If I was a terrorist, I’d be angry that pirates are grabbing the headlines. Perhaps people would have taken piracy more seriously sooner if we’d been referring to them as “terrorists of the seas”? Everybody loves pirates except for the French and the Americans, who have decided to start shooting pirates in the head,1 unleashing a wave of speculation about how to deal with the tricky devils.
Over at the Danger Room, Nathan Hodge lays out the options, which include killing more pirates, arming crews, forming convoys and so forth, before concluding that there are few good options. John Robb, a more lateral thinker, believes that the eventual policy that will be adopted is a “Somali Coast Guard“, i.e. a Sons of Iraq style militia whose bills will presumably be paid by governments on behalf of their shipping companies. On a million different blogs you can also find people whose main recommendation is to bomb Somalia back to the Stone Age – ironic, given their opinions of the current state of Somalia.
Military solutions have a monetary cost and a strategic cost. In this case the monetary cost will be high but bearable, but the strategic cost – well, we’ve already paid that. Some people believe that killing more pirates will have a deterrent effect against future hostage situations occurring. This is wrong. Killing pirates will ensure that, in future, hostage situations will be more likely to end in the deaths of the hostages, particularly if those hostages are American (or French). So killing pirates – especially taking the killing to the pirate lairs, i.e. impoverished Somali fishing villages – scores 11 on the stupidometer.
Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the Somali town of Gaan, said: “Every country will be treated the way it treats us. In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying. We will retaliate… the killings of our men.”
“Oy Paul,” I hear you cry, “always with the negative! What do you suggest we do about this terrible situation?” Well, first, everybody should calm down. The cost of these kidnappings should be borne by shipping companies, but there’s a danger that, with national governments involved, there may be even less incentive for shipping companies to invest in anti-piracy measures.2 The obvious suggestion is that companies keep paying the ransoms and accept it as an operating cost, particularly if they’re cutting corners in order to cut costs:
The merchant ship-owners are also recommended to keep their vessels 600 miles away from Somalia’s eastern seaboard from where most of the pirates emerge. Not all the merchant ships, however, conform to the rules. Some fail to use the transit routes, and others give scant attention to installing anti-piracy defences.
Second, perhaps we could look at the reasons that Somalis become pirates? It’s easy to dismiss Somalia as a basket case filled with well-armed maniacs, but this would be a mistake. Johann Hari notes that there are legitimate grievances amongst coastal Somalis, particularly since, in the absence of a state, foreign vessels have been dumping toxic waste, fishing out local stocks and generally taking advantage.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply… At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers.
Some pirates have claimed that they’re already acting in the public interest, although it’s a thin line between that, banditry and good business sense:
We don’t consider ourselves [pirates]. We consider [pirates] those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard…. We don’t want these weapons to go to anyone in Somalia. Somalia has suffered from many years of destruction because of all these weapons… We are not going to offload the weapons. We just want the money.
So third, we should recognise that being a pirate is a lifestyle choice that makes sense when you are dirt poor:
Generations of children followed their fathers to sea and a lucrative career in fishing. They still want to go to sea. Only now they dream of being pirates. “I want be a pirate, they have cool cars and lots of money,” said a boy, 13, staring out to sea.
Who are we to deny that little boy his dream? Who are we to stifle his ambition? Piracy is big business:
Last year Somali pirates mounted 111 attacks and captured 42 ships, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Ransom demands have ranged from $1 million to $8 million, earning the modern-day brigands an estimated $30 million in ransom payments in 2008.
The way to deal with piracy is very simple but completely unacceptable. It’s to invest in coastal Somali communities, with the international community providing:
- Tighter regulation of commercial shipping, including making anti-piracy measures compulsory for all shipping along hazardous routes;
- Increased security to guarantee Somali fishing waters and prevent abuse of the coastline, including (for agreed periods) naval patrols;
- Improved capacity for Somali fishermen, including training in fishing techniques and re-training for those unable to make a living from fishing;
- Guaranteed market value for the fish caught by Somali fishermen – basically, buy their fish at a fair price on a consistent basis.
This of course should be on top of general development investments in Somalia – but that’s a whole other tricky kettle of sly fish, unlikely to yield much in the way of results. John Robb’s idea of a Somali Coast Guard might also work for a limited period, but a more sustainable solution is (in addition to the above) community education programmes to increase social pressure on people not to become pirates. All of these measures could contribute towards a solution, but we have to recognise two limitations here: first, some people just love being a pirate, so you’ll never eliminate it completely; and second, killing people is easier than helping them, so it’s probably the stupid people who will carry the argument in this case.
