Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Somalia president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed shakes hands with US Vice Adm. John W. Miller, commander of the fifth fleet, at an international anti-piracy conference in Dubai last June. He has been accused of shielding a top pirate commander from arrest.
AFP
NAIROBI // Somalia's president has shielded a top pirate leader from arrest by issuing him a diplomatic passport, according to a United Nations investigation that criticises the "climate of impunity" enjoyed by pirate kingpins in Somalia and abroad.
The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia said in a confidential report to the Security Council that senior pirate leaders were benefitting from high-level protection from Somali authorities and were not being sufficiently targeted for arrest or sanction by international authorities.
The group said it had obtained evidence a diplomatic passport had been provided "with the authorisation of Somali president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed" to the pirate leader Mohamed Abdi Hassan "Afweyne", who presented it to authorities in Malaysia on a trip there in April.
Questioned by Malaysian immigration, Afweyne provided a document issued by the Somali presidency stating he was involved in counter-piracy activities, the report said. It said Mr Ahmed had told the group that the passport was "one of several inducements" for Afweyne aimed at obtaining the dismantling of his pirate network.
In a July 12 letter to the chairman of the Security Council's Sanctions Committee, obtained by Reuters, Mr Ahmed called the contents of the monitoring group's report "one-sided".
The letter said the principal author of the UN report, whom it did not name, "seems hell-bent on soiling the good names of private members of the Somali people by throwing at them unsubstantiated allegations". Somali government officials could not be reached for comment.
Successful Somali pirate hijackings have been declining steadily since 2010, partly the result of intensive naval operations and the use of private security on vessels, but pirate leaders are adapting and diversifying into new businesses, the UN report said.
Confirming this trend, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said on Monday that Somali pirate attacks in the first half of this year may have fallen by half.
Last year, Somali piracy in the busy shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean netted US$160 million (Dh587.6m), and cost the world economy about $7 billion, according to the American One Earth Future foundation.
The UN report said pirate leaders are now increasingly involved in land-based kidnap for ransom of foreign tourists and aid workers in northern Kenya andSomalia, as well as selling services as counter-piracy experts and consultants in ransom negotiations, and exploring "new types of criminal activity".
The group said that in spite of three international task forces and efforts by a dozen national governments in maritime counter-piracy efforts, serious legal obstacles remain that "impede the prosecution and sanctioning of pirate leaders and kingpins".
Out of 125 registered hijacking cases since December 2008 that have come under the jurisdiction of 83 different countries, not more than 10 governments have actually embarked on broader investigations into Somali pirate networks, the report said. "As a result, the international community is investing enormous resources to pursue and punish those at the bottom of the piracy pyramid," it said.
Confusion over whether ransom payments and drop-offs of ransoms by private security companies constitute illegal activity has also prompted Britain to block the UN Security Council from applying financial sanctions against senior pirate leaders since 2010, the report said. With pirate leaders left untouched by UN sanctions, payments to them would not be considered illegal and therefore private security companies could pay out ransom fees without fear of violating sanctions, sources at the UN said.
The British blocking of Security Council proposals to designate senior prirate leaders for targeted sanctions was "apparently at the behest of powerful domestic interests in shipping, crisis and risk management consultancies, maritime law and insurance and private maritime security companies who indirectly derive significant profits from the Somali piracy phenomenon", the report said.
A Foreign Office spokesperson in London said the British government maintained a clear policy of not making or facilitating "substantive concessions to hostage takers".
The spokesperson said Britain had since April 2010 maintained "a technical hold" on proposals in the UN Sanctions Committee to designate pirate leaders for sanctions "as it is necessary to better understand the potential unintended consequences of using sanctions, which include implications for the families of UK nationals captured by pirates".
David Cameron, the British prime minister, has set up a task force to look into piracy kidnap for ransom in more detail, including the option of UN sanctions, which would make recommendations by the end of the year.
The UN report said the current situation had discouraged private security companies from sharing information on who they had paid money to, putting a brake on international investigations into piracy.
The monitoring group has asked the Security Council to clarify that ransom payments to Somali pirates could not be considered an offence that would be sanctioned.
Such a move would allow counter-piracy businesses in the UK to share information on ransom payments they make, without the fear those payments could expose them to future prosecutions, the report said.
The Foreign Office spokesperson said Britain was working with international partners to establish a Regional Anti-Piracy Prosecution and Intelligence Coordination Centre in the Seychelles, which would target pirate kingpins.