Dealing with Somali piracy, mission impossible?

By Christopher Szabo
Digital Journal Reports

A seminar held by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria, South Africa, looked at ways of dealing with the problems of piracy caused by political instability and the resultant social breakup and poverty.

The conference, which featured both top military personnel and defence analysts from the world of academe as well as journalism, expressed the difficulties African governments faced in tackling the problem.

Two major issues; lack of capacity and lack of political will, surfaced as the most serious and difficult to overcome. Speakers pointed out that as much as 39 per cent of global trade passes through the Indian Ocean, but nations on the East Coast of Africa – with the sole exception of South Africa – did not contribute to protecting this trade for the simple reason that it was beyond their means. A Japanese embassy official indicated that this should be treated as significant, while the Africans present tended to look on the negative side.

Lisa Otto of the ISS’s African Conflict Prevention Programme sketched the rise of the Somali piracy phenomenon. She pointed out that as Somalia collapsed as a state, there was nothing that could exercise a coast guard function and as a result, ships – mainly from Europe – used Somali waters to fish and Somali coastlands to dump dangerous waste.

Thus the first Somali “pirates” were exercising what she termed ”vigilante justice”, by making the ships pay “taxes” to them. Later, they found hostage ransoms paid better. Up to this point, the phenomenon was relatively minor and local. But then, Otto explained, criminal gangs began to get involved, and these linked up to Somali warlords, who control clan-based territories within the country. (Unlike many African countries, the Somalis all have the same language, culture and religion, but are split along clan lines.)

Soon, the ransoms were in the millions of US dollars. Some 20 percent of the hijack money went to the warlords, thus perpetuating the instability in Somalia. She added there were an estimated 5,000 pirates in five main gangs.

Source: www.digitaljournal.com