Roots of Somali Piracy

The problem of piracy in Somalia traces its roots to economic and environmental depredations that have taken a toll on the lives of the Somali people, especially the fisherfolk.

The international community has raised the alarm over the spate of ship abductions by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, with seafarers being taken as hostages. As of this writing, there are still 92 Filipino seafarers who are in the custody of the “pirates”.

Some experts say it is the capitalist countries that have caused this problem, as they have long been doing injustice to the Somali people.

Toxic wastes + depleting water resources = piracy

Suffering from economic backwardness and virtually with no government to defend its people, the Somali coast has been the dumping site of toxic wastes from international ships passing the Gulf of Aden.

This, according to Johann Hari, a columnist for London’s Independent and who is known as an expert in Somali political affairs, had pushed the Somali people, the ones called pirates by the international community, to defend their shores.

In 2005, barrels and barrels of nuclear wastes had been washed up on the shore of Somalia after the tsunami strike, said Hari in one of his columns published in second week of April.

He said that people suffered from strange rashes, nausea and had given birth to malformed babies as a result of exposure to these toxic wastes. Later, these toxic wastes killed 300 people, he added.

The situation in Somalia was confirmed by United Nations (UN) Special Envoy to Somalia Ahmedou Ould Abdallah.

The UN Envoy had sounded the alarm, not only about the toxic wastes being dumped into the Somali seas, but also on the spate of illegal fishing in the area. “Because there is no effective government, there is so much irregular fishing from European and Asian countries,” he said in a statement.

The UN Envoy also disclosed that he had already asked several international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Global Witness, which works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide, to trace the source of this illegal fishing and the illegal dumping of waste.

This phenomenon, Ould Abdallah said, helps fuel the endless civil war in Somalia as the illegal fishermen are paying corrupt Somali ministers or warlords for protection or to secure fake licenses.

The East African waters, particularly off Somalia, have huge numbers of commercial fish species, including the prized yellow fin tuna.

Reportedly, foreign trawlers use prohibited fishing equipment, including nets with very small mesh sizes and sophisticated underwater lighting systems, to lure fish to their traps.

Ould Abdallah cited the case of a Spanish trawler captured by “pirates” while illegally fishing for tuna off Somalia in April.

The “piracy” activities off Somalia have reached crisis proportions since the country sank into chaos after warlords ousted the late president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Thus, Somalia’s coastal waters have become one of the most dangerous in the world, with more than 79 ships seized by pirates in 2008 despite navy patrols.

Military force to thwart growing Somali “piracy”

The concerns over piracy, victimizing commercial ships and with seafarers taken as captives, had begun in the 1990s, during the heat of Somalia’s civil war.

Since 2005, international organizations, including the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the largest organization of ship-owners and the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP), have been sounding the alarm over Somali pirates’ attacks.

They said piracy has contributed to an increase in shipping costs and impeded the delivery of food aid shipments.

The WFP’s primary concern was the payment of military escorts to accompany the ships that carried their food aid for distribution in Africa. Ninety percent of the WFP’s shipments arrive by sea.

In November 2008, Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula said in an interview over BBC that Somali pirates have been paid more than $150m (£101m) in ransom in the past 12 months.

That year, 95 attacks had been recorded by the media; the latest then was the capture of a Saudi tanker carrying a $100-million oil cargo.

Because of this, the international community had agreed to put a stop to the “piracy” attacks through military force.

In August 2008, the Combined Task Force 150, a multinational coalition task force, was formed and took on the role of fighting Somali piracy by establishing a Maritime Security Patrol Area (MSPA) within the Gulf of Aden.

The Russian military, in September 2008, said they will join the international community in suppressing the Somali pirates’ attacks.

To strengthen the campaign against the Somali piracy problem, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1838 on Oct. 7, 2008 calling on nations with vessels in the area to apply military force to resist the acts of piracy.

On Oct. 23, 2008 the Indian Navy deployed a warship in the region as a response to the problem of piracy in the Gulf of Aden.

The latest show of military force against the Somali pirates was the rescue of Maersk-Alabaman American captain Richard Phillips earlier this month by the US Naval Forces. Three Somali pirates were killed in the operation.

But the Somali pirates were undeterred and went on hijacking commercial ships, the latest being the M/V Irene, a few days after Phillips’s rescue.

Long- and short-term solution

Amid the recent spate of ship abductions, the International Seafarers’ Action Center (ISAC) Philippines Foundation, Inc., a non-government organization which promotes the rights and welfare of Filipino seamen, issued a statement urging for long and short-term solutions to the kidnapping problem in the Gulf of Aden.

“While it is impossible for ships not to pass the Gulf of Aden, since it is one of the most important waterways in the world, what can be avoided is the illegal dumping of toxic wastes and the degradation of marine coastal resources that has affected the coastal communities and Somali fisherfolks, which provoke ship attacks,” said maritime labor lawyer and ISAC secretary-general Joseph T. Entero.

“However, these decades-long issues cannot be resolved by military action alone. The heroic Rambo attack made by US Naval Forces just to rescue one American captain, Captain Richard Phillips, only aggravates the already volatile situation. We at ISAC call on the United Nations and influential states to step in to provide diplomatic and development solutions to the crisis besetting Somalia, which is necessary,” Entero added.

He also said that it is only through addressing the economic and environmental problems in the Gulf of Aden that peace could be realized in the area.

The Gulf of Aden

The Gulf of Aden is situated in the Arabian Sea between Yemen on the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia in the Horn of Africa. It connects with the Red Sea through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, about 20 miles or 32.186 kilometers, in the northwest.

Throughout history, the said part of the world’s ocean has played a very important role in international trade and commerce.

The city of Crater, located just east of the modern city of Aden, was an important port in regional trade. Crater was the principal harbor of the pre-Islamic kingdom of Awsan, and after its annexation by the kingdom of Saba at the end of the 5th century, the port of Crater played a significant role in connecting Africa with Arabia.

Being a vital waterway for shipping, especially for Persian Gulf oil, it has become an integral waterway in the world economy. The main ports along the gulf are Aden in Yemen, and Zeila, Berbera, and Bosaso in Somalia, which are considered trade centers in the Horn of Africa.

It is said that about 11 percent of the world’s seaborne petroleum passes through the Gulf of Aden on its way to the Suez Canal or to regional refineries. (First appeared at Bulatlat.com)

N.B. This is the prequel of the article "Of Toxic Wastes, Warlords and Pirates", which appeared on the online investigative news magazine, Bulatlat.com. The Somali piracy has already claimed notoriety, especially to the international maritime community due to the massive loss of property and profits caused by looting and holding of the ships by the militants-turned-pirates.

Of Toxic Wastes, Warlords, and Pirates

The toxic wastes polluting Somalia’s seas did not just end up there by accident after being washed up the shore by the tsunami of 2005.

The toxic wastes polluting Somalia’s seas did not just end up there by accident after being washed up the shore by the tsunami of 2005.

These barrels of wastes, believed to be thrown by European, Asian and American fleets, have already killed 300 people, as confirmed by international authorities, and have left thousands more sick with unusual diseases caused by radioactivity.

Toxic-dumping agreements

In one of her columns which appeared in the Guerrilla News Network (GNN), Ms. Loretta Napoleoni, the well-known author of Terror Incorporated, Insurgent Iraq, and Rogue Economics, disclosed how European and Asian countries contracted leading waste-disposal firms, the Swiss Archair Partners and the Italian Progresso, to export their undesirable refuse to impoverished countries with weak governments.

Napoleoni, also a senior partner of G Risk, a London-based risk agency, is an expert on the financing of terrorism and advises several governments on counter-terrorism.

She said the most popular destination for the unwanted and undesirable refuse (wastes) of rich countries is Africa, with Nigeria and Somali as favorite spots.

“Among the toxic material unveiled by the tsunami there was radioactive uranium, cadmium, mercury, lead and also highly toxic chemical, industrial and hospital materials from Europe. The shipment dated back to 1992 when a group of European companies recruited Swiss company Archair Partners and the Italian company Progresso, both specialised in the export of undesirable waste. Between 1997 and 1998, the Italian weekly Famiglia Cristiana and the Italian branch of Greenpeace denounced such business in a series of articles. Greenpeace even managed to get hold of a copy of the agreement signed by President of Somalia Ali Mahdi Mohamed, wherein he agreed to receive 10 million tons of toxic waste in exchange for $80 million. This equates to a cost of $8 per ton against a recycling and dismantling cost in Europe of $1,000 per ton,” she said.

Mr. Nick Nuttal, the United Nations (UN) Environmental Program’s media chief, said it is cheaper to dump wastes in Somalia than to have it disposed within Europe.

“It cost as little as £1.70 ($2.51 based on the prevailing exchange rate) a ton, whereas waste disposal costs in Europe was something like £670 ($989.48),” he said in a statement after inspecting Somalia.

He also confirmed Napoleoni’s reports.

“And the waste is of many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury. There are also industrial waste, hospital wastes, chemical wastes – you name it,” the UNEP media chief said.

Inaction of authorities created pirates’ groups

Simon Assaf of the Black Star News, a leading investigative newspaper in New York today, said that despite the evidence uncovered by the tsunami, an investigation into the practice of toxic dumping was dropped. “There was no compensation and no clean up,” he said.

Neither did the UN bodies act on the proliferation of illegal trawler fishing in the Somali seas.

In 2006, Assaf said, the Somali people complained before the UN about the problem of illegal trawler fishing in their area, which was causing the plunder of their fish stocks – especially the prized yellow fin tuna, red snapper and barracuda.

“Despite repeated requests, the UN refused to act. Meanwhile, the warships of global powers that patrol the strategically important Gulf of Aden, did not seize any vessels dumping toxic chemicals off the coast,” Assaf explained.

“So the angry Somalis, whose waters were being poisoned and whose livelihoods were threatened, took matters into their own hands. Fishermen began to arm themselves and attempted to act as unofficial coastguards. They began to seize ships in late 2006. These [ships] were released after a ransom was paid,” he furthered.

The self-proclaimed “pirate” leader Januna Ali Jama, explained to the international media that the ransom they demanded for the release of the Ukranian ship which they seized in November 2008 is to be used for the coastal cleanup.

“We are just reacting to the (dumping of the) toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years,” Ali Jama said, quoting from Assaf’s report.

“The Somali coastline has been destroyed. We believe that this money is nothing compared to the devastation that we have seen on the seas,” Ali Jama added.

The warlords join the “show”

Due to the handsome amount that the sea militias receive, Somali government officials who formed part of the Western-backed Transitional Federation Government (TFG) soon joined the “show”.

“They have transformed the piracy operation into a multi-million industry that funded their lavish lifestyles,” Assaf said.

The officials have begun to fund the militants-turned-pirates with guns, ammunitions and grenade launchers.

Despite their ouster during the popular rebellion of the Union of Islamic Courts in July 2006, the piracy continued.

To date, the Somali buccaneers operate in five well-organized groups, drawing members from large clans, which are extended family networks.

“These groups,” said Crispian Cuss of the London-based Olive Group, “are controlled by warlords and criminal gangs who recruit local fishermen and take a lion’s share of the profits.”

The profit sharing, according to a news report from the leading news wire service, works like this: 20 percent of the ransom goes to the group bosses; 30 percent is used for bribing corrupt officials; 20 percent goes into capital investment like guns, ammunition, fuel, food, and cigarettes; and the remainder goes to the operatives themselves.

It is desperation to earn a living said Andrew Mwangura of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers’ Assistance Program that pushes these fishermen to go into piracy.

Today, there are about 2.5 million Somalis who go hungry everyday, depending only on food aids being shipped to Somali by the UN’s World Food Programme.

“Today, they (the pirates) number around 1,500 up, from around 100 five to seven years ago,” the seafarers’ advocate said.

“They’re earning a lot of money and everyone wants to join,” Mwangura said, adding, “They’re getting new recruits everyday.”

With the bounty coming from the crime, some Somalis have considered piracy as a noble profession, some observers say.

“They always travel in beautiful four-wheel drive luxury cars and look like people who are working for a big business company,” a certain Mahad Shiekh Madar, said to be a car salesman in the northeastern port of Bossaso on the tip of the “lawless” horn of Africa.

Abdulahi Salad, 43, also a former pirate in the central coastal village of Gaan, said pirates were different from the ordinary gunmen in Somalia: they are not thin, and they have bright faces and are always happy.

At late morning last April 20, speedboat-riding pirates sprayed bullets on M/V New Legend of Honor late morning of the said date, aiming to stop the ship. But the hijack attempt was thwarted when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ships patrolling in the area responded to the distress signal.

Earlier, the “pirates” had fired rockets at the Maltese-flagged M/V Atlantica, but the attack failed. (First appeared at Bulatlat.com)