(Medeshi) Aug 6, 2008Canada is making plans to send a Halifax-based frigate to waters off the horn of Africa to stop pirates from attacking food shipments bound for Somalia.
This would involve diverting HMCS Ville de Quebec, which left Halifax last month for a five-and-a-half-month NATO mission to the Mediterranean and Black seas.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay hinted Monday there would be an announcement in Halifax Tuesday about sending a warship on a United Nations mission. But on Tuesday, his spokesman said the announcement had been postponed and the department wouldn’t provide any details.
“My links are all telling me there’s going to be an announcement that the Ville de Quebec will be taken from NATO’s standing maritime group and sent to (waters) off Somalia to escort World Food Programme relief supplies to Somalia,” said Eric Lerhe, a retired commodore who is a member of Dalhousie University’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies.
While he was hopeful that is the case, Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Programme, could not confirm Tuesday that the Canadian frigate will be sent to waters off Somalia.
“Any confirmation would have to come from the government concerned,” Mr. Smerdon said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Nairobi, Kenya.
“If a naval escort is provided by any country, we would of course welcome it wholeheartedly.”
Last November, France provided a frigate to escort food shipments into Somalia, he said.
“Then we had a Danish frigate, then we had a Dutch frigate, which escorted ships sailing mostly from Mombasa to Mogadishu. They escorted, I think, a total of something like 27 ships with enough food to feed a million people for six months.”
But that escort system ground to a halt in late June when the Dutch warship left, he said.
“We have been appealing ... for anyone to step forward to protect ships carrying WFP food into Somalia, especially now because in the coming months we need to double the tonnages that we bring into Somalia because the needs have gone up. Basically, we aim to feed 2.4 million people by December,” Mr. Smerdon said.
“Ninety per cent of WFP food assistance for Somalia comes in by sea and it is very, very difficult to bring in more by land or even to think of an airlift because neither of those alternatives would be able to bring in the volumes that we need.”
Last year, pirates attacked three ships chartered by the U.N. agency to carry food into Somalia, he said.
While none of the World Food Programme vessels have been taken over this year, Mr. Smerdon said shipping companies are reluctant to send large vessels into the area without protection.
An unescorted shipment of food did arrive in Mogadishu from Mombasa on Saturday, he said.
“It was a relatively small ship. We need a continuous supply line of large ships to meet the need in Somalia,” Mr. Smerdon said. “That’s why it’s vital to have escorts because if there are one or two attacks on these unescorted ships, we could well see that all ship owners say, ‘No, it’s not worth the risk. We are not willing to go.’ And then the sea lifeline to Somalia will be cut completely.”
Somali government troops and soldiers from U.S.-backed Ethiopia are battling Islamic militias. The fighting has reportedly killed about 6,500 Somali civilians since 2007, and driven hundreds of thousands of people, including half of Mogadishu’s population, from their homes. The problem has been exacerbated by drought and skyrocketing food prices, Mr. Smerdon said.
“It is extremely worrying, particularly because of the increased violence in Somalia — kidnappings, attacks on Somali NGO workers in recent weeks, plus the violence between the various warring parties,” he said. “If we were unable to deliver sufficient food assistance in the coming months, we could see a situation similar to the 1992-1993 famine in which hundreds of thousands of people perished.”
There has been an upsurge in pirate attacks off Somali’s eastern and northern coasts, with 31 in 2007 and 24 so far this year, Mr. Smerdon said.
“This year is looking like it will be the worst year for piracy off Somalia,” he said. “The situation is deteriorating so therefore people with guns see piracy as a purely money-making activity.”Pirates seize ships, make their crews hostages, and demand ransoms from the ship owners, Mr. Smerdon said.
“This is a huge security issue for them,” Mr. Lerhe said Tuesday. “There is no Somali navy, as has been eminently demonstrated. ... So there’s every cause for the international community to respond to both Somalia and the World Food Programme’s request for escorting.”
In April, a Sea King helicopter from the Halifax-based frigate HMCS Charlottetown took photos after pirates seized a French cruise ship off Somalia.
Ville de Quebec could use its own helicopter to frighten off pirates, Mr. Lerhe said.
“And then the ship itself has got, not only its main armament, but it’s got a boarding party that would be incredibly powerful in dealing with the pirate vessels,” he said.
Going from its mission in the Mediterranean and Black seas to the Gulf of Aden would create a “slight increase” in danger for the frigate’s 253 crew members, said Mr. Lerhe, who is also a fellow with the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute, based in Calgary.
“You’re always ready for maximum danger,” he said.
For some, the plan for Ville de Quebec is sure to raise the spectre of Canada’s ill-fated mission to Somalia a decade and a half ago.
Soldiers from the Canadian Airborne Regiment tortured and killed a youth in Somalia in 1993. The death of Shidane Arone was followed by failed attempts to cover it up.
His death and the ensuing scandal ended up before the courts and was the subject of a formal public inquiry that led to the disbanding of the regiment.
“I wouldn’t discount that, but I wouldn’t put a whole bunch of emphasis on that given that this task is so fundamentally different from the job we had to do inland,” Mr. Lerhe said.The Ville de Quebec left Halifax July 17 to join the Standing NATO Response Force Maritime Group 1, a contingent of ships drawn from various nations including the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium and the United States.
This would involve diverting HMCS Ville de Quebec, which left Halifax last month for a five-and-a-half-month NATO mission to the Mediterranean and Black seas.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay hinted Monday there would be an announcement in Halifax Tuesday about sending a warship on a United Nations mission. But on Tuesday, his spokesman said the announcement had been postponed and the department wouldn’t provide any details.
“My links are all telling me there’s going to be an announcement that the Ville de Quebec will be taken from NATO’s standing maritime group and sent to (waters) off Somalia to escort World Food Programme relief supplies to Somalia,” said Eric Lerhe, a retired commodore who is a member of Dalhousie University’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies.
While he was hopeful that is the case, Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Programme, could not confirm Tuesday that the Canadian frigate will be sent to waters off Somalia.
“Any confirmation would have to come from the government concerned,” Mr. Smerdon said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Nairobi, Kenya.
“If a naval escort is provided by any country, we would of course welcome it wholeheartedly.”
Last November, France provided a frigate to escort food shipments into Somalia, he said.
“Then we had a Danish frigate, then we had a Dutch frigate, which escorted ships sailing mostly from Mombasa to Mogadishu. They escorted, I think, a total of something like 27 ships with enough food to feed a million people for six months.”
But that escort system ground to a halt in late June when the Dutch warship left, he said.
“We have been appealing ... for anyone to step forward to protect ships carrying WFP food into Somalia, especially now because in the coming months we need to double the tonnages that we bring into Somalia because the needs have gone up. Basically, we aim to feed 2.4 million people by December,” Mr. Smerdon said.
“Ninety per cent of WFP food assistance for Somalia comes in by sea and it is very, very difficult to bring in more by land or even to think of an airlift because neither of those alternatives would be able to bring in the volumes that we need.”
Last year, pirates attacked three ships chartered by the U.N. agency to carry food into Somalia, he said.
While none of the World Food Programme vessels have been taken over this year, Mr. Smerdon said shipping companies are reluctant to send large vessels into the area without protection.
An unescorted shipment of food did arrive in Mogadishu from Mombasa on Saturday, he said.
“It was a relatively small ship. We need a continuous supply line of large ships to meet the need in Somalia,” Mr. Smerdon said. “That’s why it’s vital to have escorts because if there are one or two attacks on these unescorted ships, we could well see that all ship owners say, ‘No, it’s not worth the risk. We are not willing to go.’ And then the sea lifeline to Somalia will be cut completely.”
Somali government troops and soldiers from U.S.-backed Ethiopia are battling Islamic militias. The fighting has reportedly killed about 6,500 Somali civilians since 2007, and driven hundreds of thousands of people, including half of Mogadishu’s population, from their homes. The problem has been exacerbated by drought and skyrocketing food prices, Mr. Smerdon said.
“It is extremely worrying, particularly because of the increased violence in Somalia — kidnappings, attacks on Somali NGO workers in recent weeks, plus the violence between the various warring parties,” he said. “If we were unable to deliver sufficient food assistance in the coming months, we could see a situation similar to the 1992-1993 famine in which hundreds of thousands of people perished.”
There has been an upsurge in pirate attacks off Somali’s eastern and northern coasts, with 31 in 2007 and 24 so far this year, Mr. Smerdon said.
“This year is looking like it will be the worst year for piracy off Somalia,” he said. “The situation is deteriorating so therefore people with guns see piracy as a purely money-making activity.”Pirates seize ships, make their crews hostages, and demand ransoms from the ship owners, Mr. Smerdon said.
“This is a huge security issue for them,” Mr. Lerhe said Tuesday. “There is no Somali navy, as has been eminently demonstrated. ... So there’s every cause for the international community to respond to both Somalia and the World Food Programme’s request for escorting.”
In April, a Sea King helicopter from the Halifax-based frigate HMCS Charlottetown took photos after pirates seized a French cruise ship off Somalia.
Ville de Quebec could use its own helicopter to frighten off pirates, Mr. Lerhe said.
“And then the ship itself has got, not only its main armament, but it’s got a boarding party that would be incredibly powerful in dealing with the pirate vessels,” he said.
Going from its mission in the Mediterranean and Black seas to the Gulf of Aden would create a “slight increase” in danger for the frigate’s 253 crew members, said Mr. Lerhe, who is also a fellow with the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute, based in Calgary.
“You’re always ready for maximum danger,” he said.
For some, the plan for Ville de Quebec is sure to raise the spectre of Canada’s ill-fated mission to Somalia a decade and a half ago.
Soldiers from the Canadian Airborne Regiment tortured and killed a youth in Somalia in 1993. The death of Shidane Arone was followed by failed attempts to cover it up.
His death and the ensuing scandal ended up before the courts and was the subject of a formal public inquiry that led to the disbanding of the regiment.
“I wouldn’t discount that, but I wouldn’t put a whole bunch of emphasis on that given that this task is so fundamentally different from the job we had to do inland,” Mr. Lerhe said.The Ville de Quebec left Halifax July 17 to join the Standing NATO Response Force Maritime Group 1, a contingent of ships drawn from various nations including the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium and the United States.
