Newsletter No. 1380
News-Analysis
June 14, 2009

 

ANTI-PIRACY MEETING IN SEOUL

As expected, on the 9th and 10th an international anti-piracy meeting was held in Seoul. It was attended by representatives from thirty-four countries and international maritime organizations. The event didn’t receive much in the way of media attention, so our understanding of what happened there is a little vague.

This may be just as well. I was able to find on the website of “New Tang Dynasty Television” a television clip of the speech given by MOFA Vice-Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura. Speaking in heavily-accented English, Nishimura declared, “The broader situation in Somalia is at the root of the upsurge of piracy. Therefore, civilization of Somalia is essential for a fundamental resolution of the piracy issue.”

The MOFA vice-minister did not elaborate, it seems, on what “civilization of Somalia” would entail. Of course, his basic notion that a wider political settlement is necessary to resolve the piracy issue is exactly what I’ve been arguing for many months.

The MOFA statement which announced Nishimura’s attendance at the meeting put the matter this way: “Anti-piracy measures off the coast of Somalia are extremely important because it is an international challenge and also because it has to do with protection of the lives and property of Japanese citizens as well as safe passage of vessels… Based on Japan’s experience of tackling piracy in Asia, Japan will continue to make its utmost effort for anti-piracy while discussing concrete measures against piracy including the improvement of maritime law enforcement capacity of coastal states and stabilization of the volatile situation in Somalia which is at the root of the increase of piracy incidents.”

This is all pretty vague. What is Japan’s concrete plan to reduce Somali piracy over the long term? Well, if they have a plan, they aren’t telling us about it.

BACKING A FACTION

Meanwhile, MOFA Vice-Minister Nobuhide Minorikawa was in Rome on the 10th meeting with Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke. The substance of the meeting appears to have been that Sharmarke thanked Japan for its assistance to AMISOM and appealed for additional support to the transitional national government that Sharmarke represents.

Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke is a citizen of both Somalia and Canada. He is the son of a former Somali president who was assassinated in 1969. He was “elected” prime minister in February in Djibouti, serving under Somali “President” Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. This faction is known as the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), and its primary backers are Ethiopia (the traditional enemy of Somalia), the United States, and the United Nations.

It’s becoming ever-more clear that Tokyo’s policy is to support the TFG against its rivals, in line, as usual, with US policy. This may be the strategy they aren’t talking about.

SURVEILLANCE FLIGHTS BEGIN

Djibouti-based MSDF P-3C surveillance plane patrols began on the 11th. As we have previously reported, two MSDF P-3Cs were ordered to Djibouti by Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada on April 17th, departed Japan on May 28th, and arrived on station on May 31st. In early June they spent their time training for the mission.

The air patrol operations based in Djibouti involve about a hundred personnel, including the crew, engineers, and about fifty GSDF members who guard the aircraft at the airport.

KYODO NEWS REPORTS FROM THE SAZANAMI

Japanese news reporters were recently allowed to accompany an anti-piracy patrol for the first time. Kyodo News offered the following report, which doesn’t actually say much that is new. Note how the Japanese press, by its own testimony, readily complies with the ground rules laid down by the Defense Ministry. Since the “enemy” in this particular conflict are skinny little pirates in makeshift speedboats, can anyone explain to me why revealing the name of the Arabian port that the reporters boarded from would pose an unacceptably high security risk to the Japanese navy? The real risks, I’d wager, don’t come from the pirates, but rather from domestic political accountability in the nations concerned.

How comfortable it must be for the Defense Ministry to have such a well-mannered and complaint free press!

Tension Fills Japanese Force Involved in Antipiracy Ops Off Somalia

ABOARD THE SAZANAMI, in the Gulf of Aden, June 8 (Kyodo) -- It has been roughly two months since Japan's first antipiracy operations began off the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia. Here on the deck of the Sazanami -- one of the two Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers involved in the mission -- tension was evident among the officers and sailors, who are engaged in the unprecedented mission for the country's Self-Defense Forces.

On Saturday, about a dozen Japanese journalists were allowed onto the Sazanami for the first time since it and the other destroyer, the Samidare, began escorting Japanese-related commercial vessels in the waters off the Horn of Africa in late March. The reporters first boarded from a port on the Arabian Peninsula the Tokiwa, an MSDF refueling ship deployed to the Indian Ocean to supply fuel to navy vessels from countries involved in antiterrorism efforts in Afghanistan. Japan's Defense Ministry asked that the port's name be kept secret for security reasons.

After about 21 hours of voyage, the Tokiwa came into contact with the two destroyers on the eastern end of the gulf. It then refueled them while a gunner remained on watch beside a 12.7-millimeter machine gun on the deck. As the sun shone brightly in sweltering heat and the sea heaved due to strong winds, the reporters were transferred to the Sazanami by helicopter shortly after noon.

Capt. Hiroshi Goto, who is leading the antipiracy mission, provided a glimpse of the reality in the region where roughly one-third of piracy incidents worldwide are currently taking place. "We sometimes get radioed in by private-sector ships on suspicious vessels more than 10 times a day," he said in an interview aboard the Sazanami. Many of the calls, he said, come from "high-risk" vessels that pirates apparently find easy to put a ladder up to due to their relatively slow speeds and short length between the sea surface and their decks, which is typically less than 5 meters. When a call comes in to say a ship is being chased, a surveillance helicopter is dispatched to check on the ship. A small vessel loaded with a ladder has sometimes been spotted from the aircraft, according to Goto.

Although the MSDF cannot protect foreign vessels unrelated to Japan under the current Japanese law, it has responded to check in on them or repel suspicious vessels apparently after them on six occasions since late March. The ministry has justified the responses as a humanitarian act.

Whereas the SDF's previous overseas missions involved relatively low risks by being primarily logistical support, the latest mission seems to be more dangerous in that the seamen would have to face armed pirates. Some even mention the possibility that in the course of the mission, the SDF may use weapons abroad for the first time. "The pirate side has become less fearful of warships and helicopters, just as illustrated by a recent incident where a U.S. refueling ship was fired upon," said Goto. "I think my personnel are under pressure because the possibility of firing warning shots (at pirate ships) is increasing." While harming pirates in self-defense and firing warning shots are permitted under the Self-Defense Forces Law, such action may become an issue later in connection with the constitutional restrictions on the use of weapons abroad.

Shortly before 4 p.m., the 4,650-ton Sazanami and the 4,550-ton Samidare began their 25th escort mission to guide five commercial vessels through the roughly 900 kilometer stretch of the gulf to the mouth of the Red Sea.

Roughly 20 countries have sent warships to waters off the coast of Somalia to counter a surge in piracy. According to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, 130 such incidents took place in the first five months of this year, well over the 111 cases reported for all of last year. Often armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, sea bandits in the region take over cargo ships and tankers at gunpoint and demand huge sums of money in ransom.

About 10 percent of the roughly 20,000 ships that pass through the waters each year are said to be Japanese-related tankers and cargo ships. In March, a car carrier operated by a Japanese company came under attack from a suspected pirate vessel although it managed to escape and no crew member was harmed.