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Somalia: is Piracy the real Problem?

Written by Administrator

Sunday, 19 October 2008

These days, Somalia's coastline is fast turning into a major theatre of military activity from disparate quarters. Citing grave threats to maritime commerce in the region, the UN Security Council had called, on October 6 this month, "on States with naval vessels and military aircraft operating off the Somali Coast to use the necessary means against acts of piracy". Few weeks back, EU Foreign Ministers had approved plans "for a possible EU military naval operation" in the Horn of Africa "to crack down on pirates".

In similar fashion, the Commander of the "US Task Force in the Horn of Africa", Admiral Philip Greene, spoke about military coordination with Yemen "to fight sea piracy and preserve the security of international maritime traffic in the Red Sea". This happened at more or less the same time while press reports indicated that the US Government was offering 7 million US $ to the pirates to "receive entry permission and search" a hijacked Iranian ship.

For its part, Russia had announced at the end of September that it was dispatching a warship to "patrol off of Somalia's coast", albeit expressly underlining that "Russian warships will conduct operations on their own". Other smaller countries, (Malaysia etc.) also joined the fray. And, in the aftermath of the hijacking of the Ukrainian vessel, the MV Faina, that is carrying tanks and other military hardware to dubious destination, NATO has sent warships to the region.

What is this furore all about? Is the Somali coastline the domain of unruly thugs and pirates hell-bent on jeopardizing international maritime traffic and extracting ransom from commercial vessels? Or are there other, profound, dimensions to the problem? What are the underlying causes of the mayhem? And in view of the strong opposition by Somalis of all political persuasion to this "international rescue mission", what is its legality? And what is the international precedence that it is setting?

The magnitude of the problem cannot of course be downplayed. The International Maritime Bureau puts the number of incidents so far this year at 61. Some reports claim that more than 30 million US dollars have been paid in ransom money. But preoccupying as these figures might be, they tell part of the story.

What is indeed emerging now is a pattern of illegal fishing and pillage of Somalia's marine resources by an assortment of foreign companies with the tacit approval of their home countries. This has been going on for the last 17 years with impunity as Somalia was dubbed a "failed State" trapped as it was in an intractable civil strife often exacerbated by foreign interference as well as outright invasion.

But what is far more disturbing are recent findings that Somalia had become a dumping ground for toxic waste by unscrupulous Western and Asian companies. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has recently reported that "Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste starting from the early 1990s and continuing through the civil war there". The UN envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, states: "the UN has reliable information that European and Asian companies are dumping toxic waste, including nuclear waste, off the Somali coastline".

In the event, what is the objective and mandate of these assorted naval forces? Is their task to "hunt down" the so-called "pirates" so as to allow the companies engaged in illegal fishing and the criminal dumping of toxic waste to conduct their business as usual? What is the legality of this "international stewardship" if it is not endorsed by the Somali people and its political forces? And above all, if the turmoil in Somalia is principally rooted, or has at the minimum been exacerbated, by foreign invasion and other unwarranted external interferences, would it be proper and legitimate for those who have created the chaos in the first place to turn their coats and appear as "rescuers"? These are some of the cogent questions that people in this region and all those who have the welfare of the Somali people must ask before jumping in the bandwagon of "the fight against piracy".

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