Pirates 'making big money'
2008-11-03 12:58
Nairobi - New international navy patrols may deter piracy off Somalia, but the kingpins remain untroubled enjoying the fruits of this year's rash of hijackings in cities around the world, a regional maritime official said.
"There really isn't a military solution. The boys on the boats are just the foot-soldiers," said Andrew Mwangura, whose East African Seafarers' Association monitors piracy.
"The commanders and generals - the financiers and the organisers behind it all - are in Dubai, Nairobi, Mombasa, and even Canada and London, sitting in their hotels, communicating via laptops, and making big money."
Scores of attacks in the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes off Somalia this year have shocked the industry, causing higher insurance costs, bringing millions of dollars of ransom payments, and stirring a belated international response.
The European Union and Nato alliance are sending ships to the area, while the US and French navies are patrolling, and a Russian warship has also been ordered in.
While some advocate a hard strike on the pirates, there are complicating factors: risks to hostages, different locations of the various gangs, problems identifying who pirates are before they have taken a boat, and international legal complications once suspects are captured.
'Making good money'
"The foreign patrols should calm the situation. But they cannot just attack a ship, it's not that simple," Mwangura said in an interview on Sunday. "We need to go to the roots."
Mwangura, who goes to court in Mombasa on Thursday charged by the Kenyan government with "alarmist" information about one ship's capture, believes a network of Somali businessmen abroad and corrupt accomplices are the driving force for piracy.
"Many people are making good money from instability in Somalia," he said.
Mwangura irked the Kenyan government by saying tanks and other military equipment on a Ukrainian ship captured last month off Somalia were bound for South Sudan and not Kenya.
Embarrassed by the accusation, given that it sponsored a 2005 north-south peace deal in Sudan, Kenya has accused Mwangura of being a "spokesperson" for the pirates and accused him of spreading false information and possessing $2 of marijuana.
Nairobi says the tanks were for its military, though Western diplomats in the region back Mwangura's version.
"They want to silence me, it is obvious," said Mwangura. He was in Nairobi over the weekend to meet Ukrainian officials about the plight of the hijacked MV Faina boat, with its controversial military cargo and 20 crew members.
Mwangura said authorities in the region were turning a blind eye to illegal fishing, toxic dumping, drug- and gun-running, illegal charcoal shipments, and human trafficking in Somali waters that were all indirectly fuelling piracy.
"All these businesses inter-link. A foreign ship pays a warlord to be allowed to fish illegally off Somalia, and that money then funds the piracy," he said.
A bad situation
"But when you start denouncing these things, powerful people get upset because you are spoiling their game."
Mwangura said Somali pirates were still holding about eight ships, with more than 200 hostages aboard.
About 30 ships have been hijacked this year out of 87 attacks, according to his organisation which collects information from relatives, crews and other maritime groups.
The situation is so bad, some ships are considering going round the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa. "This would add several weeks to the duration of many ships' voyages and would have severe consequences for international trade," he said.