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Africa needs sea power
29/08/2005 12:47 - (SA)
Cape Town - Africa should develop its navies to a level where the continent was not an easy target, and could combat international terrorism, drug smugglers and piracy, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said on Monday.
"We don't have to have massive high-cost navies to compete with the American, French and British armadas...We need to do this in partnership and cooperation, first of all with each other and then in partnership with our friends in other parts of the world," said Kasrils.
He was addressing high-ranking delegates from 24 African navies attending a three-day "sea power for Africa" symposium in Cape Town.
Kasrils said maritime and naval power was even more important today than in the past for Africa, which depended heavily on sea-borne trade. Offshore oil and gas resources also had to be protected.
Kasrils said terrorists might move from simply using ships to transport personnel and supplies to using them as "water-borne bombs".
"Such as threat is a great one. Africa is not immune to this problem. There have already been terrorist attacks on our continent."
Kasrils - who was standing in for Defence Minister Mosioua Lekota, in New York with President Thabo Mbeki to update the United Nations on the Cote D'Ivoire situation - said there were groups in Africa which claimed to be part of terrorist movement Al Qaeda.
He said there was nothing stopping terrorists from attacking maritime targets such as harbours.
Kasrils said Africa also needed to move swiftly to deal with the problem of piracy before it reached levels where ports became "unattractive destinations".
"While this used to be a problem restricted to the Gulf of Guinea, pirate attacks are a lot more common off Somalia, and the scourge has moved south along both coasts in recent years."
Kasrils said there could be no development without security on the continent, where coastal states were particularly vulnerable to conflict.
In such cases there was a clear need for navies to participate in peace-support operations, during which they were a key element in transporting forces, conducting surveillance and supporting ground forces.
Kasrils said these were among the reasons why it was "crucially important" to develop the continent's naval capacity.
"The navies of Africa might also consider combining some of their ship requirements to standardise on a particular type of vessel for a particular role. That would go a considerable way to reduce the acquisition, training and support costs."
Kasrils also emphasised the need for exchanging military intelligence and information, given the fact that Africa had an enormous coastline, small navies and limited such as patrol aircraft.
- SAPA
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