Smuggling escalates as piracy is brought under control

The SA Navy’s joint operations
with international security
agencies has almost eradicated
piracy from the eastern
seaboard of Africa but the
scourge of smuggling remains a
growing challenge.
SA Navy chief director
of maritime strategy, Rear
Admiral Sagaren Pillay, said
piracy off Africa, first observed
primarily off the Gulf of Aden
on the West Coast and then
towards the Madagascan
channel on the eastern
seaboard, was being combatted
globally by governments
and security agencies at an
international, continental and
regional level.
“We have seen a gradual
de-escalation of piracy-related
incidents internationally and
that can be ascribed in a large
part to the efforts of combined
maritime task forces operating
out of the Gulf of Aden,” he
said.
There had been an almost
total absence of piracy in the
eastern seaboard region in
2015, he added.
“While piracy has gone
down, maritime insecurity
as it relates to trafficking
– whether drugs, human
trafficking and other illicit
trade – has escalated.
Unregulated and illegal fishing
has escalated,” he said.
“We have a trilateral
memorandum of agreement
with Mozambique and
Tanzania ensuring the area
in the eastern seaboard is
protected and piracy has moved
away from the east to the west,”
Pillay said.
The last known incident in
the Mozambique channel had
been in 2011 and had led to the
adoption of the SADC maritime
security strategy, he added.
According to the latest
statistics released by the
International Chamber of
Commerce’s, International
Maritime Bureau, there were
246 incidents of piracy and
armed robbery committed
against ships in 2015, similar
to the year before when 245
incidents were reported.
“The preponderance of
incidents happened mainly in
South East Asia, he said.
Kenneth Wittenburgh
Chief of the Force Protection
Division with the US Naval
Criminal Investigation Service
(NCIS), which partners with
law enforcement authorities in
Africa to combat trafficking,
illegal fishing and piracy, said
organised crime cost the global
economy US$ 800 billion a
year. He said a major area of
focus had been maritime heroin
trafficking out of Pakistan and
Afghanistan to Europe and in
recent years down to Kenya and
Tanzania and then by road to
Mozambique and South Africa.
“We are looking
at cooperation and
information sharing
on these crimes
organisationally and
transnationally,” he said.