Why the East African Coast needs its pirates.
On December 26th 2004, tons of leaking barrels of hazardous uranium radioactive waste, lead, cadmium, mercury, chemical and hospital waste were washed ashore the East African coast by an Indian Ocean Tsunami.
The event provided an explanation for the plague of respiratory infections, mouth ulcers, abdominal hemorrhages, malformed babies, unusual skin diseases and radiation sickness currently affecting Somali communities.
Mysterious ships from foreign nations have for the last three decades exploited the lack of a central government in Somalia to use the coastal waters as a cheap dumping area for deadly toxic waste.
A U.N report estimates that $300 million worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other seafood is stolen from Somalia’s coastline each year by trawlers illegally sailing the East African coast. The report called out the use of all prohibited methods of fishing: drift nets, under water explosives, killing endangered species like sea-turtles, orca, sharks and baby whales while destroying reef, biomass and vital fish habitats in the sea. Illegal fishing has rendered under-equipped Somali fishermen unemployed and left their families deprived of much needed protein.
To protect their waters, fishermen formed highly organized vigilante groups to patrol their waters and protect their nation’s territorial integrity. Some of these groups come complete with a structured naval hierarchy — a fleet admiral, admiral, vice-admiral, a head of financial operations, a spokesman and a name — ‘Central Region Coast Guard’.
When Januna Ali Jama, a spokesman for one of the groups demanded an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship his group had captured, in “reaction to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years”– one couldn’t help but view the requisition as modest and justifiable. To the international community, the media and its audience – the entire world – they are collectively referred to as ‘Somali pirates’.
Onshore, Somalians appreciate the revitalizing effect of pirate ransoms on increasing liquidity and creating employment that was lost when fishermen went out of business. Small but significant signs improvement in standards of living are visible in tiny coastal towns – a rambling generator at a local grocery store and young boys donning footwear they have never worn before in their lives.
The total annual receipts from Somalia’s ‘piracy’ industry is US $ 100 million, a third of the US $ 300 million worth of seafood that is poached by European and Asian vessels from Somali waters every year - the long-term health, social and environmental costs of dumping and illegal fishing not factored in.
An independent Somali news-site, WardherNews, conducted a study that found 70 percent of Somalis “strongly support the piracy as a form of national defense of the country’s territorial waters.”
Despite this, on October 6, 2008, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution calling on nations with vessels in the area to apply military force to repress the acts of ‘piracy.’ Britain, USA, Russia, India and two dozen other member nations of the EU and NATO are deploying warships and unleashing military surveillance planes capable of carrying missiles.
For three decades the pricey seafood, rich in protein, served in the finest restaurants of London, Paris and Rome came looted from Somali waters – it is hard to miss the irony when the international community suddenly becomes determined to protect waters it ignored over the last twenty years with military warships – a belated attempt to save the lucrative channel through which 20% of the world’s oil sails.
Decades from now, the social and environmental consequences of dumping toxic waste will continue to plague Somalis. Good governance, restoration of rule of law and economic stimulation programs are all needed to bring sanity back to Somalia. But for a country that has been on the failed state index for the last thirty years, and constantly appears to be sinking deeper into its own anarchy, it is overly optimistic to assume that we shall see any positive signs soon.
Until a time when the root causes of piracy are addressed by the international community through taking action against the criminal organizations and countries involved, pirates will continue to pillage the Indian Ocean waters with the full blessing of Somalis.
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