UK Prime Minister, David Cameron has pledged a crackdown on Somali pirates and their “kingpins” who demand ransoms for cargo vessels and their crew.
At the end of an international conference on piracy in London last week, he announced the creation of an international taskforce on pirate ransoms.
UK Prime Minister, David Cameron has pledged a crackdown on Somali pirates and their “kingpins” who demand ransoms for cargo vessels and their crew.
At the end of an international conference on piracy in London last week, he announced the creation of an international taskforce on pirate ransoms.
A Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) statement said: “This will bring together experts from across the world to better understand the ransom business cycle and how to break it. We will be working with international partners over the coming weeks to set out the structure and approach of the taskforce.”
The conference was attended by 55 delegations from Somalia and the international community, including Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations and US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.
Other action from the conference included Foreign Secretary William Hague and Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe signing a Memorandum of Understanding allowing the UK Royal Navy to transfer suspected pirates to Tanzania to be prosecuted. The UK will continue to work with other states in the region to secure similar agreements.
Somaliland signed a ground breaking agreement with the Seychelles yesterday to transfer convicted pirates to prisons in Somaliland – the first transfer of 19 convicted pirates is likely to take place by the end of March.
And on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that the UK was to provide the Director and £550,000 for the construction of a new Regional Anti-Piracy Prosecutions Intelligence Co-ordination Centre, based in the Seychelles.
The FCO said: “That centre will co-ordinate and analyse intelligence to inform law enforcement operations, ensuring we hold to account not just individual pirates, but those who finance and enable huge pirate operations.”
It added: “We want to see a seamless cycle of justice where pirates are caught at sea by the Royal Navy, prosecuted in regional states and imprisoned in Somalia.”
However, the conference failed to mention the plight of seafarers, according to a spokesperson for campaign group SaveOurSeafers.
“We’re concerned by some of the comments Hilary Clinton and David Cameron made about creating an international task force to discourage the payment of ransoms to pirates and other groups to eliminate the profit motive.
“This is deeply alarming, as it may hinder the payment of ransoms for ships and seafarers, which is currently the only way ship owners can ensure the ultimate safety of hijacked seafarers.”
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