Somalia says new coast guard can stop piracy

[May 18, 2009]  KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Somalia's fledgling government on Monday appealed for international help to set up a coast guard, saying it would guarantee that sea piracy near its shores is wiped out once it has such an agency.

However, representatives of the east African nation's government -- attending an international conference on piracy -- ruled out allowing foreign forces on Somali soil to destroy pirate bases.

They said that although a multinational naval task force is patrolling the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden, it cannot effectively control the pirates who strike unawares to hijack merchant vessels and tow them to coastal bases.

"Somalia needs a more effective coast guard to protect its sea, to protect our fishermen and to protect foreign ships against piracy," Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister Abdirahman Aden Ibbi said in a speech.

Aden did not attend the conference, and his speech was delivered by Nur Mohamed Mohamoud, the deputy director of the country's National Security Agency.

Embroiled in a series of civil wars, Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991 -- a situation that has spawned pirate gangs along the country's 1,900-mile-long (3,100-kilometer) coastline.

They have become increasingly brazen over the past two years, hijacking dozens of merchant ships for ransom worth millions of dollars. As of May 15, pirates have hijacked 29 ships and took 472 crew hostage, according to the International Maritime Bureau watchdog.

Some 20,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, each year.

At least 19 ships and more than 250 sailors are now being held hostage by Somali pirates, many in the Puntland semi-autonomous region of Somalia.

Somalia's Western-backed government, which got a new president in January, wields little control outside the capital of Mogadishu.

Abdirahman told the conference that the problem of piracy is rooted in the lawlessness as well as illegal fishing by other countries in Somali waters.

He said that initially Somali fishermen would capture the foreign fishing boats but let them go after seizing their catch. Soon, they began imposing monetary penalty and "finally ended up (becoming) the powerful pirates that we see today."

He said a well-trained coast guard was the only solution. "We the Somali government will guarantee if we were to get the kind of support we have been asking for," there will be no more pirates in our waters, he said.

Puntland Security Minister Abdullah Said Samatar told reporters on the sidelines of the conference that a coast guard of two or three patrol boats would be enough to put down the pirates.

He, however, ruled out allowing foreign forces on their land.

"They should be eliminated from the land by Puntland forces... because (foreign forces) cannot distinguish between pirates and local fishermen and it may create more problem for us," he told reporters.

International donors at a recent U.N.-sponsored conference pledged more than $250 million to help Somalia in buying military equipment and material as well as development aid to try end two decades of anarchy.

U.N. bodies will oversee funding earmarked for Somalia's government, which wants to build a police force of 10,000 along with a separate security force of 6,000 members.

[Associated Press; By VIJAY JOSHI and EILEEN NG]

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