A while back, I watched the film Captain Phillips, which is based on a true story of an American ship's encounter with pirates quite recently (2009, I believe). I was quite interested because I always imagined pirates as being Disney-fied and long-bearded, with parrots as the sidekicks. Silly of me to not realize that no pirate ship actually has cross-bones on their flags and that most pirates don't actually have peg-legs and hook-arms.
Perhaps the distance between me and everyday maritime travel is so immense that it's hard to perceive the dangers of today's modern sailors. I decided to do some more reading and learn more about what happens on one of the world's most treacherous coasts.
It only took a Google search and the click of a button to find out that the most recent Somalian piracy breach occurred less than a month ago, on January 19th, 2014. However, the number of piracy attacks has notably decreased over the past few years. According to a UN and World Bank report last November, pirates off the Horn of Africa netted more than $400 million in ransom money between the years 2005 and 2012 (BBC, 2014). Analyzing the decline in this unofficial maritime business requires us to review numbers and facts on both a national and local level.
Even the most early maritime travelers and merchants noted that danger lurked around the horn of Africa. Therefore, piracy in Somalia seems to have been a longstanding tradition. Most countries protect their borders and coasts, but in the case of Somalia, the "government" left their territory unprotected.
Due to European colonialism, Somali people were divided into five states, which can hint at a division of different clans wanting power. Internally, there were also controversies on whether the government should be centralized or kinship-based. In 1982, the Somali National Movement took place; insurgency grew into a full-fledged civil war in 1988. These attacks on the government led to officials killing about 50,000 people and forcing 650,000 to flee to Ethiopia and Djibouti.
When the Cold War ended in 1991, Somalia's strategic geographic importance became less relevant, and foreign aid for the country was withdrawn. With no foreign support, the country was in a loss, and Siad Barre, the 3rd president of Somalia was expelled by the United Somali Congress. Now that there was no real government in place, the doors were open for all sorts of clans to claim power and victory throughout Somalia. Somalis referred to this period of clan-based warfare from December 1991 to March 1992 as burbur, or catastrophe.
From then on out, Somalia was still trying to gain government stability. But in a long standing rough patch, Somalia's coast was left unprotected and unclaimed (it's also the largest coast in Africa). Somali fishermen took advantage of this and set out for something bigger than fish- cargo.
As the hacking of commercial ships began to rise, international awareness of the issue led to countries of the Indian Ocean attempting to protect ships from the dangerous coast. Even today, the common warning is for ships to maintain a distance of 250 nautical miles from the largely unpatrolled shore. Modern pirates, usually young men from the autonomic Puntland, are still attracted to the ransom money, given that other employment options have been limited.
Due to increased naval efforts in the past few years, decline of piracy is inevitable. However, the Somali coast has become a waste dump, and it is hard for Somalis to return as fishermen. What's left to do in a war-torn state?
