The Seychelles Column - By Christopher Gill

Communists In A Panic Over Piracy Threat

   

Somali Pirates

One moment we do not negotiate with pirates, than the next moment, the President James Michel says we will negotiate. Soon after, Joel Morgan, Minister of Homeland Security ( a title that is overpowering for the under accomplished chap), says that we will not negotiate with pirates, but we are talking with them.

     

The Smart Negotiators aka Pirate Experts

Immediately, after that statement was made Minister Morgan then made another announcement this week, saying that he is importing Gurhkas to man ships for Seychelles. He says that it will be a costly effort and he will ask stakeholders to contribute to the effort. How cute. His words, sounded like a Boy Scout leader telling the troops that the Boy Scouts will provide basics but you must see to it that your Mommy packs your lunch. After listening to Minister Morgan, I was deflated beyond explanation. Here is why.

Ghurkas in Seychelles to fight pirates

UK Prime Minister Smells Blood at Commonwealth Conference

As James Michel went begging for a few more boats, a few more planes a few more bullets and so forth under the guise of being a helpless small island state leader, at the Commonwealth Leaders Conference, the UK Prime Minister, smelled the opportunity the piracy menace in the Gulf of Aden was creating by Seychelles sleeping on the job in terms of thinking laterally on the matter. The UK is outfitting men trained in security, to place on ships going through the Gulf of Aden under private security arrangements. This creates a new industry, and shifts the insurance burden for ransoms to the private security firms, not the government.

Over 100,000 ships run through the Gulf each month. At $1,000.00 per day, per security personnel, this means big bucks are being made in our waters and PL has been asleep over the matter. For years I have written on the matter, but now, with the attacks in Lamu, Kenya recently and others, the matter is not an issue merely  income generation or cost cutting to outfit our own companies with our own people, to earn money. The pirates now are attacking land beach positions and taking tourists from their rooms. With such bold aggression before us, we must outfit our own people to stand a chance against these pirates.

More Mercenaries Not The Answer

Minister Morgan is looking to Gurhkas again to solve his problems. We all know the results of the use of Gurhkas at our prison at Anse Royale. This is a knee jerk strategy thought out by  a half wit at best.

Seychellois that ply the seas, need to be trained to defend themselves . What should have been done is Morgan take immediate steps implement a program to train our fishermen and merchant navies, to use weapons, check them out, check them in, and give them the dignity of standing up for themselves in the face of a piracy scourge that will only get worse for the next 15 years. How many Gurhkas does Minister Morgan intend on bringing to Seychelles?

Ironically, the Minister told us that the Gurhkas will not be here until the end of the year. It sounds like as of yesterday, literally, he did not even know their names yet.

The same Delo Kaka Morgan.

We can expect more hostage taking with a Minister openly thinking on SBC like that. It is a shame that SBC loads these interviews on the internet for the pirates to watch. James Michel should call on Morgan to submit his resignation before the next hostage taking takes place.  

Incidentally, under Minister Morgan, we have nearly 800 theft or criminal incident reports per month, for a population of 83,000. Crime has doubled from past years. In Mauritius, a country with a population of 1.2 million , has 1,200 reports of incidents per month.

The only person who thinks Minister Morgan is doing a brilliant job, is probably Minister Morgan himself. He has had to place security surveillance cameras all around his house, as a consequence of what he seems to believe….of his successful tenure at Homeland Security.

May God Bless All Freedom Loving Seychellois!