Piracy – the Somali Natives Tell Their Side of the Story

Nairobi Star (Nairobi)

Kassim Mohamed

19 July 2011

As the morning sun casts a lavender hue over Eyl, a village in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, residents are up to eke a living; women sell tea in makeshift kiosks, young boys and girls attend Madrasa- Islamic religious schools. However, the fishermen have abandoned their boats. They are scared of venturing into the sea.

Rickety wooden boats and untidy beaches are the hallmark of this area. Some of the fishermen say they can’t gamble with their lives as the naval forces patrolling the coastline shoot anyone on a skiff boat.

“I am scared the ships that want to capture pirates might shoot us. There’s no way to differentiate who is a fisherman and who is a pirate. A group of fishermen from another village not far from here were shot at from a Korean ship. They were lucky to have escaped but that was so close,” said a man who identified himself as Abdi Ahmed.

The only men who seem to be getting away with the treasures of the sea, in this case hefty ransoms, are the pirates. They have become unofficial force that has puzzled even the well trained sub-marines from partners from across the world such as EU, US, Canada, China and India.

However, it’s not a bed of roses for the Somali pirates. These men who have raised global attention have become a target of naval forces. A number of them have succumbed to bullets directed at them by marines.

The Dutch marines on April 2 this year mounted an ambitious raid to liberate an Iranian fishing vessel, but the commando operation in which the marines captured 16 Somali pirates, led to the controversial death of two others.

The killing of the two pirates is a clear testimony to the multi-national anti-piracy initiative whose role among others is to capture – not kill – the dreaded Somali pirates who have almost left the global trade along the lucrative sea route of the Indian Ocean to teeter on the edge.

Prior to the incident, local fishermen told the Star they spotted the Iranian vessel fishing deep inside the Somali waters shortly before pirates’ attempt to seize it, and the Dutch frigate HMS Tromp was just in time to foil the hijacking with a bloody engagement that led to the death of two pirates.

Much to the dismay of the local Somalis, the bodies of the two men were reportedly buried at sea, an issue that had since raised great concern casting doubt on the efficiency of the presence of naval forces who are dealing lethargically with the mind-boggling problem of piracy.

A Dutch ministry of defense spokesman said that the decision to bury the dead pirates at sea was motivated by a number of factors; including high temperatures in the region and the slim possibility to return the bodies to their next of kin.

But for the locals that was tantamount to degrading the respect of the death of ethnic Somalis, sending a signal that Somali pirates deserve the most obnoxious inhuman alienation. Some residents were quick to claim that whereas pirates are criminals, the fact that they were killed and buried horribly is an affront to basic human rights and even common sense.

Even as the killing and the burial of the Somali pirates depicts an enigma, several questions remain unanswered following this particular incident; what was the Iranian fishing boat doing in Somali waters? Did the shipmaster know the risk of piracy along this dangerous coastline? Or were the owners taking advantage of the anti-piracy task forces roaming the Somali waters.

From the residents’ point of view, ever since the ouster of Somali’s former President Siad Barre in 1991, Somali waters have never got any respite from illegal and unregulated fishing by foreign vessels mostly from China, Japan, Greece, Taiwan, South Korea and India.

A Geography professor at the University of Minnesota in the United States said proceeds from stealing fish stocks in the Coast of Somalia run into between US$250-350 million annually. The bulk of illegal fishing is done by large foreign merchant vessels.

The civil war that has engulfed Somalia since 1991 has brought the country’s fisheries sector to its knees; factories have been shut. Estimates by retired Somali maritime experts indicate close to 200,000 people lost their jobs.

The continuous illegal and unregulated fishing by foreign vessels and the dumping of toxic waste from the industrialised world made Somalis living along the coastline to survive on the edge and in the most deplorable condition.

Testimonies by local fishermen have over the past few years revealed several cases where foreign vessels were seen pouring boiling water into Somali fishermen’s makeshift boats, leaving their nets cut or destroyed.

In a number of occasions, smaller boats were allegedly crushed by foreigners- killing all their occupants while some others suffered inhumane body harm, at a time they struggled to earn a living in their fishing business.

Recently in Hobyo, formerly a lucrative fishing zone, and now a pirates den, residents have encountered two containers floating on the sea and the result was a massive death of fish stocks that were swept into shore in large numbers.

The international High Seas Task Force (HSTF) says there were over 800 illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing vessels in Somali waters at one time in 2005. These vessels are said to be taking advantage of Somalia’s inability to police and control the vast coastline.

The fish-poachers, who mostly are after the much endangered Tuna fish that is said to be plenty in the Coast of Somalia, neither compensated the local fishermen nor paid taxes and royalties.

In an attempt to deal with illegal foreign fishing, the local fishermen reviewed the issue and modernized their equipment. They bought speed boats, guns of different shapes and sizes and organised themselves to fight foreign vessels. Their insatiable demand to protect their line of businesses ostensibly transformed itself to modern day piracy menace.

The Somali pirates regard themselves as the protectors of Somalia’s marine life. According to this modern day Robin Hoods, the term pirates is offensive in the eyes of these mostly spindly men who have seemingly overpowered the world navies.

In their own description of their money-minting occupation, they prefer to be referred to as “the Somali Coast Guards”. This is however disputable. Piracy has become a lucrative business in which the financiers of this illegal trade stuff their pockets with millions of dollars in an unorthodox means.

A recent report by the London-based think tank- Chatham House – says that sea piracy costs the global economy between $7 and $12 billion annually of which the Somali pirate’s are responsible for 95 per cent of the ‘trade’, a substantial amount considering the impact it has on shipping companies as well as traders and that in turn translates to escalation in the price of commodities.

In fact, the impact of piracy is felt much in the parched and bare Horn of Africa region, where prices of essential commodities have skyrocketed to a record high over the last few years. Since 2007, a 10 per cent increase in food prices has been recorded in the local markets.

Over the past few months, Somali pirates have been fired at and killed. In January 2011, South Korean navy commandos killed eight pirates and captured five others.

In a similar incident in November 12, 2010, Kenyan Navy personnel shot dead three suspected pirates in the Indian Ocean. The military said the pirates attempted to hijack a navy ship patrolling the Indian Ocean when personnel on board fired.

April 12, 2009, US navy seals killed three pirates off the Somali Coast. The operation approved by President Barack Obama was aimed to release an American ship captain who was held by pirates in a lifeboat.

In the midst of increased killing of pirates, genuine fishermen are scared to venture into the sea for fear of naval reprisal pursuing pirates. In some disturbing incidences, Chinese and Korean fishing vessels have reportedly taken the law into their hands by killing pirates. Many of such incidences go unreported.

“The good thing with EU and other western nations is that they report the number of pirates they kill but for China and Korea they hardly talk about it,” says Mohamed, an elder at Hobyo, a pirate hide-out.

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