DAVID GOW EUROPEAN SHIPOWNERS are urging EU governments to declare war on Somali pirates in the Horn of Africa and seize their vessels by force, amid growing concern that shipping companies will be forced to avoid the area altogether at huge cost to global trade.
A day after the world’s biggest shipping company, AP Moller-Maersk, said it would divert some of its fleet from the Suez Canal and take the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope, the industry urged more muscular activity against the pirates.
The BBC reported last night that the UN had given the green light to warships to go after pirate vessels.
Alfons Guinier, secretary general of European Community Shipowners’ Associations (ECSA), said other companies were considering following the example of Maersk.
However, he said the body, which claims to speak for 41 per cent of the global merchant fleet, wanted EU governments to go further after the hijacking a week ago of the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star more than 400 miles off the coast of Somalia.
“We know there will be more military forces in the area, but let’s hope they will go after the pirates and stop this escalation,” he said. “We’re asking not just for more escorts, but for repressive action.”
The demand comes after the International Maritime Organisation asked the UN Security Council to sanction the dispatch of as many warships and aircraft as possible to “disrupt” pirate operations, secure shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden and escort vessels, including those bringing food relief to war-torn Somalia.
The pirate groups who have operated with near impunity for years may also be about to face a confrontation on land. Yesterday, they were reported to be strengthening their defences in a town close to where the hijacked supertanker is anchored, amid signs that Somali Islamists were approaching the town.
Residents of Harardheere, a well-known pirate base halfway up Somalia’s eastern coast, saw militias arriving yesterday. Rebels from the hardline al-Shabaab Islamist movement also entered the town yesterday, although their intentions were unclear.
Some local people said the fighters wanted to secure a cut of the ransom, while a spokesman for al- Shabaab claimed they were hunting the pirates for the “bigger crime” of hijacking a ship belonging to a Muslim country.
Somali pirates are holding at least 15 ships and more than 250 crew members. Kenya’s foreign minister, Moses Wetangula, claimed yesterday that the pirates had netted $150 million (€120 million) in ransoms this year, though maritime experts say the figure is closer to $30 million (€24 million).
The demand from the ECSA will be made on Monday in talks with the new EU naval co-ordination cell set up by foreign ministers in mid-September. The cell is creating an enforcement unit under Operation Atalanta, the operation to protect shipping from piracy, based in RAF Northwood near London. It is due to be fully operational in early December.
Mr Guinier said it should co- ordinate its military efforts with other forces such as those from Nato, Russia, Japan, Canada and India, which is sending four warships to the region.
The IMO’s secretary general, Efthimios Mitropoulos, meanwhile, has told the UN that, with more than 12 per cent of global oil transport passing through the Gulf of Aden, widespread diversions via South Africa would bring “a series of negative repercussions”. – (Guardian service)