Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Somali Pirates, Seychelles Area, Redux

Three more piracy attempts to the southeast of Somalia, far out to sea. None succeeded, but once again the pirates that are getting in the plausible attempts are doing so about 500 nautical miles (900+ km) off the coast... well over halfway from mainland Africa to the Seychelles...
Hm, have not we heard something of this before?
Here is the fact sheet from the U.S. State Department's website about the Seychelles. Defense and Coast Guard capabilities are, well, limited:

DEFENSE
In 2002, Seychelles had a defense force (Seychelles People's Defense Forces) of about 800 army personnel, including 300 in the presidential protection unit. The army has one infantry battalion and two artillery elements. Paramilitary forces include a national guard consisting of 1,000 people and a coast guard estimated at 250 and divided into two divisions, the naval wing and security or infantry division. 

The Seychelles Coast Guard (SCG), which was created in 1992, assumes many of the maritime roles commonly associated with the U.S. Coast Guard. They recently acquired responsibility for search and rescue for vessel incidents as well as environmental protection from the Port and Marine Services Division. SCG has several operational vessels: the Russian-built Fortune, the Italian-built Andromache, the Scorpio, two Indian manufactured vessels, four Motor Life Boats, and the luxury yacht Gemini that also is used as the presidential yacht. 

The air wing of the defense force separated from the coast guard in 1997 and does not have any dedicated aircraft, but it sometimes supplies pilots and aircrews to fly search and rescue missions. Their primary duty is to train pilots. The Island Development Corporation (IDC) maintains the pool of aircraft, using them for sources of income by chartering them out. The aircraft inventory includes one Caravan F-406, one Defender, one Cessna 150, and one Beech 1900.

Not much there to try to find a pirate mothership (or two, or more) slipping into Seychelles waters, far from the massive patrols of the world's Naval Forces working off Puntland and in the Gulf of Aden.
Might be worth doing a bit of looking around there, or to help the Seychelles government do the looking.
http://competinghypotheses.blogspot.com/2009/03/somali-pirates-seychelles-area-redux.html

 L.DOUGLAS GARRETT

5 comments:

L.Douglas Garrett said...

BACK LINK:

My thanks to S.T.A.R. for citing this Competing Hypotheses thread and most correctly attributing the citation.

A pleasure to be of service.

Best of luck, Seychellois lovers of democracy!

Anonymous said...

Isn't it time the resources of our defence forces were properly redeployed from protecting a paranoid old man to securing our outer islands from possible pirate attacks in future? Do we have to wait for one of our outer island resorts to be raided before we can act? Surely no one in his right mind can expect the Somali pirates (nor the opposition!) to attack the master's retreat at Barbarons?! Time to dismantle these idle garrisons bleeding our defence budget, and pour the money saved into beefing up our coast guard. Pour lamour sesel!

Anonymous said...

While everyone's preoccupied with the Somali pirate problem, it seems a bunch Saudi pirates have already raided and taken over the Plantation Club Hotel, one of Seychelles biggest resorts.. what's next on their list - our Seychelles Pride?

Anonymous said...

Its time we decide what to do in Seychelles.We have an army that has guns,sticks hardest boots ever made and all they do is use them on civilians just because the police is more of a joke than a force.our army is armed to fight citizen more than defending the country.We have more water than land yet we have more troops in the army than the navy.This defense force is a joke on all levels.rather than protecting this country they protect an ex dictator in his million dollar house in barbarons ( who cares about him anyways?!!) I guess the first place the pirates will attack will be barbarons then. it's time this country gets some serious people in charge rather than those who only wants to get full pockets every month for nothing.Let the old man in barbarons get some of his old supporters to protect him. He has more bodyguards then the current president anyways so why have more than half the army protecting him above that all?It's time we have new leadership because the current leadership will always make the first army policy in protecting some old timer rather than protecting this peace of land and sea we have.

Anonymous said...

Take the soldiers from barbarons and put them in the ocean to fight !!! for the love of Seychelles leave that old fucker and his bitch alone and save the people the army was crated for saving in the first place!!!