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How the Seychelles became a pirates' paradise |
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Tuesday, 09 February 2010 |
 A multi-storey cruise ship dwarfs the harbour of Port Victoria, engulfing two fishing trawlers in its considerable shadow. Together, the trio of vessels offer a snapshot of the economy of this Indian Ocean archipelago.
While the floating holiday camp disgorges hundreds of sunburnt
Europeans into the Seychelles' eternal summer, the trawlers unload
skipjack and yellow fin tuna by the thousands, bound eventually for
Europe.
Mention of the Seychelles is typically the cue for flowery sentences in
which "palm-fringed", "azure" and "turquoise" are rearranged in
brochure variations but another kind of ship has been arriving here
almost daily that darkens the postcard picture. Out in the spectacular
bay of Mahe Island, visiting Russian frigates and Royal Navy destroyers
are evidence of a gathering storm in the Somali basin that threatens to
sink the economy of this tropical paradise.
The anti-piracy armada assembled off the Horn of Africa to protect
international shipping from Somali pirates has had the unintended
consequence of pushing the problem south and east and into the
Seychelles.
Britain's High Commissioner, Matthew Forbes, describes what has
happened as the "balloon effect" with the Gulf of Aden patrols
squeezing out the pirates who instead have "popped up here".
Victoria was often thought of as a cushy posting with an ambassadorial
Jaguar to keep up appearances. That changed irrevocably in October when
a retired couple from Tunbridge Wells steered their yacht, the Lynn
Rival, out of Victoria heading north-west of Mahe. They made it only 60
nautical miles before they were intercepted by Somali pirates. Today,
it is thought that Paul and Rachel Chandler, aged 60 and 56, are being
held – separately to deter rescue attempts – somewhere inland from the
town of Haradheere in south-central Somalia.
The emerging crisis has transformed Mahe, in Forbes's words, "into the
frontline of the fight against piracy". Half a dozen EU spotter planes
leave on daily sorties; three US drones launch from its granite hills
to photograph thousands of square miles of open sea; and warships
detour south.
While the consequences for individuals caught up in piracy are dire,
the impact on the Indian Ocean island republic is little better.
Joel Morgan, a slight man with a serious manner, is considered the
rising star of the local political scene. Having begun the year as
Minister of the Environment, Natural Resources and Transport, he added
Prisons to his portfolio last week. Despite all this, he is known
informally as the "Minister for Piracy".
"We've not really been affected by recession. What did affect us is
piracy," he says. Last year's anti-piracy effort cost $9m out of a
total annual budget of $200m, he says.
The nightmare scenario is pirates washing up on one of the exclusive
beaches waving guns at free-spending tourists. Already, troops have
been stationed on two remote islands to sweep for pirate bases.
The island chain's economic survival depends not just on its enduring
appeal to honeymooners but also – to an equal, if not greater, extent –
on the fishing industry. The Somali buccaneers are a direct threat to
both.
Already burdened with one of the highest per capita debts in the world,
after years of unsustainable spending and borrowing, the Seychelles was
witnessing a tentative recovery before being hit by the fallout from
the failed state 600 nautical miles to its west.
"Piracy has the capacity to negate all the reforms we've made under the
guidance of the World Bank and IMF," Mr Morgan said last week,
addressing a conference on the future of tuna held in Victoria by the
International Seafood Sustainability Foundation. "Receipts from tuna
dropped by 30 per cent in the third quarter of 2009. We suffered
significantly from the insecurity created by piracy."
The signs of trouble are everywhere beneath the five-star veneer of
Victoria. The recently completed Eden Park Wharf, intended as a berth
and playground for superyachts, stands nearly empty.
A short boat-ride across the bay is the MW Brands tuna canning factory,
the biggest single economic engine supporting the country's scattered
population of 80,000. The French-owned plant, the biggest of its kind
in the Indian Ocean region, supplies roughly one quarter of the tinned
tuna eaten in the EU. The hulking French and Spanish trawlers deliver a
conveyer belt of catch in one side which emerges on the other side in
cans labelled with brands like John West.
Some 3,000 islanders are employed directly or indirectly through the
factory, the Seychelles' biggest employer, which produces as much as
450 tons of the canned fish a day. The 30 per cent drop in the catch
led to enforced stoppages at the plant and unemployment among
dockworkers.
In the bowels of the cannery, the hi-tech production line resembles a
laboratory more than a fish processing plant. Staff in white coats
hurry around, their heads covered by hygiene nets and facial hair
covered with beard snoods. Clouds of mist are created by the 30C heat
and 80 per cent humidity outside clashing with the refrigeration unit
inside.
François Rossi, the operations manager, is as concerned with pirates as
he is with production. "There are some places the boats cannot go, even
with security. They cannot go close to the Somali coast and now the
pirates are close to the Seychelles." As he speaks a giant digital
scoreboard shows line 9 has just passed 60,000 cans for the day.
The ascending columns of numbers may as well be the vital statistics of
the islands' finances and the second half of last year was worrying. A
spate of attacks in September drove the entire fleet into port and the
capture and multimillion pound ransom of the Spanish tuna boat Alakrana
prompted Spain to follow France's lead and allow armed personnel on
board.
The fleet based in the Seychelles has since been reduced to 45 boats
from 52 and those that remain now sail with up to five heavily armed
soldiers. At least 10 attacks have happened since then, repelled by
French marines and, on the Spanish boats, by private contractors, many
of them former British military personnel.
Michel Goujon, a trawler captain and head of the association of French
tuna fishermen, has been pushing for further military assistance. He
says boats have been afraid to come into port in the Seychellles: "The
pirates were waiting for us. The crews didn't feel safe at all. There's
no sign that piracy is going to decrease and every time a ransom is
paid it's an invitation for new attacks. It's strengthening the pirate
economy in Somalia."
European diplomats argue that the response has already been strong. In
addition to the naval resources sent south, a new patrol boat is being
provided by the EU to the Seychelles coastguard. In return for the
military support, the West has pushed the archipelago to join Kenya as
the only other nation to sign an agreement allowing suspected pirates
to be prosecuted and jailed.
After an embarrassing affair last year where the government got caught
in what appeared to be an illegal hostage swap with a Somali gang –
which it still denies – diplomats say ministers are now serious about
imprisoning captured pirates.
The islands' only prison, a ramshackle penitentiary atop the lushly
forested Montagne Posé, 13 kilometres outside the capital, already
holds 11 Somalis caught red-handed when they mistook the Topaz, a
Seychelles' naval cruiser, for a fishing vessel and launched a
night-time attack.
A new high security wing is being built by the UN Office for Drugs and
Crime (UNODC) with EU money. Eventually, the facility will be able to
hold 45 Somalis. There are already 120 in prison in the Kenyan port of
Mombasa and officials insist that the mountain jail will only be a
staging post to two new holding facilities being built in Somalia
itself.
No one sees an end to the crisis any time soon. And the reason can be
found in the dock next to the Topaz. Here sit three of the much-vaunted
pirate "mother ships", the craft that tow the faster lighter skiffs the
600 nautical miles from the coast of Somalia to their hunting grounds
in the Seychelles. In reality, they are just three battered motor
boats, no more than 10m in length. "You have to admit they're brave,"
says one official.
One of the vessels is crammed with oil barrels, the fuel for the three
day journey on the high seas. One barrel has a hole cut in the front
and is used to cook the meagre supplies for the hazardous journey.
These vessels, designed to move around harbours, stand no chance if
caught in a storm. Alan Cole from UNODC believes that at least as many
pirates have been lost at sea as the 150 that have been captured.
While there are fortunes to be made at sea and devastation at home they will keep coming.
Source: The Independent
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