Fighting piracy: South Africa keeps warships ready for action
South Africa (SA) has placed its warships on station in the Mozambican Channel to counter the problem of piracy at sea.
SA has arguably the strongest navy on the continent and the country is one of the top 12 sea-trading nations in the world. If it has not yet been directly affected by piracy it is thanks largely to the efforts of the SA Navy plus its geographic location at a recognised naval choke point.
The choke point is the Cape of Good Hope, which along with the Suez Canal and the Straits of Gibraltar are more easily defendable against maritime and naval incursions.
Since May last year Operation Copper, South Africa’s ongoing anti-piracy deployment , has seen at least one South African warship on station in the Mozambican Channel at all times. Initially duties were confined to intelligence gathering and assisting the EU Naval Force (EUNavFor), based off the Horn of Africa, but this has since grown to board and search as well as being a more active player in the multinational task force’s effort to end piracy off the continent’s east coast.
Previously, then defence minister Lindiwe Sisulu laid the blame for piracy squarely at the door of Africa’s colonial past. She told a SADC Defence Council meeting earlier this year that Somalis, in particular, had taken to piracy to survive because the country’s former colonial masters had stripped fish populations and made farming almost impossible.
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