Entering the blue: conflict resolution and prevention at sea off the coast of East Africa

Abstract

Scholarly work on maritime peacekeeping and responses to maritime insecurity increased notably in the early twenty-first century with much attention turning to Africa's maritime landscape. Africa's offshore security governance became particularly salient as a result of threats to good order at sea as well as how actors in the international system responded. One way of describing the responses to Africa's maritime domain is to view it as part of the response continuum depicting conflict prevention and conflict resolution. Security arrangements at sea depict a growing recognition of the importance of Africa's oceans to the extent that the landward focus of many leaders and security actors has gained a parallel domain – that of maritime security. Thrust upon the wider African security agenda by piracy off East Africa, the importance of the African maritime landscape dawned not only upon the international community and the UN in particular, but the African leadership as well. Threats at sea around Africa have an umbilical connection to what transpires on land and are equally complex to deal with. In a certain way, as suggested in this piece, reactions to promote maritime security governance off eastern Africa have become part of the wider conflict resolution agendas of actors as displayed off the Horn of Africa and in waters of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) further to the south.

Keywords:

• conflict resolution
• conflict prevention
• Horn of Africa
• Southern African Development Community
• piracy
• good order at sea

Notes

1. See reports on maritime piracy of the UN special representative to Somalia (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) United Nations, UN resolutions on the gulf of Guinea, UN resolutions 2018 (2011) and 2039 (2012).

2. Since 2007 the incidents of piracy and armed robbery, or such attempts, began to increase at an alarming rate culminating in the deployment of international and national naval task groups off the Horn of Africa by early 2009 (See Møller, 2009, pp. 9–10).

3. The situation off the west coast of Africa is far worse with several outstanding maritime boundary settlements stretching from Mauritania in the north to Angola and Namibia in the south.

4. See, for example, Patrick (2010, pp. 27–53). Also see De Oliviera (2012) on the role of irregular threats at sea and naval responses.

5. The leaked report of the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea (2012) appears to point out the involvement of several Private Security Companies involved in on- and offshore service provision of security duties to AMISOM, Somalia, and Puntland, and which are funded or facilitated by an array of countries such as the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, USA, and Sudan.

6. See Note 1.