Counter Piracy Contact Group Confronts Maritime Crime in the Horn of Africa

The United States joined more than 60 nations and international organizations at the United Nations in New York on March 21, 2011, for a meeting of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia.

In a communiqué following the meeting, the Contact Group called for a renewed international commitment to combating piracy, both at sea and on land in Somalia, through robust and integrated military, law enforcement, and development activities. Among their recommendations, the Contact Group called for:

• Reinforcing international naval patrols in response to more aggressive and widespread pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean and providing sufficient military capability to sustain counter piracy operations.
• Expanding the capacity of the international community to prosecute suspected pirates captured at sea, as well as their leaders and financiers, through national prosecutions and innovative additional mechanisms, including the development and sharing of information to counter enabling networks providing arms, equipment, and funding to pirate gangs.
• Intensifying implementation of a full range of industry-developed self-protection measures by ship owners and operators to prevent pirate attacks and safeguard merchant mariners.
• Strengthening the capacity of Somalia and other countries in the region to combat piracy on their own, in particular through contributions to the UN Trust Fund Supporting Initiatives of States Countering Piracy off the Coast of Somalia.

Full text of the Contact Group’s Communiqué is available on the Department of State Web site at: http://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/othr/misc/158773.htm