Difficult task

The situation for the Hansa Stavanger's crew of 24 has become desperate. According to Germany's Spiegel magazine, the captain reported to his wife a week ago that there was a lack of drinking water, food and medication. Many crew members are supposedly ill.

Negotiations between the pirates and the Hamburg based ship owner Leonhardt & Blumberg are ongoing. The pirates originally demanded $15 million ransom.

Three weeks after the hijacking special troops from the German federal police prepared to storm the ship and free the hostages. Two hundred German anti-terror specialists practised the operation on board of the US navy ship USS Boxer less then fifty nautical miles away from the Hansa Stavanger. But before German interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in Berlin could give the go-ahead for the operation, US national security advisor James Jones in Washington called the operation off, saying it was too risky.

But without American logistical support Germany's elite troops were grounded. Jason Alderwick, a maritime defense analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, supports the stance taken by the US. "The German contribution is just part of a wider international coalition. So unilaterally deciding to storm a ship isn't necessarily the right approach."

Better funding and cooperation

Wolfgang Bosbach, the vice-chairman of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian-Democratic group in parliament, argues that German police have the right to storm a hijacked German ship in any case. "When we need the support of other states, we can't decide alone. We need our own capacities as far as helicopter air transport is concerned. We need better air supported reconnaissance and we need better communication between the authorities in charge."

Bosbach wants better funding, so Germany can carry out operations without international help. And he also urges better cooperation between the defense and interior ministries. There was speculation in the media, that defense minister Franz-Josef Jung asked Washington to stop interior minister Schaeuble. Jung is in charge of the military, Schaeuble is responsible for the police, which includes the unit that was supposed to carry out the anti-terror operation.

Wolfgang Bosbach doesn't want to address the media speculation, but emphasizes that the German military has a special mandate for fighting piracy at the Horn of Africa, but that it is the general responsibility of Germany's federal police to free hostages when necessary.

Bosbach adds that for Germany, given its recent century history, every international military operation remains a balancing act between modesty and responsibility. "We have good reasons to say 'never first, never alone, never without an international mandate'. But when we say A, we also must say B. When we decide to send troops, we must make sure that they are equipped appropriately."

Fighting the root problem

Still, the larger question remains whether soldiers and policemen can stop pirates. For more than six months now, the navies of nine European nations have been patrolling the Somali coastline. And yet piracy has continued. Wolfgang Bosbach admits that the military alone can't stop piracy. "We are talking here about organized crime. We have to look at the causes. That's why besides the defense and interior ministries, foreign affairs and development ministries must be involved as well." Still, he says, the European military patrols around the Somali coast - operation Atalanta - has had an impact: "The shipping companies must decide to join a convoy, which gets Navy protection. None of the convoys we accompanied got into trouble."

Jason Alderwick agrees in principle that piracy is a matter of international crime and therefore rather a police than a military issue: "It would be great to hand over the operation to coast guard assets. But Europeans don't have a huge coast guard, which is able to deploy in a counter piracy role. So you have to go with the forces and capabilities you have. The military instrument is a blunt instrument, but it's adapting as best as it can with the situation down there."

Overall, says Alderwick, Europe's Atalanta operation at the Horn of Africa makes sense. "There has arguably been an escalation in the number of piracy attacks, but that isn't a direct consequence of the operation. It's just a consequence of the overall situation. Without Atalanta, piracy in the region would definitely have been worse."

Author: Patrick Vanhulle

Editor: Michael Knigge