Call for military blockade to intercept Somali pirates

SHIPPING officials from around the world yesterday called for a military blockade along Somalia’s coast to intercept pirate vessels heading out to sea.

But Nato, which has four warships off the coast of Somalia, rejected a blockade.

Peter Swift, managing director of the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners, said stronger naval action — including aerial and aviation support — is necessary to battle rampant piracy in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia.

Some 20 tankers sail through the sea lane daily. However, many tanker owners are considering a massive detour around southern Africa to avoid pirates, which will delay delivery and push costs up by 30%, Swift said.

The association, whose members own 2,900 tankers or 75% of the world’s fleet, opposes attempts to arm merchant ships because it could escalate the violence and put crew members at even greater risk, he said.

“The other option is perhaps putting a blockade around Somalia and introducing the idea of intercepting vessels leaving Somalia rather than to try to protect the whole of the Gulf of Aden,” Swift said.

Somali pirates have become increasingly brazen, seizing eight vessels in the past two weeks, including a huge Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million (€78m) worth of crude oil.

A blockade along Somalia’s 3,862km coastline would not be easy.

“But some intervention there may be effective,” Swift told reporters on the sidelines of a shipping conference in Malaysia.

US General John Craddock, Nato’s supreme allied commander, said yesterday the alliance’s mandate is solely to escort World Food Programme ships to Somalia and to conduct anti-piracy patrols.

Asked what he thought of a Russian proposal to jointly attack the pirate strongholds, Craddock answered: “That’s far beyond what I’ve been tasked to do.”

According to Lt Nathan Christensen, spokesman of the US 5th Fleet based in Bahrain, more than 14 warships from Denmark, France, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, the US and Nato are patrolling a vast international maritime corridor. They escort some merchant ships and respond to distress calls in the area.

Christensen declined to comment on the idea of a blockade.

But the navies say it is virtually impossible to patrol the vast sea around the gulf.

Nato has ruled out a blockade. “Blocking ports is not contemplated by Nato,” said Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels.

UN Security Council resolutions “do not include these kind of actions and as far as Nato is concerned, this is at the moment not on the cards,” he said.

Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa said yesterday that Arabs should deploy their own naval forces to fight piracy in the Horn of Africa and also co-operate with foreign fleets in the area.