Mauritius to Take Captured Somali Pirates

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

Background

With its Prime Minister in London to attend the anti-piracy conference on 23 February, Mauritius has reconfirmed its commitment to fighting Somali piracy by agreeing to hold suspected Somali pirates in custody prior to their trials.

Comment

Mauritian Prime Minister, Navin Ramgoolam, has journeyed to London to participate in the international conference organised by British Prime Minister David Cameron. The island state is committed to playing an active role in the fight against Somali pirates, whose expansion beyond Somali coastal waters continues to threaten shipping in the western Indian Ocean.

Mr Ramgoolam can make the case that his small country is willing to do its part in tackling the problem. Having passed the Piracy and Maritime Violence Act in December 2011, Mauritius undertook to apprehend suspected pirates and to try them on Mauritian soil. 

Mauritius has also agreed to accept suspected pirates captured by the vessels of the European Union’s Operation Atalanta anti-piracy taskforce, and to hold them in custody as they await trial.

The Mauritian commitments will offer a significant boost to efforts to try suspected pirates. The undertaking will help to take some pressure off the Seychelles and, especially, Kenya, which accepts the majority of captured Somali pirates.

The London Conference aims to establish a new, multilateral approach to tackling both the root causes and the effects of the problems in Somalia, by bringing together a wide range of stakeholders. It is a timely initiative, as the mandate of Somalia’s current Transitional Federal Government will expire in August 2012.

Representatives from some 40 governments, including Australia, are expected to attend. Also in attendance will be officers from the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, the World Bank, the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, and the League of Arab States.

Also invited are representatives of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Institutions, as well as the Presidents of Somaliland, Puntland, Galmudug and representatives of Ahlu Sunnah wal Jamaah, a moderate Sufi militia that is opposed to the radical Islamist group, al-Shabaab.

Somali piracy continues to pose a serious problem to shipping in the western Indian Ocean and now, with the end of the monsoon season, it will ramp up again. The International Maritime Bureau noted in its Annual Piracy Report that, in 2011, ‘while the overall number of Somali incidents increased from 219 in 2010, to 237 in 2011, the number of successful hijackings decreased from 49 to 28.’

As Figure 1 (above) indicates, the range of Somali pirates also decreased in 2011, most likely as a direct result of being contained by patrolling naval forces.

Leighton G. Luke

Manager

Indian Ocean Research Programme

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