Large number of Somalis have fled the fighting going to neighbouring countries and country side.

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.

Source: theinternational.com

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