YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Helping combat piracy in the Indian Ocean seems like a stretch for the U.S. Coast Guard in Japan.
Nonetheless, the guard’s Far East Activities division, headquartered at Yokota, is working behind the scenes to join military, government and industry experts in dozens of countries in east and southern Africa and southern Asia on port security issues — and piracy tops the list.
“It’s a diplomatic approach to accomplishing the U.S. Coast Guard’s mission in this region,” said Lt. Cmdr. Mike Russo, one of 10 International Port Security Liaison Officers at Yokota.
Called the South Asia and Africa Regional Port Security Cooperative, the group was formed by the Coast Guard in 2008 to unite countries in the area that previously were not part of multilateral port security organizations.
“There was kind of a gap there. We’re just connecting everyone together,” Russo said. “They come to us with questions and concerns … we are looked upon as the maritime experts.”
The region falls under the responsibility of the Japan-based command, whose main function is inspecting military and commercial vessels. The Coast Guard acts as a maritime law enforcement and regulatory agency with jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters. The cooperative met for the second time last month in Mauritius, with plans to meet next in May.
“We have managed to exchange lots of information to create the necessary sort of awareness,” said Lt. Col. Andre D. Ciseau, CEO of the Seychelles Defense Force and chairman of the cooperative for 2009-10. “Now it’s time to come up with solid action so we can get the parties to contribute physical assets,” said Ciseau, who helped establish the small island nation’s coast guard in the early 1990s. “There’s a large disparity in assets to do patrolling, for example.”
On Monday, a Chinese ship was hijacked several hundred miles off the coast of the Seychelles, according to news releases on the European Union Naval Force’s Web site.
“We are facing a dilemma in port security, especially in the Somali piracy problem,” said Ciseau, who also is chief executive of the Seychelles Ports Authority. “So many vessels on the east coast of Africa and being targeted. It’s definitely important for everyone.”
Though the Seychelles is some 900 miles from the coast of Somalia, the expansion of piracy east demonstrates the need for collaborative efforts in the region to help contain the problem, Russo said.
“If [countries] are sharing information and intelligence about areas where piracy may be prevalent, this information gets shared, security is increased and the area is analyzed better,” he said.
Without communication, “the threat of piracy will just move to a new location,” Russo said. “But if everyone is working together then there really is nowhere for the pirates to go.”
Though the U.S. Coast Guard has helped get the cooperative off the ground, it works strictly in an advisory role, offering advice for the group as its develops security standards, Russo said.
“The last thing we want to do is to have this be seen as a U.S.-led effort,” he said. “We act more as a coach to the process.”
The group’s legitimacy depends on the U.S. taking a back seat as the group progresses, otherwise participants will feel “duped,” Russo said.
Greater security in the region furthers U.S. interests, he said.
Along with piracy, other port security concerns include human trafficking, drug and weapons shipments and the detection of nuclear materials on board ships, Russo said.
“We’re trying to do stuff up front that’ll prevent catastrophic events in the future,” Russo said, adding that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Energy Department have expressed interest in the Coast Guard’s port security effort in the region. U.S. Africa Command sent its coast guard representative to the September meeting of the cooperative as an observer, Russo said.
“There are a lot of great initiatives throughout the region with AFRICOM and [U.S. Pacific Command],” he said. “We’re hoping [the cooperative] will complement what they have in place already.”
