There are two piracies in Somalia, the well publicized attacks on shipping by pirates from Somalia, and the much more expensive, damaging, and long lived piracy in Somali waters, the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing fleets there from Europe, Arabia and the Far East, and the dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters. Both of these are violations of international law, but because Somalia has had no real government for close to two decades, no one has listened when Somalis ask for help with these two piracies.

Mohamed Abshir Waldo has written what may be the best overview of the problem of the two piracies: THE TWO PIRACIES IN SOMALIA: WHY THE WORLD IGNORES THE OTHER?

The origin of the two piracies goes back to 1992 after the fall of the Gen. Siyad Barre regime and the disintegration of the Somali Navy and Police Coastguard services. Following severe draughts in 1974 and 1986, tens of thousands of nomads, whose livestock were wiped out by the draughts, were re-settled all along the villages on the long, 3300kms Somali coast. They developed into large fishing communities whose livelihood depended inshore fishing. From the beginnings of the civil war in Somalia (as early as 1991/1992) illegal fishing trawlers started to trespass and fish in Somali waters, including the 12-mile inshore artisanal fishing waters. The poaching vessels encroached on the local fishermen’s grounds, competing for the abundant rock-lobster and high value pelagic fish in the warm, up-swelling 60kms deep shelf along the tip of the Horn of Africa.

The piracy war between local fishermen and IUUs started here. Local fishermen documented cases of trawlers pouring boiling water on the fishermen in canoes, their nets cut or destroyed, smaller boats crushed, killing all the occupants, and other abuses suffered as they tried to protect their national fishing turf. Later, the fishermen armed themselves. In response, many of the foreign fishing vessels armed themselves with more sophisticated weapons and began to overpower the fishermen. It was only a matter of time before the local fishermen reviewed their tactics and modernized their hardware. This cycle of warfare has been going on from 1991 to the present. It is now developing into fully fledged, two-pronged illegal fishing and shipping piracy conflicts.

According to the High Seas Task Force (HSTF), there were over 800 IUUs fishing vessels in Somali waters at one time in 2005 taking advantage of Somalia’s inability to police and control its own waters and fishing grounds. The IUUs, which are estimated take out more than $450 million in fish value out of Somalia annually, neither compensate the local fishermen, pay tax, royalties nor do they respect any conservation and environmental regulations – norms associated with regulated fishing. It is believed that IUUs from the EU alone take out of the country more than five times the value of its aid to Somalia every year.

Illegal foreign fishing trawlers which have being fishing in Somalia since 1991 are mostly owned by EU and Asian fishing companies – Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Russia, Britain, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen, Egypt and many others.

The dumping of toxic waste is an additional nightmare for Somalis. In 2005:

A spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Nick Nuttall, told VOA that for the past 15 years or so, European companies and others have used Somalia as a dumping ground for a wide array of nuclear and hazardous wastes.

“There’s uranium radioactive waste, there’s leads, there’s heavy metals like cadmium and mercury, there’s industrial wastes, and there’s hospital wastes, chemical wastes, you name it,” he said. “It’s not rocket science to know why they’re doing it because of the instability there.”

Mr. Nuttall said, on average, it cost European companies $2.50 per ton to dump the wastes on Somalia’s beaches rather than $250 a ton to dispose of the wastes in Europe.

He said the Asian tsunami dislodged and smashed open the drums, barrels, and other containers, spreading the contaminants as far away as 10 or more kilometers inland. …

The results of the contamination on coastal populations, Mr. Nuttall says, have been disastrous.

“These problems range from acute respiratory infections to dry, heavy coughing, mouth bleedings, abdominal hemorrhages, what they described as unusual skin chemical reactions,” he noted. “So there’s a whole variety of ailments that people are reporting from these villages where we had a chance to look. We need to go much further and farther in finding out the real scale of this problem.”

The Somalis have appealed repeatedly to the UN, the EU, the Arab League, and others. Mohamed Abshir Waldo describes:

In September 1995, leaders of all the Somali political factions of the day (12 of them) and two major Somali NGO Networks jointly wrote to the UN Secretary General, Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, with copies to the EU, Arab League, OIC, OAU and to other involved parties, detailing the illegal fishing and hazardous material dumping crises in the Somali sea waters and requesting the UN to set up a body to manage and protect these waterways. …
Somali fishermen in various regions of the country also complained to the international community about the illegal foreign fishing, stealing the livelihoods of poor fishermen, waste dumping and other ecological disasters, including the indiscriminate use of all prohibited methods of fishing: drift nets, under water explosives, killing all “endangered species” like sea-turtles, orca, sharks, baby whales, etc. as well as destroying reef, biomass and vital fish habitats in the sea.

Meanwhile, the UN, and all the regions and nations that have been fishing in Somali waters and dumping toxic waste in those same waters are screaming about the Somali pirates attacking shipping passing near the Somali coastline. Part of this is that they want to protect their IUU fishing fleets and the ability to dump their toxic waste. Fleets from a multitude of nations are converging in the Somali seas. Reasons for the convergence of navies include force projection, control of vital shipping lanes, raw materials, energy resources, keeping up pretexts for the “war on terror”, and general global positioning, in addition to protecting the IUU fishing and the toxic waste dumping.

There is no question that piracy is a serious problem off the coast of Somalia. Only one side of this problem is being hyped by western medialia. Nevertheless, it should be stopped.

Just who can stop the Somali pirates? We may not know who can stop them, but we know who did stop them. In mid 2006 the Islamic Courts Union took control of Somalia, providing the only relatively peaceful and properous period in recent Somali history. Somalis from overseas began to return to Somalia. According to this report from Chatham House:

PDF: Piracy in Somalia – Threatening global trade, feeding local wars

Piracy has been a problem in Somali waters for at least ten years. However, the number of attempted and successful attacks has risen over the last three years. … The only period during which piracy virtually vanished around Somalia was during the six months of rule by the Islamic Courts Union in the second half of 2006. This indicates that a functioning government in Somalia is capable of controlling piracy. After the removal of the courts piracy re-emerged. (p3)

The report also says that there will be no solution to the piracy problem unless the situation on the ground in Somalia is resolved. Piracy returned and has increased since the US/Ethiopian invasion of Somalia at the end of December 2006. A Somali government with some support from Somali people can actually govern and did stop the piracy. But the US and the Ethiopians decided to crush it, resulting in a humanitarian disaster and the return of piracy.

The person who knows more about shipping and piracy in that region than anyone else is Andrew Mwangura head of the Kenyan branch of the East African Seafarers’ Association. In order to deal with the pirates:

Mwangura said without the involvement of local communities in Somalia the efforts were doomed to failure.

“If you are not going to invite the local community, it is not going to work,” he said. “We need to come up with a regional piracy information centre, security in Somalia and a regional action plan on illegal fishing and toxic dumping.”

Fishermen began targeting ships in the early 90s, saying they were defending their coastline from illegal fishing and boats dumping toxic waste in Somali waters.

A recent article and interview with Mangura describes him:

Andrew Mwangura has the underground world of African piracy wired. Somali pirates trust him. Warlords respect him. And human-rights activists admire him for putting his neck on the line to keep sailors safe on the lawless high seas. “Andrew gets vital first-hand intelligence,” says Cyrus Mody, who runs the London-based Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce. “If a ship is running low on food or there’s been some disaster, he often knows about it first.”

He often hears about a hijacking within seconds of it happening. And he knows who the pirates are:

There are seven pirate clans in Somalia, and they do not go into each other’s areas. So the location of the ship tells us much about which group we were dealing with. As soon as I figure out the group, I try to link up with its leader through our contacts in Somalia. That’s how we operate. Sometimes they call us before we call them.
…
When we started, things were very quiet. We made our job to tell the world what was going on in this part of the country. So the warlords came to us and talked about what was happening in Somalia—the foreign ships that were overfishing and dumping toxic wastes. And they said, “We are not the pirates. We are not the enemies.”

But we came to get a real picture of them. One of the groups in Somalia, the Kismayu group, is known as National Volunteer Coast Guard and focuses on small boats close to the shore. They do not use the word “ransom.” They call what they collect a “fine” for illegal acts. The Merkah group has fishing boats with longer-range fire power. And the most sophisticated groups have names like the Central Regional Coast Guards, Ocean Salvation Corps and the Somali Marines. They have a capacity to operate at greater distances off the coast. We believe they are responsible for 80 percent of the attacks in 2008.

The people masterminding the piracy are outside Somalia.

The payment of ransoms is often done in Nairobi, Mombasa and European capitals, London in particular. I’ve heard cases involving both bank transfers and old-style suitcases filled with cash carried by air or by sea.
…
The maritime militia gets 30 percent, although the first pirate to the boat receives a double share or a vehicle. The ground militia gets 10 percent. The local community leaders, elders or local officials, also get 10 percent. The rest is divided by the sponsors and their political allies.

In December 2008 the UN passed resolutions authorizing nations to conduct military raids, on land and by air, and “use all necessary measures” against pirates plying the waters off the Somalia coast. In theory the UN resolution requires permission of the Somali government. Since there is no functioning Somali government actions taken against Somalis are of questionable legality, though it is unlikely they will be questioned. There are now several resolutions in place that effectively declare open season on Somalis. And Somalis are worried. As Waldo describes:

In all these piracy ballyhoo and campaigns, why is the other key IUUs fishing piracy ignored? Why are the UN Resolutions, NATO Orders and EU Decrees to invade the Somali seas fail to include the protection of the Somali marine resources from IUU violations in the same waters? Not only is this outrageous fishing piracy disregarded but the illegal foreign marine poachers are being encouraged to continue their loot by as none of the current Resolutions, Orders and Decrees apply to the IUUs, which can now freely fish in and violate the Somali seas. The Somali fishermen can no longer scare away the IUUs for fear of being labeled pirates and attacked by the foreign navies unlawfully controlling the Somali waters. Even the traditional Somali trading dhows are in panic of being mistaken for pirates.

Traditional fishermen are probably in more danger than the pirates. Ships of 24 nations are converging on the coast of Somalia. As to the future of Somalia on land, it is uncertain for now. The Ethiopians have withdrawn, but will continue to play groups against each other . None of the factions is strong enough right now to control the country. For the US:

… the overriding goal: controlling somalia’s political institutions while waging, by proxy, evolving counter-insurgency operations against radical political islam.

All of this is part of the new scramble for Africa. Kadhafi, as the new head of the AU defended the Somalis last week:

Libyan leader and new head of the African Union, Moammer Kadhafi, has defended the actions of Somalian pirates as an act of self-defence against “greedy” Western nations, the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation reported on Friday. … “It is not piracy, it is self defense. It is defending the Somalian children’s food.
“It is a response to greedy Western nations who invade and exploit Somalia’s water resources illegally,”

Johann Hari sums up the piracy issue:

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the 4th century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know ”what he meant by keeping possession of the sea”. The pirate said, ”What you mean by seizing the whole Earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.” Once again, our great imperial fleets sail but who is the robber?

Article first published on February 11, 2009.

Related posts:

1. Pirates Revive Somali Coastal Economies and More…
2. Horn of Africa Piracy Spurs International Action
3. Somali Pirates: Why International Naval Protection Effort is Difficult
4. Somali Pirates Seize 4 Ships in 24 Hours
5. US Navy Shadows Somali Pirates Holding American Captain
6. U.S Navy to Lead Fight Against Somali Pirates
7. EU Launches Somali Coast Patrol