Somalia: Piracy (EUC Report)

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Teverson]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on Turning the Tide on Piracy, Building Somalia’s future: Follow-up report on the EU’s Operation Atalanta and beyond (3rd Report, HL Paper 43).

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, we have a bucket filling up with water and this debate is all about turning the tide. I do not know whether it will also solve the leak problems here in Grand Committee.

It is not often that a committee looks at a subject comprehensively, as we did in 2010, and then decides to revisit it two years later because it feels it of sufficient importance that a number of lessons needed to be learnt and to see how an operation has moved forward. This is what we did with regard to Operation Atalanta and the other problems regarding Somalia.

I shall remind the Committee of the reasons for Operation Atalanta to begin with. It was not just about commercial shipping, which we most know it for. It was about protecting the World Food Programme, which was keeping vast numbers of people alive and away from starvation in Somalia itself, and getting that product to the port of Mogadishu was quite a challenge. It was also technically about protecting Somalia’s fisheries and has actually been pretty successful at that, but not of any great help to the Somalis. It was also about helping the commercial shipping side in terms of repulsing piracy on one of the world’s most important trade routes. Atalanta itself is one of three organised operations; Atalanta is the European Union one and there is NATO’s Ocean Shield, while Combined Task Force 151 is a coalition of other countries. There are also a number of independent operators as well, which we will come back to.

I shall set the scene by coming back to the 2010 report, in which we made a number of specific observations and recommendations. We had the World Food Programme leasing ships that were probably the slowest that ploughed the oceans anywhere on the globe. Why? Because they were the cheapest. However, that meant they were the most vulnerable and, because of the way that the charter agreement was, they did not allow military contingents on those vessels so they had to be shadowed by very expensive and scarce warships from the areas of issue right the way through to port. There was a lack of tanker refuelling, which meant that the best naval vessels had to go backwards and forwards to port in order to refuel, wasting a lot of time. If pirates were captured, there was often nowhere to send them or try them, because western navies were reluctant to bring those pirates back to their own shores. The insurance companies seemed to be oblivious to the problem or not to care about it. As far as they were concerned, it was a loss, they got their income and there was an occasional “hit” in terms of ransoms that had to be paid out, but there was no responsibility on the part of the insurance industry.

The Indian Ocean and the Gulf are a vast ocean, yet there is very little air surveillance. In fact, Luxembourg had to rent a private plane on behalf of Atalanta, which was used as surveillance out of the Seychelles, and that was about all there was to begin with. There was an undisciplined merchant fleet, which is still a problem to some degree, and many masters did not pay attention to the convoy systems or the various other ways of repulsing or at least putting off piracy attention. We also encountered the issue that the European Union and NATO seemed not to be managing to get on very well operationally, as always.

What was the result of that? In 2010 there were 174 attacks and 47 pirated ships. More than that, however, through this effort we managed to displace this problem from the Gulf right out to the Indian Ocean as a whole, so it became a far more difficult problem. Somali piracy, which is part of the private sector and private entrepreneurship to a large degree, found new ways of modifying the model through mother ships and all sorts of other ways, so that it could be more successful over that broader area. That brought major economic issues—we often forget this—to those littoral states in east Africa, whether it be Somalia itself, Tanzania, Kenya or the Seychelles. Because people feared to transit those waters or go to port in those areas, there were direct economic consequences. Tourism was also affected. The one area that did benefit, I am told, is the fisheries stocks. No one dared go there, so the fisheries did well. Unfortunately, the Somalis themselves probably did not benefit much from that.

What is the situation now? In 2012 the attacks decreased from 174—in 2010—to 36; instead of 47 pirated ships in 2010, we only had five. In 2013 so far—these are early days, admittedly—there have been only two attacks and no pirated vessels whatever. During that whole time, the World Food Programme has not suffered one loss. So, in some ways, the prime reason for Atalanta has been successful.

Why has this happened? My colleagues and fellow noble Lords will no doubt go through this. However, the reasons include very strong international co-operation, not just between those three forces but also between independent nations. This includes China, which for the first time has operated outside its regional area; India, Russia and even Iran—although that is one country where the co-operation has not been so great. The international effort has led to success. There has also been real practical working at sea, even at a practical level between the European Union and NATO, which must be a first. Merchant fleet behaviour has become much better through the work of Northwood. Surveillance and intelligence using the Seychelles as a base has worked well; air surveillance has been far more effective and consistent; and intelligence has been shared.

The committee also recognised that there has been a more robust approach. We are regularly reminded that this is a constabulary operation, not a military one, and that the use of force therefore has to be proportionate and used carefully. However, we generally regarded the raid on the coast as a successful instance of putting down a marker to show that the European Union force was serious in terms of its intent regarding pirate bases. Also, armed guards are now allowed on most of the merchant fleet. Our own committee was against this originally but we have changed our mind on that. However, I would be interested to hear the Government’s view on how the programme has worked. Perhaps most significant of all, in his evidence to us Alexander Rondos, the EU special representative, described Somalia and its cities as having bustle and growth, although he saw it as an economy without a state.

What are the lessons we learnt? The obvious ones are that there is disorder where there are weak states and where the rule of law does not go to the borders; and that regardless of whether that is due to religious militancy or, as here, private sector entrepreneurship, it is very bad for nationals and for the international community. We have seen a different sort of piracy in west Africa as well and we will need to tackle that over time, too. We also know that it is good to have a comprehensive policy. We now have a much more comprehensive one in terms of the European Union’s Horn of Africa policy in Atalanta, the EU trading mission for Somali troops and increasing the coastal capabilities of all those states through the EUCAP NESTOR operation. We felt that the Gulf states should be more involved, but we know that until we solve problems onshore in Somalia, those operations will have to remain.

I congratulate a number of actors on their work, the Seychelles in particular. The Foreign Ministry of the Seychelles came and gave us evidence. It worked strongly and very responsibly with the community. At Northwood, we saw a most professional operation which was hugely international in its scope. We felt great confidence in it and it has clearly been a major part of success. However, I commend perhaps most of all the international co-operation between all those forces; for example, between the UK and France—one of the French warships, FS “Surcouf”, has a UK Lynx helicopter on it. I also commend the Seychelles, Kenya and Mauritius on the trial and imprisonment of pirates. However, I remind my fellow Members of this House that four vessels are still being held; that is, 108 human beings are still being held as hostages in those conditions. We have a ready business model that can be used elsewhere in the world. I believe also that we have failed to see the needs and the hopes of the Somali people in judging this operation. Perhaps looking inland, as well as out to sea, is something that we need to learn from this otherwise successful operation. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his response and particularly for the good news—I am delighted to be corrected—that we are down to two vessels and 60 hostages. That has to be very good news for the families and the people who are involved. I hope that we can bring those figures down to zero before too long.

When I mentioned World Food Programme vessels coming into Mogadishu, I meant Djibouti. Clearly, they could not go into Mogadishu because it was not under any sensible control.

Perhaps I may respond briefly to what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, said about ransoms. We considered this in our first report but not in our second. I recognise that this is a hole in the report. In fact, the bit that was put in was really from another EU Committee report through the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. Perhaps we can look at this further.

Will the Minister ask his officials to do a broader note on pirate release? This is of concern to the committee and is an important context. It is not for further debate now, but if his department could give us more background, particularly on how it was done with the EU and contributing nations, we would find that very useful.

It is important that the pirate community, if we can call it that, knows that this operation will go on until the situation is resolved on land and the rule of law comes back right across Somalia.

I thank noble Lords for having participated today, particularly those who are not members of this committee. It has been a huge privilege and pleasure for me to be chair of the committee over four years—although all committee members have put me under great pressure most of the time, quite rightly—but this will probably be the last report that I present within this Committee Room. I thank the staff of the committee. I am trying to remember who was a part of the team back then, but I know that one of them was Kathryn Colvin. I thank her in particular for having put this report together and for having brought all those witnesses in front of us as well as she did. I commend the report to the Grand Committee.

Motion agreed.