com C F Woodman said: “Statistics show that although piracy attempts have increased in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin, the number of successful attacks has been reduced considerably over the last year.” [N.B.: Well, there are lies, god-damned-lies and statistics.]
Shipping companies have also called on pirate mother ships to be destroyed in order to hit the pockets of criminals masterminding the raids from Somalia.
Somali pirates seized a supertanker carrying as much as $170 million worth of crude oil from Iraq to the United States on Sunday, the latest sign that sea gangs may be targeting bigger quarry.
The 333-meter-long (1,092-foot) Samho Dream, which can carry more than two million barrels of crude oil, was hijacked and its crew of five South Koreans and 19 Filipinos was taken hostage.
US refiner Valero Energy Corp said it was the owner of the crude oil cargo aboard the Samho Dream, which was hijacked off the east African coast.
The attempt at thwarting the Somalia-based freelance pirates from hijacking vessels on the high seas has not been very successful.
The poignant gratitude of the released crew of a UAE-bound dhow two days ago underscores the helplessness of the men who go to sea against this menace. The gangs have an eclectic approach to their victims and all vessels ranging from supertankers to dhows are legitimate prey. And prey on them is what they do. So, now that the Combined Task Force 150, a multinational defence group has clearly shown that patrolling the oceans is well nigh impossible is it necessary to take technology a step further?
The answer would have to in the affirmative. While there is some global resistance to deploying armed troops on seagoing merchant mariners because that would jeopardise civilian lives in case of combat (as compared to submission and hope of rescue) the consensus on something drastic having to be done seems to be a given. The piracy is only getting worse and in the past year has escalated. The pirates are not the least bit fazed by the presence of navies and their awesome firepower. Their stealth, their knowledge of the waters and their ability to hang in there till the ransom is paid indicates a very clever and sophisticated operational system is in place. These are not your rag-tag and bobtail Jolly Rogers taking a potshot at a passing boat in the hope of finding some gold coins.
This is more in keeping with proper intelligence, awareness of the target movements and constantly finding the soft underbelly of the marked ship.
There has to be cooperation and coordination between governments, ship owners and the naval forces of concerned governments either flying under the fiat of the UN or NATO and given the power to strike at the very heart of the pirates’ citadel. It is not going to be easy because the fear of reprisals against captured crew and others is always a deterrent to an open war. With so many lives and commercial property being endangered, it is necessary to involve the Somalian authorities – however weak and vulnerable—and make them culpable to at least a certain extent. Going the logical step further the combined task force should follow the money trail. Where is the finance coming from to fuel this ongoing attrition and where are the profits going? Therein will lie the solution and the beginning of the end of this problem.
European Union: Global Security Actor Or Paper Tiger? by Soeren Kern (GEES)
The future direction of European defense is at a crossroads. On the one hand, the NATO experience in Afghanistan has cast into stark relief the limits of European military capacities, not only at the operational but also at the political levels. On the other hand, the recently enacted Lisbon Treaty offers important new opportunities to improve European defense capabilities, especially at the institutional level. If the European Union is to establish itself as a credible security actor on the global stage, European governments will need to improve the way they work together on defense. But the biggest obstacle they face is overcoming the persistent lack of political will to do so.
2. Afghanistan Highlights European Shortcomings on Defense
In a recent speech about the future of the transatlantic alliance, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told an audience filled with military officers from NATO’s 28 member countries: “The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st century.”
The unusual public criticism of Europe by a senior American official came just a few weeks after the White House announced, by way of an American newspaper, that US President Barack Obama will not be attending the United States-European Union summit meeting scheduled for Madrid in May.
Many Europeans interpreted Obama’s decision as an insult and were angry and embarrassed by the news. But perceptive Europeans say the Obama administration was signalling its frustration with the unwillingness or inability of European leaders to commit more resources to help the United States solve global security problems, especially in Afghanistan.
With only a very few exceptions, NATO’s European members have under-resourced the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan from the very start by providing too few troops with too many restrictions on their deployments. While the United States has nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, the biggest European Continental powers — France, Germany, Italy and Spain — together have just 12,000.
In terms of troop losses, the United States has lost more than 1,000 servicemen and servicewomen in Afghanistan. The United Kingdom has lost 265, which is more than the rest of Europe combined. Many analysts say the disparity is due to the fact that most European troops deployed to Afghanistan are not allowed to fight.
Indeed, the United States might not be asking for more European troops in Afghanistan if the ones already there were not hamstrung by operational restrictions on combat, known as caveats, imposed by their governments or parliaments. At one point, NATO forces in Afghanistan were weighed down by 83 such caveats against fighting. As of late, that number has been reduced slightly to 70.
Some European governments prohibit their troops from operating at night. Others forbid them from operating outside of certain regions or districts. Still others allow their troops to fire only when fired upon. German troops, for example, are restricted to conducting operations in northern Afghanistan before nightfall and never more than two hours away from a hospital. Troops from some southern European countries are barred from fighting in the snow. Only Britain, Denmark, Poland and the Netherlands have been on the front line of combat with their troops operating without any caveats or restrictions.
The proliferation of European caveats has prompted some US soldiers to bitterly joke that ISAF stands for “I Saw Americans Fighting” or “I Stop at Five.” Others say that military forces that cannot be sent into combat are not really military forces at all.
Europe has also been criticized for failing to meet its commitments in soft power specialties, such as training and development, in Afghanistan. For example, in 2007 the EU agreed to take over police training from Germany, after the bloc had come under pressure from NATO to play a greater role in building up Afghan security forces. But three years later, the EU’s police training mission in Afghanistan remains understaffed and underfunded, and lacks adequate security and transportation. Moreover, EU member states prohibit most of their staff from leaving Kabul, the Afghan capital.
In February, the Netherlands became the first NATO ally to announce that it is abandoning the fight in Afghanistan, following the collapse of the center-right government over its involvement in the US-led war against the Taliban. The decision by the Dutch to pull their nearly 2,000 troops out of Afghanistan may provide cover for wavering politicians elsewhere. Canada, for example, is expected to begin withdrawing its 3,000 troops from Afghanistan in 2011. And polls show that the Afghanistan war has grown increasingly unpopular in nearly every European country.
3. A Post-European World?
Up until January 2009, the conventional wisdom was that Europe was not stepping up to the plate in defense-related matters because its leaders did not like George W Bush. However, President Barack Obama, who is far more popular in Europe than was his predecessor, is fighting the same uphill battle to persuade European allies to increase their troop commitments. The problem, however, extends far beyond Afghanistan.
The 27 member states of the European Union collectively spend around $200 billion annually on defence. By comparison, the US defense budget for 2010 rose to $533.8 billion, with additional spending on “overseas contingency operations” bringing the sum to $663.8 billion.
EU member states collectively allocate less than 1.7 percent of their gross national product on defense, far less than the world average, which falls at 2.4 percent of GDP. The United States spends 4.5 percent of its GDP on defense.
EU member states have close to 2 million personnel in their armed forces, but the EU can barely deploy and sustain 100,000 soldiers abroad. Over 70 percent of European land forces are unusable outside national territory because they have not been modernized since the end of the Cold War.
There are many different ways of explaining the erosion of European military capability in recent decades. Some scholars say the low priority Europeans place on defense spending reflects Europe’s reluctance to use military force, which in turn reflects Europe’s strong aversion to risk. Indeed, the EU and its institutions are often characterized by pacifism and the search for cooperative alternatives to war. Moreover, the EU’s security and defense ambitions are anchored in soft power such as diplomacy, development aid and civilian missions. In recent years, the EU has worked tirelessly to present its soft power model as the preferred alternative to the US hard powermodel, which relies on military force – or the threat of it – to secure national interests.
It remains unclear whether other emerging powers share the EU’s commitment to soft power. But recent trends in defense spending do show that Brazil, China, India and Russia all share the US commitment to military hard power. Unlike Europe, these countries are building up their militaries at a rapid clip, which implies that over the long term the EU’s neglect of military hard power threatens to condemn it to second-class status in any future multipolar international system.
The erosion of European military power, and the growing capability and interoperability gaps between the US military and its European counterparts, also threatens European ambitions to become a more useful partner for the United States. The United States is already cultivating new partners among emerging powers in Asia, for example, that are pro-American and more willing than the Europeans to deploy troops abroad.
The decision by Obama to skip the upcoming EU-US Summit in Madrid has only added to fears that Europe risks becoming “irrelevant” among the people who influence and make American foreign policy.
4. NATO’s New Strategic Concept
The dilemma for Europe is that as long as it refuses to be a military power, it will not be able to guarantee its own security. And that means Europe will continue to rely on NATO and especially the United States to provide that guarantee.
In that vein, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently underscored the Obama administration’s commitment to European security and to the transatlantic alliance. Speaking at the École Militaire in Paris, she said: “European security remains an anchor of US foreign and security policy. A strong Europe is critical to our security and our prosperity. Much of what we hope to accomplish globally depends on working together with Europe.”
She also said that NATO must transform itself in an era when its scope has expanded beyond traditional Cold War boundaries, and when the alliance faces a transformed strategic landscape with new enemies, ideologies and battle tactics that threaten its collective security.
In a separate speech outlining American priorities for NATO’s New Strategic Concept, a strategy document that will guide the alliance in coming years, Clinton said NATO must shift from a defensive alliance aimed at countering the Soviet Union to a forward-deployed multilateral force carrying out counterinsurgency operations in places like Afghanistan.
European leaders are likely to be wary of any Strategic Concept that expands NATO’s out-of-theatre role. But the Obama administration has signalled its willingness to meet European leaders half way in an effort to reach agreement on the Alliance’s underlying transatlantic strategic consensus.
In a change from previous policy, Clinton also said that the NATO alliance should work closely with the European Union on security issues. Clinton stated: “I know that in the past, the United States has been ambivalent about whether NATO should engage in security cooperation with the EU. Well, that time is over. We do not see the EU as a competitor of NATO, but we see a strong Europe as an essential partner with NATO and with the United States.”
5. Lisbon Treaty and European Defense
American policymakers have long been sceptical about the EU’s current Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) and its predecessors, fearing that the EU might end up competing with NATO for resources and manpower. Indeed, as NATO was drafting its current Strategic Concept in 1998, for example, then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the EU’s relationship to NATO should be guided by “the three ‘D’s’ — which is no diminution of NATO, no discrimination and no duplication — because I think that we don’t need any of those three ‘D’s’ to happen. On the other hand, I think it’s very important for the Europeans to carry a fair share and have a sense of their own defense identity.”
Perhaps no issue has a greater potential for generating transatlantic conflict than the question of the future militarization of the EU. Although supporters of the Lisbon Treaty have long denied that the document will lead to the creation of a European army, Article 28 of the treaty clearly establishes the legal basis to do so.
This was acknowledged in an op-ed article by the EU’s former foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who wrote: “Our capacity to deploy rapid reaction forces also needs strengthening. In the second decade of ESDP, the Lisbon Treaty will put all this within the EU’s grasp.”
The all-important question, then, is how will further European integration in the military realm impact NATO? More specifically, will ESDP be set up to compete with or to complement the alliance?
Article 27 of the Lisbon Treaty does stipulate that for “those States which are members of it,” NATO will remain “the foundation of their collective defense and the forum for its implementation.” But Article 28 A (7) duplicates NATO’s Article 5 commitment, which states that an attack against one member constitutes an attack against all members, by establishing an EU mutual defense clause. Elsewhere, Article 19 of the Treaty restricts the ability of individual EU member states to operate on the international stage on an independent basis.
It also remains unclear how the Lisbon Treaty will impact some of the structural problems facing European defense. Currently, three states — Britain, France and Germany — contribute almost two-thirds of all military spending within the EU, and the Lisbon Treaty does not address how that burden might be more equally shared.
In a sign that Britain, which has the biggest military in the EU, may be rethinking its long-standing resistance to European military integration, a recent Ministry of Defense discussion paper says that Britain cannot afford to pursue all of its current defense activities, its operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and invest in new systems all at the same time. In a shift from previous policy, the paper says greater defense cooperation, including with other European nations, could help make stretched budgets go further. A newfound British openness on European defense could change the political dynamics in Europe and ease the way for greater European defense cooperation.
6. European Defense: A Paper Tiger?
In any case, after decades of debate about European defense, the EU still has little to show for it. Indeed, with the CSDP (previously known as ESDP, but renamed CSDP by the Lisbon Treaty) marking its tenth anniversary, European defense has come nowhere near to meeting the high expectations set for it when it was conceived in 1999.
This is partly because EU member states have been unable to articulate a clear and coherent European strategic interest that is realistic in scope and enjoys the support of European public opinion. Moreover, the debate over the future of European defense has been hamstrung by national rivalries and mutual distrust, especially between Britain, France and Germany, the three biggest military powers in Europe.
Since 2003, the EU has successfully organized 22 crisis-management missions to far flung places such as Chad and Somalia, but only six of these missions have been military operations.
The EU’s anti-piracy mission off the Horn of Africa (EUNAVFOR), also known as Operation Atalanta, has achieved some early successes in warding off pirate attacks along the East African coast. But the operation, which was established in 2008 and is scheduled to run until the end of 2010, is less than half as big as the US-led Combined Task Force 151, which is being coordinated by the US Fifth Fleet. Meanwhile, the European-led United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), whose mandate is to enforce an arms embargo in southern Lebanon, has been criticized not only for allowing Hezbollah to rebuild its arsenal, but also for having Hezbollah militants “escort” UNIFIL patrols.
In any case, the EU has not yet carried out a military operation on anything like the scale of the NATO operation in Afghanistan, and CSDP cannot be seen as conferring on Europe anything like the superpower status so many European strategists crave.
With CSDP, as with NATO, Europe suffers from two essential weaknesses: a persistent lack of deployable hard-power defence capability, notably strategic airlift and sealift, and a debilitating lack of unity of purpose. For example, the EU is not even close to establishing the 60,000-strong Rapid Reaction Force that has been a “Headline Goal” for nearly a decade. The EU currently is having a hard time deploying even one battlegroup of 1,500 troops, to be drawn from the same troops currently committed to NATO.
EU defense cooperation has not fared much better. Europe’s two biggest common defense projects, the A400M military cargo plane and the Eurofighter Typhoon, have been riddled with technical problems, cost overruns and disputes between the European partners. The long-term viability of both projects is in serious doubt. Meanwhile, the European Defense Agency, which was created in 2004 to improve European defense capabilities, remains understaffed.
Britain, France and Germany have also been at odds over French proposals create the EU’s first permanent operational headquarters in Brussels for planning military missions abroad. Britain and Germany have resisted the idea, seeing it as a French ploy to undermine NATO.
7. Conclusion
The 2008 French White Paper on Defense and Security states: “The European ambition stands as a priority. Making the European Union a major player in crisis management and international security is one of the central tenets of our security policy. France wants Europe to be equipped with the corresponding military and civilian capability.”
But in these times of severe economic downturn and rapidly shrinking defense budgets, CSDP is unlikely to emerge as a serious competitor to NATO anytime soon. In the meantime, NATO, despite its many shortcomings, will continue to be indispensible for European and transatlantic security.
(*) Soeren Kern is Senior Analyst for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group, where this article was first published and is reprinted with permission.
——— ecology , ecosystems, marine environment, IUU fishing and dumping, UNCLOS, humanities ————
Somalia appealed Tuesday for help to clear toxic waste dumped illegally on its vast coastline, arguing that the fight against toxic dumping goes hand in hand with the fight against piracy.
“If the international community wants to limit acts of piracy, it has to help Somalis keep illegal foreign fishing and toxic waste dumping away from their coasts,” Deputy Prime Minister Abdulrahman Adan Ibrahim Ibbi told African Union maritime security experts gathered here.
“We appeal the delegates attending this assembly … to share with my government (the) clearance of toxic material and nuclear waste containers dumped in African coastal areas,” he added.
Some of the containers came to surface when tsunami tidal waves hit Indian Ocean countries in 2004, he added in a speech.
Ibbi did not disclose where the waste was located but urged the bloc to take samples to assess the damage.
AU Infrastructure and Energy Commissioner Elham Ibrahim told the meeting the recent increase in both unlawful activities in African waters and in piracy off Somalia and in the Gulf of Guinea has prompted African leaders to act “to rid the continent of these scourges which are undermining economic activity and the image of the continent”.
Allegations that Somalia, lawless since the downfall of Siad Barre’s regime in 1991, has become a dumping ground for toxic waste have circulated since the early 1990s.
Somali pirates sometimes cite illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste as justification for the vessels they seize in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
The pirates who hijacked the Ukrainian ship MV Faina in September 2008 assailants demanded 35 million dollars in ransom to “clean up waste it dumped” along the Horn of Africa nation’s coast.
The ship was released after a 134-day ordeal, and a much smaller ransom was paid.
Somali pirates, targeting one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes, raked in an estimated 60 million dollars in ransoms last year.
7 killed by AWD in Mogadishu (Mareeg)
At least 7 people mostly children died and dozens were admitted to the Mogadishu hospitals for the past 24 hours, because of acute watery-diarrhea outbreak, officials said on Tuesday.
Ibrahim Muqtar Mohamed, Shanagani district commission under the administration of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG) said the disease was spreading rapidly in the district.
Doctors say the disease is caused by the hot atmosphere and the people drinking unclean water.
Mr. Ibrahim says they built a shelter in the district to control the spread of the disease which is killing children.
More that one million displaced people who fled from the wars in the capital live in Mogadishu outskirts and they do not have an access of clean water.
————————— anti-piracy measures ——————————–
Russia on Tuesday introduced in the Security Council a draft resolution which would call on the Secretary-General to prepare a report within three months outlining various options of stronger international legal system to ensure no impunity for pirates operating off the Somali coast, according to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
“The Security Council has been engaged actively in the matter of piracy off the coast of Somalia for the past 18 months. We think that so far the results are not entirely satisfactory. The problem continues to be there and in some respect is growing. We feel that one of the weak links in the entire set up and with all the energy that is being expanded by the international community is the legal process which would allow us to be sure that there is no impunity once pirates are caught,” Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters following a council meeting on Iraq.
Churkin said if the situation on the ground in Somalia improves, such as building the legal system or creating coast guard instruments, “that would help.” But, he noted, the piracy industry is growing and therefore the international community must be able to deal with this challenge and an international mechanism will help.
Commenting to the press about the Russian initiative, Council President Yukio Takasu of Japan said the initial reaction is a “very positive” one.
Some members, he added, believe, however, that one cannot separate the issue of piracy from the whole situation on the ground in Somalia.
Russia urges measures to blunt worsening pirate attacks (dpa)
Russia called for United Nations-backed measures to stop piracy off the Somali coast, which has increased in numbers with some ships hijacked thousands of kilometres from the region, diplomats said Tuesday.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin planned to submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council, which would ask Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to recommend legal actions that include options to prosecute arrested pirates under national laws.Japanese Ambassador Yukio Takasu, the council president, said piracy has become “worst” in terms of statistics as well the surprising ability of pirates to seize ships and tankers on high seas and at far away distances.
“The situation is really serious, affecting many areas in the world,” Takasu told reporters following a closed-door council meeting. He said governments have no legal means to prosecute pirates because no such tribunal or legal mechanism currently exists.Regional security organizations like NATO and governments in Europe and Asia have banded together to deal with the pirates in recent years.
But their actions, involving naval ships, have not deterred pirate attacks.In a recent attack on Sunday, pirates seized the South Korean- owned tanker Samho Dream with 19 Filipino and five South Korean crew members on board off the coast of Somalia. Pirates have been operating mostly along shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.The attack took place some 1,850 kilometres from the Somali coast, triggering concerns that pirates were now widening their area of attack, said Noel Choong, director of the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy-reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur.The 300,000-ton tanker was sailing from Iraq to the United States when it was hijacked.
Taiwan confirmed last week that one of its deep-sea tuna trawlers was seized by pirates and towed to Somalia. The trawler was piloted by a Taiwanese captain and the crew included two Chinese and 11 Indonesians. Another Taiwanese fishing boat escaped the attackers.A total of five Taiwan fishing trawlers were seized by Somali pirates in recent years and they were set free after the owners paid ransoms.
Legal limbo makes Somalia piracy worse – Russia (Reuters)
Council delegations would continue discussing the draft at the expert level before putting it to a vote, he said. It was not clear when the resolution would be ready to vote on.
The hijacking of ships near the coast of Somalia, where an Islamist insurgency and lawlessness has created a pirate safe haven, has cost the shipping industry millions of dollars but it is difficult to prosecute those planning an attack.
Earlier on Tuesday, a South Korean navy destroyer caught up with a supertanker hijacked by pirates that is cruising towards the Somali coast with a cargo of crude oil worth as much as $170 million, an official said on Tuesday.
Russia, Japan, the European Union and others have sent naval forces to the region to combat the scourge of piracy.
But the European Union Naval Force’s operation commander, Rear Admiral Peter Hudson, told Reuters recently that some suspected pirates detained by EU NAVFOR have had to be released due to questions about who could try them.
Churkin said Moscow was “concerned” about reports of European authorities releasing suspected pirates.
Kenya has been holding a number of suspected pirates. But Churkin said media reports that Kenya would put an end to trials for them were unsettling.
“This is one of the reasons we think this resolution would be timely and appropriate,” he said.
One option, he added, would be to establish a special tribunal to try suspected pirates captured off Somalia.
Other Security Council diplomats have said privately that such special tribunals are complicated, expensive and might not be worth the trouble. It would be better, they said, to work with countries like Kenya to help them continue to prosecute pirates in national courts.
One year ago, the French navy intercepted 11 pirates off the coast of Somalia. Kenya, which borders Somalia, took on the role of judging the defendants, but its courts are full. How do you judge defendants in a country that is not their own? FRANCE 24 takes you behind the scenes of a legal system confronted with international piracy.
- see the VIDEO
African maritime experts meet in Addis to discuss security and safety (APA)
African experts on maritime security and safety gathered on Tuesday in Addis Ababa for a two day regional forum to share information on maritime security and safety among AU member states.
The regional forum also aims to consider the African Integrated Maritime Strategy (AIM-Strategy), a step towards a holistic policy to address the matter.
“The experts will therefore cover threats and vulnerabilities such as natural disasters and environmental degradation, environmental crimes, illegal fishing, oil bunkering, money laundering, illegal arms and drug trafficking, human trafficking, maritime terrorism and piracy and armed robbery,” said the African Union (AU) Commission, which is hosting the forum.
Mrs Elham Ibrahim, AU Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy told the gathering that African states have been mostly concerned by the declining capacity of their maritime industry over the past few years.
“However, recently, the growing menace of unlawful activities on African waters and the rapid escalation of piracy activities off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Guinea has meant that more attention be also given to matters of maritime security,” said Ibrahim.
She indicated that it was time to take action on the problem rather than taking time on discussions.
“As we move from talking to taking concrete action”, said Mrs Ibrahim, “my message has been of underscoring on the necessity of putting in place practical measures that would lead us to achieve real milestones in addressing each and every issue related to the current maritime security situation in Africa”.
Experts attending the forum underline the need to take action for maritime safety and security in order to protect fisheries which make “a vital contribution to the food and nutritional security of 200 million Africans and provide income for over 10 million.
Somali pirates: Why don’t more ships have private security? by Matthew Clark (CSM)
Somali pirates have been attacking farther out into the Indian Ocean for months, but many ships – such as the South Korean supertanker nabbed this weekend – still do not travel with a private security detail. Why not?
A South Korean naval destroyer has now caught up to the 300,000-ton Samho Dream, though it is unlikely to launch an assault on the ship due to the highly volatile nature of the cargo, reports the Associated Press.
When other tankers have been captured by Somali pirates – such as a Greek-flagged oil supertanker seized in November and a Saudi supertanker taken in 2008 – naval ships have done little more than shadow the ship toward the Somali coast, where pirates often keep the ship during ransom negotiations.
In the past year, pirates have moved farther out into the Indian Ocean to capture ships, a result of tighter patrols by the multinational naval force that combs the Gulf of Aden for piracy.
That’s leading more ships to hire private armed security units to protect them, reports the Monitor.
But not the Samho Dream.
“Somali pirates were believed to be inactive in the area where the tanker was seized,” according to the shipping company.
Despite the rise in piracy farther out to sea, this is not unreasonable. The Indian Ocean is vast and thousands of ships pass through each week unharmed.
“It’s understandable [that the Samho Dream did not have a security detail],” says Francisco Quinones, director of operations at Clayton Consultants, Inc., a security and risk management company based in Herndon, Va. “The odds of a piracy attack are still very, very low.”
Then there’s the cost. Hiring a security detail for shipments around the world can be very expensive.
There are also a range of sticky legal and logistical issues involved, says Quinones, whose firm offers crisis management training and ransom negotiation support for shipping crews, among a variety of other services.
It’s not easy to coordinate weapons permits in different countries, for instance. And what if your armed security detail fails to repel the attack? Will angry pirates retaliate once on board? And who’d be responsible for what comes of that?
On March 23, private security guards protecting a commercial ship shot dead a Somali pirate, the first recorded incident of its kind.
As the Monitor reported, the incident could be a glimpse of dicey times ahead.
“This could be the beginning of a violent period,” says E.J. Hogendoorn, head of the Horn of Africa program at the International Crisis Group’s office in Nairobi. “If [the pirates] see guys with shiny barrels pointing at them, they might fire first.”
————– no real peace in sight yet ————–
Heavy Fighting Breaks Out, Al-Shabab Seizes a District in Central Region (shabelle)
Heavy fighting between the Islamist fighters of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen and Ahlu Sunna Walajama’a has broken out at Mataban district in Hiran region, central Somali Somalia, officials and witnesses told Shabelle radio on Tuesday.
Reports say that the fighting flared up as the Islamist fighters of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen attacked bases of Ahlu Sinna waljama’a forces at Mataban district which reportedly said that Al-shabab fighters had taken over the control of the district on Tuesday morning.
Residents expressed concern over the exchange of heavy gunfire with shelling that bitterly continued as the clash continued. The real casualties of the fighting between the two sides is unclear so far. But high officials of Al-shabab who were contacted by Shabelle radio said that they had completely seized Mataban district – adding that the situation was now normal.
There is no comment about the clashes from the sides of Ahlu Sunn Waljama’a clerics, thought some officials of the Ahlu Sunna whom we had contacted by telephone confirmed that they had totally vacated from that district in Hiran region.
Reports say that the people of the district had great fears about the possibility of other violence that breaks out there once again while some sources indicate that there might be casualties of deaths and injuries of the civilians.
On the other hand reports from Dusomareb and Guriel towns in central Somalia say that there was tense situation and military movements making by the Islamist forces of Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a as their fighters fought with fighters of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen in Mataban district in Hiran region on Tuesday moening.
In other news from Fer-Fer district in the Somali region under the control of the Ethiopian government says that more of the transitional government troops who were reportedly training in the region over the past months had made military movements.
Police confiscate weapons and other explosive equipments by Mohammed Omar Hussein (Somaliweyn)
The Somali national police have on Tuesday exhibited weaponries and other explosive devices they have confiscated in an operation they have carried out in some districts in Banadir region.
In the last couple of weeks the Somali police have been carrying out thorough security operation in some of the districts in its territory of command.
An officer in the Somali national police Ali Hirsi who is best known as Ali Gab has today held a press conference for the press and has displayed what the police have confiscated in their routine security operations including weapons of different kinds, ammunitions and other explosive materials.
“All these weapons and these other explosive materials you can see here in front of you have been confiscated in an operation carried out by the Somali police, and we have confiscated all these in two districts alone that is Hamarweyne and Xamar Jajab, particularly just behind Super Cinema in Hamarweyne” said Ali Gab the police officer who displayed the weapons.
On the other hand the police officer has added that during the course of the operation there is a certain woman whose house was found many weapons and now the police investigation department is following up the case of the woman.
Al Shabaab executes one of their fighters (Mareeg)
Al Shabaab militants have executed Tuesday one of their fighters in the coastal town of Marka, the regional capital of Middle Shabelle region, witnesses say.
An Islamic court of al Shabaab in the town sentenced, Muse Abdi Abud to be shot dead in a public place.
Muse was accused of killing a civilian named, Ahmed Abdi Yusuf, in the region before.
Hundreds of people gathered in a stadium in the centre of the town where the fighter was executed.
The people have welcomed the execution and described as justice. Al Shabaab controls large swathes of southern Somalia.
PM Resigns Director of Mogadishu Port (shabelle)
Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharma’arke, the prime Minister of the transitional government of Somalia has resigned the director of the Mogadishu seaport and appointed a new manager for the post on Tuesday morning.
A circulation from the office of the Somali Prime Minister Sharma’arke dated April 6, 2010, has formally ordered Abdi Jinow Alsow, the director of the big port of the Somali capital Mogadishu to leave the office and chose as new director Hassan Ali Mohamed.
On top of the circulation that was obtained by Shabelle radio was written as follows: “knowing the Somali president Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the minister of ports and marine transportation and the police department of the transitional government, the director of the port was informed to leave office after the prime minister experienced the need of redoubling the activities of government institutions for collecting and keeping the national income and improving the economic situation.
Abdi Jinow Alsow, was appointed as the director of Mogadishu seaport in 2007 when Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was the president of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG) and the declaration also ordered all the government officials and institutions to following the dismissing processes.
[N.B.: The former port manager Abdi Jinow Alsow still stands also accused of human rights violations, since he held the expatriate crew of MV JAIKUR I against their will and in an hostage-like situation captive inside Mogadishu harbour for month until they could be freed by international efforts and the intervention of the Deputy-Prime-Minister of Somalia.]
Premier Sharmarke fires Mogadishu seaport manager, appoints another by Mohammed Omar Hussein (Somaliweyn)
The Prime Minister of Somalia honorable Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke has on Tuesday fired the overall manager of Mogadishu seaport honorable Abdi Jiinow, and appointed a new manager for the seaport.
Before the Prime Minister has fired Mr. Jiinow he has alerted the president of Somalia Sheikh Shariff Sheikh Ahmed, the Minister for sea transport and habours and the Somali police department and the entirety of the alerted bodies have endorsed the termination of Mr. Jiinow.Somaliweyn Website has received a copy of the decree which the termination of the seaport manger was written.
I the Prime Minister of the Somali republic I am hereby declaring that, I have officially fired the overall manager of Mogadishu seaport, the seaport plays a significant role in the rebuilding of the destroyed Somalia by Somalis, and after consultation with the concerned bodies this has became the ultimate solution;
1- >From today 06 April 2010, henceforth Mr. Abdi Jiinow is no longer the Manager of Mogadishu seaport, and till he will be appointed for another post he will remain in the Ministry of Work and Workers Development.
2- And from today onwards the new manager of Mogadishu seaport will be Hassan Ali Moalim.
Abdi Jiinow was the manager of Mogadishu seaport since 2007.
———— reports, news and views from the global village with an impact on Somalia ——————-
Ask any Somali anywhere in Somalia if Germany’s dispatch of 20 soldiers to train potential future mercenaries or pirates in Uganda is seen as “Support for Somalia”.
Germany – Support for Somalia from the German Government (auswaertigesamt.de)
The Federal Cabinet has agreed to support the international efforts to stabilize Somalia.Germany will send up to twenty soldiers to participate in the EU mission in Uganda aimed at training Somali security forces.
The European Union launched the EU Training Mission for Somalia (EUTM Somalia) on 15 February 2010. Around 100 trainers and 40 support staff will train the Somali security forces. In cooperation with the Ugandan army and the peacekeeping troops of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), EUTM aims to train 2000 recruits.
Training will take place at the Bihanga camp in Uganda. The mission is due to start at the beginning of May. It encompasses two consecutive six-month training phases.
Somalia – a country in a state of emergency
After nearly twenty years of civil war, hardly any state structures remain in Somalia. The country has become a refuge for pirates and jihadist combatants. There are 1.5 million internally displaced persons and 3.2 million people depend on humanitarian aid. This makes Somalia one of the world’s largest crisis areas.
The peace agreement signed in Djibouti in 2008 offers for the first time the possibility of a viable solution to the conflict that involves all political forces. The agreement produced a transitional government in Somalia that is supported by the international community.
In order to enable the Somali Government to perform basic functions and create at least a minimum of state order, the European Union and its international partners want to strengthen the state security forces.
Decision of the European Council on a European Union military mission to contribute to the training of Somali security forces, 15 February 2010
Combating piracy off the coast of Somalia
The German Bundeswehr has been involved in combating piracy off the coast of Somalia since 2008. On 17 December 2009, the German Bundestag extended the mandate for Germany’s participation in the EU operation Atalanta for an additional year.
* Operation Atalanta off the coast of Somalia forces, 15 February 2010 | 721 KB PDF |
Fix security and nobody will bother buying guns illegally by Peter Wanyoyi (DailyNation)
Muslims who pride themselves on sticking to the Koran view extremism as a virtue, not a fault. Islam’s reform movements that succeeded were not movements that made Islam more liberal, but that made it stricter, harsher and more unfeeling.
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Aside from the original Sunni-Shiite schism, which has its basis more in power politics than in theology, the spectrum within Islam itself always runs to the more extreme. A new alternative mosque that succeeds is likely to be a place more conservative and more hostile to the outside world. A new Islamic movement is usually one that calls for more blood and guts, and a lot less women walking around on the street. A movement that fails to do that rarely survives or essentially is forced outside of Islam if it does.
And so what the West’s pursuit of moderate Muslims really does is push them toward more extreme views. A Muslim ruler who develops closer ties with the West is forced to compensate for it by moving further to the extreme in order to avoid being vulnerable to domestic charges that he is a bad Muslim. It is no surprise then that Saudi Arabia, America’s closest ally in the Muslim world, is also the most extremist Muslim country on the planet, that is behind the growing push to the extreme around the world.
The Saudi Royal Family’s balancing act trades American support for them and their oil off by supporting the expansion and spread of increasingly radicalised mosques and imams. This is supposed to hold future Bin Ladens at bay. Meanwhile American politicians praise the country where women aren’t allowed to drive and non-Muslims can’t even set foot in Mecca for its commitment to moderate Islam.
The Western pursuit of moderate Muslims alone helps create more enthusiasm for pushing Islam further to the extreme. Once Western leaders define a Muslim group as moderate, new more extreme groups are quickly spawned in order to set a new bar for “True Islam”, as opposed to the compromise variety that the infidels praise. For example when Israel and the US announced that they had successfully made a deal with Arafat, the rise of Hamas was all but assured. When the UK or the US tries to treat Islamists as mainstream, not only do the Islamists become more extreme, but they develop new and more extreme rival groups.
So the pursuit of Muslim moderates not only pushes them into even greater extremes, but it spawns a host of new more extreme groups looking to capitalize on setting an even more extreme standard that will be praised for its faithfulness to the Koran. While the West tries to pretend it is bringing Muslims in from the cold, in fact it is turning up the heat.
While the term “Islamic Extremism” is commonly bandied about, the fact of the matter is that Islam possess an endless reservoir of “extremism”, simply because it’s always possible for a cleric to dig up more stringencies, and denounce those who don’t keep them as heretics. Somalia and Afghanistan, where Islamists beheaded Muslims for watching soccer games, teaching girls to cut hair, men for not having beards or for playing music– demonstrate just how boundless the reserve of extremism is. With historical bans on everything from playing chess to owning a dog to playing a musical instrument– there is always a new extreme to push toward.
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Islam is legitimized not through faith, but through violence, the “martyrdom” and “resistance” of Islamic terrorists and guerrilla groups fighting to enforce not only Islam, but their most radical interpretation of it on everyone. Thus the Saudi royal family and its various front groups that covertly conduct a political, immigration and armed Jihad are called “moderate”, but only by way of comparison to those like Bin Laden who want a completely armed Jihad. While by our standards the Saudis are heavily complicit in terrorism and Islamism, by Islamist standards, they’re weak and compromised. Because the standard set by Mohammed may allow for warfare by deception and falsehood, but it only truly glorifies war.
The tragic case of Israel’s attempts to make peace with its Muslim neighbors should have served as the “canary in the cage” for Western leaders. Because each time Israel has tried to make peace with neighbouring countries, it has actually driven them further away. Sadat’s cleverness at putting the cold peace that existed between Israel and Egypt on paper in exchange for land several times the current size of Israel, masked by friendly rhetoric, cost him his life. Mubarak, like virtually every Arab Muslim leader who maintains relations with Israel, must do so heavily disguised, and in between blasts of hateful rhetoric you might expect from Der Sturmer. The alternative would be to follow Sadat to the grave, or risk a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the country.
Since the peace treaties were signed with their respective countries, the populations of Egypt and Jordan now hate Israel and Jews more than ever because they feel “humiliated” that their countries maintain any relations whatsoever with Israel, instead of constantly trying to destroy them. This is not the view of some tiny minority of extremists, or even huge majority of extremists. It is the virtually universal view in both countries, cutting across all political boundaries, from left to right. It represents an absolute consensus. Because the only thing Muslims, both devout and secular, can agree on, is the destruction of the infidel.
In the 90′s, Israel attempted to resolve the terrorist campaign and the Palestinian Arab issue by signing a peace accord with Arafat. Not only did Arafat not keep the accord, but he actually dramatically ramped up the violence against Israel, once he was in power. Not only that he introduced a radical curriculum which helped create an entire generation of suicide bombers and terrorists who were taught and raised by the Palestinian Authority to hate and kill Jews. But for the mere fact that Arafat negotiated with Israel, even though he never kept his agreements and continued to engage in terrorism– Hamas became popular as the true voice of Islam, for its refusal to even negotiate with Israel. Once Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas took over and said that it was willing to have a temporary truce with Israel, after which it would once again resume trying to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. At which point, Al Queda opened a local office and denounced Hamas for selling out to the Jews, and promised to represent the true voice of the Islamic resistance.
There could be no better illustration of the self-destructiveness of trying to negotiate not only with terrorists, but with Islamic ones in particular. Even the process of trying to negotiate with them, increases both the violence and the extremism on their side.
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While liberal commentators and pundits writing about the War on Terror frequently claim that fighting terrorists creates more terrorists, killing terrorists actually reduces the overall number of terrorists. By contrast trying to negotiate with terrorists, actually creates large numbers of them, and promotes the spread of terrorism in far more devastating ways, because it promotes increased extremism, gives rise to new terrorist groups and does nothing to actually thin out their ranks.
Islam cannot be mainstreamed, because it does not accommodate itself, it expects to be accommodated. To the true believer, Islam exists as a force over the lives of men, or it is nothing at all. For the Muslim, living in a country without Islam law means living in a country with injustice. And living in a country with Islamic law, means that the injustice that does exist must be blamed on a watered down version of Islam, to which the solution as always is the sword, the cane and the rule of the Religious Police. There is no moderating such a mindset. Not when religion is indivisible from seizing power to enforce the most rigid version of the Islamic code available at a given moment.
But any attempt to mainstream Islam makes it appear compromised. A Muslim leader who is willing to shake hands with an infidel is already suspect in the eyes of many, for he appears to be accommodating an infidel, and thereby humiliating Islam. So a Muslim leader who does shake hands with an infidel, must be careful to denounce infidels loudly and thereby prove that he is more extreme than the extremists. This creates two-faced “moderates” who say one thing in English and another thing in Arabic, trying to play both sides at the same time. And the result leaves many Western leaders baffled, or incapable of believing that the same charming fellow they had tea with last week, just endorsed the Taliban and suggested that it’s time to bring back stoning for adultery in the UK. In the liberal model the two seem to be worlds apart. But in the Muslim model, they’re just realpolitik.
Western pundits and politicians who insist on applying their model of extremism and moderation to Islam are as foolish as an explorer trying to find a straight line route through a cave system. Western countries have socially and politically enacted a thermometer style model of beliefs that are lukewarm, not too hot and not too cold, which are mainstream and accepted. Within Islam the socially accepted part of the thermometer is as hot as you can get. But even more perversely, “hot” is defined relative to any attempt at moderation. So every time, Western countries attempt to cool down Islam to a more moderate temperature, they only succeed in making it hotter.
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We can see the results all around us. In such a hothouse atmosphere, negotiation quickly becomes appeasement. The old extremism becomes the new moderation, and the old moderation becomes the new heresy. Peace yields violence. Attempts at finding common ground give birth to terror. The entire thing is irrational and downright crazy from the Western perspective, which has failed to understand that its attempt at reason and tolerance are not making things better– they are only feeding the flames and making the entire situation much worse. Western liberals accuse everyone else of condescending and imposing their own worldview on Islam, but in fact it is they who are doing so, by failing to understand that their clumsy attempt to find common ground is actually escalating the situation.
Moderation in Islam has never come from without, but from within, from Muslim rulers who were worried about the destabilizing effects of Islamism on their power. But such a state of affairs has never lasted, because sooner or later, Islam returns to its roots, and channels anger, dissatisfaction, greed and power into a weapon. Because those are the roots of Islam, to serve as the private army of Mohammed, to make war on the world in the name of imposing its will on it. There can be no peace with Islam. Only temporary truces. Ages of weakness. But in the end the tide goes out again. And the storm comes. And with it war.
(*) From NY to Jerusalem, Daniel Greenfield Covers the Stories Behind the News
The Russell-Einstein Manifesto
Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein
The Russell-Einstein Manifesto by Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein and many other scientists including Joseph Rotblat was first issued on July 9, 1955 in London. See http://www.pugwash. org/about/ manifesto. htm The Nuclear Review, Issue#8: The Russell-Einstein Manifesto,
July 9,1955, London,
See also: http://en.wikisourc e.org/wiki/ Russell-Einstein _Manifesto for full history of the Manifesto in WikiSource .
In the tragic situation which confronts humanity, we feel that scientists should assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction, and to discuss a resolution in the spirit of the appended draft.
We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism.
Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.
We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.
We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to
all parties?
The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with nuclear bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old, and that, while one A-bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one H-bomb could obliterate the largest cities, such as London, New York, and Moscow.
No doubt in an H-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York, and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially since the Bikini test, that nuclear bombs can gradually spread destruction over a very much wider area than had been supposed.
It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radio-active particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish. No one knows how widely such lethal radio-active particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.
Many warnings have been uttered by eminent men of science and by authorities in military strategy. None of them will say that the worst results are certain. What they do say is that these results are possible, and no one can be sure that they will not be realized. We have not yet found that the views of experts on this question depend in any degree upon their politics or prejudices. They depend only, so far as our researches have revealed, upon the extent of the particular expert’s knowledge. We have found that the men who know most are the most gloomy.
Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.
The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term “mankind” feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity. They can scarcely bring themselves to grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly. And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited.
This hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use H-bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture H-bombs as soon as war broke out, for, if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious.
Although an agreement to renounce nuclear weapons as part of a general reduction of armaments would not afford an ultimate solution, it would serve certain important purposes. First, any agreement between East and West is to the good in so far as it tends to diminish tension. Second, the abolition of thermo-nuclear weapons, if each side believed that the other had carried it out sincerely, would lessen the fear of a sudden attack in the style of Pearl Harbour, which at present keeps both sides in a state of nervous apprehension. We should, therefore, welcome such an agreement though only as a first step.
Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.
There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.
Resolution:We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:
“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”
Signed:
Max Born, Percy W. Bridgman, Albert Einstein, Leopold Infeld
Frederic Joliot-Curie, Herman J. Muller, Linus Pauling, Cecil F. Powell
Joseph Rotblat, Bertrand Russell, Hideki Yukawa
German Peace Activists Demand Removal Of U.S. Nuclear Arms
German peaceniks demand that US remove nukes (Voice of Russia)
Easter peace pickets outside an American airbase in Rhineland-Palatinat e have called for the removal of all American nukes from German territory.
They said they believed the Americans are illegally storing 20 thermonuclear devices at the base.
Belgium: 1,000 Protest Against U.S. Nuclear Arms At NATO Base
Demostrators protest against U.S. nuclear weapon storage in Belgium (XinhuaNewsAgency)
Some 1,000 people gathered Saturday outside the Kleine Brogel military base in Belgium’s eastern Limburg Province in protest of U.S. nuclear weaponry deployment in the base.
The demonstration was part of a Europe-wide protest on the European Day of Action against nuclear weapons, which falls on Saturday.
Ingrid Baeck, spokeswoman of the Belgian Defense Ministry, said some 900 military personnel and 250 policemen were put on guard for the demonstration, adding that all 431 detained protestors had been released.
She said the protests were non-violent and under control, with no actions of burning or smashing.
The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference will be held on May 3, during which 187 signataries will deliberate on a protocol for NPT’s future implementation, while the NATO will also revise its strategic concept in 2010, said Inez Louwagie, spokesman for Vredesactie (Peace Action), a movement advocating a society in which conflicts are settled in a non-violent manner.
The spokesman said he hoped the Belgian politicians would carry out more legal actions for a nuclear-free Europe instead of paying lip service.
In Iran: “There is no difference between journalism and intelligence” (Index on Censorship)
Maziar Bahari was imprisoned by the Iranian regime for attempting to report on 2009′s disputed election. He describes his ordeal, and suggests what can be done to help journalists jailed by the Islamic Republic
Being a journalist in Iran is one of the most insecure jobs in a country run by one of the most insecure governments in the world. The Islamic Republic has made journalists its prime target. More than a hundred journalists have been arrested since the disputed presidential elections last summer. It’s very difficult to put a precise figure to the number in prison because it’s been a revolving door. They arrest a group of journalists one day and they let others go the next day. The government is trying hard to prove that it is in control and in charge of the lives of each and every citizen.
In the age of the Internet and satellite television the Iranian government is trying hard to change the tide of history. It wants to take Iran back to the era of shortwave radio and terrestrial television, media that it could easily censor and control. A wise government would listen to the voices of its own people. The Iranian government is shooting the messenger.
“You should not break a mirror because it shows your faults. You should change yourself,” goes a Persian saying. By breaking the mirror the Islamic Republic is losing its legitimacy as a religious government and a government chosen by the people. The actions of the government of Iran are far from Islamic principles of fairness and kindness. Since last June, the government has also been ignoring the people’s peaceful demands for reforms within the framework of the regime.
In fact the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has decided to do away with all democratic pretensions and establish a militarised dictatorship with the help of the Revolutionary Guards. It is an attempt which will ultimately be defeated by the Iranian people. The current Khamenei/Guards project may take a few years or even decades to fail but the Iranian government will finally relent and accept the demands of the Iranian people for democracy, human rights and freedom of expression.
How did we get here?
After the victory of the popular Islamic Revolution in 1979, the new government managed to maintain a certain level of legitimacy. The traditional religious masses supported the government. While the government stifled many voices of dissent it allowed many reformist newspapers, opposition activists, human rights lawyers and journalists to survive and continue criticizing the government with a certain degree of impunity.
The regime did so because the gap between the educated elite and the traditional religious masses was so wide that the government did not feel really threatened by the opposition to its ineffective and authoritarian governance. The opposition had very little influence on the thinking and actions of the people. In fact when the mouthpieces of the government ridiculed the opposition for being elitist, they were telling the truth.
The Digital Age, the Dawn of a New Era
In the pre-internet era, the increasingly educated Iranians did not have a chance to communicate with the outside world or even with each other.
Internet and satellite television brought the knowledge that was in the monopoly of a selected group of western educated elite to a greater number of Iranians. The gap between the elite and the masses was quickly disappearing. And that frightened the government.
Fighting the Future
The protest of millions of people against Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June 2009 was a clear manifestation of this narrowing gap. I was on the streets of Tehran during those days. The demonstrators were not all secular, educated, westernised individuals. They were factory workers, housewives and farmers.
In the absence of any clear vision for the future of the country and looking for a quick fix the government chose to blame the media for stirring people. The government particularly tried to incriminate Western media for trying to create a velvet revolution such those in Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and Georgia in the past. After the June 2009 presidential elections the takeover of the government by the Guards gained a new momentum. They took charge of all the cultural activities in the country as well as the intelligence apparatus. The Guards started doing what they do best: suppression dissent through violence.
My Experience
The Guards arrested me nine days after the election. My interrogator told me, “There is no difference between culture, journalism and intelligence.” He said, “You gather and report information. That is exactly what a spy does.”
For 118 days in 2009 I witnessed an ignorant confused regime trying to fight its own people through sheer paranoia. During those 118 days I heard (because I was mostly blindfolded) so many ridiculous ideas and outlandish interpretations of what is going on in the world by my interrogators that at the end nothing surprised me.
For some reason or another, my interrogator had a fascination with New Jersey. I’m not sure why, I never managed to ask him why, but to him, New Jersey sounded like paradise on earth. He maybe was a big fan of the Sopranosor Jersey Shore, I don’t know, but he thought that whatever happens to people in paradise, including eating the forbidden fruit, copulating with as many men and women as you want, orgies and drinking alcohol was happening in New Jersey. He was upset that I had been in New Jersey, and he had never been. So I was not only a spy, I was a spy that had been to New Jersey.
Of course the memory of those days is funny in hindsight. When you are in a dark interrogation room and you’re blindfolded and you’re subjected to beatings and tortures, as I was and as many of my colleagues in Iran are, your interrogator’s ignorance is far from being funny.
What I saw was tantamount to a scene in Martin Scorsese’s Casino, when a man’s head is squeezed to the point of explosion in a vise. The narrowing gap between the masses and the elite is that vise. The regime reacts as thuggish and violently as those mobsters in Scorsese’s Casino.
What the West can do?
I can say these words on this platform because of the support I received from the international community. I was lucky enough to be working for Newsweek. My colleagues went beyond their call of duty and rallied all their contacts in the international media, and among the diplomatic community, to call for my release.
I was also lucky and blessed by the support of organisations like Index on Censorship, Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Sans Frontieres who are advocating the situations of the imprisoned journalists or journalists under duress by other countries.
The fact that I was finally freed (albeit on bail) shows that the Iranian government is not as indifferent to negative publicity as it pretends to be. Iran is not North Korea. Iran needs the help of international community to survive. The Iranian government right now is using international satellite technology to send its message of hate. It is using the same broadcasting laws and regulations as the West to have the offices of its foreign broadcasters in different countries. The world community should prevent the Iranian government from benefiting from what it denies its own people. I was really happy about the European community’s decision this week to penalise Iran for jamming satellite transmissions. I hope they follow these new measures with more urgency and vigour than in the past.
Supporting the free flow of information to and from Iran is investing in Iran’s future. It narrows the gap between Iranians and the rest of the world. It is the quickest shortcut to democracy for Iranians.
In the meantime Khamenei and the guards, as well as their stooge Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will try their best to suffocate the voices of dissent through brute force. Many lives will perish and be lost in the process. There will be periods of silence and days of turbulence. But in the end, as Prophet Mohammad said, “An infidel can rule a nation for a long time. But an oppressor will never succeed in doing so.”
This is a keynote speech given by Maziar Bahari at the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards on 25 March. To support the campaign for the release of Iranian journalists from prison go towww.oursocietywillbeafreesociety.org
Collateral Murder
WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad – including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
For further information please visit the special project website www.collateralmurder.com.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.
After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own “Rules of Engagement”.
Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.
WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.
WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.
WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.
CIA on LSD! by Kevin Barrett (truthjihad.com)
Hank Albarelli’s new book A Terrible Mistake – The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments does more than just solving the mystery of who killed Frank Olson and why, and exposing the CIA’s dosing of a French village with LSD. It turns over a huge rock and exposes a whole bevy of squirming monstrosities involving “Military and CIA Cold War scientific and medical experimentation in the fields of Mind Control, Psychological Operations, Interrogation, Torture, Psycho-Weaponry, Chemical and Biological Assassination.” (If you thought Charles Manson did unethical things with LSD, get a load of what these CIA psychopaths were up to!)
Albarelli’s book made news in the London Telegraph: French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment – A 50-year mystery over the ‘cursed bread’ of Pont-Saint-Esprit, which left residents suffering hallucinations, has been solved after a writer discovered the US had spiked the bread with LSD as part of an experiment. 11 Mar 2010 In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted… An American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment. H P Albarelli Jr., an investigative journalist, claims the outbreak resulted from a covert experiment directed by the CIA and the US Army’s top-secret Special Operations Division (SOD) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The scientists who produced both alternative explanations, he writes, worked for the Swiss-based Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company, which was then secretly supplying both the Army and CIA with LSD.
(*) Hank Albarelli can be listened to on April 6th, 9-10 a.m. Pacific (noon-1 pm Eastern) on NoLiesRadio.org, to be archived here a few hours later.
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We do not send pictures with these reports, because of the volume, but picture this emetic scene with your inner eye:
A dying Somali child in the macerated arms of her mother besides their bombed shelter with Islamic graffiti looks at a fat trader, who discusses with a local militia chief and a UN representative at a harbour while USAID provided GM food from subsidised production is off-loaded by WFP into the hands of local “distributors” and dealers – and in the background a western warship and a foreign fishing trawler ply the waters of a once sovereign, prosper and proud nation, which was a role model for honesty and development in the Horn of Africa. (If you feel that this is overdrawn – talk to people who lived in Somalia in the 70s and 80s and come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality today for yourself!)
- and if you need lively stills or video material on Somalia, please do contact us.
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- if one doesn’t mind who gets the credit !
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ECOTERRA Intl. maintains a register for persons missing or abducted in the Somali seas (Foreign seafarers as well as Somalis). Inquiries by family member can be sent by e-mail to office[at]ecoterra-international.org
For families of presently captive seafarers – in order to advise and console their worries – ECOTERRA Intl. can establish contacts with professional seafarers, who had been abducted in Somalia, and their wives as well as of a Captain of a sea-jacked and released ship, who agreed to be addressed ”with questions, and we will answer truthfully”.
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ECOTERRA – ALERTS and persistent issues:
PIRATE ATTACK GULF OF ADEN: Advice on Who to Contact and What to Do www.noonsite.com/Members/sue/R2008-09-08-2
In an effort to counter Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the east coast of Somalia industry bodies including the International Maritime Bureau have published the Best Managment Practice (BMP) guidelines. Please click here to download a copy of the BMP as pdf.
Especially YACHT-sailors should download, read and implement the ISAF Guidelines
Merchant vessels are requested to report any suspicious activity to UKMTO Dubai (+97 1505523215 - [email protected]). NATURAL RESOURCES & ARMED FISH POACHERS: Foreign navies entering the 200nm EEZ of Somalia and foreign helicopters and troops must respect the fact that especially all wildlife is protected by Somali national as well as by international laws and that the protection of the marine resources of Somalia from illegally fishing foreign vessels should be an integral part of the anti-piracy operations. Likewise the navies must adhere to international standards and not pollute the coastal waters with oil, ballast water or waste from their own ships but help Somalia to fight against any dumping of any waste (incl. diluted, toxic or nuclear waste). So far and though the AU as well as the UN has called since long on other nations to respect the 200 nm EEZ, only now the two countries (Spain and France) to which the most notorious vessels and fleets are linked have come up with a declaration that they will respect the 200 nm EEZ of Somalia but so far not any of the navies operating in the area pledged to stand against illegal fishing. On a worldwide scale, illegal fishing robs some 10 billion Euros every year mainly from poor countries, according to the European Commission. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that 18 percent of Indian Ocean catches are caught illegally, while ECOTERRA’s estimates speak of at least 30-40 %. While the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) has no means whatsoever to control the fish looting, even the new EU regulations do not prevent the two most obvious circumventions: Fish from a registered and licensed vessel is transhipped on the high seas to an illegal vessel – often already a mother-ship with an industrial processing plant – in exchange for good payment and thereby exceeding the quota of the registered vessel several times before the “legal” vessel sails back into port with its own storage full. In the inverse of this criminal technique, called “fish laundering”, an illegal vessel – often even using banned fishing methods or ripping its catch from poorly protected fishing zones – “transships” for little money its cargo to a legal one, which, equipped with all the necessary authorisations, delivers the fish into the legal market chain – without having to spend a single dollar or minute on real fishing activities and therefore often only has cheap fun-crews, which even wouldn’t know how to catch the highly migratory tuna. Since flags under which all these vessels fly can be changed overnight and via the internet and the real beneficial ownership is hidden behind a mesh of cover-companies, the legal eagles, who try to follow up usually are blindfolded and rarely can catch up with the culprits managing these schemes. So far not a single illegal fishing vessel has been detained by the naval forces around the Horn of Africa, though they had been even informed about several actual cases, where an intervention would have been possible. Illegally operating Tuna fishing vessels (many from Taiwan and South Korea, some from Greece and China) carry now armed personnel and force their way into the Somali fishing grounds – uncontrolled or even protected by the naval forces mandated to guard the Somali waters against any criminal activity, which included arms carried by foreign fishing vessels in Somali waters.
LLWs / NLWs: According to recently leaked information the anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden are also used as a cover-up for the live testing of recently developed arsenals of so called non-lethal as well as sub-lethal weapons systems. (Pls request details) Neither the Navies nor the UN has come up with any code of conduct in this respect, while the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP) is sponsoring several service-led acquisition programs, including the VLAD, Joint Integration Program, and Improved Flash Bang Grenade. Alredy in use in Somalia are so called Non-lethal optical distractors, which are visible laser devices that have reversible optical effects. These types of non-blinding laser devices use highly directional optical energy. Somalia is also a testing ground for the further developments of the Active Denial System (ADS) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD). If new developments using millimeter wave sources that will help minimize the size, weight, and system cost of an effective Active Denial System which provides “ADS-ACTD-like” repel effects, are used has not yet been revealed. Obviously not only the US is developing and using these kind of weapons as the case of MV MARATHON showed, where a Spanish naval vessel was using optical lasers – the stand-off was then broken by the killing of one of the hostage seafarers. Local observers also claim that HEMI devices, producing Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) Bioeffects, have been used in the Gulf of Aden against Somalis. Exposure to HEMI devices, which can be understood as a stun-gun shot at an individual over a larger distance, causes muscle contractions that temporarily disable an individual. Research efforts are under way to develop a longer-duration of this effect than is currently available. The live tests are apparently done without that science understands yet the effects of HEMI electrical waveforms on a human body.
WARBOTS, UAVs etc.: Peter Singer says: “By cutting the already tenuous link between the public and its nation’s foreign policy, pain- free war would pervert the whole idea of the democratic process and citizenship as they relate to war. When a citizenry has no sense of sacrifice or even the prospect of sacrifice, the decision to go to war becomes just like any other policy decision, weighed by the same calculus used to determine whether to raise bridge tolls. Instead of widespread engagement and debate over the most important decision a government can make, you get popular indifference. When technology turns war into something merely to be watched, and not weighed with great seriousness, the checks and balances that undergird democracy go by the wayside. This could well mean the end of any idea of democratic peace that supposedly sets our foreign-policy decision making apart. Such wars without costs could even undermine the morality of “good” wars. When a nation decides to go to war, it is not just deciding to break stuff in some foreign land. As one philosopher put it, the very decision is “a reflection of the moral character of the community who decides.” Without public debate and support and without risking troops, the decision to go to war becomes the act of a nation that doesn’t give a damn.”
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ECOTERRA Intl., whose work does focus on nature- and human-rights-protection and – as the last international environmental organization still working in Somalia – had alerted ship-owners since 1992, many of whom were fishing illegally in the since 1972 established 200 nm territorial waters of Somalia and today’s 200nm Exclusive Economic Zone (UNCLOS) of Somalia, to stay away from Somali waters. The non-governmental organization had requested the international community many times for help to protect the coastal waters of the war-torn state from all exploiters, but now lawlessness has seriously increased and gone out of hand – even with the navies.
ECOTERRA members with marine and maritime expertise, joined by it’s ECOP-marine group, are closely and continuously monitoring and advising on the Somali situation (for previous information concerning the topics please google keywords ECOTERRA (and) SOMALIA)
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The network of
ECOTERRA Intl. and the SEAFARERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME helped significantly in most sea-jack cases. Basically the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme tackles all issues of seafarers welfare and ECOTERRA Intl. is working in Somalia since 1986 on human-rights and nature protection, while ECOP-marine concentrates on illegal fishing and the protection of the marine ecosystems. Your support counts too.Getting what you want is not nearly as important as giving what you have. – Tom Krause
We give all – and You? Please consider to contribute to the work of SAP, ECOP-marine and ECOTERRA Intl. Please donate to the defence fund. Contact us for details concerning project-sponsorship or donations via e-mail:ecotrust[at]ecoterra.net
Kindly note that all the information above is distributed under and is subject to a license under the Creative Commons Attribution. ECOTERRA, however, reserves the right to editorial changes. To view a copy of this licence, visitcreativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/. The opinion of individual authors, whose writings are provided here for strictly educational and informational purposes, does not necessarily reflect the views held by ECOTERRA Intl. unless endorsed. With each issue of the SMCM ECOTERRA Intl. tries to paint a timely picture containing the actual facts and often differing opinions of people from all walks of live concerning issues, which do have an impact on the Somali people, Somalia as a nation, the region and in many cases even the world.
Send your genuine articles, networked or confidential information please to: mailhub[at]ecoterra.net (anti-spam-verifier equipped).
We welcome the submission of articles for publication through the SMCM.Pls cite ECOTERRA Intl. - www.ecoterra-international.org as source (not necessarily as author) for onward publications, where no other source is quoted.
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
+254-714-747-090
EA Seafarers Assistance Programme
Mshenga Mwacharo (Information Officer)
+254-721-513 418 or +254-734-010 056
sap[at]ecoterra.net
SAP / ECOTERRA Intl.
Athman Seif (Media Officer)
+254-722-613858
office[at]ecoterra-international.org
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