Piracy: Operation Atalanta (EUC Report)

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey]

My Lords, I, too, have to join the club of past members of the committee, so I am really pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. It enables me to place on record my appreciation of the efforts of the witnesses in our inquiry, who gave their evidence with great clarity and in great depth. We gained a better understanding of these complex issues than would otherwise have been possible.

With the passage of time, our inquiry has to be seen in perspective. The evidence was taken between November 2008 and March 2010. Now, some eight months and a general election and a change of Government later, I think we should take stock of the developments over time. In that regard, I think the publication of the report of the United Nations Secretary-General just two weeks ago is particularly timely and helpful.

Our inquiry highlighted the fact that one of the strengths of the EU Operation Atalanta, headquartered at Northwood, was the clarity of its mandate. Visiting Northwood, as we did under the guidance of our chairman—and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on his report—we found it was really clear that the group of naval officers drawn from several navies, working together with merchant shipping specialists, were operating as an integrated team, unlike anything I had ever seen before. This occurred under the very effective leadership of a British admiral, Rear-Admiral Hudson, who I thought was doing an amazing job.

Atalanta’s mandate is quite clear. To summarise it, it is to support humanitarian aid to Somalia through the World Food Programme, to support supply ships to the AU mission, AMISOM and the TFG, to protect the world merchant shipping transiting a high risk area and, finally, to deter, disrupt and break up pirate groups. This last objective is clearly proving to be the most challenging.

In delivering the framework of Operation Atalanta, the Royal Navy has rightly earned universal praise. The Navy’s experience and credibility has been an outstanding feature, in the best traditions of the service. Having spent my youth in Portsmouth, noble Lords will understand my affection for the work of the Royal Navy. There is nothing new about acts of piracy, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, pointed out, and the Royal Navy’s engagement with piracy on our vital trade routes is part of our history and heritage over hundreds of years. The days when East India merchant ships could be disguised as a Royal Navy ship of the line by painting them black and white around their gun ports are long gone, and so are the guns, but piracy always was and remains vicious, cruel and intensely criminal.

As the inquiry has shown, Somali piracy is as much linked with events on the land as it is with taking valuable prizes at sea. The Secretary-General confirmed in his report that more than 20 nations, together with the EU, NATO and the League of Arab States, as well as international shipping and related agencies have all been engaged in the UN-led assessment and recommendations to tackle Somali piracy. They have helped to develop anti-piracy and counterpiracy measures as part of an overall strategy of the Djibouti peace agreement, contributing to the long-term solution for the country.

As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, also mentioned, in evidence to our inquiry, the number of successful pirate attacks was given as steady at, I think, 48 in 2008 and 43 in 2009, with a 100 per cent record of protecting World Food Programme ships. Comparing that with the UN report eight months later, 164 attacks were reported in 2010, of which 37 were successful, mainly in the western Indian Ocean. The number of thwarted attacks rose by at least 70 per cent, which shows some measure of success.

We can confirm that Operation Atalanta has proven to be a credible force in combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It is not perfect, it is not absolute, but it has made some credible steps. Let us bear in mind that we are considering one of the busiest marine channels in the world, with one-quarter of global trade being carried, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, mentioned, on about 25,000 ships every year. It is a vital marine artery and an important supply route from the Gulf of Aden into Europe and the United States, carrying up to 100 ships a day.

By establishing an international transit corridor with credible shipping management and policing, as has been done through Operation Atalanta, piracy activities have effectively been pushed further out to sea—as much as 1,500 miles into the Indian Ocean. Clearly, there never could be enough warships to police the tens of thousands of square miles of sea involved. Much more still needs to be done with and by the shipping industry to counter this long-range piracy, which brings me directly to the point that noble Lords have mentioned on the topic of capacity shortfalls.

In 2010, pirate activity has increased with the development of the concept of the mother ship, able to tow two or three attack skiffs behind and allowing long-range attacks on larger merchantmen much further out at sea. The availability of long-range surveillance patrol aircraft has been mentioned. It is true that that is essential to the operation’s ability to track down deepwater pirate activity. Marine patrol aircraft were the asset that the operation felt was needed most, but to enable a full daily sortie in the Gulf of Aden, there was a minimum threshold of three patrol aircraft over and above ship-based helicopters. This requirement has not been met and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, points out, probably cannot be met because those resources are just not available. At the time of the inquiry, as well as an absence of patrol aircraft, the EU had no access to unmanned airborne vehicles either, although the US apparently had some at a base in the Seychelles. Perhaps in his response, the Minister can bring us up to date on where we are with that.

As the report has noted, it is a measure of the success of Atalanta and of other international forces that pirates have been forced to operate further offshore, increasing this risk-to-reward ratio with the use of more easily identifiable mother ships. With pirates now roaming extraordinarily long distances from their home shores, the number of successful hijackings versus the number of attempted hijackings has dropped from 50 per cent to around 25 per cent. At the same time ransom demands are increasing together with the duration vessels are held and, much more worryingly, threats of violence to crews.

The vice-chairman of the Oil Companies International Marine Forum, Jan Kopernicki, speaking recently in Parliament at Westminster, was concerned that as pirate activity intensified, there was a growing danger of civilian seamen being killed. He believed we were approaching a tipping point and that, should great violence and possibly deaths occur, civilian seamen would basically take the view that it was not worth the gamble to take up contracts to sail ships through this area. With the latest payment of ransoms of more than $11 million to release just two ships and the total ransoms now paid being somewhere in excess of $150 million, does the Minister acknowledge that we are reaching a point where discussions need be had with the international marine insurance industry over the investment that it could make to enhance the capacity of anti-piracy measures to reduce the risks to the industry and, therefore, the cost of insurance? In the latest release of a Saudi supertanker, the value of its cargo was put in excess of $150 million, which gives us some idea of the figures involved.

The inquiry has recorded similar concerns with shipping arrangements for the World Food Programme. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, mentioned, the small, slow ships it tends to charter may be cheaper but they are far more vulnerable to attack and thus more costly to protect. The proposal that shipping companies should make a contribution to enable the WFP to charter more suitable vessels has to be welcomed, strongly supported and pressed for, as do proposals that ships’ flag states should allow military personnel on board WFP vessels bound for Somalia. It is almost a return to the 18th-century piracy prevention custom, perhaps, to allow armed men on board, but in the last three years EU, NATO, and Russian Federation warships have escorted 110 ships chartered by the World Food Programme, carrying over half a million tonnes of food to 1.8 million Somalis. To their great credit this protection has been provided at no charge.

Clearly, the spread of piracy in Somalia and the Horn of Africa will not be reversed without addressing the root causes. There is a good deal to do to overcome instability and the lack of the rule of law. The United Kingdom, together with the EU, is a member of the International Contact Group on Somalia, supporting the efforts of the fledgling transitional federal Government and the African Union’s AMISOM towards establishing a peaceful environment, but this does woefully less than it needs to to bring the stability that we need. There is no doubt that capacity-building is the key issue. The EU is taking a comprehensive approach but the causes of the fighting and insecurity in Somalia are deep-rooted and complex. We have to give the Somalis the means and the incentive to gain peace and security through the TFG by their own actions in due course.

Piracy in the region has had an immense impact on the economies of East African nations. The severity of the problem off the coast of Somalia is a relatively recent phenomenon but it will be with us for a long time to come and has the potential to become far worse unless the international community and Somalia address the root causes. In this regard, it is disturbing to find that even this week the UN reports on human rights issues in the Horn of Africa highlight the abduction of children by armed groups in Somalia to be taken not now as child soldiers but as child pirates to supplement the resources of the businessmen who operate the piracy scene off the Somali coast.

My final comment is that we should look carefully again at the work of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He makes the point very strongly that there is an urgent need to address and combine vital sea-based and judicial counterpiracy measures, which are set out in his report and, as has been highlighted in this debate, in support of the Djibouti peace agreements. Maritime security needs complementary action inshore and in the zone between the coast and international waters in addition to counterpiracy action on the high seas. Increased Somali capacity on land and in inshore waters needs to be linked to institutional strengthening of the security sector. In particular, there needs to be economic development to provide alternative activity in the maritime environment, especially among the young, to lure them away from the pirate economy.