James Madison University (Harrisonburg)
J. Peter Pham
25 June 2009
(Page 3 of 4)
Hence, what is needed is a pragmatic solution that not only deals with the economic, political, and security challenges caused by the expanded activities of Somali pirates, but whose costs can be contained within acceptable limits and whose long-term operation is sustainable by those with the greatest immediate stake in its success, regional and local actors as well as merchant vessels which must transit the currently dangerous waters off Somalia.
In addition to beefing up security on and for merchant vessels—including, possibly, encouraging them to lower their own overall costs by pooling their resources to organize escorted convoys—the only sustainable option currently available for dealing the scourge of Somali piracy is the stand-up of effective coastal patrols along the Horn of Africa's littorals. While I have repeatedly argued that the problem of Somali lawlessness at sea will only be definitively resolved when the international community summons up the political will to adequately address the underlying pathology of de facto Somali statelessness onshore, the truth is such a process is, as I will note later, literally a generational undertaking. That does not mean that, fatalistically, nothing should be done; rather, what needs to be acknowledged is that while the broader project needs to be attended to, it cannot be expected to pay immediate dividends in terms of improved security along the Somali coastline. What can, however, both immediately lessen the current threat to merchant shipping in the region and contribute to ameliorating the security situation in support of building governance capabilities across the territories of the former Somali Democratic Republic is the establishment of coast guards along the littoral. The idea is one which was commended by no less a figure than United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon when in March he advised the Security Council that:
In the interests of a durable solution to piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia, it is important that local coast guards in the region, where possible, are assisted in ways that will enable them to constructively play a role in anti-piracy efforts conducted off the coast of Somalia and the surrounding region. As part of a long-term strategy to promote the closure of pirates' shore bases and effectively monitor the coastline, I therefore recommend that Member States consider strengthening the capacity of the coast guards both in Somalia and the region.
Coastal patrol forces would not only be more sustainable from the fiscal point of view, but, precisely because they would concentrate on the littorals, have a more manageable area of responsibility than the naval forces which are currently sailing all over the western Indian Ocean. Moreover a coast guard is within the reach of states in the region as well as some of the effective authorities in Somalia, including the governments of the as-yet internationally-unrecognized Republic of Somaliland and the Puntland autonomous region. The key, as my colleague Dr. Martin Murphy noted in a Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments paper published earlier this year, is to not get hung up on questions of the end state of what was once the Somali Democratic Republic:
A more attractive course of action would find the United States assembling an effective international coalition that is willing to deal with Somali sub-state entities in order to reach a more immediate solution even though this might mean deferring agreement on a unitary state to a later date. Crucial to any negotiations with such sub-state entities as Puntland and non-Islamic clan alliances in the south will be a clear commitment to curb piracy in return for U.S. and allied political and economic support.
To achieve maximum local support—vital if a sense of local responsibility is to be engendered and, ultimately, local intelligence to be obtained—the coast guard must not be viewed as purely an anti-piracy measure. Given how embedded the piracy is in economies of certain districts in Somalia, any coastal security force must provide some positive benefits to those communities if it is to have any chance at weaning them away from their dependence on criminal enterprises, much less greater success. This means designing a force capable of undertaking some classic coast guard functions like protecting natural resources (even if the "Robin Hood" argument for piracy is something of a red herring) and maritime rescue. It also requires local anchorage for the patrol vessels and, where possible, employing local citizens. Along the Somali littorals, as the coast guard units expand their areas of operation, they simultaneously expand the geographic spheres of security and, ultimately, of governance by legitimate authorities. As the latter grow stronger, one can foresee them assuming greater responsibility for the trial of pirates, thus reinforcing the message that there is no impunity for the marauders. There are indications that this type of local empowerment has great potential: to cite just one example, an ad hoc local militia composed of fed-up citizens from the fishing communities of Alula and Bargaal at the very tip of the Horn of Africa rose up and seized a dozen pirates and three boats (another boat got away), whom they handed over to Puntland authorities.
In addition to involving local communities in the establishment and operation of a coast guard, the various units of the force must achieve relatively significant degree of integration. Eight countries in the region—Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Maldives, Seychelles, Tanzania, and Yemen as well as representatives of the TFG—have already signed the Code of Conduct concerning the Repression of Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in the western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden (the "Djibouti Code of Conduct") promoted by the International Maritime Organization to facilitate regional coordination. What these states lacked were not only the material resources—now forthcoming—to recruit, train, and equip more robust coastal security forces, but the knowledge and experience to actually do so. This is precisely where properly qualified and licensed private firms, working with both donor states and local partners, can provide not only invaluable expertise, but also "good offices" to help bridge the various interests of the multiple governmental, corporate, and other stakeholders.
For the sake of the record, allow me to add just three final observations about the pirates themselves.
First, there are some who argue that the pirates are fishermen whose livelihoods were wrecked by illegal commercial fishing and toxic waste disposal off the coast of Somalia. Without denying those two phenomena were issues of concern, especially in the early-to-mid-1990s, the fact is that from what we know of the pirates, most do not actually come from fishing backgrounds. Moreover, not only are the pirate gangs are highly-organized criminal enterprises and not just spontaneous groups of unemployed fishermen, most of the attacks nowadays are taking place well beyond not just the limit of 12 nautical miles which the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) fixes for any country's territorial waters, but also the 200 nautical miles from shore which the treaty allows for a state's exclusive economic zone. Quite simply, you can hardly claim to be defending Somali waters when, for example, you are raiding 550 nautical miles east of the Kenyan port of Mombasa, as the eleven-member crew that was thwarted and captured by the French navy while attacking a Liberian-registered cargo ship in mid-April was doing.
Second, another canard that needs to be refuted is the belief when the Islamic Courts Union briefly held power in most of Somalia in the second half of 2006, it fought piracy. There is only one instance where the Islamist forces did anything that could even remotely be characterized as a counter-piracy operation. On November 8, 2006, Islamic Courts Union militia stormed the United Arab Emirates-registered cargo ship MV Veesham I, which had been hijacked off Adale, north of Mogadishu on the Somali coast, and arrested its captors. The boat had been hauling a load of charcoal from El Maan, Somalia, to Dubai when it was attacked by pirates. The operation, however, had little to do with any principled opposition to piracy and quite a bit to do with the fact that the owner of the Veesham was one of the key financial backers of the Islamist movement and that his contribution to its coffers would be affected if he lost his vessel and cargo to the pirates.
Third, the international community needs to search for a sustainable mechanism for bringing captured pirates to justice while both respecting their basic rights and not destabilizing the region. Hauling the prisoners before the courts of a willing third-party state like Kenya, which has signed memoranda of understanding with the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, and the People's Republic of China to receive and prosecute suspected pirates, is simply not a wise long-term approach, even if that country's new Merchant Shipping Act (which delineates the jurisdiction of the country's courts over extra-territorial acts of piracy and brings its norms up to date with international standards), passed by parliament in February were not still languishing on President Mwai Kibaki's desk, yet another casualty of the poisonous partisan politics which have continued to bedevil Nairobi even after a government of national unity was installed in the wake of last year's tragic post-electoral violence. In any event, while Kenya might serve as a convenient forum for adjudicating the occasional maritime brigandage, the East African country's judiciary is simply not capable of processing the large number of pirates currently being captured. And even if the Kenyan courts were able to cope with all the new cases, the country has its own restive ethnic Somali and Muslim populations whose preexisting sense of alienation from the rest of the body politic is hardly going to be assuaged by a seemingly endless parade of accused Somalis, almost all of whom will be Muslims. Moreover, trying large numbers of Somalis in the courts of a neighboring country might well permit the pirate syndicates, who have shown themselves quite clever in their use of public relations, to wrap themselves up in the mantle of Somali nationalism and thus broaden their base of support beyond the thousands of individuals already benefiting, directly or indirectly, from the extensive economic networks which make up the piracy business.
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