Exercise Milan 2014 for 17 navies of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, organised by Indian Navy, at the Andaman and Nicobar Command of the Indian Armed Forces. Credit: Indian Navy

By Nora Happel
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 20 2015 (IPS)

While the economic cost of Somali piracy has fallen and considerable progress has been made in deterring pirate operations, the latest attacks on Iranian fishing vessels by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean may be another signal that it is too early to cut back international counter-piracy efforts, according to a new report.

The report by Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP), titled “State of Maritime Piracy 2014”, underscores that due to restrictive reporting criteria, small-scale attacks on dhows and vessels are not always included in official piracy records."We still haven’t addressed the root causes of piracy. There are still ungoverned spaces on the coastline. There is still unemployed youth that might be attracted to piracy.” -- Jon Huggins

“[This] may hide a development that the reduced cost is masking – namely that Somali pirates still possess the means and capability – and are waiting for opportunities to strike,” it says.

Conditions conducive to the development of piracy in the first place, such as illegal fishing, poverty, political instability and a lack of economic opportunities, have not been properly addressed yet, according to the analysis.

As reported by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), a specialised division of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the number of pirate attacks has been steadily decreasing since Somali piracy peaked with 237 attacks in 2011. While the IMB had reported a total number of 75 attacks in 2012 and only 15 attacks in 2013, the number has fallen further to 12 attacks in 2014.

Even though the actual numbers of attacks, including on dhows and foreign fishing vessels, might be higher, a significant decline in piracy over the course of the past four to five years cannot be denied.

This is due to a variety of factors. Speaking to IPS, Oceans Beyond Piracy Program Director Jon Huggins highlighted in particular the efforts of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS), which have allowed practical solutions to be developed.

Created in January 2009 pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1851, the CGPCS is an ad hoc international forum bringing together countries, organisations and industry groups to provide support to international counter-piracy efforts in Somalia.

As explained in a report by the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) dedicated to lessons learnt from the CGPCS, the CGPCS is a highly unconventional if not unique international governance mechanism due to its open architecture, informality and malleable structure. It was established outside the U.N. system to “ensure that it was as inclusive, apolitical, issue-driven, result-focused, efficient and flexible as possible.”

“The setting up of the Contact Group reveals the limits of existing security institutions in tackling non-traditional threats which are neither state-based nor of a strictly military nature and that therefore require new forms of policy response.”

Commenting on the practical solutions supported by the Contact Group, Jon Huggins identified a combination of four main mechanisms that were required to suppress piracy. He stressed that each of these mechanisms acting alone would not have proven successful.

Thus, as outlined by Huggins, one major reason for the decline in piracy was the military counter-piracy operations carried out by the international community, especially EU NAVFOR ATALANTA, beginning in 2008, and NATO Operation Ocean Shield, beginning in 2009.

However, as incidents of piracy kept going up, these operations were complemented by wide-ranging protection and self-defence measures and improved watch and awareness procedures adopted by the shipping industry. As recorded in the Economic Cost of Piracy report by OBP, these measures amounted to approximately five billion dollars in 2012, which represented around 85 percent of the total amount the international community spent on fighting piracy.

The measures adopted were part of a broader industry-generated mechanism named the “Best Management Practices (BMP) for Protection against Somalia Based Piracy.”

Another major reason for the decrease in piracy, according to Huggins, was the “private maritime security” who enacted standards and procedures for the use of force by Privately Contracted Armed Security Personnel (PCASP) in the maritime domain.

A fourth factor was the steady enforcement of the rule of law through an expanded prison system, including regional prosecution centres in the Seychelles and Kenya and four new prisons in Somalia built under the UNODC Maritime Crime Programme (MCP).

Two weeks ago, the CGPCS convened for its 18th annual session at the United Nations in New York. Participants commended the immense progress over the course of the past four to five years as evidenced by the decline in pirate attacks, but also stressed the need for continued engagement as piracy networks remain intact and 26 persons are still being held hostage by Somali pirates.

“Piracy has been contained but not eradicated,” Maciej Popowski, Deputy Secretary General for the External Action Service (EAS), said at a U.N. press briefing on the CGPCS 18th plenary meeting.

Therefore, he said, a major goal of the CGPCS gathering was to “look beyond the piracy itself” and deal with a whole range of important topics related to maritime security, such as illegal fishing, migration and smuggling of human beings.

Major economic, political and societal challenges persist in Somalia that might cause setbacks or provide a favourable breeding ground for piracy in the future. According to Jon Huggins, it is vital for the international community to “maintain a minimal effort to keep the suppression going” even though this might involve major financial expenses.

“At the height of piracy in Somalia in 2010, the international community spent seven billion dollars on counter-piracy measures. Last year we calculated 2.3 billion. This is the minimum that is required in order to stay – because we still haven’t addressed the root causes of piracy. There are still ungoverned spaces on the coast line. There is still unemployed youth that might be attracted to piracy.”

According to the United Nations Development Programme in Somalia (UNDP Somalia), 67 percent of Somalis aged 14-29 are unemployed. This is particularly worrisome given that over 70 percent of Somalia’s population is under the age of 30. The school enrolment rate is 42 percent, of which only a third are girls.

Hence, extreme poverty and a lack of prospects for the future for the large majority of Somalis constitute persisting security challenges in the country in addition to the unstable political situation and weak governance structures.

Moreover, there are fears of new threats emerging as a result of the enmeshment of pirate groups with jihadist networks. As reported by Foreign Policy, young Somali pirates in Hargeisa and Bosaso are detained in the same prisons as members of the al-Shabab militant group.

“That means there’s a very real risk that impressionable, disillusioned young men could be radicalised,” it warned.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The simple sentences six-year-old Minadi writes on paper should delight her mother. Instead, Vilasini Wakwella despairs over their content.

Nalindre Wakwella has been held by Somali pirates for close to two years, without any sign of release. Credit: Wakwella family and Amantha Perera/IPS

“Thaththi Enna” the little girl writes, a short but painful message: “Daddy, come home”. Little Minadi has not had her father near her for almost one third of her life. Nalindre Wakwella has been held hostage by Somali pirates since Nov. 26, 2010.

“She does not talk much about him. I also don’t discuss his situation with her, but I know that she feels his absence a lot,” the mother told IPS. Sometimes Minadi writes the date of her birthday alongside these notes to her father, hoping he will return in time to celebrate with her.

Sriyani Perera is similarly distraught when she talks of her husband, Chandrasiri Perera, one of Wakwella’s fellow crewmembers who was also taken hostage. Her son, Danura, is much older than Minadi, but he is no less traumatised by the situation. At 17, he is getting ready to sit for the London Advanced Level exam in 2013.

“He is very anxious, he knows the situation we are in,” the mother told IPS.

The two families are not alone in their distress. Five more Sri Lankans are currently being held hostage by Somali warlords. Four are crewmembers from the vessel MV Albedo, on which Wakwella and Perera worked, while the other is from a different ship.

The hostage saga began for the Wakwella family  on Nov. 28, 2010. His wife received a phone call out of the blue informing her that her husband’s ship had been hijacked and the crew now held for ransom.

Nalindre Wakwella was on a routine assignment as the chief engineer of the Albedo, traveling between Dubai and Nairobi. The experienced seaman had hoped his assignment would be a short one, so that he could quickly return to his young daughter.

Perera’s family, on the other hand, did not even get the courtesy of a phone call. His wife Sriyani was watching TV when, to her horror, the newscaster began to report on the Sri Lankan vessel being hijacked. The vague details were enough for her to call the local agent who confirmed her worst fears.

Since then the families have been making every effort to get the crew released. When they first approached the local agents they were given encouraging news: that the ship and its crew were likely to be released as soon as the owner paid the ransom, which was initially as high as 10 million dollars.

“We were naïve, we just believed their word that everything would be ok,” Sriyani Perera told IPS. As days stretched into months with no breakthrough, desperate family members approached government authorities.

The message they got was the same – not to worry, the crew will be released soon.

But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo gave indications from the beginning that it was sometimes clueless as to what to do. Soon after the hijacking, family members received a hand-written letter from the ministry providing a telephone number to call for information on the sailors held for ransom.

But when the number was called some family members were stunned to find out that the official on the other end was not even aware of the incident.

On another occasion, after a family member contacted the Office of the President, families received yet another round of calls from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeking information. Later, they were bewildered when a letter came from the ministry detailing the same information that they themselves had provided as the latest status report.

“We have been getting the same refrain, that they are working on it,” Vilasini Wakwella said.

A ray of hope came when the families of Pakistani hostages among the crew, including captain Jawaid Khan, launched a public appeal to raise funds. The ship’s owner,  reportedly a Malaysian citizen of Iranian descent, had indicated a willingness to pay half the demanded amount. The Sri Lankans were given the impression that they too would be released if the deal went through.

It did, but much to the disbelief of the Sri Lankans, only the seven Pakistanis were released after a payment of one million dollars was made to the pirates, according to Pakistani media. The Pakistanis arrived back home on Aug. 2 and the Sri Lankans were informed that the owner had subsequently backed off from the deal.

“Something fell thorough somewhere, we don’t know what it was,” Jayan Panduka, Wakwella’s brother, told IPS. The families have now run into a wall trying to open communications with the owner who has refused to deal with anyone but Malaysian authorities.

In between the failed attempts to secure their release, crewmembers have contacted their families intermittently.

Wakwella calls home once every three months or so since he first contacted the family about three months after the hijacking. But the calls leave the family more nervous than before. “He does not say much, but I know that he is very anxious,” his wife said.

The released Pakistanis told Wakwella’s family that he had lost about 25 kilos in weight and suffered a finger injury.

With all other efforts falling flat, Sri Lankan families have now decided to take the same path that secured the release of the Pakistanis – the launch of a public appeal.

They have formed an organisation that includes all seven families of the hostages. They plan to seek the assistance of religious leaders, civic groups and others  to raise money and awareness.

Their aim is to secure their families’ release through a ‘private negotiator’, the same route the Pakistanis used to secure their freedom. Wakwella’s brother Panduka told IPS that because the families had placed so much hope on official measures they had not taken up the invitation by the Pakistani families to join the fund raising.

The campaign is still in its infancy and it is yet unclear if it can garner public support. Till it does, little Minadi’s long wait to see her beloved father will continue.

(END)

Members of a visit, board, search, and seizure team from USS Anzio intercept a skiff containing a group of suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Credit: US Navy

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 9 2012 (IPS)

When the United Nations advocates the protection of the world’s oceans, its political agenda transcends the battle against marine pollution, global warming, overfishing, greenhouse gases and sea-level rise.

“We are also talking of high seas piracy and growing conflicts over maritime boundaries,” says one U.N. official.

And as piracy continues to be on the rise, the United Nations is now pushing for a summit meeting of West African leaders aimed at thwarting high seas crimes in the Gulf of Guinea.

Supported by the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the meeting is to take place before the end of this year.

A U.N. assessment mission on piracy, whose members visited Benin, Nigeria, Gabon and Angola late last year, recommended that a summit meeting on maritime security be convened “as soon as possible to develop a comprehensive strategy” against high seas crimes.

According to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), incidents of piracy rose from 45 in 2010 to 64 last year.

The concern over maritime security comes amid a growing dispute between China and its neighbours over claims in the South China Sea involving the Paracel and Spratly Islands.

Abdel Fatau Musah, director of political affairs at ECOWAS, points out that the decline in piracy in Benin, the most affected in ECOWAS, doesn’t mean high seas crimes have peaked.

But there has been a rapid spread of the phenomenon to other states in the region, including 18 attacks last year alone in Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire.

Musah told a recent meeting of the U.N. Security Council that piracy was increasingly dovetailing into other forms of transnational organised crime, including oil bunkering, robbery at sea, hostage-taking, human and drug trafficking and terrorism.

And when the United Nations hosts an international conference to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Law of Sea later this week, piracy will be the subtext of the discussions to be presided over by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Scheduled to take place Aug. 12, the conference will coincide with the closing ceremonies of the international exhibition Expo 2012, currently underway in the coastal town of Yeosu in South Korea.

The theme of Expo 2012 is the protection of the world’s oceans and maritime resources.

Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told IPS his country had been at the forefront of highlighting “the menace off the Somalia coast”, and was also concerned about the surge in piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

“While the two situations were quite different in proportion at present, the failure of the international community to act decisively against piracy off the Somali coast could have spawned the new surge of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea,” he said.

Addressing a Security Council meeting, the Indian envoy also said, “The time has come for the attention being paid by the Council to translate into a concrete plan of action.”

He pointed out that piracy off the African coasts reflected the instability prevalent in the region and the reach of organised terrorist and criminal groups.

The perpetrators, he said, were targeting oil and chemical vessels, as well as oil-drilling platforms in the Gulf, and employing severe violence against their captives.

The region, he said, produced more than five million barrels of oil daily and three-quarters of the world’s cocoa supply.

Pirate attacks were thus adversely affecting the emerging oil industry of the region, as well as commercial shipping and marine traffic.

In a resolution adopted last December, the General Assembly recognised the crucial role of international cooperation at the global, regional, sub-regional and bilateral levels in combating threats to maritime security, including piracy and armed robbery at sea, in accordance with international law.

The resolution also recognised that bilateral and multilateral instruments and mechanisms are necessary to monitor, prevent and respond to such threats, and enhance the sharing of information among member states to better detect, prevent and suppress such threats, and to prosecute offenders with due regard to national legislation.

Lynn Pascoe, the outgoing under-secretary-general for political affairs, told a meeting of the Security Council last February, “We must take further concrete steps designed to eradicate piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, which constitutes a clear threat to the security and economic development of the states in the region.”

Currently, at least three organisations, the International Maritime Organisation, the International Maritime Bureau and the Bureau overseeing the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia, are coordinating efforts to collect and share accurate information.

By Isabelle de Grave
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2012 (IPS)

At the Yeosu World Expo 2012, the U.N. commemorated the thirtieth anniversary of the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), highlighting efforts to quell the global scourge of piracy.

Patricia O’Brien. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

With its theme of the “Living Oceans and Coast”, Expo 2012 has turned the attention of a global audience to marine issues ranging from declining fish stocks and pollution to illegal fishing and piracy.

“Piracy has existed for thousands of years. It had substantially diminished in the end of the nineteenth century and seemed to have become one of the legends of the past, gradually disappearing from criminal law legislation,” Patricia O’Brien, U.N. under secretary-general for legal affairs, said at the Expo 2012 U.N. Pavilion.

“A few decades ago, the ‘pirate phoenix’ appeared to be rising again to become a regional, if not a global scourge,” she told the audience prior to a film screening on the law of the seas.

In an interview with U.N. correspondent Isabelle de Grave, Patricia O’Brien talks about current efforts under UNCLOS and beyond to combat piracy in the Malacca Strait, which runs between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Q: How serious is the threat of piracy to Asia?

A: The threat of piracy and armed robbery on board ships is of utmost importance to the U.N. and we are constantly monitoring the situation. Piracy poses a serious threat to the economies of all nations, as 80 percent of the volume of global trade is seaborne, representing 70 percent of its value, and it is expected to increase by 36 percent by 2020.

The Strait of Malacca is particularly prone to pirate attacks as one of the most important and strategic passages for maritime trade between Europe and East Asia. It supports 50 percent of the world’s oil shipments, including 80 percent of petroleum imports to Japan and the Republic of Korea among others.

Furthermore, at the regional and local levels, piracy poses a serious threat to the safety and security of seafarers and fishermen, whose means of livelihood directly depend on their ability to access specific maritime spaces and routes. Southeast Asian waters, and the many island and archipelagic states therein, are no exception. The safety of maritime circulation also bears heavily on the ability of some of these states to maintain political stability.

Q: Many fisherman impoverished by declining fish stocks turn to piracy. Will the Yeosu Project, which aims to build the capacity of emerging countries to address such issues, contribute to combating piracy?

A: The initiative taken by the Republic of Korea is commendable, and constitutes an important part of the regional and international efforts that must be undertaken by States Parties to UNCLOS and to the 1995 Agreement relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks to promote the conservation of fish stocks, both within and beyond the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ, a nation’s official territorial waters).

However, the root causes of piracy do not only lie in the mismanagement of fish stocks and the depletion of resources from seas and oceans. If the trends regarding piracy off the coast of Somalia are to provide any guidance, whereby pirates have expanded their areas of operation and acquired heavier artillery, allowing them to attack larger ships further out at sea, major shipping routes such as the Strait of Malacca should continue to be monitored closely.

Although reported incidents of piracy in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore saw a 50 percent decrease between the first half of 2011 and the first half of 2012, coastal states as well as ship owners should not become complacent. Coastal States have a responsibility to adopt and implement best management practices when operating in areas with a high level of activities.

They also have to educate transiting merchant ships on their local fishing practices and procedures in order to reduce instances of transgression of fishing gear, as well as incidents where merchant ships mistake fishing vessels for pirates. Incidents of piracy will only consistently decrease if these issues are tackled simultaneously.

In this globalised economy, where a state’s economy may still be impacted by acts of piracy committed thousands of miles away, improving the socioeconomic situation of fishermen locally is no longer sufficient.

Q: How effective are UNCLOS and other regional and international initiatives in the fight against piracy?

A: The definition of the crime of piracy is contained in UNCLOS under one of the most significant sections of the Convention, (article 101 Part VII) that regulates the High Seas. States have an obligation to cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy and have universal jurisdiction on the high seas to seize pirate ships and aircrafts and arrest the persons and seize the property on board.

UNCLOS provisions have been subject to national implementation by many states, which have issued legislation to criminalise piracy, allowing their domestic courts to prosecute persons suspected of this crime.

For instance, concerning piracy off the coast of Somalia, over 1,100 persons have either been arrested or tried and found guilty on the basis of such legislation. And efforts are continuing, at the international and regional levels, to assist states in building the capacity to conduct effective prosecutions and enforce the sentences imposed, which will have a deterrent effect on communities where the culture of piracy is still rampant.

The Strait of Malacca benefits from a patrolling system akin to that established with the convoy participation process off the coast of Somalia that the Republic of Korea just joined.

The Malacca Straits Patrols (MSP) is comprised of the Malacca Straits Sea Patrol (MSSP), the “Eyes-in-the-Sky” (EiS) air patrols, and the Intelligence Exchange Group (IEG), which are a set of practical cooperative security measures undertaken by the four littoral States, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, to ensure the security of the Strait of Malacca.

This arrangement entails conducting coordinated naval and air patrols while facilitating the sharing of information between ships and the Monitoring Action Agency. This is a very sophisticated system, which has allowed the number of piracy attacks in the Malacca Strait to drop from 38 reported incidents in 2004 to none in 2011, as per the International Maritime Bureau data.

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