Somalia and its pirates - back in the news again

While in Kenya last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged greater support for Somalia's incredibly weak transitional federal government, met with Somali president Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, and threatened sanctions against Eritrea for supporting al-Shabab and the other Islamist militias which are reported by the Somali president himself to control all but a few city blocks of Somalia. In keeping with the tone of Clinton's remarks (including those made after the meeting), much of the recent coverage of Somalia has been focused on the threat of terrorism (including this interesting story about an attempt by a Minneapolis radio station to counter extremist propaganda with Somali-language VOA news coverage; apparently airing a program in produced by US public diplomacy is illegal in the US).

However, the renewed discussion of Somalia's identity as a failed state has obvious implications for addressing piracy off its shores. The recent rebirth of the Somali navy has attracted a moderate amount of news coverge, though a Coast Guard anti-piracy task force might be more effective. This BBC article on Somali's new Navy chief highlights the absurdity of commanding a Navy in the absence of a government, ships, equipment, and control of the coastline, but the Somali government has long maintained that training such a force is the best way to prevent piracy. Writing for Information Dissemination, Robert Farley suggests that the need for training represents an opportunity for the US to "influence the institutional development not just of the Somali Navy, but also of the various other navies of East Africa, and the rest of the world." The EU has already announced its plans to train a Somali anti-piracy security force, but it appears this would be distinct from the nascent Navy.

The relationship between shoring up Somali governmental institutions and the media focus on piracy cuts both ways. In a briefing on the semi-autonomous Puntland region published today, the International Crisis Group states that:

The [Somali] government must take advantage of the piracy-driven international attention to mobilise funds and expertise to carry out comprehensive political, economic and institutional reforms that address the fundamental problems of poor governance, corruption, unemployment and the grinding poverty in coastal villages. The international community needs to refocus on the long-term measures without which there can be no sustainable end to that practice or true stability. Equipping and training a small coast guard is obviously a necessary investment, but so too are other steps, such as to improve the general welfare and help impoverished fishing communities.

Meanwhile, a Turkish frigate working with NATO forces in the Gulf of Aden captured five suspected pirates today and is claiming to have prevented a possible ship hijacking, and the Hansa Stavanger, the German ship released last week, is headed home to Germany where Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung has called for a constitutional amendment giving German armed forces a greater role in hostage rescue situations, citing the length of time it took for German police forces to deploy to the Horn of Africa after the Hansa Stavanger was hijacked.

US officials too are worried about the threat of piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Citing dangers to US shipping (and thereby linking pirates to the "trade" commonplace in our analytical model), Elijah Cummings, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, recently wrote an op-ed about his amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that "would require the Department of Defense to place small teams of armed security aboard those few U.S. flagged ships truly at risk of being boarded when they carry U.S. government cargo through an area where there is a high risk of piracy." The House passed the Act and Cummings's amendment last month.

Pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden are expected to increase in coming weeks with the end of monsoon season in east Africa.

Reporting live from Puntland

Al Jazeera's English-language series of reports on piracy called "Pirates' Haven" is one of the best in-depth account of Somali piracy that I have come across. Al Jazeera's East African correspondent Mohammed Adow travels to Bossasso and Eyl to interview pirates, governmental officials, and others in an effort to contextualize more fully the pirates that, as Adow notes, have been captured mainly in the headlines.

The first part takes a look at the Puntland region and the conditions that originally facilitated piracy as a business and continue to fuel it today:


Part 2 examines the system of hostages and ransom payments inherent in piracy, and Adow documents local reactions -- and objections to -- piracy in the town of Eyl.


BBC's Africa correspondent Andrew Harding also visits Puntland to report on the fight against piracy in Somalia:


Meanwhile, anti-piracy efforts continue apace outside Somalia as well. Interpol is currently working on compiling a database of Somali pirate suspects:

"Without systematically collecting photographs, fingerprints and DNA profiles of arrested pirates and comparing them internationally, it is simply not possible to establish their true identity or to make connections which would otherwise be missed," Interpol's Executive Director of Police Services, Jean-Michel Louboutin, said in a statement released Wednesday at the agency's headquarters in Lyon, France.

Piracy as the high-profile tip of the Somali iceberg

The BBC recently published an excellent article and accompanying radio report on the hijacking of the Danish merchant ship the CEC Future. Rob Walker interviews both the ship captain and crew, some incarcerated pirates, and Ali Mohamed Ali, the same pirate negotiator that struck up an unlikely friendship -- reported by NPR -- with shipping executive Per Gallestrup. He goes on to detail how the ransom payment was parachuted down to the hijacked vessel (a surprisingly tricky business), the dynamics between the pirates' captain, Omar, and his crew, and the economic benefits the Somali port town of Eyl has accrued as a result of piracy. Information about the mechanics of Somali pirate attacks can also be seen in Eagle1's post about the attack on the Dubai Princess which includes a series of photos capturing exactly what an attack by RPG-armed pirates in a speedboat looks like. The upcoming Samuel L. Jackson action movie about pirate negotiator Andrew Mwangura demonstrates a similar interest in the workings of the Somali piracy phenomenon.

John Boonstra, from UN Dispatch, would perhaps approve of this interest to the extent that it ultimately draws attention to Somalia's growing humanitarian crisis, which has resulted in over 100,000 internally-displaced persons. Boonstra quotes Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini:

"Piracy is only the tip of the iceberg," Frattini said. "We are convinced that piracy is related to the political and socioeconomic crisis on land, not on the sea.

Boonstra notes, however, that the iceberg is "much, much bigger" than current steps (calls for international coordination, the establishment of pirate courts, and a Somali coast guard) are addressing, and he states that, "Compared with the widespread travesties faced by these thousands of Somalis, the international community's focus on piracy, whatever its impact on the global economy, seems almost an affront to human dignity. " But as Frattini's statement hints at, continued interest in the region and the piratical tip of the iceberg -- whether expressed in respected news media, the blogosphere, or Hollywood -- carries the possibility of increased awareness of the wide-spread human rights violations, violence, and war crimes. Given that the Somali pirates continue to hold a large number of vessels and appear to be expanding their range of attacks to the Persian Gulf, piracy is likely to stay popular in the news and culture, but whether the attention given to Somali's humanitarian problems will go beyond the following prerequisite cursory nods remains to be seen:

• "Somalia has been without a stable government since 1991, allowing piracy to flourish." (BBC)

• "The pirates in the recent string of attacks are all from Somalia, an extremely poor African country that hasn't had a stable government in decades." (Washington Post)

• "Piracy has become a multimillion-dollar business in Somalia, a nation that has limped along since 1991 without a functioning central government." (The New York Times)