Is it ever possible to eradicate Piracy?

Abstract

In the year 2011 piracy¹ is omnipresent in the Somali Basin and it has begun to spread all over the Indian Ocean. According to figures from 21 October 2011 provided by the International Maritime Bureau´s Piracy Reporting Center, 13 vessels and 249 hostages are currently held by Somali pirates. A total of 208 incidents were reported, 24 of which were hijackings². In fact, Somali piracy is nothing new (Lehr 2008, 2009). It only appears to be new because Somalia´s geostrategic position happens to be along one of the major Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC). Had that not been the case and had western shipping not been affected, the world had taken little notice of the problem.

Until 2008 the pirates almost refrained from killing hostages and were exclusively after ransom. Younger incidents, starting with the Le Penant in 2008 show a change in attitude. Pirates have become more brutal, starting to torture and kill, and there have been demands to release fellow pirates from prisons rather than to deliver ransom, such as 2010 in the Asphalt Venture case. Although such can still be considered piracy, this element brings back memories of hijackings by extremist groups such as the 1977 Landshut case or the 1985 Achille Lauro incident (Speakes 1985).

The essay explains the general Somali piracy problem and why it is so contrary. Piracy is always a regional phenomenon and never a global threat, which goes back to the condition that it is - and has to be - always linked to the political situation on land. That said, selective investments as suggested by Murphy (2010) cannot work in the Somali environment as a solution because the understanding of business in this part of the world differs from ours. Eichstaedt (2010) emphasizes, on the other hand, that the only viable way is to treat all entities in Somalia equally. The current essay supports his view, although that seems the more difficult way. Much if not all depends on the overall stability of Somalia but the maritime threats should be addressed more effectively today, which is why the essay also discusses possible naval approaches. May it be capacity building on land or fighting pirates at sea - if the coalition does not act quickly, the initiative will most certainly be taken over by private security companies, which is partly already the case today.

In any way, with the right methods and means in place it should be able to eradicate Somali piracy. But it will take time, which most of the affected individuals do not have.

I. Somalia Today

Somalia is known to be a “Failed State”, which means there are very little functioning governmental powers, almost no executive powers to uphold law and order, and, geographically speaking, there is no official clarity on who officially governs where. Somalia has an estimated population of 10.112,453, consisting of 85% Somalis, 15% Bantu and other non-Somalis including roughly 30.000 Arabs (Little 2003). After 22 years of dictatorship by Siad Barre and 18 years of civil war, in 1991 Somalia descended into turmoil, factional fighting and anarchy. The region is divided into three entities, South-Central Somalia, where the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) seeks to establish effective control against the Al Shabaab goup, the Republic of Somaliland, which shares a border with Djibouti, as well as the neighboring semi-autonomous state of Puntland. The latter has been self-governing since 1998 and is considered the most stable entity. Yet its harbors are known pirate-hubs. The major religion in Somalia is Sunni-Muslim and the languages spoken are Somali, Arabic, Italian and English.

Despite the obvious poverty amongst the population, the economical situation remains quite stable “behind the scenes” and seems resistant to the political problems. This goes back to the local understanding and knack for doing business (Little 2003). The Somali mind likes trade and the flow of goods and information. Throughout the different crises, Somalia has been able to maintain a healthy informal economy. Traditionally, it is largely based on livestock (Little 2003), money transfer companies and telecommunications. General import partners to Somalia are Djibouti, Kenya, India, China, Brazil, Yemen, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. There is no banking system in Somalia and every payment is done either in cash or through private remittance services. These remittances are estimated with up to 1, 6 billion US Dollars per annum, which shows that there is considerable cash flow. Hawala is a known method to circulate currency and access shares based on trust. As these are qualities primarily found in families, clans, among friends, colleagues or in comparable relationships, business is closely connected to the social structure of a society. In Somalia, a country without ATM cash machines or anything close to that, hawalla has long proven the safest and swiftest method to do business. Most naturally for hawalla, geographical borders are not an issue, which makes it relatively difficult to trace the money, although it is not impossible (Murphy 2010, Rotberg 2005). The illicit economy flourishes and almost everything can be bought with enough money (Little 2003).

Somalia has over 3.300 kilometers of coastline. Its vast areas are difficult if not impossible to control for the authorities with their already limited capacities and little command and control structures.

The exact reasons for piracy are not quite clear but it is widely agreed that the breakdown of government, of economy and law and order are the main reasons (Eichstaedt 2010, Lehr 2008, 2009, Murphy 2010, McNicholas 2008, UNODC 2010, USNWC 2009). Toxic waste dumping and illegal fishing by other states have lead to the decrease of natural resources in the Somali Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and with that to poverty for most of the population. Apart from the fact that Somalia has not even properly claimed an EEZ, due to political unrest and crises the authorities are not capable of protecting the resources. All this seems to have lead to piracy as a simple source of income. It has been a growing market since, nowadays moving away from simple “tag and release” hijackings to much crueler forms, because pirating simply turned out to work well.

II. Pirate Modus Operandi

Onshore, the pirates typically live in camps or small villages. Somalia does not offer rich forested hinterland and inlets like other piracy hot-spots, which might be one of the reasons why the Somali pirates are more interested in ransom than in stealing and storing cargo (UNODC 2010). Supply and logistics are arranged in sufficient ways, and traditional social structures help maintaining a resilient network. Weapons, radios, mobile phones, GPS technology and other equipment find their way across the Kenyan border or through the Red Sea and also through the Indian Ocean to the mostly unpatrolled Somali coast (UNODC 2010). From there, the goods are transported to the markets or directly to the pirate camps.

Most pirates are between 20 and 40 years old (Eichstaedt 2010, UNODC 2010) and come from different backgrounds. Some used to be fishermen, some used to belong to the militia or still do, and others even claim to have ties with Somali politicians. Most participate voluntarily, others are forced to. In 2010/2011 there is a trend to be observed that pirate crews consisted not only of Somalis but allegedly individuals from Yemen and elsewhere in the Arabian Sea. Since quite some time now, the attack radius reaches from Seychelles to the island of Minicoy, situated towards southwestern India.³

Regardless of location, the modus operandi can be divided into three phases: target selection; attack and hijacking; and negotiations.

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¹ Defined in Article 101 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea from 1982.

² http://www.icc-ccs.org/piracy-reporting-centre/piracynewsafigures.

³ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-09/u-s-bound-supertanker-hijacked-by-pirates-off-oman.html.