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Osman Ali Mousa, a pirate now in prison, told Al Jazeera International recently: “We see ourselves as Somalia’s navy. There is so much illegal fishing going on in the territorial waters of Somalia that there is no fish for our fishermen to catch. We have to stop this. I have no regrets [about what I have done].”
Piracy off the coast of this strategically located failed state has dramatically increased over the past year.
However, the world took notice only after the pirates hijacked the Ukrainian-owned freighter MV Faina on September 25.
What was different about the ship was its cargo: 33 Soviet-era tanks and other heavy weaponry. The freighter is now surrounded by American warships.
The pirates first demanded a ransom of $20 million but have since scaled down their demand to $8 million.
They have threatened to blow up the freighter, its 20-member crew and themselves if the warships nearby make an attempt to storm the vessel.
The history of piracy in the region shows that the pirates are rarely interested in the cargo. They concern themselves with the ransom.
But in a country where war has been a way of life for 17 years, the seizure of a ship carrying heavy weapons has raised eyebrows.
Somalia has had no functioning government since military dictator Siad Barre was toppled by gangs of clan-based militias in 1991.
Rival warlords have since carved the country up into personal fiefdoms and turned large parts of it into wasteland.
The only period of peace the Somalis have enjoyed in these years of turmoil was during the six-month rule of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which took over after routing the warlords in June 2006. Not only had order been restored inland but piracy too had almost ceased to exist.
But America’s “war on terror” soon reached Somali shores. And the country’s warlords wasted little time in signing up with the CIA against their Islamist enemies.
The UIC was toppled with the help of Somalia’s historic foe and the United States ally, Ethiopia.
From bad to worse
The story since has been along predictable lines. A superpower propping up a weak, brutal and corrupt regime through its regional proxy — and an ever-expanding insurgency that has turned most parts of the country into no-go zones.
Most of the piracy in Somalia, however, is centred in the breakaway semi-autonomous region of Puntland. More than 30 ships have been hijacked this year.
In fact, a record of sorts was created in August when the pirates seized four vessels in 48 hours.
Analysts estimate that this year alone, the pirates have raked in $30 million in ransom.
Such is the profitability of this business in this impoverished part of the world that hijacking ships and boats has now become a weekly occurrence.
Graeme Gibbon Brooks, managing director of the Southampton-based DRYAD Maritime Intelligence Service Limited, told Weekend Review that the situation off the Somali coast was a manifestation of the political problems in that country. “Since 1991, the Somalis have not been able to police their territorial waters.
Fishing vessels from Europe and the Far East clean up their tuna stocks through illegal fishing. Had the Somalis been able to exploit the tuna stocks, it would have had a positive effect [on the Somali economy].”
During the 1990s, countries such as Taiwan took unfair advantage of the instability in Somalia and depleted the tuna stocks through illegal fishing.
The resentment is “understandable”, Brooks says. “But now, it has become a cover for engaging in piracy. The original pirates were only imposing a ‘tax’. Since 2007, however, the pirates are being funded by warlords. It is clear that piracy off the Somali coast has become purely criminal.”
Brooks expressed doubts about the theory that piracy was funding the Islamist-led insurgency in Somalia.
“Pundits and journalists are making assumptions that the criminals and the militants are getting together. But I am not so sure,” he said.
Somalia’s “government”, which has no coastguard, is not capable of guarding its 4,100-kilometre coastline.
And the pirates are getting increasingly sophisticated, moving around towns in Puntland in armoured convoys and using only satellite phones — which are difficult to trace — to communicate. Even on the high seas, they are employing tactics never seen before.
It is estimated that the pirates have about 50 high-powered speedboats. These high-speed crafts are launched from “mother ships” — large fishing vessels that cruise along the coast in the Gulf of Aden — when a target is sighted.
When French President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered a commando unit to free two French sailors being held hostage by the pirates in the town of Ely, he did so knowing that it would have been too dangerous to ask the French forces to storm the pirates.
Many localities in Puntland have emerged as “pirate towns”, where piracy has become the mainstay of the local economy.
The pirates are a tightly knit group, with strong roots in the local community. They share their spoils with the people. A few clans in Somalia’s complex social structure control the activity.
Brooks does not believe the pirates had prior knowledge of the cargo on board the MV Faina. “They just bumbled into it. I don’t think any prior planning was involved.
The nature of the ship’s cargo, of course, has caught everyone’s imagination.”
One of the least explored angles of this episode has been the final destination of MV Faina’s deadly cargo. Ukraine insists the weapons were intended for Kenya.
Nairobi is also claiming that it was supposed to be the recipient. But it is almost certain that the cargo was meant for the government of South Sudan.
It is ironic, indeed, that it took a gang of pirates to break a major international arms-smuggling operation.
A BBC investigation has revealed that the cargo’s manifest is clearly marked GOSS, widely assumed to stand for “Government of South Sudan”.
But the Kenyans deny this, saying it means “General Ordnance Supplies and Securities”. Kenya appears to be conniving in the case but these reports must be embarrassing for it, as Nairobi had helped broker the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the decades-old civil war between South Sudan and the government in Khartoum.
Brooks fears that the present stand-off may end badly. “Perhaps the only solution for this crisis is armed force, as it is the only thing that has ever defeated piracy in the past. But the real answer lies in shoring up the situation in Somalia. The inside of Somalia is what you need to heal.”
Major hijackings in Somali territorial waters
- February 2007: UN ship carrying food aid for Somalia is hijacked.
- March 2008: British captain of hijacked vessel is released after being held hostage for more than 6 weeks.
- April 2008: French luxury yacht is seized along with 30 crew members. Commando raid succeeds in freeing them.
- September 2008: French couple being held hostage freed through another commando raid.
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