Seychelles new frontline in the piracy fight

Nations are sending their warships to Port Victoria as piracy edges closer. Photo / Supplied

Mention of the Seychelles is typically the cue for flowery sentences in which "palm-fringed", "azure" and "turquoise" are rearranged in brochure variations, but another kind of ship has been arriving here almost daily that darkens the postcard picture.

Out in the spectacular bay of Mahe Island, visiting Russian frigates and Royal Navy destroyers are evidence of a gathering storm in the Somali basin that threatens to sink the economy of this tropical paradise.

The anti-piracy armada assembled off the Horn of Africa to protect international shipping from Somali pirates has had the unintended consequence of pushing the problem south and east and into the Seychelles.

Britain's High Commissioner, Matthew Forbes, describes what has happened as the "balloon effect" with the Gulf of Aden patrols squeezing out the pirates who instead have "popped up here".

Port Victoria was often thought of as a cushy posting with an ambassadorial Jaguar to keep up appearances.

That changed irrevocably in October when a retired couple from Tunbridge Wells steered their yacht, the Lynn Rival, out of Victoria heading northwest of Mahe.

They made it only 60 nautical miles before they were intercepted by Somali pirates.

Today, it is thought that Paul and Rachel Chandler, aged 60 and 56, are being held - separately to deter rescue attempts - somewhere inland from the town of Haradheere in south-central Somalia.

The emerging crisis has transformed Mahe, in Forbes' words, "into the frontline of the fight against piracy".

Half a dozen EU spotter planes leave on daily sorties; three US drones launch from its granite hills to photograph thousands of square miles of open sea; and warships detour south.

While the consequences for individuals caught up in piracy are dire, the impact on the Indian Ocean island republic is little better.

The nightmare scenario is pirates washing up on one of the exclusive beaches waving guns at free-spending tourists. Already, troops have been stationed on two remote islands to sweep for pirate bases.

The island chain's economic survival depends not just on its enduring appeal to honeymooners but also on the fishing industry. The Somali buccaneers are a direct threat to both.

Already burdened with one of the highest per capita debts in the world, after years of unsustainable spending and borrowing, the Seychelles was witnessing a tentative recovery before being hit by the fallout from the failed state 600 nautical miles to its west.

"Piracy has the capacity to negate all the reforms we've made under the guidance of the World Bank and IMF," Environment and Transport Minister Joel Morgan told a conference on the future of tuna held last week in Victoria by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation.

"Receipts from tuna dropped by 30 per cent in the third quarter of 2009. We suffered significantly from the insecurity created by piracy."

A spate of attacks in September drove the entire fleet into port and the capture and multimillion pound ransom of the Spanish tuna boat Alakrana prompted Spain to follow France's lead and allow armed personnel on board.

The fleet based in the Seychelles has since been reduced to 45 boats from 52 and those that remain now sail with up to five heavily armed soldiers.

At least 10 attacks have happened since then, repelled by French marines and, on the Spanish boats, by private contractors, many of them former British military personnel.

No one sees an end to the crisis any time soon. And the reason can be found in the dock next to the Topaz. Here sit three of the much-vaunted pirate "mother ships", the craft that tow the faster lighter skiffs the 600 nautical miles from the coast of Somalia to their hunting grounds in the Seychelles.

In reality, they are just three battered motor boats, no more than 10m in length. "You have to admit they're brave," says one official.

One of the vessels is crammed with oil barrels, the fuel for the three-day journey on the high seas. One barrel has a hole cut in the front and is used to cook the meagre supplies for the hazardous journey.

These vessels, designed to move around harbours, stand no chance if caught in a storm. Alan Cole from UNODC believes that at least as many pirates have been lost at sea as the 150 that have been captured.

While there are fortunes to be made at sea and devastation at home they will keep coming.

- INDEPENDENT