15 December 2008: Gulf Daily News
By GEOFFREY BEW
THE international community ignored warnings on the growing problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia three years ago, it was claimed yesterday. Yemen Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Muthna Hasan said government officials voiced concerns about the issue in 2005, but their observations were overlooked, allowing it to develop into a much deeper crisis.
"At the second Manama Dialogue in 2005, the Yemeni Interior Minister warned about the rise in piracy," he said.
"It began with attacks on small ships but the pirates have moved on to attack large ships.
"The pirates do not hesitate now to attack large ships like the Saudi supertanker the Sirius Star."
Mr Hasan made the comments during a session about the role of the international community in regional security at the Manama Dialogue.
Prime ministers, national security advisers, intelligence chiefs and military officials from around the world attended the three-day event, which concluded at the Ritz-Carlton Bahrain Hotel and Spa. Delegations from 25 countries took part in the conference, organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Mr Hasan said part of the problem was that the international community had not paid sufficient attention to the deteriorating situation in Somalia.
"The situation in Somalia is still unstable because of conflict between the various factions and because the international community has not given this enough interest," he said.
"This has led to chaos and the total breakdown of the government and laid the ground for a rise in piracy, which threatens navigation at sea.
"We are afraid that Somalia will become a magnet for terrorists and radicals of all types.
"We fear that these groups will congregate in that country and threaten regional and international peace as we have seen recently with the rise of piracy.
"Yemen suffers directly from the deterioration of Somalia with more than 700,000 refugees who benefit from health and education services and hurt our efforts to implement development."
Mr Hasan warned against pursuing short-term measures to tackle the crisis.
"Concerning international efforts to fight piracy, the steps taken are excellent but they came late and will not solve the roots of the problem," he said.
"We should not restrict our efforts to sending international barges which will leave the region once their mission is over because the danger will still be there."
Singapore Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean said the Middle East could learn a lot from what his country, Malaysia and Indonesia had achieved in the Straits of Malacca.
He said piracy attacks had dropped from a peak of 38 in 2004 to seven last year since the trio joined forces to tackle the problem in the stretch of water that borders the nations.
"We embarked on global forms of multi-national co-operation through air and sea patrols," said Mr Hean.
"To overcome sensitivities associated with sovereignty, personnel from all three states fly on aboard each other's maritime patrol aircraft employed on such missions.
"Incidents are reported to the respective command centres for ships to take action within their own territorial waters."
