Ecoterra Press Release 229 – The Somalia Chronicle June – December 2009, no 41

Following the Somalia Spring 2009 Chronicles, I herewith republish the Ecoterra press releases issued in the second half of 2009. I reproduce the integral version of all Ecoterra press releases in a recapitulative effort to provide the global readership with the most comprehensive collection of texts published worldwide about the most abominable Western postcolonial involvement in Africa, namely the systematic effort of extermination of the Somali Nation. The vast documentation provided serves as basic point of reference to students, researchers, analysts and intellectuals.

ECOTERRA Intl.

SMCM

Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor

ECOTERRA INTERNATIONAL - UPDATES & STATEMENTS, REVIEW & CLEARING-HOUSE

2009-08-17 MON 01h48:26 UTC

Issue No. 229

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

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

EA ILLEGAL FISHING AND DUMPING HOTLINE: +254-714-747090 (confidentiality guaranteed) - email: somalia[at]ecoterra.net

EA Seafarers Assistance Programme EMERGENCY HELPLINE : SMS to +254-738-497979 or sms/call +254-733-633-733

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

Cpt. Florent Lemaçon - F/Y Tanit - killed by French commandos - 10. April 2009 / Ras Hafun

NON A LA GUERRE - YES FOR PEACE

(Inscription on the sail of F/Y TANIT - shot down on day one of the French assault)

"... obligation to fight oppression and cruelty wherever it appears, and that any group of people who are degrading another group of people have to be fought against with whatever tools we have available to us. "

B. H. Obama - US-American President, who said also: The world has changed ! YES, WE CAN !

Clearing-House: Cut out the clutter - focus on facts !

(If you find this compilation too large or if you can't grasp the multitude and magnitude of important inter-related complex issues influencing the Horn of Africa - you better do not deal with Somalia or other man-made "conflict zones". We try to make it as condensed as possibly.)

News from sea-jackings, abductions, newly attacked ships and vessels in distress

German, Greek commandos thwart pirate attack

A German Navy helicopter thwarted a suspected pirate attack on a Turkish ship in the Gulf of Aden on Friday by firing warning shots at a speed boat as it approached the MS Elgiznur Cebi, the German armed forces said.

Responding to a call for help from the Turkish vessel, the German helicopter from the warship Bremen, part of a European Union mission to combat piracy, spotted a speed boat with six people and ladders in it, reports Reuters.

It fired warning shots and the speed boat stopped. A Greek naval vessel, the HS Narvarinon, also responded to the call for help then boarded the speedboat and discovered weapons on board.

Piracy has surged off the Somali coast in recent years where sea gangs continue to defy foreign navies patrolling the vast shipping lanes linking Asia and Europe. Germany has two warships patrolling in the region.

Egyptian pirate ships on their way to Suez

Yemen coast guard officials said Saturday that the two fishing vessels with 40 Egyptian fishermen who had reportedly managed to free themselves from their Somali captors was on its way to the Egypt's port city of Suez. The vessels had been arrested for illegal fishing on April 10.

Yemen, who earlier boasted that it had been involved in the escape, expected for the vessels to stop at the Yemeni port of Aden. Though also the Yemeni website www.almotamar.net cited the officials saying that the Egyptians were captured on board their boat after they illegally went fishing in Somalia, Yemen says Egyptian authorities praised Yemen's efforts to help the release of the fishermen.

In a twist Yemeni officials now said the boats did not dock there but were sailing on to the Red Sed sea port.

Egyptian media reported that the Egyptian sailors had killed two of their captors and hold four others.

The Yemeni coast guard believed that the fishermen, by sailing past Aden and heading to Suez, wanted to hand the pirates over to Egyptian authorities and not to Yemen.

Meanwhile local sources report that seven dead Somalis were washed ashore.

Mohammad Nasr and Hassan Khalil the owners of the vessels might face criminal charges not only for abducting minors to work on the ships without the knowledge of their parents and for sailing against the clear instructions by the Egyptian Government into Somali waters for illegal fishing but now also for murder. That the owner-duo tries to cover their illegal fishing trip up by a too late claim that Mohamed Alnahdi, the executive manager of Mashrq Marine Product, had rented the vessels for fishing, will not help them much.

Two of the Somalis were killed during that shoot-out, the owner already admit and the Egyptians took several others with them - 8 as Al Jazeera reported.

"We have found seven of our dead colleagues floating in the sea," said the associate, who gave his name as Farah, by telephone from Las Qoray to Reuters.

"The Egyptian crew members killed them ... we used to welcome them and treat the Egyptians better than the others, but if we capture more of them we shall get our revenge."

EU Doubts Missing Ship Was Victim of Pirates

The European Commission expressed doubt on Friday over whether a merchant ship which has been missing for more than a week had fallen prey to pirates as the vessel´s operator had suggested.

Its remarks added to the deepening mystery over the 4,000-tonne Arctic Sea, whose disappearance has baffled authorities across Europe and North Africa and prompted the Kremlin to send Russian warships to join the hunt.

"Radio calls were apparently received from the ship which had supposedly been under attack twice, the first time off the Swedish coast then off the Portuguese coast," a spokesman for the executive arm of the European Union told journalists.

"From information currently available it would seem that these acts, such as they have been reported, have nothing in common with traditional acts of piracy or armed robbery at sea," Martin Selmayr said.

The Maltese-registered vessel, carrying a $1.3-million cargo of timber and a Russian crew, was supposed to have docked on Aug. 4 in the Algerian port of Bejaia. It never arrived and is thought to have last made contact from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of France.

A wave of piracy has hit shipping off Somalia, and an international naval force patrols its coast in an effort to protect merchant vessels. But a hijacking in European waters would be almost unprecedented in modern times.

Concerns over the safety of the 15-member Russian crew were raised after the Malta Maritime Authority said it received reports the ship had been boarded by armed men in masks posing as anti-drugs police in Swedish waters on July 24.

Russia´s navy denied a report on state television that the frigate Ladny was following a ship of a similar description in the Atlantic Ocean not far from Gibraltar.

Relatives of the crew appealed to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an open letter and demanded a criminal investigation into the vessel´s disappearance, Russian media reported, but have now stopped speaking publicly about the case.

Missing cargo ship apparently found near Cape Verde

The French Defense Ministry says a Russian-manned cargo that vanished in the Atlantic last month has been found near Cape Verde, reported AP.

French Defense Ministry spokesman Capt. Jerome Baroe says Cape Verde coast guards have confirmed the Arctic Sea was discovered Friday afternoon about 520 miles (840 kilometers) off the former Portuguese colony off the West African coast.

The Arctic Sea has been missing since it passed through the English Channel on July 28.

The Maltese-flagged freighter sent radio messages as it sailed south along the coasts of France and Portugal, but then all contact was lost.

France was involved in search efforts together with several other countries.

The Arctic Sea — carrying a load of timber and 15 Russian sailors — passed through the English Channel on July 28. The Maltese-flagged freighter sent radio messages as it sailed along the coasts of France and Portugal, European officials said Friday. Then all contact was lost, which triggered an all services alert from Russia.

French officials then found a ship resembling the missing Arctic Sea near the Cape Verde islands, according to the French Defense Ministry and details were relayed to Russian and Maltese authorities.

The Russian state news agency ITAR-Tass and the German paper Financial Times Deutschland reported earlier Friday that the ship had been spotted near Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony off the coast of West Africa. ITAR-Tass, reporting from London, cited unidentified officials at NATO; the newspaper cited two sources but did not identify them.

Russia's ambassador to Cape Verde said a Russian naval frigate was headed to the area. Alexander Karpushin said on Russian radio, however, he had no information on the Arctic Sea's location. The Russian Navy spokesman was not answering his phone.

NATO spokesman Cmdr. Chris Davies, at NATO's maritime headquarters in England, said NATO was monitoring the situation but was not directly involved in the search.

Mystery had deepened last Wednesday over the missing Russian-crewed cargo ship last seen in July in the English Channel, as experts debated whether pirates, a mafia quarrel or a commercial dispute were to blame.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered his navy to join the search for the Arctic Sea, which left Finland with its timber cargo on July 23 bound for the Algerian port of Bejaia -- but has not been seen for two weeks.

Swedish police say the ship was hijacked in the Baltic Sea on July 24, when masked men claiming to be anti-drugs police boarded the ship, tied up the crew and searched the vessel.

But the men reportedly left after about 12 hours.

Following the Arctic Sea's disappearance, however, maritime experts are questioning whether the hijackers remained in control of the ship as it passed through the Channel and headed out to sea.

Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency spoke to someone on board on July 28, as the ship passed through the Strait of Dover, and everything seemed normal.

"There didn't seem anything suspicious when contact was made. It could well be that a crew member had a gun put to his head by a hijacker when contact was made, but who knows?" said MCA spokesman Mark Clark.

Pirates are active in many parts of the world, particularly off the coast of Somalia where hijackers seized more than 130 merchant ships last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Attacks in European waters however are extremely rare, and Clark said he believed that if the Arctic Sea had been hijacked, it would have been the first such incident in living memory.

The ship is linked to an automatic tracking system, but the last signal was received on July 30, showing it was off the coast of northwestern France.

Swedish police revealed Wednesday they had been in telephone contact with the crew on July 31, but refused to give any details.

However, spokeswoman Ylva Voxby told AFP that detectives expected the Arctic Sea to return soon.

"The boat is planned to return to the Baltic at the end of August. We are planning to interview the crew then," she said.

Maltese officials said they believed the ship, which flies under a Maltese flag, is in the Atlantic Ocean.

"It would appear that the ship has not approached the Straits of Gibraltar, which indicates that the ship headed out in the Atlantic Ocean," said a statement from the Maltese Maritime Authority.

The ship, which is carrying 6,700 cubic metres of sawn timber, failed to arrive in Bejaia as planned on August 4.

Experts believe piracy is not the only answer to the disappearance, saying it could be caused by a commercial dispute or even a quarrel between different factions of Russian organised crime.

While the ship's operating company, Solchart Management, is in Finland, officials believe it is linked to the Russia-based Solchart Arkhangelsk.

"It doesn't look like bog standard piracy. If it's standard piracy, where's the ransom?" said David Osler, industrial editor at maritime newspaper Lloyds List, who raised the Russian mafia possibility.

He suggested it may have been part of a "drugs deal gone wrong", noting the hijackers' claim to be anti-drugs police and their search of the ship.

"Another possibility is a hijack to order. You steal the ship, respray it and sell it on," he told AFP.

"But the ship was built in 1991 -- who would go to the trouble of hijacking that to order?"

Maritime intelligence expert Nick Davis, chief executive of Merchant Maritime Warfare Centre, said a commercial dispute was likely.

"It's not carrying a valuable cargo, so I strongly suspect this is a commercial dispute with its owner and a third party and they have decided to take matters into their own hands," he told the BBC.

He said the Arctic Sea was unlikely to have sunk, saying: "You can't lose the vessel with all that cargo without telltale signs being washed out." A man who answered Solchart Management's phone in Helsinki refused to comment.

Italy: Police quizz hostages on return from Somalia

Italian anti-terrorism police have interviewed a group of Italians hostages freed by Somali pirates. Ten Italians, five Romanians and a Croatian were travelling aboard the cargo ship Buccaneer in the Gulf of Aden when they were captured by pirates on 11 April.

The group was freed last Sunday and the Italians were flow into Rome's Ciampino airport late Thursday aboard a military aircraft.

The ship's captain, Mario Iarlori, and the first officer, Mario Albano, and eight other Italians were met by police from the Division of General Investigations and Special Operations (DIGOS) and other agencies on their return.

The pair spoke to police until the early hours of Friday morning and recounting details of the conditions they faced during their capture.

Sources told Adnkronos that the men were questioned as part of an inquiry being conducted by Italian anti-terrorism prosecutors led by Pietro Saviotti into piracy and terrorism.

Saviotti is expected to decide in the next few days whether to question other members of the ship's crew.

There has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of piracy in the Gulf of Aden since the beginning of 2008.

The International Maritime Organization and the World Food Programme, have expressed their concern about the number of attacks on foreign ships in the region.

This increasing incidence of piracy has added to an increase in shipping costs and hindered the delivery of food aid shipments to the struggling Horn of Africa.

N.B.: A thorough public investigation also is necessary to clarify the so far undisclosed operations of the tugboat and its two barges in the area, the way the company handled the case and the cover-up by people in high offices.]

At the Mercy of Somali Pirates

By SPIEGEL Staff

Hansa Stavanger Crew Describe Hostage Ordeal

Somali pirates released the German freighter Hansa Stavanger last week after a four-month hostage crisis marked by gunfire, drugs and an unpredictable pirate commander. Now crew members have described their ordeal in the hands of the khat-addled pirates.

When ships that have been taken hostage by pirates and later freed enter the port of the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, they are usually accompanied by sharks. The battered freighters have often spent months at anchor off the coast of one of the pirate havens north of Mombasa, in neighboring Somalia.

And when ships lie at anchor for so long, mussels, crustaceans and algae grow on the underside of their hulls. This attracts small fish, followed by larger fish that eat the small fish and, finally, sharks that eat the large fish. When a ship that has been detained for a prolonged period of time is eventually released, the large numbers of mussels attached to its hull slow its progress, allowing an entire food chain to follow behind, with sharks bringing up the rear.

There must have been plenty of sharks swimming around in Mombasa harbor last weekend. After spending four months in the hands of Somali pirates, the German container ship Hansa Stavanger crawled its way to Mombasa at a mere five to 10 knots, according to the captain's log.

The crew consisted of 24 men, including five Germans. Now that they are free, the men are describing their lives as the pirates' hostages, telling stories of fear and terror, mock executions and gunshots on deck, of the agony of spending months hoping for the best, and of the relief they felt when they spotted parachutes carrying the millions in ransom money falling from the sky.

German security experts, on the other hand, are not as relieved. This time, the government's crisis task force in Berlin had not intended to simply pay the ransom. In fact, this time German authorities hoped to use force to gain the ship's release. Under the initial plan, Germany's elite GSG-9 police unit was to storm the ship in one of the biggest secret operations in postwar German history. However that plan failed. Then the plan was to get navy frogmen to attack the pirates. But the pirates got away too quickly, and the marines were left to attend to the hostages.

Under Stress

The fiasco began with a dot that appeared on the Hansa Stavanger's radar screen on April 4, at approximately 9 a.m. A tiny boat was approaching the ship head-on. It was still four nautical miles away, but it was traveling at high speed. Seeing such a small boat 400 miles away from the mainland, Frederik Euskirchen knew right away that the men in the craft were not out fishing.

Euskirchen, the second officer on the Hansa Stavanger, was working on the bridge at the time.

He is only 26, but he has a cool head despite his youth. Euskirchen received his training at the marine college in Elsfleth in northern Germany, which has one of the best nautical programs worldwide. All he needs to work as a captain is another year-and-a-half of experience on board a ship. He certainly has the nerves for the job. He would later say, in an understatement worthy of the British, that one can certainly feel "under stress" when being shot at by gangsters.As the boat approached, the men on the bridge immediately called the captain. Krzysztof Kotiuk, 62, a German seaman of Polish extraction, was sitting in his cabin doing the monthly accounts. He hurried to the bridge.

The Hansa Stavanger veered sharply to the side and reversed course, its two-stroke diesel engine operating at full power, just as planned. But even at its top speed of 17 knots, the freighter was too slow to outrun the pirate boat. "We tried to get away. But it was impossible," the captain would later say. "Their boat was so fast that they caught up with us within 20 minutes."

There were only five gaunt figures squatting in the boat, their traditional Somali clothing fluttering in the wind. They began shooting immediately. The bullets from their Kalashnikovs whipped across the deck, followed by the hiss of rocket-propelled grenades. A grenade hit the captain's cabin, and a fire broke out, which it took the crew six hours to extinguish.

The pirates quickly gained control over the ship when Kotiuk's officers decided not to do anything heroic and stopped making risky, evasive maneuvers. The pirates calmly climbed on board.

High but Friendly

None of the Somalis spoke English. They were the attackers, the ones who were best at climbing and shooting; the brains of the operation would arrive later. Nevertheless, using their hands and feet, the nautical maps on the bridge and a piece of paper, the pirates quickly made it clear to the officers where they wanted the ship to go: to Harardhere, one of the three most notorious pirate hideouts on Somalia's east coast.

When the freighter was later anchored near Harardhere, small motorboats shuttled back and forth between the beach and the ship, bringing reinforcements. According to Kotiuk, "there were always 10 to 12 people on the bridge, and about six people on the deck. There were also guards posted on the deck." The captain estimates that about 30 heavily armed pirates were on the ship at any given time to guard their prize.

Everything seemed tolerable at first. On April 6, the captain used the ship's satellite telephone to send the following message to his wife Bozena in Munich: "We have been kidnapped. The kidnappers are high, but friendly. Don't worry, we're waiting for the ransom."

The pirates rounded up the sailors at night. The Europeans were locked up in the heavily guarded bridge, while the sailors from the Philippines and the Polynesian island nation of Tuvalu were placed in a room in the hold. The pirates slept in the cabins. They also stole all the sailors' belongings.

The pirates established contact with the Hamburg shipping company, Leonhardt & Blumberg. Piracy is an old business in Somalia, and there are established practices for what began next -- the negotiations over the ransom money.

European Jackpot

Few people are more familiar with the way this works than Kenyan Andrew Mwangura, a diminutive, soft-spoken former sailor. In 1996, Mwangura founded the Seafarers' Assistance Programme in Mombasa, a network of contacts in African ports designed to help seamen.

In recent years, Mwangura has become something of a middleman between pirate clans and the shipping industry. Everyone contacts him when a ship disappears: the shipping company, the insurance staff, the security firms and the sailors' families. He tests the waters, sets up contacts and collects information. He has also been directly involved in some negotiations.

Mwangura is also familiar with the people in charge of the pirates, who move the bulk of the money to Kenya and Dubai, where they invest it, in real estate among other things. There are no opportunities to invest millions in Somalia. It was professionals who hijacked the Hansa Stavanger, says Mwangura.

They initiated the first round in this game of pirates' poker. Much was at stake: human lives, a large sum of money and the question of how much ought to be paid for what types of human lives.

Many pirates use spies to assess the total value of their takings. Somalis in the city where the shipping company is headquartered investigate the company to determine how large and wealthy it is. Other Somalis in local ports estimate the value of the cargo. The value of the ship itself depends on two factors: size and age. There are also straightforward guidelines for determining the value of the people on board. "Black sailors are worth little, but Europeans and Americans are the jackpot," says Mwangura.

A Kenyan sailor of the lowest rank earns about $200 (€140) a month. To determine the crew's ransom value, the pirates ask the men on board where they come from. If a captain makes $5,000 a month, he is worth 25 Kenyan sailors.

Naturally, the pirates began the negotiation by asking for outlandish sums. In the case of the Hansa Stavanger, their initial demand was for $15 million.

Frank Leonhardt, one of the owners of the shipping company, had hired the Armor Group, a British security firm, to handle the negotiations. The middleman countered the pirates' demand with an offer of $600,000. The haggling had begun, and it would drag on for months.

Bored and Dangerous

With 50 men locked in a steel box in the sweltering heat, with nothing to do, the mood on board became increasingly tense. Above deck, the pirates began shooting into the air. "They told us they were testing their weapons," Euskirchen would later report. The deck was soon littered with large numbers of bullet casings and unexploded shells.The pirates ransacked the ship. They broke open one of the containers and found bundles of old clothing bound for Africa. Soon many of the pirates were walking around in second-hand European clothes.

According to Kotiuk and Euskirchen, the pirates apparently failed to notice that something was brewing over the horizon. The crisis team in Berlin had mobilized 200 members of the GSG-9 elite police unit, which had brought along helicopters and speedboats. The men were now on board a borrowed American helicopter carrier, the USS Boxer, waiting for orders to deploy. A state-of-the-art German submarine had also been requested.

A senior official at the German Interior Ministry, who was involved in the planning, would later say that there were two scenarios. Under Plan A, the submarine was to take the men to the container ship, where they would exit the submarine through the torpedo tubes, wearing diving gear, climb up the side of the freighter and then overpower the pirates. The tried and tested method had the advantage of causing little noise and being relatively safe for the GSG-9 men involved.

Under Plan B, however, the GSG-9 men would be brought in by helicopter and lower themselves onto the ship's deck using ropes. Helicopters are loud, and the pirates could have shot down one of the helicopters with their bazookas or killed the hostages. Plan B was clearly the riskier approach.

But Plan A failed to materialize, because the submarine was still too far away, and so it remained where it was docked, at a port on the Mediterranean island of Crete. That left Plan B. Officials at German federal police headquarters in Potsdam, outside Berlin, were opposed to the idea. So were the Americans, who were unwilling to offer up the USS Boxer for what could turn out to be a suicide mission.

Keeping a Clear Head

Meanwhile, the pirates on board the Hansa Stavanger learned of the nearby naval buildup from the BBC, which they always listened to. When they were in a good mood, they would tell the crew about what was happening in the world -- that Michael Jackson had died, for example. But by now their good moods were rare.

The pirates replaced their original negotiator with someone who spoke no English. This made their dealings with the shipping company's negotiators complicated, but at least the numbers were clear. The pirates were now demanding $3 million. Leonhardt offered $2.3 million. The pirates soon replaced their second negotiator with someone else.The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), Germany's federal police force, began complaining about Leonhardt to members of the crisis team. They felt that he was too rigid, and that the lives of the hostages were in danger.

The pirates took four of the seamen on land for a short period of time, including Euskirchen and Christopher Schütt, a 19-year-old apprentice. Perhaps they wanted to intimidate the men, or perhaps the pirates simply wanted to prevent potential liberators from freeing all the hostages at once. "In that sort of situation, you have to make sure you keep a clear head," says Euskirchen.

He and the other crew members tried to read the pirates' facial expressions. The chief negotiator, says Euskirchen, called himself "Mr. China." According to Euskirchen, the man was "small and plump" and "became as agitated as Rumpelstiltskin when he didn't get what he wanted."

Two Sacks of Khat a Day

The pirates became more and more violent. On two occasions, says Kotiuk, they pretended that there were going to shoot him, dragging him on deck and holding a pistol to his head. The savage game lasted 20 minutes. When it ended, says Kotiuk, "I was soaking wet."

The weapons were all loaded, and the pirates chewed the leaves of the khat plant, which contains a stimulant, all day long. The motorboats brought two large sacks of khat to the ship every day.

Once, an American helicopter circled the Hansa Stavanger, says Kotiuk. The pirates herded the hostages together along the ship's side and barricaded themselves behind them. "They used us as human shields," says the captain. Once under cover, the pirates began firing at the Americans, and the helicopter left.

Food became scarce on board. The pirates brought more food from land, including live goats that were slaughtered on deck almost daily. The sailors fished to supplement their diet. Meanwhile, the vegetation and crustaceans kept on growing underneath the ship. At one point a shark became caught on one of the sailors' fishhooks.

The supply of drinking water was also running low, because the ship's desalination plant was shut down while the ship was at anchor. The ship's engineers took apart the air-conditioning system and modified the condenser so that the condensation water could be captured and used as drinking water.

Poor Quality Negotiating Partners

Meanwhile, ship owner Leonhardt had increased his offer to $2.5 million. It looked like a deal was in sight. But then, Mr. China suddenly increased his demands, arguing that the costs had gone up, now that the ordeal had already been going on for three months. "The quality of our negotiating partners left much to be desired," Leonhardt says today. "We had just reached an agreement when suddenly it was no longer worth the paper it was written on."

Leonhardt also felt it was his duty to drive a hard bargain, even if the crew was suffering and he was insured. "Piracy off the coast of Somalia is an absolute success story. Ransoms have gone up substantially within a year. Where is this going to end?"

Meanwhile, the crisis team in Berlin was making preparations for a new attack on the pirates -- to be launched immediately following delivery of the ransom money. This time elite German Navy frogmen were to carry out the mission.

More than two dozen members of the unit were waiting on board the Rheinland-Pfalz, a frigate that had long been keeping watch out of sight of the Hansa Stavanger. But the Navy men needed time to position their helicopters between the pirate boats and the mainland.

On July 27, the crisis team received the news that the pirates and the shipping company had agreed on a $2.75 million ransom. The British security firm was to take the money to Harardhere.

Free at Last

On Monday of last week, Kotiuk and Euskirchen saw a two-engine Cessna approaching the Hansa Stavanger. After circling the ship a few times, the plane descended and a plastic bag attached to a parachute floated down to the water. The Cessna returned a second time to drop a second bag.

Over the horizon, the helicopters carrying the frogmen were ready to take off.

The pirates flipped through a few of the thick green bundles of dollars, but then they simply counted the packets and divided them up. Toward evening, the pirates, traveling back and forth on two boats, began bringing men and weapons to the shore. The Navy helicopters, still out of sight, took off to begin their mission.For Captain Kotiuk and Second Officer Euskirchen, it seemed an eternity before the last pirate climbed overboard. But for the naval officers, things were suddenly going much too fast. The Hansa Stavanger was too close to land, and the helicopters were unable to apprehend the pirates. The Germans paid, but they didn't shoot. The Rheinland-Pfalz and, later, the frigate Brandenburg, escorted the container freighter to Mombasa, traveling at a leisurely pace with sharks in its wake.

BKA specialists were waiting for the Hansa Stavanger. Their task was to secure evidence for an investigation to be conducted by the Hamburg public prosecutor's office. But how exactly does one investigate and prosecute someone like "Mr. China," whose real name and age are unknown, a man living somewhere in the chaos of Somalia's never-ending civil war?

In September, when the five-month monsoon ends along the coast, the stormy southwesterly wind will subside and the sea will be calm again. Calm conditions are good news for the pirates in their small boats, allowing the next hunting season to begin.

And a few months after that, the sharks will probably be swimming in Mombasa harbor once again.

122 days in hell

By Geraldine Panapasa

No more Somalia

Waytne Suliana feared for his life every time someone ventured close to the ship he was held on with 23 others for more than four months.

It was always their most frightening moment, he recalled yesterday, after a tearful reunion with his family in Suva.

The Somali pirates -- who heightened their watch after taking over the MV Hansa Stavanger in the Gulf of Aden - were fearful themselves after United States Navy SEALs shot dead their colleagues and freed the captain of the US-flagged ship, Maersk Alabama, nine days after Mr Suliana's ship was seized.

"We were threatened every day, scared and frightened. It was a terrible experience," he recounted.

The pirates anchored the MV Hansa Stavanger at sea after firing rocket-propelled grenades and stopping the ship on April 4.

Its German owner paid a $2.7million ranson and Mr Suliana returned to Fiji on Wednesday night.

While joy filled the hearts of his family, friends and relatives, he said the experiences he and the other crew members suffered at the hands of the pirates would never be forgotten.

"It was just terrible. At first, we gave up hope. We were all scared and frightened because they would make threats to kill us," said Mr Suliana.

"There was always someone watching us, carrying a gun all the time. Most of them had guns and we were allowed to walk around the ship at certain times.

"We had restrictions and some of us were physically abused, shoved and pushed around.

"Even though we were physically bigger than they were, we didn't want to risk our lives because they had guns and weapons."

Mr Suliana said prayers helped him cope each day.

He said they were confined to the bridge area of the ship and were cut off from the rest of the world.

"Every day, we could hear gunfire. They were shooting at their own vessels and any other ship that sailed past," he said.

"The pirates were very aggressive and only a few could speak English, not proper English, but enough for us to understand.

"When the company said they weren't going to pay the ransom, we were not allowed to call our families.

"But prayers carried us through the experience and I'm just glad to be home again with my family.

"I want to thank everyone for their support and prayers."

His mother had tears in her eyes when he walked through the door of his home in Kinoya.

Mr Suliana plans to take a vacation to clear his mind. He said it would take a while for him to sail the seas again after his Somali ordeal.

His mother, Vamarasi Mausio, said her prayers had been answered and was overwhelmed with happiness at her son's safe return.

Foreign Affairs acting deputy permanent secretary Sila Balawa said Fiji was indebted to countries who contributed to the negotiations and release of the ship and the hostages.

"We are obviously very happy that he's back home. A lot of people and countries were involved in the negotiations and we are thankful to them," Mr Balawa said. "We are happy Mr Suliana is with his family."

Mr Balawa added shipping companies should make arrangements for safe passage whenever they go to pirate prone seas.

Mr Suliana was released on August 3.

The day we met terror

By Elenoa Baselala

We survived Somalia ... Tuvaluan sailors recall their 122 days at the mercy of Somali pirates

After serving a breakfast of eggs and bacon, Olataga Safoka started on his next chore - lunch for the 24 crew members of the MV Hansa Stavanger.

It was just like any morning but this April 4 was going to be different.

Smoking a cigarette with a Kiribas band playing in the background, Safoka stared out into space as he prepared to recount his 122 days as a hostage.

"It's good to be home," he said. "It is so good to be home.

He was not really home as home was Tuvalu. But for someone who was holed up as a captive on a ship thousands of kilometres from his island, I understood what he meant.

"On April 4, at 9.05am the ship's pirate alarm or signal went off. I thought it was a joke, or just an exercise.

"We all went up to a room but the chief engineer later told us to go down to the engine room as it was unsafe to be where we were.

"Of course, we were all terrified. About 9.50am, there was a loud explosion and the boat shook, we knew something had happened. There were shots fired and at 10.15am the pirates took over the boat," the 56-year-old recalled.

Every crew member was summoned to the bridge of the ship and told to put their hands behind their hands and lie face down.

Two pirates stood over them, looking menacingly with their guns.

Part of the ship was on fire and the captain pleaded with the pirates to allow the crew to put it out.

"They agreed so we put out the fire with the two men standing and watching us with guns.

"It took us four hours to fight the fire. After that, we were summoned to the bridge again.

"They asked for our money, mobile phones, watches and took them away.

"We had been drifting for about three hours. The ship was 150miles from the Somali shore when it was taken.

"The pirates asked the captain to start the engine again and go to Somalia, near Parawa, where the commander of the pirates boarded the ship with 20 other Somalis.

"They asked for everything we owned and took whatever they wanted. They stripped our beds of bed sheets and clothes."

Being the chief cook, Olataga had the tough duty of budgeting their food.

"There's 24 of us and I prepared three meals a day. After the first three weeks, we ran out of eggs. They threw out all the pork meat on the day they came on board because it was against their religion. By the first week of July, there was no more meat and water.

"We drank the water for the air-conditioning systems and we fished for our meals."

At times, Olataga and the steward would not eat as the pirates ate with them.

"They would cook their own meat but would come to us whenever our meals were ready."

On May 26, Olataga was locked up with the Russian and German crew members as the pirates escalated their demands for ransom. "They told the ship owners that we had been taken inland but we were locked in a room for one month and 14 days."

This was a time that the crew members were most frightened. They were blindfolded and threatened. The pirates would check them at 15-minute intervals.

Jack Taleka, an able seaman on the ship, said they were reminded by their captain to keep their emotions intact when they contemplated taking down the pirates.

"Don't try to be a hero, the captain often reminded us. But, of course, there were times when emotions ran high and we were almost fighting amongst ourselves.

"We were just like one big family - the Russians, Germans, Tuvaluans and the Fijians. The captain reminded us that the German navy was going to rescue us. And we thank the German frigate, F209, that was always close by. We could see it on our radar watching us the whole time we were in captivity. It gave us hope in those days," Taleka said.

One meat that the sailors absolutely detested after the experience is goat meat. Ordinary seaman Malologa Bruce was known as the "goat killer", having to do it for the pirates. "Once it was dead, they would just put the meat in without washing or whatsoever in the pot as soup, even the waste, and we were told to eat that too," Olataga says.

"Those people (Somalis) were just animals. They manhandled us and laughed when we told them we were not used to people holding guns to our head. They said they were used to and even small children were taught how to use guns, without guns they can't survive. These pirates did not know how to use the toilets and our engineers had to clean and clear the toilets 10 times a day because of blockage."

On August 3, freedom finally beckoned but the seafarers didn't want to get their hopes high until after they were out of Somali waters.

At about 1.30pm, they were lined up on the deck as helicopters owned by the ship owners circled the ship to see if all crew were present.

Once, twice as they counted the crews and then they "practiced" the dropping of the money on to a small boat waiting nearby. The first attempt was successful and so the second was the dropping of the $2.75million itself.

"It took them only half an hour to count the money and distribute it," Olataga said.

The ship's engine was already warming up and they were soon allowed to go. Five pirates stayed on board to make sure the boat with the money reached its destination.

When that happened, the Hansa Stanavanger finally sailed for Kenya with the German navy escorting it.

From Kenya, the crew members parted for home.

For the Tuvaluans, some who have been away for more than a year, the trip home may not happen until August 27 when seats are available on Pacific Sun. Efforts are being made for a charter flight. The crew members do not want to go by boat just yet.

"We still have flashbacks and at the moment it is our family that matters, they have been through a lot, they will decide whether we will sail again," said Taleka.

With the latest captures and releases now still at least 6 foreign vessels with a total of not less than 123 crew members are accounted for (of which 42 are confirmed to be Filipinos) and are held in Somali waters. They 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. MV JAIKUR 1 remains in Mogadishu harbor, but is an insurance and not a piracy case - all foreign crew was evacuated. MV INDIAN EXPLORER and S/Y SERENITY are allegedly dead ships. 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, incl. presently held ones) and the mistaken sinking of one vessel by a naval force. For 2009 the account stands at 154 attacks (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 47 sea-jackings on the Somali/Yemeni pirate side as well as at least five wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) on the side of the naval forces. More than 116 Somalis are held in foreign prisons under charges of piracy. Mystery pirate mother-vessels Athena/Arena and Burum Ocean as well as not fully documented cases of absconded vessels are not listed in the sea-jack count until clarification. Several other vessels with unclear fate (also not in the actual count), who were reported missing over the last ten years in this area, are still kept on our watch-list, though in some cases it is presumed that they sunk due to bad weather or being unfit to sail. In the last four years, 22 missing ships have been traced back with different names, flags and superstructures. Piracy incidents usually degrade during the monsoon season in winter and rise gradually by the end of the monsoon season starting from mid February and early April every year.

Present multi-factorial risk assessment code: GoA: YELLOW IO: YELLOW (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely). Allegedly still/again two groups from Puntland alone are out hunting on the Gulf of Aden and in the Indian Ocean, where also groups from Harardheere have set out again, despite the heavy seas and the rough weather.

Directly piracy or naval upsurge related reports

Set the Piracy Records Straight

All serious security experts and piracy analysts agree that the total amount nabbed by the Somali pirates in 2008 is around USD 35 mio. The figure of USD 150 mio circulated by the UN and repeated by Kenyan officials as well as copying media is simply not correct. Thereby all the Somali pirates together have in the whole of last year not even gained what a single gem heist in Britain on 6 August grabbed: 43 items worth USD 60 mio (£40m), just falling short of the USD 80 mio (£53m raid) on a Securitas depot in Kent in 2006. Will the newly combined European military might now rush to patrol New Bond Street to protect "the world most important jewellers" from gem-pirates?

Puntland police say six pirates arrested

Police in Somalia's northern region of Puntland said Friday they have arrested six suspected pirates who were preparing to launch attacks from a coastal village near Bossaso.

"The operation is the biggest of its kind... police arrested pirates with a large quantity of equipment used for attacking ships," Mohamed Said Janaqaf, Puntland's deputy police commissioner, told reporters in Bossaso.

He said the police also seized a mother ship, five speed boats, spare boat engines, weapons and ammunition, ladders for boarding vessels and a truck loaded with fuel.

"There was a brief exchange of fire but no casualties on either side," Janaqaf said.

The commander said the police raid, which came hours after the Puntland authorities met with military officials from NATO's anti-piracy force off the Somali coast, was part of a range of measures discussed during that meeting.

Puntland is a self-proclaimed Somali state where the Horn of Africa juts out into the ocean and commands access to one of the world's busiest and most strategic maritime routes.

The majority of the hundreds of attacks carried out by pirates against merchant vessels in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden over the past two years were launched from Puntland.

With no more than six ships still in pirate hands, the region's seajacking crisis has ebbed to its lowest level in more than a year but experts fear easing monsoon winds could allow a new surge in the coming days.

In a rebuff on Sunday piracy-related, armed groups stormed all administrative offices and the governors residence in Bendar-Bayla at the Indian-Ocean-coast of Puntland. No casualties were reported.

Of the six remaining sea-jacked ships only one is held outside the notorious Puntland coast.

Ecosystems, marine environment, IUU fishing and dumping, ecology

A Small Victory for the Somali People!

By Abdullahi Dool

On 1 August 2009, the Transitional Parliament has thrown out the 'maritime misunderstanding' between the TFG and the Kibaki Government in Kenya. Out of 347 Members of Parliament who were sitting at the time 334 have rejected the 'misunderstanding.' This is an astounding victory for the Somali people. It is also a victory for President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and the Speaker Aden Mohamed Nur. However, there is the making of new heroes. Our Parliamentarians who voted on their feet to flush ´the misunderstanding´ out are without doubt heroes.

No government can expect support if it betrays the nation. We are very pleased finally the TFG had come to its senses to stop the ´maritime memorandum of misunderstanding which has caused a lot of consternation to many Somalis. This means, we will support the government when it is doing something right. We will oppose them when they betray the nation and we will tell them when they are wrong.

One fact which did not receive the publicity it deserved is the involvement of Norway in this treachery against our nation. The ambassador of Norway was present at the Kenyan Foreign Ministry where the TFG ministers were enticed. The involvement of Norway can only signal one thing alone. Everybody knows Norway is the leading nation on offshore drilling. For that reason, the presence of Norway ambassador alone should have made the ministers run for the exit.

The 'maritime misunderstanding' is a testament of our nation´s loss of respect in the eyes of other nations. When a nation has remained stateless for long it loses respect and becomes fair game to all. Our nation has been on a long leave of absence from tending its interests. A broken door invites intruders also amoral individuals can take advantage of a nation stateless for long.

Nonetheless, our nation is indebted to Norway for other reasons. Like many nations which took in our people fleeing from conflict, Norway is home to a large number of Somalis. Our nation is grateful for that. However, we did not anticipate Norway to take part in a treachery to hand our coast to our neighbour. It was wrong of Norway to move behind the back of our nation to drill our coast for Kenya.

Ould Abdalla, the UN representative who is acting as the unelected President of Somalia was one of the participants. He should be ashamed of taking part in this treachery against Somalia. He is wrong to act as though Somalia is a no-man´s land which belongs to no-one.

It is no wonder a corrupt person always believes everybody is corrupt. We know in the civil war climate, sometimes we are dealing with strange breed of individual Somalis but nothing can prepare you to see persons whose belief in clannism has been stretched beyond belief. Nothing you say may help the correction of such individuals but one must never give up on people. The following mundane points may help inform such persons that the world is not the dark dungeon they live in.

It is individuals who serve in government not their clans.

It is individuals who commit corruption not clans.

Every individual has a unique experience of life and different upbringing.

A nation consists of individuals from different cities, towns and cities.

Every Somali has the right to be employed by the government of his country.

Criticism comes with holding public office.

The public have every right to criticise their government or their officials.

Criticism of individuals in government is not criticism of their clan.

The build up of a corrupt culture

In Somalia, a corrupt culture has built up which gives the wrong message that to serve in government is to enrich oneself and amassing ill-gotten wealth. Corruption is a deadly malady which eats away the fibre of any society and reduces the quality of life in any nation. The question is how to tackle corruption? There are two types of corruption which we must root out from our governance if our nation is to succeed and regain the respect of other nations. One type of corruption arises from human need. A responsible government should address this type of graft by paying its employees (politicians and civil servants) decent wages to live on.

The second strand which arises from greed is the worst virus of corruption. This deadlier type of corruption can only be kept away by the establishment of mechanisms. When we have a government fit for purpose only one tightly audited office should be allowed to handle all money matters to pay for wages, fund for projects and pay for all other government expenditure.

The ploy to loot Somalia

We know attempts are afoot to create an unholy alliance to create a society where the wealth of our nation is robbed at will in cahoots with foreign individuals. We shall neither tolerate nor accept the creation of a society similar to the corrupt culture which has denied the people of oil rich nation Nigeria, basic necessities such as running tap water, electricity, free education, health care and other tasks of a responsible government.

It is worth mentioning that after spending $16.5 billion on electricity alone by the former Obasanjo government, Lagos, the capital of Nigeria has at best, a few hours of power every day. $16.5 billion can provide electricity not only for one nation but the whole African continent. This is not the future we envisage for our nation. We need to remind certain individuals that our society is different. Because of our nomadic roots ours is an open society where nothing is hidden and everything is on the open.

Only together we can fight greed

No matter how wealthy they grow, there are individuals who are born with inextinguishable greed. The suggestion to establish a 'Green Line Zone' in our capital similar to the one in Baghdad is a well-known ploy to siphon wealth donated to Somalia into the deep pockets of individuals and foreign experts.

Enrichment comes from engaging in enterprise

The Somalis are by nature gifted with entrepreneurial skills. The Kenyans and the Ethiopians would tell you the entrepreneurial skills of our people and the benefits (mainly of entrepreneurial skills) they had from the influx of our refugees to those countries. Our people have no shortage of ideas, motivation or initiatives to better their lives. Nonetheless, it was ignorance which gave birth to the malfeasance which encouraged corruption to take root in our society. This must have sent the wrong message that enrichment comes from serving in government. The best way to enrichment is through the activities of the private sector. A capable Somali government will also allow public servants to engage in activities outside government which can generate income provided there is no conflict of interest.

We seek a better future for Somalia

When we argue for a better future, why does anyone argue about the mistakes of the past committed by less educated generation and long gone leaders? Shouldn't we be drawing a line under this past or is it the past what we want? What we seek s a clean government which on one hand pays its civil servants well and where probity is not the exception but the norm. Without accountability, Somalia shall remain the basket case it has become.

Look no further! We need to be on the guard of our nation. Somalia needs our vigil. The sharks who thrive on endemic corruption are circling. It is incumbent on us to fight against the attempts to establish a corrupt system which eats away the fabric of our society, the quality of life in our country and the standing of our nation. I urge all Somalis to join in the fight for Somalia against greedy individuals who are acting as though Somalia is a broken camel in the middle of nowhere which belongs to no-one. Our people who have gone through unimaginable suffering deserve better!

Anti-piracy measures

Naval contingent again in clandestine meetings with local authorities

Amid concern about a possible rise in attacks as the monsoon winds ease, officials from Puntland region met military officials from Nato's anti-piracy force last Thursday.

Muse Gele Yusuf, a Puntland governor, said: "We had talks with the Nato military officials on board one of their ships ... in order to prevent the pirates from carrying out attacks after the monsoon winds end."

Security companies press for armed men on board

Simon Jones, the chief executive of Triton International, a maritime security company based in Abu Dhabi, told Al Jazeera: "It is not the responsibility of merchant seamen to defend a vessel ... it is the responsibility of the navies or professional individuals trained to defend a vessel.

"Currently what you have is armed Somali pirates shooting at boats.

"If you have a professional armed man aboard, he is going to present a profile on that vessel that deters them from coming on board.

"It will deter them. I've seen it with my own eyes."

Turkey hands over command of anti-piracy force to US – dpa

The command of an international naval effort to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia was formally handed over from Turkey to the United States Thursday.

The handover was routine, part of a previously agreed-upon rotation of command.

The international naval task force, known at CTF 151, coordinates with other NATO, EU and independent anti-pirate forces taking in the navies of more than 30 nations. The efforts focus on piracy in and around the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Horn of Africa.

The Turkish command marked the first time a country from the Middle East took on a leading role within the coalition framework to combat piracy in the significant waterway, which links the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to most of Asia and East Africa.

US Navy 5th Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral William E Gortney said the task force, since its creation in January, has encountered 496 pirates; 251 of whom were disarmed and released, 235 of whom were disarmed and turned over for prosecution, and 10 who were killed.

The pirates' ability to carry out attacks has been further impacted by the seizure or destruction of 40 pirate vessels, and the confiscation of the their tools of the trade, including 199 small arms, 41 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), 85 RPG projectiles, 13 GPS devices and 34 phones,' Gortney said.

No real peace in sight yet

Foreign actors fuel Somalia fire

By Abdirashid Hashi (*)

For the past two decades, the most influential actor in Somalia's ever-worsening crisis has been what is commonly referred to as the international community.

Were it not for its misconceived policies, frenzied interventions and unethical (if not illegal) demands, Somalia would by now have at least the semblance of peace. Similarly, millions of Somalis would not have been displaced and thousands more would not have perished as a result.

Were it not for the intrigues of the international community, Ethiopia would not have ravaged Somalia in 2006; Al Qaeda would not have infiltrated in response; and Al Qaeda's local affiliate would not have emerged as a powerful force within the country.

Among the by-products of the international community's involvement is the ongoing humanitarian crisis – the worst in the world, according to every humanitarian organization. Similarly, the unprecedented recent violence in Mogadishu, the worst the Somali capital has seen since 1991, has it roots in the myopic actions – or inactions – of external forces.

The radicalization of tens of thousands of Somali youth, recruited from inside and outside of the country, and the polarization that is tearing apart the fabric of Somali society, also are derivatives of the internationally sanctioned Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia.

The anti-piracy strategies of the international community are another telling example of unsound policy.

The pirates operate from a few coastal towns in Somalia's Puntland region. The most rational approach would have been to provide training, equipment and modest resources to the law enforcement and coastal guard units of the Puntland authority. Instead, the international community opted to rush an armada of naval forces into the territorial waters of Somalia. Since this has had little effect on the piracy problem, the primary goal of the assembled navies seems to be showmanship rather than law enforcement.

The biggest culprits in the foreign meddling in Somalia are assorted UN organizations, particularly is the UN Political Office for Somalia; an East Africa regional body known as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD); and the Security Council. Close behind in terms of negative influence and micromanagement are the European Union and its members' enterprising embassies in Nairobi. Ethiopia, the United States, Eritrea, the Arab League and the African Union also have engaged in unhelpful political, military and diplomatic intrigues.

In the past 10 years, these parties have continually misdiagnosed Somalia's problems. They also have dispensed – without concern for the consequences of their actions – poisonous policy prescriptions.

For example, at Somali reconciliation meetings, foreign actors have tended to engineer the ascendance of unelected transitional authorities who are beholden to their foreign patrons.

Each shaky, undemocratic regime is declared to be the legitimate government of Somalia and the only viable road to peace and national recovery.

Some pragmatic Somalis (the author included) and citizens caught up in the hype of potential international support often have joined in these dysfunctional transitional governments, hoping the internationally community will be serious about assisting the regimes they helped to create.

To the bewilderment of Somali presidents and prime ministers, however, the promised international assistance fails to materialize. In turn, disappointed citizens curse the naive politicians who bought the foreigners' platitudes. Transitional governments abandoned by the international community quickly become discredited in the eyes of the population, while opposition groups are emboldened. As a result, Somalia is in flames.

Moreover, hundreds if not thousands of Somali youths born and bred in the West are now inspired by or in the ranks of Al Qaeda-affiliated groups in Somalia. Militants have used some of these youths for suicide missions inside Somalia and one can only assume that their ultimate plan is to dispatch these newly found "treasure youth" to the West, as the recently foiled terror plot in Australia seems to indicate.

The responsibility for the existing mayhem in Somalia, as well as the anarchy to come, falls squarely on the shoulders of the international community's point-persons for Somalia.

These diplomats and their political masters have presided over the preventable destruction of the most homogenous country on the planet, a country whose problems could have been solved in a matter of months had there been the political will and a genuine desire to do so.

The proliferation of external actors involved in Somalia, particularly such cross-purpose actors as the EU, AU, UN, Arab League, IGAD, the U.S. and others, has resulted in a hodgepodge of pseudo-remedies designed to serve the interests of the competing actors rather than those of war-weary Somalis.

The Obama administration's new interest in stabilizing Somalia could mark the end of the international community's hands-on, yet no-progress routine in Somalia. Last week's historic meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed may finally give the Somali people hope they can believe in.

Abdirashid Hashi is a Somali Canadian freelance writer who was secretary to the Somali Council of Ministers and deputy chief of staff in the office of the Somali prime minister (2000-2002).

Somalia MPs unhappy with newly sworn-in lawmakers

Lawmakers in Somalia's transitional federal parliament are unhappy with new members of parliament who were officially sworn-in last week, Radio Garowe reports.

The new lawmakers represent civil society's 75 seats under the terms of the Djibouti Agreement, which allowed the Somali parliament to be doubled to 550 members.

Some 396 MPs were present in Mogadishu as the new lawmakers were sworn-in. But some MPs expressed their frustration with the process.

MP Hussein Adawe accused parliament Speaker Sheikh Aden "Madobe" Mohamed of "favoritism."

On Thursday, the Speaker appointed a special committee to probe the new lawmakers.

"We have appointed an eight-member committee led by MP Ugas Bile," Speaker Madobe said.

Somalia's expanded parliament is composed of clan representatives, Islamists and civil society members.

Government holds indirect talks with rebels

Somalia´s government has held indirect talks with the Islamist rebels who are fighting for to overthrow the fragile government, an official said on Saturday.

Abdullahi Mohamed Ali, the new national security minister of the Somali government said the government was holding indirect talks with three senior al Shabaab commanders and with high profile members of Hizbul Islam rebel group.

"We are getting quite positive signals… In the coming weeks there will be a good development," he said.

But, Sheik Hassan Mahdi, a spokesman for Hizbul Islam group denied that his group was in talks with the government.

"We are not holding any talks with the apostate government and we will not even talk in the future," said Sheik Hassan Mahdi.

More than 55 Hizbul Islam fighters joined the Somali government on Friday and other Hizbul Islam fighters had also joined the government last Wednesday.

Somali Insurgents Reject Government´s Olive Branch

By Peter Clottey for VOA

Somalia's hard-line Islamic insurgents have rejected peace overtures after President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed called on them to stop the violence and begin peace negotiations.

This comes less than a week after President Sheikh Sharif held talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

The insurgents including, al-Shabab denounced President Sheikh Sharif's invitation calling him an agent of the west who wants to control the country's resources.

At a press conference Monday, President Sheikh Sharif accused al-Shabab of being under the command of al-Qaida, which aims to turn Somalia into a safe haven for international terrorism.

Political analyst Ali Abdullahi told VOA that Mogadishu is too weakened to negotiate with the hard-line insurgents.

"I wonder who he (President Sheikh Sharif) will try to negotiate with. Also, the government thing it can sort of appeal to the not o much of the hard-liners. But it seems on both sides not only the issue of negotiations but there is also the possibility of escalation of violence," Abdullahi said.

He said there are indications that the insurgents seem to have the upper hand.

"Al-Shabab wings are saying that whatever arms given to the government, they will take it from them as happened with the AK 47s that were given to them recently. So what you find is that whatever weapons are given to the government will ultimately end up in the hands of al-Shabab because the government does not have anyone to fight for them," he said.

Abdullahi said the government faces a daunting task of defeating insurgents who are highly motivated.

"Al-Shabab has a lot of spirit and they have a well disciplined group of militants and the government is not well prepared to challenge them on the battlefront. So the best way they (government) they could think of is maybe to have a negotiation on the table. But I wonder whether the government will be ready to negotiate from a point of weakness rather than a point of strength," Abdullahi said.

He said President Sheik Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's administration is too fragile to govern.

"The government seems to be at its weakest point; financially and militarily, they are very weak. And there are also other factions which apparently are deserting the government in the form of the military," he said.

Abdullahi said a cross-section of Somalis is refusing to recognize the government.

"There is also organized peaceful party which is being arranged to sort of appeal to the international community as an alternative government because most of the Somali elite don't see this government as representative of them," Abdullahi said.

The hard-line insurgent groups have so far refused to recognize the government, vowing to overthrow the administration and implement the strictest form of Sharia law.

The insurgent groups control most of the country including some areas in the capital, Mogadishu.

Somalia has been without an effective government after former longtime ruler Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

Siad Barre's overthrow reportedly led warlords to escalate the conflict, which plunged the country into deeper crisis.

Somalia tells all visitors to seek gov´t. approval

By Abdiaziz Hassan for Reuters

Gunmen shot dead five Pakistani preachers last Wednesday outside a mosque in the central Somalia, local religious and police officials said.

Somalia's new security minister now warned foreigners on Friday not to visit the Horn of Africa nation without government approval after masked gunmen massacred seven Pakistani preachers at a mosque.

The clerics were killed on Wednesday in Galkayo, a town on the southern edge of the semi-autonomous northern Puntland region. Officials in Puntland and neighbouring Galmudug district accuse each other of ordering the shooting.

Some residents said the sheikhs may have been suspected of al-Qaida links, while others rejected that and said they were from South Asia's apolitical Tablighi Jamaat religious movement.

Mohamed Abdullahi, who was appointed as security minister last month after his predecessor was assassinated by a suicide bomber in June, said their identity was not yet established.

"Foreign fighters have been using this as cover and acting like preachers in Somalia. Nobody is sure if they were real preachers, but we condemn the killing of people in a mosque," he told Reuters in an interview.

"I am warning Islamic preachers and all foreigners not to come to Somalia with such arrangements. They have to pass through the country's immigration authorities who can advise them on when they can arrive and where they should stay."

Western security agencies say Somalia has become a haven for Islamist militants plotting attacks in the region and beyond. Violence has killed more than 18,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and driven another 1 million from their homes.

The country has been mired in civil war since 1991, and the administration of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed controls only small pockets of the bullet-scarred capital Mogadishu.

It is battling hardline Islamist insurgents in southern and central regions, including the al Shabaab group, which the United States accuses of being al-Qaida's proxy in Somalia.

At least 16 people were killed and 20 wounded in two days of fighting between al Shabaab and rival militiamen in the central Galgadud region, witnesses told Reuters by telephone on Friday.

Abdullahi said the government was holding indirect talks with three senior al Shabaab commanders and with high profile members of another guerrilla group, Hizbul Islam.

"We are getting quite positive signals . . . In the coming weeks there will be a good development," he said.

He did not elaborate on the discussions, but said more than 50 Hizbul Islam fighters voluntarily disarmed this week.

"They had no deep political ideology. Most of them were brainwashed or forced into what they were doing. They also realized they had lost the moral support of Somalis because of their actions," the minister said.

The Trouble with Puntland

International Crisis Group - Africa Briefing N°64

The semi-autonomous north-eastern Somali region of Puntland, once touted as a success of the "building blocks" approach to reestablishing national stability and widely viewed as one of the most prosperous parts of Somalia, is experiencing a three-year rise in insecurity and political tension. At its roots are poor governance and a collapse of the intra-clan cohesion and pan-Darood solidarity that led to its creation in 1998. Intra-Darood friction has eroded the consensual style of politics that once underpinned a relative stability. The piracy problem is a dramatic symptom of deeper problems that, left untreated, could lead to Puntland´s disintegration or overthrow by an underground militant Islamist movement. A solution to the security threat requires the Puntland government to institute reforms that would make it more transparent and inclusive of all clans living within the region.

Puntland´s founding a decade ago was an ambitious experiment to create from the bottom up a polity that might ultimately offer a template for replication in the rest of the country, especially the war-scarred south. But Puntland is no longer a shining example, and its regime is in dire straits, with most of the blame resting squarely on the political leadership. In a major shift from the traditional unionist position officially adopted in 1998, an important segment of the Majerten elite is pushing for secession. If a wide variety of grievances are not urgently tackled in a comprehensive manner, the consequences could be severe for the whole of Somalia and the Horn of Africa.

The new president, Abdirahman Farole, and his government promise many reforms and say they will eradicate piracy in "a matter of months". Since the beginning of April 2009, there has been a crackdown on the gangs; a few members have been put on trial and sentenced to long jail terms; and the security forces have raided suspected hideouts. These measures alone are likely not enough, however, to cope with an entrenched criminal enterprise. Criminal gangs in Puntland are involved not only in piracy, but also in other illicit activities, including arms trafficking, kidnapping and the smuggling of both people and contraband. There is evidence of state complicity, and doubts remain that the government has the political will to move against the powerful gangs, since that could spark fighting between sub-clans. Officials know this and are prioritising what they call a wa´yigelin (sensitisation campaign) rather than use of force.

Clan elders and clerics are talking to youth groups in coastal villages about the immorality and dangers of piracy, but the practice is widely tolerated and even described as a response to the "plunder" of Somalia´s marine resources and the reported dumping of toxic waste on its shores. Youth unemployment, poverty and worsening living conditions fuel the problem.

The government must take advantage of the piracy-driven international attention to mobilise funds and expertise to carry out comprehensive political, economic and institutional reforms that address the fundamental problems of poor governance, corruption, unemployment and the grinding poverty in coastal villages. The international community needs to refocus on the long-term measures without which there can be no sustainable end to that practice or true stability.

Equipping and training a small coast guard is obviously a necessary investment, but so too are other steps, such as to improve the general welfare and help impoverished fishing communities. International partners should encourage and support the government of Puntland to do the following:

suspend implementation of the new constitution and redraft it in a more inclusive process involving consultation with civil society and key clan stakeholders, as well as expert help to meet international standards;

draw up and implement a credible security sector reform strategy with input from domestic stakeholders and foreign experts, key elements of which should include civilian oversight and professionalisation of the state security agencies, and recast the general amnesty for pirates who surrender so leaders and their financial backers do not have impunity to enjoy their profits;

implement comprehensive electoral reform, including an independent electoral commission whose members come from all clans, are endorsed by the elders and parliament and enjoy secure tenure and autonomy; an independent cross-clan committee of experts to redraw parliamentary boundaries; and a special court to handle election petitions and arbitrate disputes;

set up an independent anti-corruption authority competent to investigate and prosecute officials;

open serious talks with Somaliland, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and clan elders in the Sool and Sanaag regions, and if necessary seek external arbitration to determine the final status and ownership of the disputed territories; and

build consensus around these measures by convening a region-wide conference of clan elders, political leaders and civil society groups, modelled on the 1998 Garowe Conference that launched the Puntland experiment.

Inaccuracies and omissions in ICG report on Puntland

By Liban Ahmad (*)

There are inaccuracies, contradictions and omissions in International Crisis Group´s policy briefing on Punltand, writes Liban Ahmad who read it closely

Two weeks ago Puntland celebrated the 11th anniversary under a new administration that took office in January. The president of Punltand, Abdirahman Mohamud Farole campaigned on a reform ticket to tackle piracy and security problems in the autonomous region established in 1998.

International Crisis Group Policy briefing, The Trouble with Puntland ‎ contains facts, half-truths and contradictions. The briefing dwells on touch on Puntland´s "decline", highlights efforts by the new administration to combat piracy and "criminal gangs" but argues "these measures alone are likely not enough, however, to cope with an entrenched criminal enterprise." ICG criticises, among other issues, efforts by Puntland leadership to implement " a new constitution", and the failure to make use of "consensual style of politics that once underpinned a relative stability." How can Puntland arrest the "decline" and attendant problems? ICG´s prescription is clear: "Puntland needs to return to its original consensual style of politics" but in the same briefing ICG argues that the Harti elders were cowed into accepting the election that made Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed the first president of Somalia in 1998 because the "Elders from the two clans [ Dhulbahante and Warsangali ] knew the consequences of challenging the SSDF."

Somali Salvation Democratic Front was the first armed opposition group against the former Siad Barre regime , and was headed by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.

When the military regime fell, and different parts of Somalia were ruled by armed opposition groups who had a role, in one way or another, in toppling the military dictatorship United Somali Congress, Somali National Movement and Somali Patriotic Movement—pro-SSDF political and traditional leaders in Mudug, Nugaal and Bari regions agreed to bestow the status of representative organisation on SSDF because the first three reconciliation conferences for Somalis— 1991, 1993 and 1998 sponsored by Djibouti, Ethiopia and Egypt respectively—were based on the reasoning that it is more practical and pragmatic to bring together armed organisations representing clans than involving people from different regions of Somalia who had no role in the rise of warlordism. The establishment of Puntland had led to disbanding of SSDF militias just as the establishment of Somaliland had led to dismantling Somali National Movement and decommissioning local militias. Had Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed not sacrificed SSDF for setting up Puntland, his Harti-based approach to forming an autonomous region would not have born fruits.

Relations between Puntland and the TFG

According to ICG, "… the government of Puntland operates wholly autonomously of the Transitional Federal Government. Transitional Federal Government President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and his cabinet ministers have no direct authority in Puntland, which, in its old and new constitution, retains the right to negotiate its status with the "federal" government of Somalia.

Puntland] Leaders are increasingly antagonistic to the south and the government there. They are seeking international aid without coordinating," On the night Puntland was observing 11th anniversary celebrations in Garowe, the Somali president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed , made a short, telephone speech for people celebrating the occasion.

The TFG facing a host problems ranging from insurgency to squabbling and bloated parliament that prevent it from promoting and developing ´State Governments, Regional and District Administrations subject to legislation and guidelines of the Federal Constitution Commission on the formation of Transitional Federal Government. 'Concentrating resources and powers in a weak federal government at the expense of regional administrations is an approach that will prove a stumbling block to efforts to restore popular trust in government institutions for Somalis. " Within the Somali sociopolitical context there are hardly any countervailing structures or institutions capable of preventing the repetition of a monopolistic appropriation of power," argued Martin Doornbos.

In southern Somalia there is an autonomy deficit: both Somaliland and Puntland have experimented with self-rule. The diversity blessing in the south—different clan families who share no genealogy—has been undermined because southern Somalia´s clans who are not associated with the toppling of Siad Barre regime were marginalised by clans and sub-clans with clan affiliation to armed oppositio groups. This is partly why Islamist movements have emerged in southern Somalia.

ICG views on Sool and Sanaag territorial dispute between Puntland and Somaliland are worth quoting: "Both need to start immediate talks with the traditional authorities in Sool and Sanaag to find a peaceful solution If necessary, they should seek external third-party arbitration to settle the dispute over status and ownership. "This position contradicts the position of the ICG took in Somaliland: Time for African Union Leadership published in 2006." the AU should assign Somaliland an interim status analogous to the observer status it has granted 31 non-African states, or the status of the Palestinian Authority at the UN. Somaliland´s application for membership gives the AU an opportunity to prevent a deeply rooted dispute from evolving into an open conflict," ICG argued in Somaliland: Time for African Union Leadership.

There are omissions in The Trouble with Puntland ‎. On the situation in Galkacyo, the ICG briefing paints the following sketchy picture: " Galkacyo is divided into two clan sectors – the north for the Majerten, the south for the Sa´ad. Clan militias have clashed repeatedly in and around Galkacyo in the past five years." Galmudug administration rules south Galkacyo. In 1993 the late General Mohamed Farrah Aidid and Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, then Chairman of Emergencies in Mudug, Nugaal and Bari regions, signed a peace agreement that led to Sa´ad and Omar Mohamud sub-clans to co-exist peacefully in the administrative capital of Mudug region. Both sub-clans are still committed to the Mudug Agreement. In the briefing no mention is made of the large number of internally displaced people (IDPs) who moved to Puntland because of hostilities in the south.

Rigorous fact-checking and thorough research could have eliminated inaccuracies, contradictions and omissions in ICG´s policy briefing on Puntland.

(*) Liban Ahmad writes news analyses for Garowe Online, the station and website of Abdirahman Mohamud Farole' son Mohamed. Liban Ahmed thereby assumes the role of a mouthpiece for the President of the semi-autonomous region of Somalia.

Djibouti to deploy troops in Somalia (NV)

Djibouti soldiers will soon join their Ugandan and Burundian counterparts on the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

Djibouti´s foreign affairs minister Mahomoud Ali Youssouf was in Kampala this week to discuss the arrangements with his Ugandan counterpart, Sam Kutesa.

The ministry´s spokesperson, Sam Guma, on Thursday said Djibouti agreed to send troops but did not commit herself to the numbers.

"The ministers explored the possibility of Djibouti contributing towards supporting the Ugandan and Burundian troops that are already keeping peace in Somalia," he said.

There are 4,300 peace-keepers in Somalia, of whom 2,700 are Ugandan. The Uganda Government has continuously called upon other AU members to deploy in Somalia.

Uganda is in Somalia on behalf of the AU and the United Nations Security Council, on a peacekeeping mission.

Kutesa said without control of Somalia, extremists would traffic arms through the country, threatening the region´s stability.

Impacting reports from the global village

Did Britain Wreck the World? – Newsweek

By Jove, it certainly seems that way. Most of today's festering conflicts can be traced to colonial-era meddling, either through partition—slicing and dicing the planet as they saw fit—or, worse, indiscriminately corralling unrelated ethnic groups into a single, quarrelsome country. To wit:

SRI LANKA

During their 150-year rule, the British favored Tamils and other minority ethnic groups over the majority Sinhalese. After 1947's national elections, the Sinhalese tried to reverse the discrimination, culminating in a quarter-century-long civil war.

INDIA/PAKISTAN

When the Brits arrived, the Subcontinent was a patchwork of princely states. When they left centuries later, they divvied it up by religion, prompting mass migration and perhaps a million deaths. Kashmir, which had a Hindu leader and a Muslim majority, has been contested ever since.

IRAQ

Border disputes and ethnic tensions have been rife since 1920, when the British forged modern-day Iraq out of three Ottoman states: Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul. The Brits decamped after a 1958 revolution, but their hellish handiwork lives on.

SUDAN

A British-Egyptian alliance ruled North and South Sudan separately until 1946, when the Brits abruptly changed their minds and decided the two should merge. The north was economically and politically favored over the south, and civil war has been on and off ever since.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

As anti-Semitism gained ground in Europe, an influx of Jews complicated land claims, but the Brits—in charge of this former Ottoman territory starting in 1921—flip-flopped on the declaration of Israel as the Jewish homeland and proposed partition, which was rejected by both sides. In 1948 they cut their losses and left it up to the United Nations. Today, a solution is as far off as ever.

SOMALIA

Fashioned in 1960 from a British protectorate and an Italian colony, Somalia has been divided against itself ever since. In the 1990s, after decades of civil strife, the government collapsed and the two neighbors declared autonomy.

NIGERIA

The West African nation was once two distinct states—officially joined in 1914, but administered by the British separately until independence in 1960. Here, the British favored the south, setting the stage for decades of strife.

Sources: Sean Hanretta and Priya Satia, Stanford University / Research By Jesse Ellison

N.B.: .... and watch Kenya, a colonial conglomerate of 56 nations hammered together with foreign and local iron fists, who slowly both get rusty and loose grip, while people start to understand what self-determination as human right and political agenda means for social justice.]

Stranded woman finally home

By Michelle Shephard and John Goddard - TorontoStar staff reporters

Suaad home at last. Nearly three month after being branded an imposter and held in Kenya, Suaad Hagi Mohamud finally landed in Toronto on Saturday afternoon.

After three long months spent trying to convince the world she belonged here, in Canada, Suaad Hagi Mohamud landed at Pearson airport yesterday and finally heard those two little words that mean the world.

"Welcome home."

The long-awaited greeting, from one of the three Canada Border Services Agency officers who met Mohamud and ushered her through a priority immigration line, signalled the end of a nightmare that landed the Toronto woman in a Kenyan jail, kept her separated from her 12-year-old son here, and brought her perilously close to deportation to her native, lawless birthplace of Somalia.

The joyous words rang out again minutes later as Mohamud, 31, made her way to the luggage carousels, where a score of baggage porters, recognizing her from recent media coverage, broke into a musical chant.

"Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!" chanted the porters, some of whom, like Mohamud, were born in Somalia.

And then, as Mohamud emerged from behind the security barriers, came the most welcoming moment of all – a long-anticipated embrace with her boy, Mohamed Hussein.

"I'm here for my son," she said, trying to be heard over the din of the welcoming crowd. "It's really something I missed," she said of the boy she'd last seen in May, when she took two weeks emergency medical leave from her job to visit her sick mother in Nairobi.

Back then, Mohamed was just finishing Grade 6; now, after a summer spent mostly with babysitters and family friends and waiting for his mom to come home, he's getting ready for Grade 7. But before that happens, mother and child plan to spend a few weeks making up for lost time, hanging out, going to movies, taking in a Blue Jays game.

"It's been really hard on Mohamed," said Asha Omar, a 21-year-old in the household of seven people who took the boy in during his mother's absence.

"It's been difficult every day," she added, especially since Mohamed's mother "has been emotional, frustrated, scared.

"I've known her five years – she is such a good human being," Omar said.

"Not knowing whether she was going to jail, or be deported back to Somalia, it was terrible. We didn't know what was going to happen."

But Mohamud, in Amsterdam, knew exactly what was going to happen the moment she landed at Pearson.

"He's my son, but he's also my friend," Mohamud told a Star reporter at Schiphol airport as she waited for her connecting flight to Toronto. "Ooh! I can't wait to see my baby! I'm just going to hug him so hard!"

And she made a vow.

"I will never travel without him again," she said. And to make her point, she purchased a big hard-sided suitcase with wheels that Mohamed would use the next time they travel.

Hours later, the long flight to Toronto behind her, Mohamud wheeled the empty suitcase with her as she emerged into the arrivals hall and a crowd chanting "Welcome. Welcome."

Wilma Cathcart, at the airport to pick up a friend arriving from Glasgow, recognized Mohamed from all the media coverage as he stood waiting for his mom, a bunch of red and yellow roses in his hands, and introduced herself.

"I am very ashamed of our government," she said. "We just wanted to say we're so happy to see that his mom is back."

Others in the welcoming crowd agreed.

"We are not second-class citizens," cried one man, waving Somali and Canadian flags.

"I'm glad I'm Canadian," he added. "I love this country."

Mohamud, who came to Canada in 1999 and later became a Canadian citizen, flew to Africa in May on her four-year-old Canadian passport to visit her mother and other family members in Kenya. But when she went to board her KLM flight home, a KLM employee at Nairobi airport decided she didn't look like her passport photo and denied her boarding.

"I never thought it was going to happen right after I became a Canadian citizen and I found a new home," Mohamud told the Star as she waited in Nairobi. "I really thought I (could) be far away from all this trouble. I really don't know what to say."

The Canadian High Commission in Nairobi decided she was an impostor – her lips were different from her passport photo, her glasses didn't match – cancelled her Canadian passport, reported her to Kenyan authorities and put her out on the street.

She was promptly arrested by Kenyan authorities as a stateless person, jailed in a crowded, flea-infested prison, and threatened with deportation to her birthplace, Somalia.

Meanwhile, Canadian authorities ignored her. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan and Prime Minister Stephen Harper remained silent, even after Mohamud trotted out reams of other Ontario identification establishing – or so she thought – her Canadian citizenship.

But none of them were good enough, apparently, for Canadian officials.

Finally, after weeks of prodding by the Star, her lawyer, friends and family members, the Canadian government agreed to a DNA test, which established – with more than 99.99 per cent accuracy – the relationship between mother and son.

On Thursday, Harper said Canada's "first priority" was to bring Mohamud home.

That was enough to spur Canadian officials in Kenya to issue her with emergency travel documents and book Mohamud a flight home.

And yesterday, after some 24 hours in airplanes and airports, Mohamud was home.

Walking out of the customs hall and toward the waiting crowds – and her son – at Pearson's Terminal 3, Mohamud's nerves, so strong and constant during all those months, finally caught up with her.

"Oh my God," she said. "This looks scary. This looks scary."

But the moment quickly passed and, as she emerged to the cries of "Welcome back!" Mohamud raised her fist in a gesture of tired acknowledgment.

Fighting her way to the curb and a ride home, her son clutched tightly at her side, Mohamud had one last thought for sharing.

"I'm really happy to come home," she told reporters. "That's all."

Lawyer blames Canadian client´s illness on Kenyan jail stint

By Mark Iype, Canwest News Service

The lawyer for a Canadian woman who was stranded in Kenya for nearly three months after being accused of identity fraud says the Harper government is responsible for a respiratory ailment she contracted while imprisoned in Nairobi.

Suaad Haji Mohamud was undergoing tests at a Toronto hospital for an unknown illness that is causing her severe breathing problems, her lawyer, Raoul Boulakia, said Sunday. "We don´t know what it is yet," said Boulakia. "It could be pneumonia, tuberculosis or a tropical infectious disease."

He said she likely contracted the illness while being held in June for eight days in Langata prison in Nairobi, a women´s institution with a history of terrible living conditions.

A 2005 U.S. State Department report on Kenyan human rights refers to Langata prisoners being served raw and contaminated food, and that some inmates had died from diarrhea.

Boulakia said the federal government is ultimately responsible for Mohamud´s ailment.

"This is directly attributable to the Government of Canada," he said. "This was not unusual, it was entirely predictable that she would be sent to the prison after she was remanded."

Boulakia said Mohamud was treated by a doctor while in Kenya, but did not receive "adequate" care.

She was not expected to stay overnight at the Toronto hospital where the tests were being carried out Sunday, said Boulakia.

Mohamud´s ex-husband, Hussein Asbscir, said he is worried, but he is happy that their 12-year-old son, Mohamed Hussein, is able to be with his mother at the hospital.

"She is very sick," he said. "But we are hopeful that she will be better."

Mohamud arrived in Toronto a day earlier to throngs of supporters after a Kenyan court dropped charges late last week that she was using someone else´s passport and was in the country illegally.

Mohamud had only planned to be in Kenya for three weeks. But when she arrived at the Nairobi airport on May 21 to return to Toronto, a Kenyan immigration official said she did not look like the woman in her four-year-old passport.

The official questioned the size of her lips in comparison with the photo, said Mohamud.

After saying it had carried out "conclusive investigations," the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi said it had also confirmed that Mohamud was an "impostor."

Kenyan authorities then charged her with possessing and using a passport issued to another person, as well as being present unlawfully in the country even though she provided half a dozen pieces of identification.

Canadian consular officials voided her passport and sent it to Kenyan authorities as evidence in their prosecution.

Last week, a DNA test finally proved the woman´s identity, resulting in the charges being dropped.

The federal government has been slammed for its handling of the case. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said there was "no excuse" for the way Mohamud was treated.

Jane Almeida, a spokeswoman for McGuinty, said Sunday the province had no comment about Mohamud´s illness, but that the Ontario government was pleased she was home with her family.

Boulakia said comments by Lucas Naikuni, a Kenyan lawyer, who said Friday that Mohamud would be taking legal action against the Canadian and Kenyan governments were not authorized by him or Mohamud.

"I have informed him in writing to stop making statements," said Boulakia.

Boulakia would not comment on whether his client would be pursuing legal action against the Canadian or Kenyan governments.

"At this point, I want her to get medical care, and then I´m going to be having discussions with her."

The Department of Foreign Affairs declined Sunday to comment on Mohamud illness.

A spokesman reiterated Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan´s request from the Canada Border Services Agency for a "full accounting" of the agency´s handling of the case.

U.S. Military Holds War Games on Nigeria, Somalia

By Daniel Volman

In addition to U.S. military officers and intelligence officers, "Unified Quest 2008" brought together participants from the State Department and other U.S. government agencies, academics, journalists, and foreign military officers (including military representatives from several NATO countries, Australia, and Israel), along with the private military contractors who helped run the war games: the Rand Corporation and Booz-Allen.

The list of options for the Nigeria scenario ranged from diplomatic pressure to military action, with or without the aid of European and African nations. One participant, U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stanovich, drew up a plan that called for the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops within 60 days....

Among scenarios examined during the game were the possibility of direct American military intervention involving some 20,000 U.S. troops in order to "secure the oil," and the question of how to handle possible splits between factions within the Nigerian government. The game ended without military intervention because one of the rival factions executed a successful coup and formed a new government that sought stability.

W]hen General Ward appeared before the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2008, he cited America's growing dependence on African oil as a priority issue for Africom and went on to proclaim that combating terrorism would be "Africom's number one theater-wide goal." He barely mentioned development, humanitarian aid, peacekeeping or conflict resolution.

In May 2008, the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, hosted "Unified Quest 2008," the army's annual war games to test the American military's ability to deal with the kind of crises that it might face in the near future. "Unified Quest 2008" was especially noteworthy because it was the first time the war games included African scenarios as part of the Pentagon's plan to create a new military command for the continent: the Africa Command or Africom. No representatives of Africom were at the war games, but Africom officers were in close communication throughout the event.

The five-day war games were designed to look at what crises might erupt in different parts of the world in five to 25 years and how the United States might handle them. In addition to U.S. military officers and intelligence officers, "Unified Quest 2008" brought together participants from the State Department and other U.S. government agencies, academics, journalists, and foreign military officers (including military representatives from several NATO countries, Australia, and Israel), along with the private military contractors who helped run the war games: the Rand Corporation and Booz-Allen.

One of the four scenarios that were war-gamed was a test of how Africom could respond to a crisis in Somalia — set in 2025 — caused by escalating insurgency and piracy. Unfortunately, no information on the details of the scenario is available.

Far more information is available on the other scenario — set in 2013 — which was a test of how Africom could respond to a crisis in Nigeria in which the Nigerian government is near collapse, and rival factions and rebels are fighting for control of the oil fields of the Niger Delta and vying for power in the country which is the sixth largest supplier of America's oil imports.

The list of options for the Nigeria scenario ranged from diplomatic pressure to military action, with or without the aid of European and African nations. One participant, U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stanovich, drew up a plan that called for the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops within 60 days, which even he thought was undesirable. ...

As the game progressed, according to former U.S. ambassador David Lyon, it became clear that the government of Nigeria was a large part of the problem. As he put it, "we have a circle of elites [the government of Nigeria] who have seized resources and are trying to perpetuate themselves. Their interests are not exactly those of the people."

Furthermore, according to U.S. Army Major Robert Thornton, an officer with the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, "it became apparent that it was actually green (the host nation government) which had the initiative, and that any blue [the U.S. government and its allies] actions within the frame were contingent upon what green was willing to tolerate and accommodate. "

Among scenarios examined during the game were the possibility of direct American military intervention involving some 20,000 U.S. troops in order to "secure the oil," and the question of how to handle possible splits between factions within the Nigerian government. The game ended without military intervention because one of the rival factions executed a successful coup and formed a new government that sought stability.

The recommendations which the participants drew up for the Army's Chief of Staff, General George Casey, do not appear to be publicly available, so we don't know exactly what the participants finally concluded. But we do know that since the war games took place in the midst of the presidential election campaign, General Casey decided to brief both John McCain and Barack Obama on its results.

The African Security Research Project has prepared reports providing detailed information on the creation, missions, and activities of Africom. In particular, they reveal that neither the commander of Africom, General William Ward, nor his deputy, Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, are under any illusions about the purpose of the new command.

Thus, when General Ward appeared before the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2008, he cited America's growing dependence on African oil as a priority issue for Africom and went on to proclaim that combating terrorism would be "Africom's number one theater-wide goal." He barely mentioned development, humanitarian aid, peacekeeping or conflict resolution.

And in a presentation by Vice Admiral Moeller at an Africom conference held at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008 and subsequently posted on the web by the Pentagon, he declared that protecting "the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market" was one of Africom's "guiding principles" and specifically cited "oil disruption," "terrorism," and the "growing influence" of China as major "challenges" to U.S. interests in Africa.

Since then, as General Ward has demonstrated in an interview with AllAfrica, he has become more adept at sticking to the U.S. government's official public position on Africom's aims and on its escalating military operations on the African continent.

These activities currently include supervising U.S. arms sales, military training programs and military exercises; overseeing the growing presence of U.S. naval forces in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea and off the coast of Somalia; running the new U.S. base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti; and managing the array of African military bases to which the United States has acquired access under agreements with the host governments of African countries all over the continent. These countries include Algeria, Botswana, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia.....

President Obama has decided instead to expand the operations of Africom throughout the continent. He has proposed a budget for financial year 2010 that will provide increased security assistance to repressive and undemocratic governments in resource-rich countries like Nigeria, Niger, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to countries that are key military allies of the United States like Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, Rwanda and Uganda.

And he has actually chosen to escalate U.S. military intervention in Africa, most conspicuously by providing arms and training to the beleaguered Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, as part of his effort to make Africa a central battlefield in the "global war on terrorism." So it is clearly wishful thinking to believe that his exposure to the real risks of such a strategy revealed by these hypothetical scenarios gave him a better appreciation of the risks that the strategy entails.

Daniel Volman is director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC and a member of the board of directors of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. He has been studying U.S. security policy toward Africa and U.S. military activities in Africa for more than 30 years.

UN's Ban Expects Nepotism Report Aug. 18, As His Daughter's and Son in Law's Promotion Questioned

By Matthew Russell Lee

Questions about nepotism at the UN have multiplied this summer, now leading directly to the top. The efforts by Alan Doss, the Special Representative to the Democratic Republic of the Congo of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to procure a job for his daughter Rebecca with the UN Development Program, documented by an e-mail obtained and first published by Inner City Press in which Mr. Doss requested "leeway" from applicable hiring rules, has triggered an investigation on which a report is now expected on August 18.

On August 14, Mr. Ban's Spokesperson's Office in a message to Inner City Press disputed that they have been dodging questions here.

and said that Ban "takes this matter very seriously, and expects to see a report upon his return to New York" on August 18. This was reiterated on camera in response to follow-up questions from Inner City Press,

But Mr. Ban himself has been subject to nepotism related questions. His son in law Siddath Chatterjee, already given a promotion by another SRSG Staffan de Mistura, in May obtained an even higher job with the UN Office of Project Services in Copenhagen. Inner City Press, which happened on the story while in Copenhagen covering Mr. Ban's trip to Sri Lanka, asked Ban's Spokesperson's Office to confirm the rank and hiring. The Office refused until, four days later, Inner City Press published the story.

Even then, UNOPS refused to state how high a promotion Ban's son in law was given. Internal UNOPS e-mails subsequently obtained by Inner City Press and published below show that it is at the D-2 level, the rank immediately below Assistant Secretary General. Also below is a detailed message concerning Ban's son in law's work in Iraq which calls the promotion into question.

Now despite Ban's Spokesperson's Office referring the question to yet another UN agency, UNICEF, Inner City Press has obtained confirmation that Ban's daughter in late June was given a Temporary Fixed Term contract by UNICEF, in Copenhagen where her husband in May got the promotion. Throughout the UN system, Inner City Press has met spouses who are unable to obtain jobs in the same city, country or even continent.

So, some ask, how seriously can or will Ban take the Doss affair?

When last month Inner City Press asked a senior Ban advisor to confirm UNOPS' hiring and promotion of Ban's son in law, the response was that it is a "sensitive" matter but that Ban's Spokesperson should answer. After posing the question, no response was given for four days.

Similarly, when Inner City Press from July 31 on asked about Ban's envoy Alan Doss' e-mail asking for leeway in the hiring of his daughter, Mr. Ban's Spokesperson's Office repeatedly referred all questions to UNDP, even though Doss works for Mr. Ban and the Secretariat.

At the UN's noon briefing on August 14, before publishing this story, Inner City Press asked Ban's Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe to respond to those who question if how Ban views and deals with the Doss matter may be impacted by Ban's own "sensitivity," as the Ban advisor put it, to questions about the UN system hirings of his daughter and son in law. "Absolutely no connection between the two," Ms. Okabe said. Video here, from Minute 10:48. Watch this site.

Regarding Mr. Ban's son in law Siddarth Chatterjee, first from a whistleblowing source anonymous due to fear of retaliation, and then official but internal UNOPS e-mails:

To Inner City Press

I hope you succeed in drawing this level of nepotism to the attention of all, both within and without the UN system. The Iraqis deserved better. UNOPS, for all its faults, deserves better.

Overview of Sid Chatterjee:

Sid was a junior MOVCON officer in northern Iraq during the 986 (Oil for Food) program. Staffan de Mistura was with WFP in northern Iraq, and this is where they met. Sid went on to become a security officer for UNICEF (Somalia), ending up as P4. When de Mistura was appointed SRSG Iraq, apparently Sid called, asked if he could work for him as Chief of Staff, and was immediately given the job. The COS post is a D2 appointment, but Sid was brought in, and ´performed´ the role, as a D1. He has moved to Regional Director with UNOPS as D2 (see below):

Never made a decision as COS in Baghdad – never did anything which might be used against him in some way in the future. Kept a clean slate throughout – the problem being, of course, that the mission virtually ground to a halt, as no decisions were made, and no direction given.... In essence, an over-promoted, under qualified, totally ineffective individual, concerned only with getting as high as possible within the system, while conditions are in his favor. (That may seem very subjective, but I can assure you it is the opinion of the vast majority of people in Iraq, especially those working in UNAMI itself. When one international member of UNAMI staff heard Sid had been recruited as Regional Director for UNOPS, he shouted: "D2? D2? He´s not even a f***ing P2!)

Overview of Jan Mattsson:

Came to UNOPS, from UNDP, in 2006... Not field orientated, which is a shame for a UN entity which is predominantly field based. Built a huge empire in Copenhagen, with ludicrous senior staff levels (at P5 and above level). UNOPS, of course, is unique in the UN system, as it is the only entity which is entirely project funded (no core funds whatsoever). Those in the field now have to work harder to fund the bureaucracy which has been established in Copenhagen. Has very weak interpersonal skills, and is utterly hopeless (embarrassingly so) when engaging in conversation with others (including donors, national government representatives etc). His only concern, it is felt by many, is to achieve USG rank before he retires. Of course, only the Secretary General can appoint USGs. Hence Sid to Copenhagen, on promotion.

read more on UN's dirty laundry: http://www.innercitypress.com/unsys1nepotism081409.html

Yemen's oil revenues drop sharply

By Redhwan al-Hamdani and Mahmoud Assamiee

Yemen's crude oil revenues have recorded sharp drop during the first half of 2009, according to state report. This period's revenues are $ 665 millions comparing to the same period last year which reached $ 2, 6 billion.

Issued by the Yemen's Central Bank (YCB), the report said the retreat is the result of government's portion decrease of the gross oil exports during the same period to 12,8 million barrel from 23,8 million for the same period on 2008 with fall- off estimated at 11 million barrel.

On the contrary, domestic consumption of oil for this period has recorded significant increase estimated at 1, 7 million barrel to reach 12, 6 million comparing to 10, 9 million for the first half of 2008.

Economists warn against the government's continuous dependence on oil as a prime strategic source generating revenues to supply development projects in Yemen. Oil revenues still represent nearly 75 percent of public budget's resources even oil production is witnessing continues decrease started by 5 percent, according to international reports.

These experts demand the government to translate its plans into real practices to develop non-oil sectors because oil exports still represent 92 percent of Yemen's whole exports.

However, other see the government still unclear in its plans to encourage at a time international reports reveal alarming results that Yemen's crude oil will be depleted in 2015.

Specialists draw pessimism that oil revenues' depletion, the public budget depends on balance of payments, without alternatives, will exhaust the state's explicit reserve currently estimated at $ 7billions mainly from oil revenues.

Government dealing with the issue

According to newsyemen website, a government source unearthed government's plans to cut down oil subsidies almost to 40 percent within plans to organize and reshuffle public expenditure in line with the national agenda for reforms 2009-2010.

The official source, who wanted his name be unearthed, indicated "increasing support of oil derivatives list under unsuitable distribution mechanism unable to reach targeted categories of development expenditure."

According to the website, the government has sought to carry out its decisions to lift oil subsidies but still waiting for "suitable time" because of political situations at this moment.

All ministers unanimously approved the government's plans to implement this "reform" and described the measure as "necessary painful solutions".

These government's statements affirm beliefs that the government is serious to implement European recommendations included in the so called "building state document". Reducing subsides on oil derivatives and shrinking the number of public employees, working in military or civil services, to the half or the third topped the list.

The document indicated sensitivity of these reforms and the unrest occurred in 2005 when the government lifted part of subsidies on oil derivatives. However it sees that drop of international oil prices will be a chance to apply this measure that leads to "providing improved chances for investments, economic growth and increasing salaries of civil service employees."

Last Saturday, President Ali Abdullah discussed with Yemen's donors government's ten priorities for the forthcoming period. These priorities include reducing oil derivatives without affection on the citizen.

Government's 2008 report showed the annual subsidies for oil derivatives are YR 759, 2 billions and YR 6 billions for electricity.

Most pesticides coming to Yemen for Qat

By Mahmoud Assamiee

The Qat tree (Catha edulis) is behind importing tons of illegal pesticides yearly to the country, said General Manager of Agricultural Guidance Department Dr. Mansour al-Aqel.

He made it clear that Qat consumes 80 percent of imported pesticides while the other 20 percent are used for agricultural crops topped by cucumber. But he affirmed that other agricultural crops (like wheat) do not contain pesticides.

"Yemen uses the less quantities of pesticides (comparing to other countries) and if the country could get rid of Qat tree, pesticides will be finished," said al-Aqel, who shoulders importers and Ministry of Agriculture the responsibility of importing pesticides.

He said that Yemen suffers from illegal accumulated pesticides in stores in some governorates. Despite that the country has spent a lot of money to finish the problem, it is still unsolved and needs cooperation from all concerned bodies.

Pesticides are needed for more production

However, General Manager of Plant Protection Abdullah Al-Sayani said that pesticides are one of important factors of agricultural production. No country can do without them, even the United States, despite its very high techniques used in agricultural sector.

He said the exiting quantities of pesticides are 500 tons and the country yearly needs of pesticides are 1000-1500 tons. "We have faced criticism of importing pesticides and criticism if we imported few quantities because restricting import will lead to import more pesticides illegally."

Illegal pesticides are dangerous problem

"We counted 51 tons of illegal pesticides inside stores in several governorates," said Chairman of Corplife Yemen Organization Dr. Ahmad el-Aghil.

He added that there are even greater quantities have been released legally and illegally, warning that accumulating these pesticides in stores is great and terrible problem and that the new laws issued by the government to ban re-exporting stored and expired pesticides via the country's outlets are making this problem more awful because these laws oppose process of getting rid of these pesticides.

In a workshop organized last Tuesday by CropLife Yemen, in cooperation with Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, el-Aghil made it clear that there are only 17 percent of original pesticides in Yemen and the other types are 46 percent are fake and 37 percent are illegal.

Two weeks ago a team of experts from Corplife organization paid field visits to several stores of pesticides in governorates of Taiz, Amran and Sana'a to evaluate these pesticides and count them. But they could not reach areas which have more stores like Sa'ada for security reasons.

These pesticides are coming to the country via Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Djibouti. Dhamar, Taiz and Dhale'a are the greatest areas contain illegal pesticides because controlling and inspection process are absent in these areas.

Pesticides' stores in populated areas

According to eyewitness who was accompanying CorpLife team in their field visits, there is a store in Taiz containing large quantities of expired pesticides and there is a very bad smell emanating from it. This store is located in populated area where people began suffering chest problems like difficulty of aspiration and some of them are in-patients in nearby hospitals.

This problem is not only found in Taiz, sorrowfully there are many stores in Sho'ub, heavy populated area in the center of the Capital Sana'a. "We have addressed this issue with Mayor of the Capital and governors to distance these stores outside cities," said al-Aqel. There are also stores of pesticides closed by concerned bodies over accusations of containing illegal pesticides. Some of these stores contain expired pesticides causing very bad smell and health problem in these areas.

"We suggest using these pesticides under sponsorship of the ministry to save the country millions of Rials to import pesticide," said Al-Sayani.

Empty bottles another problem

Because of absence of enlightenment on dealing with empty bottles of pesticides or refills in Yemen, el-Aghil said there are more than 15 million empty bottles counted yearly in the country and there means for getting rid of them are absent.

Observers say that empty bottles pose dangerous effects on the long run, saying that due to backwardness and absence of enlightenment, people in rural areas use these bottles as tools for home use. They use them for carrying water or as containers to house things.

We have suggested distributing burners to farmers, said el-Aghil." We aimed to distribute 500 burners to farmers to get rid of empty bottles. Every farmer can install a burner in his farm and collect these bottles and burn them (inside special barrel assigned to this purpose)."

While experts say these burners are not enough to get rid of effects of these pesticides, el-Aghil said the best way is having great burners with high technology like those existing in industrial countries like France or to be collected and then sent to these countries to be burned.

Dangerous diseases because of pesticides

A recent scientific study on pesticides made by Aden University says that there are more than 118 types of pesticides entering Yemen. All these types are used by Qat farmers for more production.

According to medical tests made by ministry of health, cancer centers and Charitable Society for Cancer Patients, these pesticides are responsible on 70 percent of cancer cases in the country, said the study, indicating that mouth cancer is widely spread in Yemen in contradiction to world statistics.

The study says 92.5 percent of farmers use these and other dangerous pesticides, noting that more than 470 poisonous cases of men and women have been registered in three governorates because of exposing to pesticides wastes in period ranging from one day to several.

The study concluded that pesticides have dangerous effects on the long rang on those who deal with them daily. They cause chronic diseases like cancer, psychological and genetic changes, liver and kidney diseases, in addition to polluting the soil which leads to water pollutions.

Efforts for getting rid of pesticides

After field visits, this workshop was held to discus the problem of storing pesticides and accumulating illegal pesticides in these stores. The workshop gathered all concerned parities dealing with pesticides; importers, officials of Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, security officials, judiciary and officials of Custom Authority to discuss the problem and find solutions to get rid of them.

The ministry is currently implementing many measures to limit pesticides smuggling, said al-Sayani. Smuggling during the recent two years has increased because of monopolizing importing by few companies. Now the door is open for importing pesticides under the ministry's supervision. This helps reduce importation of illegal pesticides.

Meanwhile, el-Aghil argued the government to coordinate efforts with neighboring countries to get rid of these pesticides. He also demanded establishing a court for quick cases to settle the great issues associated with pesticides. There are stores closed by the government because they have illegal pesticides so that having specialized courts will help the country get rid of them.

Concerning the 20 tons of expired pesticides stored in some stores of merchants across the country, he said there is coordination between the organization, the merchants and ministry of agriculture and irrigation to make solutions to this issue, saying there is future program with the ministry to stopped accumulating them. He said that CropLife has closed 400 pesticides factories in China.

However, he stated that Yemen is less country importing pesticides. But the problem is that the farmers use pesticides more on some plants like Qat while pesticides are not used on crops like wheat that is why Yemen's production of such crops still limited.

There are 57 tons of illegal pesticides are stopped by the ministry in Yemeni borders with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They must be returned directly to get rid of them, said al-Aqle.

He said the Yemeni-Saudi Joint Technical Ministerial Committee approved in its recent meeting they will not allow any pesticides crossing the borders without permission from the ministry.

CropLife International is a global federation representing the plant science industry and a network of regional and national associations in 91 countries.

CropLife Yemen has been established in 2004. It works on educating people on save use of pesticides.

N.B.: Kenya, which is one of the major producers of quat, which as "African salad" is exported from there not only in large quantities to Somalia but also to Europe - though several European countries have banned it -, had forbidden any pesticide use on the narcotic crop. Only recently that verdict was lifted partly for some new organic pesticide.]

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 - come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality yourself!)

There is no limit to what a person can do or how far one can go to help - if one doesn't mind who gets the credit !

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".

ECOTERRA - ALERTS and pending issues:

PIRATE ATTACK GULF OF ADEN: Advice on Who to Contact and What to Do http://www.noonsite.com/Members/sue/R2008-09-08-2

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. So far not a single illegal fishing vessel has been detained by the naval forces, though they had been even informed about several actual cases, where an intervention would have been possible. Illegally operating Tuna fishing vessels (many from 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 underway 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.

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 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone, 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, but now lawlessness has seriously increased and gone out of hand.

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)

The network of the SEAFARERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME helped significantly in most sea-jack cases. 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.

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

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