Suez gun law catches carriers in crosshairs

Suez gun law catches carriers in crosshairs    The Suez Canal Authority's decision one month ago to no longer allow commercial vessels with onboard firearms to transit the strategic waterway is causing severe complications for some ship owners and operators trying to protect crews, cargo and assets from Somali pirates.
   Maersk Line Ltd. learned about the new policy by surprise when one of its ships was prevented from entering the Suez Canal until it surrendered its supply of weapons to Egyptian authorities, Stephen Carmel, the company's senior vice president of maritime services, said during an interview in his 20th floor office overlooking the bustling Norfolk, Va., harbor.
   Company officials were told that Egypt has begun enforcing a weapons prohibition that has always been on the books. Once the weapons are handed over, Egyptian authorities drive them to the other end of the canal and return them to the ship's crew, Carmel said.
   The shipping line had repeatedly gone through the zone in similar fashion for the past year with no complications, always disclosing to shipping agents and the customs ministry what weapons were locked up on board by the master, said Tom Rothrauff, president of Trident Group.
   Trident is a Norfolk-based maritime security firm comprised of former Special Forces personnel under contract to Maersk Line Ltd. to defend eight of its ships on the Indian Ocean trade lanes.
   Rothrauff said he suspects the crew of some vessel probably came through the canal without disclosing its weapons cache, drawing the attention of the Suez Canal Authority and port police.
   Several alternatives proposed by Maersk Line, such as inviting Egyptian officials to board its ships and place seals and extra locks on the weapon cases or stationing a guard onboard, were rejected, Carmel said.
   Maersk Line Ltd. is the U.S. subsidiary of Danish shipping conglomerate A.P. Moller – Maersk.
   The Egyptian crackdown is creating an eight- to 10-hour delay for vessels because they must wait for Egyptian officials to show up and take possession of the weapons. Carmel said that would begin to take a toll on vessel schedules as delays cascade through services utilizing the Suez Canal.
   The more serious impact is that Maersk Line Ltd. and other U.S.-flag carriers carrying food aid for African nations or U.S. military cargo via the Red Sea route to Iraq and Afghanistan are technically in violation of export licenses obtained for the weapons, the shipping executive said. Placing weapons aboard a cargo vessel departing the United States is considered an 'export' of weapons under the State Department's interpretation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, even if the weapons are intended as a permanent part of the ship's equipment and the weapons are intended to be brought back to the country when the vessel returns. The specific licenses for carriers require the weapons to remain on the ship at all times. Carriers can be subject to fines or have their licenses revoked for violations.
   'The real ridiculous part of this is we're on some ships that have military hardware and we have to take our little M-4s and 9 mms off,' Rothrauff said, referring to the rifles and pistols stored on board the cargo vessels.
   Meanwhile, another country has followed in Egypt's footsteps. Abu Dhabi recently informed carriers that it plans to confiscate weapons on commercial vessels in its territorial waters, potentially leading to delays of up to six hours as vessels wait outside Port Mina Zayed for a patrol boat to pick up the weapons before entering, and then return them upon departure, Carmel said. Rough seas could postpone the small boat rendezvous and extend wait times, he added.
   'You can see if this practice spreads and everybody starts doing this we've just added days to the voyage of one string,' the Maersk Line executive said.
   Carmel said the State Department, which is responsible for controlling the export of defense-related items, has been very helpful trying to find a way around the legal jeopardy presented by the Egyptian decision. It recently informed flag license-holders and carriers that they will be able to reapply for new export licenses, which will include language permitting the temporary removal of weapons under special circumstances.
   The State Department has indicated it is heading in that direction, but has not implemented any new process yet, Rothrauff stressed. Trident owns the weapons and obtains the necessary export licenses, which must list the vessel of record and the probable ports of call, he said.
   Until the amended licenses are available, Trident will continue to submit a voluntary disclosure of violation in each case that weapons are removed from a vessel. State Department officials so far have taken a lenient view towards enforcing the export violations, given the circumstances.
   'It's a paperwork drill,' Rothrauff admitted, but one that is expensive for Trident and Maersk Line because they must employ a lawyer and pay legal fees every time a self-disclosure report is filed.
   International Shipbuilding, a Mobile, Ala.-based carrier, was among the carriers briefed by the State Department and other agencies about the situation, but declined to comment for this story. Officials at Liberty Maritime Corp. and America Cargo Transport Corp. did not return phone calls by deadline.
   State Department spokesman David McKeeby refused to make anyone available to discuss the issue.
   The pending State Department solution will prevent U.S. carriers 'from being sanctioned by our own government for doing what the government wants us to do,' Carmel said.
   Maersk Line was originally reluctant to place firearms onboard its vessels and only did so at the insistence of the U.S. government, which was under pressure to protect U.S.-flag vessels and crews following the hijacking and military rescue of the Maersk Alabama in spring 2009.
   Many shipping industry officials oppose arming their crews or hiring armed private security guards out of fear that weapons could escalate an avoidable confrontation and jeopardize their vessel, lead to an accidental shooting or increase their liability for possible deaths or injuries. Other concerns expressed last year include a lack of standards of conduct, restrictions on arms aboard merchant vessels entering many foreign ports, unclear rules on the use of force and design constraints of vessels to carry additional personnel.
   They prefer using non-lethal defenses such as maintaining high speeds, evasive maneuvers, constant lookouts, water hoses and other methods for deterring and escaping pirates. The shipping industry, seafarer unions and some lawmakers urged the executive branch to place military security teams on the small number of U.S.-flag vessels that transit high-risk waters. The Pentagon instead has maintained its policy of only embarking expeditionary forces under contract to Military Sealift Command for longer than six months.
   Shipping executives also requested at congressional hearings last year that the government remove domestic and international legal obstacles that hinder ship owners from arming their vessels. They raised particular concern about the State Department regulations governing arms exports.
   Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., at the time called on the Maritime Administration to take responsibility for clarifying the rules pertaining to firearms onboard commercial vessels so that private companies know how to legally defend their crews and vessels. The effort should include how to streamline the process for firearm export licenses, examining whether changes to U.S. law are required, and reaching agreements with nations in which U.S.-flag vessels call to iron out conditions for carrying firearms, such as locking up weapons, while in port.
   'When the U.S. government pushed guns as a solution to pirates, it did so without pursuing any international regulatory groundwork. So, there's no common practice for entering and clearance of armed ships. The rules are different everywhere you go,' Carmel said.
   The fact that the U.S. Coast Guard seized the carrier's own guns six months ago in Charleston, S.C., highlights the amorphous nature of the rules related to maritime self-defense, he pointed out. The incident arose out of a dispute between Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard, which took the weapons as an export violation until the State Department stepped in and clarified the situation.
   'There's no internationally accepted standard for training and vetting the guys who have the guns,' or what types of weapons are appropriate, Carmel added.
   Trident has extremely well trained personnel, he said, but all carriers may not be as conscious about liability and could simply hand guns to their crew or poorly prepared armed riders.
   'What's to stop a Maltese-registered ship, with a crew of Yemenis armed with 50-caliber machine guns to come steering into Norfolk harbor?
   'We're creating a port security problem that just boggles my mind. It hasn't happened yet, but it will. Sooner or later a ship like that will show up here and the world will be watching from a reciprocity aspect,' the veteran seafarer and shipping executive said.
   'So what we're doing is making it a weaponized free-for-all out there. In order to solve one relatively contained problem off the Horn of Africa, we're creating a security problem that will hit ports globally. If the practice of arming ships is the way to go, we urgently need an international regulatory regime so we all know what to expect.'
   U.S. officials have suggested to Maersk Line that the International Maritime Organization won't entertain a discussion on such rules because it is fundamentally opposed to weapons on commercial ships, he said.
   The temporary confiscation of weapons is not an immediate concern from a security standpoint because the upper reaches of the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Persian Gulf are not threat areas, Rothrauff said. But the situation could change as piracy starts to spread close to those regions. Somali pirates have begun to operate in the northern end of the Bab Al-Mandeb, the passage between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and off the coast of Oman, near the Persian Gulf.
   Pirate activity has not abated during this year's monsoon season because pirates have shifted their areas of operation when the seas get rough and are using more swarming tactics than in the past, he added.
   Carmel said Egyptian authorities so far have returned the same number of guns removed at the start of Suez journeys, but that he fears there eventually may be a break in the chain of custody that results in a rifle or pistol falling into the hands of a terrorist who could use it to shoot an American.
   And to the extent that terrorists have intelligence in countries like Egypt they could get a view of a shipping line's inventory of weapons and where they are kept on its vessels, he warned. ' Eric Kulisch