Maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia is not just an African problem but a global challenge of worldwide concern, and the international community must step forward to help.



U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson and Erastus Mwencha, deputy chairperson of the African Union's Commission, made that point to reporters in a media round table October 13. Carson and Mwencha spoke to journalists via an electronic hook-up to Paris and Addis Ababa while attending the 2010 African Maritime Safety and Security Conference in Stuttgart, Germany.



Maritime piracy is not an issue solely for Somalia, for the regional states of the Horn in East Africa, or for Africa itself, Carson told reporters. "The African community has borne the brunt of the piracy, and the international response, particularly on the legal side, has been very, very minimal. We know that many countries around the world have put ships out in the Indian Ocean to counter the piracy, but piracy continues to persist for two reasons. One is the lack of a government and an economy on shore and the other one is an absence, the continuation of impunity and the absence of punishment for people who are caught engaged in piracy."



Carson expressed his government's "enormous appreciation" to the governments of Kenya and the Seychelles. "Both of those countries have taken in, prosecuted and jailed more pirates than any other nations around the world," he said.



"Many of the ships that are pirated have ownership which is international and not African, many of those ships are flagged by non-African countries, and many of those ships are crewed by non-African crews," Carson told the reporters. "But in the end, when pirates are captured by an international fleet, the owners of the vessels from different countries refuse to press charges in their countries. The countries that provide most of the crews refuse to press charges against the pirates, including when individuals have been killed and wounded. And many of the countries that flag these vessels refuse to press charges.



"So it is left for the countries in the region to have to take these pirates, put them in their jails, use their court systems, their judges, to prosecute, convict them and then keep them for long periods of time under incarceration."



Citing an example, Carson said: "Recently we saw a vessel … that vessel was owned by citizens in Europe [but seized by Somali pirates]. It was crewed by Filipinos, and it was flagged by a country in the Caribbean, but yet when the pirates were caught, none of those states involved were willing to prosecute and those pirates eventually had to be taken to Kenya.



"It is important that the international community come forward," Carson stressed. "That countries in and around the globe that own these ships, that provide crews to these ships, that flag these ships, take responsibility for punishing the pirates who are engaged in piracy. It is not just an East Africa problem or an African problem, it is an international problem, and until we can get the international community to stand up on the legal side to prevent this impunity legally, we are going to continue to have problems. The international community has got to stand forth."



Carson said "the United States has done its part and will continue to do its part" to address the problem. "The U.S. over the last three years has only had one vessel kidnapped, the Maersk Alabama. That vessel was not allowed to go into Somali territory. U.S. naval assets were deployed, they rescued the vessel, the captain, killed some of the pirates and brought some of them back to the United States because it was a U.S.-owned and -crewed vessel, brought them back to the United States, where they were prosecuted in New York City and the pirates are now serving jail sentences in New York.



"If, in fact, there are German or French or Dutch or Indian or Pakistani or Japanese vessels — and I'm just using those as an example — and they are attacked, it is incumbent upon those countries, those countries, to take in the individuals that attack those vessels and prosecute them. If they don't do that, they surely must provide some kind of financial assistance to the countries of East Africa to help defray the cost of dealing with the incarceration of pirates."



Carson added: "Paying ransoms does not help. Paying ransoms [to earn the freedom of a ship, its crew and cargo] only encourages continued piracy."



Picking up on Carson's remarks, the African Union Commission's Mwencha agreed that "the challenges that face Africa today are global, and the solutions can only be global. That's why we are so happy to be here to partner with our friends and partners." Mwencha thanked the U.S. departments of State and Defense and the other agencies "for coming to work with us, to talk about these very important aspects of maritime safety and security."



Mwencha acknowledged that while piracy is a global problem, Africans still "have to do something for ourselves. We have developed and we are developing a strategy. That strategy has a responsibility to an individual level, at the national level, and in the continental level. And that strategy requires that, first of all, we share information. We coordinate. We work together, within the continent. And we have a capacity to be able to … have our coastlines policed and safeguarded from international pirates, but also those that do illegal fishing, toxic waste and the rest."



To accomplish that, however, "requires resources," he said, "… and that is an element that we also seek to partner with the rest of the international community — to help each other, to be able to help with the problem."



The greatest challenge now facing Africa, Mwencha told reporters, is ignorance — the lack of "knowledge about what needs to be done and what has to be done." He asked the reporters on the call "to pass on this message to the rest of Africa so that Africa can work together for the sake of our continent."



Africa's coastline is about 39,000 kilometers, Mwencha said. "Now that poses an opportunity and a challenge. An opportunity because in that coastline lies great wealth, in which Africa is only getting a small portion. Often we only get to hear about hijacking and piracy, but that's not all about the coastline of Africa. The coastline of Africa is about trade; it is about food security; it is about energy; it is about human trafficking; and it is also about toxic waste. But, above all, it is about governance for the continent and the wealth of the continent."



Also participating in the media round table, which brought together more than 170 participants representing some 20 African nations, were the African Union Commission, the U.S. Africa Command and representatives from both the public and private sector, along with General William E. "Kip" Ward, commander of the U.S. Africa Command, and Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Africa, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.