The US Is Also Fighting Pirates Off the Coast of West Africa
The Gulf of Guinea is the most dangerous waterway in the world, and the US is partnering with strongmen to make it safer.
A US sailor during joint naval exercises with the Ghanaian Navy, February 2012. This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website and was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute. Additional funding was provided through the generosity of Adelaide Gomer.
"The Gulf of Guinea is the most insecure waterway, globally," says Loic Moudouma. And he should know. Trained at the US Naval War College, the lead maritime security expert of the Economic Community of Central African States, and a Gabonese Navy commander, his focus has been piracy and maritime crime in the region for the better part of a decade.
Moudouma is hardly alone in his assessment.
From 2012 to 2013, the US Office of Naval Intelligence found a 25% jump in incidents, including vessels being fired upon, boarded, and hijacked, in the Gulf of Guinea, a vast maritime zone that curves along the west coast of Africa from Gabon to Liberia. Kidnappings are up, too. Earlier this year, Stephen Starr, writing for the CTC Sentinel, the official publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, asserted that, in 2014, the number of attacks would rise again.
Today, what most Americans know about piracy likely centers on an attraction at Walt Disney World and the Johnny Depp movies it inspired. If the Gulf of Guinea rings any bells at all, it's probably because of the Ebola outbreak in, and upcoming US military "surge" into, Liberia, the nation on the northern edge of that body of water. But for those in the know, the Gulf itself is an intractable hotspot on a vast continent filled with them and yet another area where US military efforts have fallen short.
A recent investigation by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that "piracy and maritime crime in the Gulf of Guinea has escalated" and that "armed robbery at sea, oil theft, and kidnapping is a persistent problem that continues to contribute to instability" there. Not only that, but as Pottengal Mukundan, the director of the International Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce, recently noted, piracy in the Gulf has taken on a particularly violent character.
What Benjamin Benson, media chief for US Africa Command (AFRICOM), thinks isn't quite so clear. As the situation in the Gulf of Guinea was worsening, he touted it as an American "success" story, pure and simple. Then he claimed that he hadn't done so, after which he clammed up completely. What he thinks today is anyone's guess. He now refuses to say a word about it.
Loic Moudouma, for his part, claims to see progress in bringing security to a body of water nearly the size of the Gulf of Mexico that is critical to the economies of a dozen nations. He also credits the United States for its support of security efforts there, even if they have paradoxically occurred alongside an increase in both piracy and insecurity. West African states, says Moudouma, have left waterways ungoverned, turning them into breeding grounds for criminal activity. The problem, he insists, is the poor leadership of the African nations in the region, America's "partners" on the frontlines of the fight. Their lust for power, according to Moudouma, has put the national security of numerous African nations and the economic well-being of the region at risk, yet the Obama administration only recently feted the area's most corrupt strongman and the US military regularly partners with his armed forces.
The Sweet Smell of Success
"Do not put words in my mouth. I did not say the Gulf of Guinea was a success. I did not say Gulf of Guinea maritime security was a success." This was AFRICOM spokesman Benson's response last November when I asked if he wanted to amend his earlier assessment of the Gulf of Guinea shortly after pirates kidnapped two Americans from a US-flagged ship there.
I was taken aback.
I remembered him touting the region as a triumph when we talked in the spring of 2013, so I went back to a recording of our conversation. "I'm wondering what you think the big success stories are," I had asked about AFRICOM's work on the continent. "There's actually two success stories," he replied, telling me first about American efforts in Somalia. "Another area that's definitely a success is the Gulf of Guinea," he added. "We've been working with a number of different states developing... maritime security capabilities."
I listened to that passage several times. It sure sounded like he was calling the Gulf of Guinea a success.
For almost a year since then, Benson has failed to amend, clarify, or defend his statement. He has ignored repeated requests for further information, refusing even to issue a pro forma "no comment." He may still claim that he never uttered those words or he may still believe the Gulf has been an American success story, but even his boss, AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, said "maritime criminal activities in the Gulf of Guinea remain at concerning levels."
America's Battle Against Pirates
The United States has been fighting African pirates since the early days of the republic—battles so formative that, among other things, they established a long-standing pattern of dealing with foreign policy problems through armed interventions and also inspired the iconic phrase "the shores of Tripoli" in the Marine Corps hymn. By the late 2000s, American ships were once again under attack off an African coastline and the US military had again been dispatched to kill pirates. This time around, the conflict centered on the Horn of Africa—not North Africa—specifically the waters off the coast of Somalia.
In the 1990s, Somalia descended into a maelstrom of violence, which has abated somewhat in recent years but continues to plague that nation and has since spread beyond its borders. In 1993, when American troops infamously arrived in its capital, Mogadishu, in support of a United Nations humanitarian mission, they suffered 18 killed and two helicopters shot out of the sky in the "Black Hawk Down" disaster. Somalia was then repeatedly battered as Islamic militants struggled for control against US-backed militias and various African armed forces. During those years, neighboring nations began illegally fishing in Somali waters, prompting local fishermen to arm themselves and collect "taxes" from foreign vessels. Some of these proto-pirates soon began hijacking relief food shipments, while others moved on to attacking merchant vessels and oil tankers. By 2008, Somali swashbucklers were, by some estimates, raking in as much as $150 million annually.
That same year, the US National Security Council (NSC) developed a document it called "Countering Piracy off the Horn of Africa: Partnership and Action Plan." Its focus was the prevention and disruption of maritime crime off the coast of Somalia. Despite this, the number of reported attacks in the region nearly doubled between 2008 and 2009, and the next year the GAO weighed in with recommendations for the NSC to "reassess and update its Action Plan; identify metrics; assess the costs, benefits, and effectiveness of US counter-piracy activities; and clarify agency roles and responsibilities." For the next four years, however, the NSC failed to respond.
In those years, the United Nations also passed numerous resolutions related to maritime crime in the Horn of Africa, authorizing international militaries to conduct counter-piracy efforts. Naval patrols and other missions by NATO and the European Union as well as Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, China, Russia, Japan, India, and the US—in addition to the use of armed mercenaries to protect ships and a slew of new policies designed to thwart attacks—have had a demonstrable effect. According to the International Maritime Bureau, piracy incidents in the Horn of Africa declined from 219 in 2010 to just 15 in 2013.
"At the peak point of operations, up to 30 vessels from as many as 22 nations were engaged in counter-piracy operations in the region," Rear Admiral Joseph Kuzmick told Congress last year. "International naval forces have thwarted pirate attacks in progress, engaged pirate skiffs, and successfully taken back hijacked ships during opposed boardings." While a truly international effort, the battle against the Somali pirates ranks as one of the few true bright spots for the US military in Africa.
Over these same years, the US has also been pouring money and effort into maritime security activities on the other side of the continent with drastically different results.
From 2007 to 2011, the US provided $35 million to West and Central African countries for coastal radar, boats, equipment, and maritime security training. These efforts included the African Partnership Station (APS)—a shipboard effort designed to "provide quality military training to sailors and leaders of [partner] nations." Under the auspices of the APS, the United States annually hosts four regional security exercises around the African continent: Cutlass Express, Phoenix Express, Saharan Express, and Obangame Express, the latter based in the waters off West Africa.
By 2012, five years after it was launched, APS activities involved more than 30 African, European, and North and South American countries. In last year's iteration of Obangame Express, some 16 nations participated in exercises in the Gulf of Guinea, including Benin, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, France, Gabon, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, Togo, and the United States. This year, 20 nations were involved, including 11 which took part in boarding exercises conducted aboard 36 different vessels in the gulf.
AFRICOM and the US Coast Guard also provide counter-piracy training as well as instruction in search and seizure skills through the African Maritime Law Enforcement Partnership program. In addition, the US has held seminars, symposiums, and conferences devoted to maritime security; it has donated spare parts and even entire ships to West African allies, provided hands-on maintenance instruction, advised personnel from regional navies and coast guards, and offered aid for maritime counter-narcotics and law-enforcement projects.
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