On 23 October, Paul and Rachel Chandler, aged 59 and 55 respectively, were taken hostage by Somali pirates operating in the Indian Ocean. The Chandlers, who are experienced sailors from England, were asleep when the pirates boarded their yacht, the Lynn Rival, as they sailed from the Seychelles to Tanzania. A ransom demand of US$7 million (£4.3 million) was made on 30 October in a phone call to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); the sum demanded was described by the pirates’ spokesperson as a “little amount” in comparison to the damage incurred by local fishermen in the region by NATO operations. The Lynn Rival siege is the latest in a series of high-profile hijacking incidents off the east African coastline. In November 2008, for example, the merchant vessel MV Sirius Star, laden with oil worth an estimated US$100 million, became headline news when it was captured by Somali pirates. In September, the Ukrainian vessel MV Faina was hijacked while carrying 33 Russian battle tanks. At the time of writing, at least seven vessels and 179 crewmembers are currently being held by Somali pirates off the coast of Somalia. *Piracy now “a major global concern”* According to a briefing document produced by Chatham House, a London-based international affairs think tank, “in 2008, piracy off the coast of Somalia went from being an irritation to a major global concern” as the Gulf of Aden became a prime spot for the hijacking of valuable vessels. Cargo ships use the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aden to avoid sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, thereby reducing travel time and the cost of shipping goods. This stretch of water is among the most vital shipping lanes in the world, with an estimated 16,000 ships traversing it every year. When international warships began patrolling the Gulf of Aden last year, the pirates moved further into the Indian Ocean. Piracy has also become more professional and more sophisticated, with ransom money financing better equipment, such as GPS trackers to locate targets, satellite telephones to communicate, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), which have replaced automatic weapons. Roger Middleton is an expert at Chatham House who specialises in the politics of the Horn of Africa, African peace and security architecture and Africa’s relations with the European Union. He says that the international community must act to resolve the problem of piracy, not only to reduce the threat to international trade, but also to reduce the likelihood of Somalia becoming a base for terrorists. There is evidence that funds generated by piracy are being donated to the clans fighting the civil war, and in particular to al-Shabaab, a group listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States. Middleton says the international community must therefore realise that piracy is not a “sideline danger” and tackle the problem swiftly. *A response from an impoverished population* According to Middleton, a lack of functioning and credible government is at the root of the country’s instability, poverty and also the subsequent proliferation of piracy. Many pirates are former fishermen who claim they are defending Somalia’s fishing industry. They assert that the ransoms demanded are legitimate taxation on foreigners who have plundered Somalia’s fish stocks, causing Somalia’s fishing industry to collapse and impoverishing further an already poverty-stricken population. Had a national government been in place, foreign nations would probably have been deterred from fishing illegally in Somali waters, Somalia’s fishing industry might be thriving, and piracy might not have proliferated so greatly. For some of the impoverished fishermen and people of Somalia, piracy has proven a way of improving a desperate financial and social crisis, despite the condemnation of the international community it has prompted. Chatham House experts believe that the potential rewards of piracy still outweigh the risks, with ransom payments in the first four months of 2009 averaging US$2 million. In Puntland, the pirate heartland in the north of Somalia, one local resident told the BBC News that piracy is becoming “socially acceptable. They have become fashionable.” The resident continues: “They [the pirates] wed the most beautiful girls; they are building big houses; they have new cars; new guns.” This increasingly lavish lifestyle is in stark contrast to the living standards of the rest of the population, which is by and large deeply impoverished and in immediate need of assistance. The United Nations estimates that more than half of the Somali population, around 3.5 million people, is reliant on food aid. Additionally, more than 1.5 million people have been displaced within Somalia as a result of the civil war, which began in 1991 and caused the chaos that breeds lawlessness like piracy, a breakdown in social structure and services and deep-seated poverty. *A turbulent history of civil war* Somalia’s history in the last half-century has been similar to that of many post-colonial African nations. Somalia won its independence from Britain and Italy in 1960, forming a federalised state that both profited and suffered from the changing attentions of the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War. Under the 21-year dictatorship of Siad Barre, war with Somalia’s neighbour Ethiopia precipitated the rapid increase of clan-based militia groups, prompting Barre to become more repressive, using weapons against his own people and impoverishing the state in doing so. In January 1991, Barre was overthrown by a popular uprising led by the United Somali Congress (USC), a Hawiye clan militia under the command of Mohammed Farah Aidid. The USC failed to establish control beyond Mogadishu, allowing clan warlords to establish spheres of influence across Somalia and breaking the ties between local and centralised government. Intensifying inter-clan fighting throughout the last 18 years has caused the country to become increasingly fragmented, chaotic, and impoverished. The northern region of Somalia declared itself independent in May 1991, while Puntland, in the northeast, announced its intentions to self-govern in 1998. Two UN missions between 1992 and 1995 failed to maintain sufficient levels of security to stabilise the country and distribute much-needed aid. A Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was established as the sovereign government of Somalia from a base in Nairobi in 2000. Each of the three presidents who have governed since the establishment of the TFG has been unacceptable in some way to different elements of the population, often because of entrenched clan and ideological hostility, prompting the emergence of more militarised groups. The present incumbent is Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the former commander in chief of the Islamic Courts Union, a group that was firmly opposed to the previous president. Since Mr Ahmed’s election in January 2009, Hisbi Islam and al-Shabaab, two Islamic groups that are lobbying for Sha’ria law to be implemented in Somalia, have attempted to stage a coup and claimed responsibility for two assassination attempts on the president. Nevertheless, according to B. Lynn Pascoe, the United Nation’s Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, the situation has improved in the past few months, largely due to the dedication of the AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) troops there: “I think that anyone who looks at Somalia would not call the situation there anything but fragile, but unlike a few months ago when everyone was making dire predictions that the Government was going to fall, that it was going to be taken over, I don’t think people are making any of that assumption at the moment,” he said. *Tackling piracy* The international community has so far tackled the problem of piracy in the region with military force and enforcement of international law. Naval forces from at least 17 different countries are operating under US, EU, and NATO command, patrolling the seas off Somalia in an effort to protect the cargo ships in the area. Using a law-enforcement strategy similar to that used to stem drug trafficking in the Caribbean, these anti-piracy missions are authorised by UN Security Council Resolutions passed in 2008. The resolutions give cooperating states the right to pursue and capture pirates in Somali waters, so long as they have obtained the permission of the Transitional Federation Government of Somalia. According to Chatham House experts, the success rate of pirate attacks has dropped from around one in three to one in four since the patrols began. Under UN conventions, suspected pirates captured at sea can be tried in the domestic court of the country that captured them. This law enabled the trial of five suspected pirates in the Netherlands and one Somali teenager in New York, both in May of this year. However, international law is yet to provide a consistent and successful deterrent to pirates. First, as Cyrus Mody of the International Maritime Bureau notes, if a prosecution fails, “there is always the prospect that a suspected pirate might then claim asylum” in the country where the trial has taken place. The European Union and United States have signed agreements with Kenya to transfer suspects there for trial for this very reason. The second problem is that a country can only try suspected pirates using this convention if it has been incorporated into domestic jurisdiction. It has only recently become apparent that Kenya has not yet done this, which has allowed lawyers defending suspects in Kenyan courts to argue that the case against them should be dismissed. Finally, there are concerns whether Kenya can cope with the costly and complicated task of trying suspected pirates in the wake of its own post-election turmoil. Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association, explained that, “dumping the alleged perpetrators in Kenya without ensuring the international standards of fair trials is inappropriate and possibly illegal.” *Enforcing law in “a state of lawlessness”* The international community’s approach seems to only tackle the symptoms of a much deeper problem, as Middleton from Chatham House notes: “it is difficult to deal with a law and order problem [such as piracy] in a country in a state of lawlessness. Only addressing the root causes, including the internal problems of the country, will offer a way to stop piracy.” One such fundamental internal problem, according to Middleton, is the vacuum created by the lack of a functioning, credible government, itself at the heart of the piracy issue. Without a functioning government there is no internal force to assist those affected by recent droughts and provide other key social services where the population is unable to afford these; maintain the national infrastructure, including the provision of clean water, electricity and transport; or provide security and enforce the law. The TFG is not yet in a position to undertake these essential tasks, not least because it currently controls only a few districts of the capital, Mogadishu, and little of Somalia’s 3000 km of coastline. It has no military force of its own to assist it in establishing law and order in a violent society, and eradicating piracy will be difficult given that Somalia’s navy ceased to function in 1991. The international community plans to assist the TFG in the two areas that will establish the credibility of its governance and will tackle the problem of piracy at its root: enforcing law and order and providing security for the ordinary citizen and distributing food and humanitarian aid to those who need it. *Establishing security* Roger Middleton, from Chatham House, claims that “the most powerful weapon against piracy will be peace and opportunity in Somalia, coupled with an effective and reliable police force and judiciary.” In this vein, the United Nations has devised a three-phase plan for assisting Somalia: a “support package” to help the TFG strengthen its security structures; a “light footprint” UN operation; and a final transition from the AMISOM troops that have been in the country since 2007 to a UN peacekeeping mission, if and when the Security Council determines that conditions are appropriate. According to Mr Pascoe, “the strategy is in place and … is moving forward” towards the full implementation of the first phase. The current military strength in Mogadishu is around 5200 troops. Burundi and Uganda have each deployed three battalions and offered a fourth to reach the mandated force of 8000 that will establish and maintain security and order within Somalia, as well as distributing aid. Kenya is providing cooperation for a logistics support base. Contributions to the AMISOM trust fund have reached US$25 million. Finally, preparations for the shift to the second phase of the UN plan are already underway, with the understanding that Mogadishu will be stabilised first. While there is clearly much positive progress being made, Mr Pascoe told the Security Council on 8 October that the relentless attacks on AMISOM troops and Somali government officials are slowing the full delivery of the support package. At the same meeting, a representative from Uganda urged the faster deployment of security assistance and questioned whether the UN approach is commensurate with the level of threat on the ground. *Supporting a political rapprochement* The Ugandan representative at the Security Council meeting of 8 October also suggested more be done in the political and humanitarian sectors to give Somalis a source of hope. Building a political consensus and a working government will not be easy, given the many and deep fault lines running through the Somali population, and especially because so many of these opposition groups wield sufficient power and influence to obstruct national governance. At a recent press conference in New York, Mr Pascoe praised Mr Ahmed for “trying to be inclusive” and “bring people in.” Although Hisbi Islam and al-Shabaab are still fighting, Mr Pascoe said that most of the groups that were in opposition have joined the TFG, which now has a plan of how it wants to move forward. To support this political dialogue, the United Nations is increasing the number of visits of senior staff from the UN Political Office for Somalia to Mogadishu. It is also prioritising the establishment of a secure facility for the international community’s representatives in Mogadishu, so that parts of the UN’s operation can be moved from Nairobi to Somalia’s capital, in order to increase its effectiveness. At the press conference, Mr Pascoe also spoke of the TFG’s need to provide “social services” to regain the trust of the Somali people, stressing that funding is a significant problem. For example, the United Nations estimates that its plans to improve water supply, sanitation, and health are underfunded by 19 per cent of the expected costs. If the TFG can visibly improve the standard of social services available, with the additional funding provided, then it will be able to provide Somalis with the security and access to education and opportunity that will ultimately deter piracy. 7 2009-11-27T03:28:15Z false true 103 image/jpeg 3491816357_f25e948be5_o.jpg 2148964 2009-11-27T03:28:14Z piracy-continues-as-half-of-somalias-p U.S. Navy Ransom money is dropped by parachute within the vicinity of the hijacked MV Faina, in February 2009. http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnavynvns/3491816357/ 2 On 23 October, Paul and Rachel Chandler, aged 59 and 55 respectively, were taken hostage by Somali pirates operating in the Indian Ocean. The Chandlers, who are experienced sailors from England, were asleep when the pirates boarded their yacht, the Lynn Rival, as they sailed from the Seychelles to Tanzania. A ransom demand of US$7 million (£4.3 million) was made on 30 October in a phone call to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); the sum demanded was described by the pirates’ spokesperson as a “little amount” in comparison to the damage incurred by local fishermen in the region by NATO operations. The Lynn Rival siege is the latest in a series of high-profile hijacking incidents off the east African coastline. In November 2008, for example, the merchant vessel MV Sirius Star, laden with oil worth an estimated US$100 million, became headline news when it was captured by Somali pirates. In September, the Ukrainian vessel MV Faina was hijacked while carrying 33 Russian battle tanks. At the time of writing, at least seven vessels and 179 crewmembers are currently being held by Somali pirates off the coast of Somalia. published 48 2009-12-21T21:11:16Z 93