The Panther Bay
Pirate Blog

Some people in Somalia are apparently getting very serious about thwarting piracy. They are so serious, in fact, that the Mogadishu government is mulliing a proposal to hire a private company, Saracen International, to train a 1,000 person anti-piracy police force, according to an Associated Press report published in the Las Vegas Sun. The intiative is all quite secretive. Saracen is already training a 1,000 member strong police force for the northern part of the nation unrelated to piracy activities. The funding is coming from an "anonymous" donor nation that has "deep pockets."

Hmmm. Here's more from the Las Vegas Sun report:

The Somali government will decide in the next three weeks whether to have Saracen train the anti-piracy force in Mogadishu, Nur said. Another program to train up to 300 men for the presidential guard is also being considered.

If approved, that could mean up to 2,400 men would be trained by Saracen International. The mystery donor also has promised to pay the men and equip them with everything except arms. The total cost of the project is unclear.

A European Union-led program to reform the Somali army is training and paying for 2,000 men at a cost of around $13.2 million, indicating that at such a level of expenditure, the anonymous donor nation has deep pockets.

The donor insists on keeping its identity secret, citing concerns over terrorism, according to a presentation about the company given to Nairobi-based diplomats on Friday and provided to the AP.

Somali pirates have never been known to retaliate against nations that have sent warships to patrol the Somali coast, but the al-Qaida-linked Somali insurgency launched suicide bombings in Uganda that killed 76 people in July. Uganda is a main contributor to an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.

The mystery donor is paying for the services of a former American ambassador for war crimes, Pierre Prosper, and a former CIA deputy chief of station, Michael Shanklin. Prosper is being retained as a legal adviser to the Somali government on issues of transparency and anti-corruption, and Shanklin is a security adviser.

Prosper and two other Americans _ former army officer Michael Newton and lawyer Robert O'Brien _ gave a presentation Friday to the international community about the proposed projects.

Supposedly, the Somali government launched a 500 member navy last year to combat piracy, but the status of the program is a mystery (including what happened to the people and guns).