Piracy: Operation Atalanta (EUC Report)

Lord Sewel Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sewel]

My Lords, I think that we have heard enough during this debate to realise that, in relation to Somali pirates and Somalia generally, there are very few grounds for optimism. That is made even more worrying by the fact that we are dealing with a failed state—an almost ideal, typical failed state—in what is emerging as the most dangerous part of the world. That is a real and pressing problem. One difficulty is that so few people have heard about Operation Atalanta, which, with limited resources, is none the less making a significant contribution to tackling one of the key problems that we face. That must be recognised.

On a lighter note, when we were collecting evidence and preparing our report, I was tempted—fleetingly, and I resisted—to suggest that the report ought to be entitled, “Tough on piracy and tough on the causes of piracy”. I am glad that I resisted, but there is a truth in that, because we need a pretty tough and robust military operation going hand in hand with a tough capacity-building and development strategy in parts of Somalia. The two must march together if we are to have any hope of confronting this problem successfully.

Other noble Lords can speak with much greater authority on the military aspects of the report. I underline what has been said about the need to have in place tanker refuelling facilities. There is a danger of a heck of a lot of time being wasted as our ships steam backwards and forwards to refuel when they could be doing the job for longer if they could be refuelled at sea by tankers. Others have mentioned airborne surveillance, which is clearly of great importance.

I want to say something about the World Food Programme. I am a great supporter of the World Food Programme and think that it is one of the best international organisations operating at the moment, but it is short-sighted of it almost to insist on chartering at the lowest price. I can understand the pressures on it to do that, as it wants to spend its money on food delivery and humanitarian aid. However, if it is chartering at that low price, while it is saving itself some direct costs, it does so at the disadvantage of transferring the indirect costs on to the Atalanta operation. I hope that the World Food Programme can respond to the requests that I know have been made. The Minister might be able to help in this. I read that it had agreed to modify its policy, but I am not sure that this has been implemented.

There is also the issue of the role of the insurance companies. I was enormously disappointed when we took evidence from the insurance companies. They adopted an indifference and a detachment and failed to see any sort of contribution that they could make in ensuring that best practice was observed by those trans-shipping in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf. However, if offshore activities are to be met with a greater degree of success, that essentially depends, as many noble Lords have indicated, on changing the reward to risk ratio. I understand and share the frustration of many noble Lords that the constraints of operating within the confines of international law seem to put our people in the position where the greatest sanction that they can give out is something slightly more than a slap on the wrist. Have the Government looked at this and made absolutely sure that, when our military personnel are in a position to be able to identify someone who is going about ready for piracy, they can administer something more robust than at the moment?

The other great weakness is the relative lack of successful prosecutions. I can well understand why some countries do not want to find themselves looking after hundreds of Somali pirates in their own prisons, but it would be useful to know from the Minister the latest figures on successful prosecutions—not just those who are being held—and which states are now fully signed up, because it seems that from time to time some states come in and then subsequently move out of co-operation in this area. Also, what efforts are being made to trace the money? We hear stories of the money being used to finance major retail investments throughout Africa and large houses in Africa and parts of Europe. There is also the central question of the relationship between the ransom money and the financing of terrorism. That must be a fundamental concern. I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to give us any information on that, but clearly it would be very helpful if he could.

If there is a solution, it must in large measure lie onshore rather than offshore. Here, we come to the security and development dimension of the response. That must be in the form of trying to create a secure environment within which development can take place. Given the nature of Somalia, I am the first to recognise that we should not underestimate the scale of the challenge. These things are easy to say, but I think that it is going to be exceedingly difficult to deliver. The only heartening information that I have picked up recently came when I was in Ethiopia, talking to a group of ambassadors from EU member states. They all agreed that even now there is a real possibility of investment in parts of Somaliland and possibly Puntland in order almost to establish areas of security within which development can take place and then gradually to build out from there. That is not much, but it is most likely our best bet. I wonder whether the Minister would like to comment on the type of development strategy that he sees as being at all possible to implement in that part of the world, because it cannot depend on using the institutions of a state that basically does not exist.

My noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel made the point that the livelihoods of fishermen in the area have been adversely affected by illegal fishing for tuna by both European and Asian fleets, as well as by the dumping of large quantities of toxic waste in the waters around Somalia. Have the Government any information on this? Has an assessment been made of whether a viable fisheries industry could be established again? If you have a development-based approach, that is going to be an important part of it.

Despite all the efforts of the Atalanta operation—along with others, I pay due credit to the work that has been done—in the longer term we cannot rest on Atalanta as the solution. The solution must come from a combination of capacity building and development, because otherwise we will be left with a limited military containment strategy that will most likely come under resource pressure and be subject to questions about whether it can be sustained indefinitely. I do not speak with any great sense of optimism about this issue, but it is one where we would underestimate its importance in terms of global security in the medium term at our peril.