UN's Plan to Curb Somali Piracy, With a Twist

Bosasso is a dusty port town in the Puntland State of Somalia. Farming is virtually impossible across this part of the African Horn, so the economy is focused on camel and goat herding, fishing, and trade through this port. It's also a launching base for criminal syndicates, or pirates, who besiege and rob foreign ships. If you were a member of this criminal syndicate, running a vast trade enterprise out of the port, you might pay a local peace tax for protection and you might enjoy the broad support of locals who applaud your efforts to keep regional trade supply among Somalis rather than foreign companies, some of whom are accused of robbing local fisheries. Would you be deterred by an international anti-piracy campaign based only on the sea?

Fortunately, UN Under-Secretary General B. Lynn Pascoe recently updated an international call for support to curb piracy on the African Horn through a hybrid land-based security and development effort as well as the current sea-based security effort. This appears to be received positively except that few governments are willing to shell out more money. Lack of funding is tragic. However, donor countries are already pulled in several different directions in the region, considering the area's harsh droughts, poverty, and civil war.

There is one other key to curbing piracy which is hard to see from outside the country. Many local communities support pirates not because they wish for the gangs to get rich or to slow food aid, but because they see the pirates as one of the only means of keeping foreign companies from robbing local fisheries, dynamiting and depleting lobster reefs, and collecting local fishermen's anchored nets. If the collective anti-piracy effort includes a means to prevent foreign companies from sneaking in, this will help re-gain the vote of the vast local fisheries -- and their associations -- in turning out the pirates. Here's my previous post with some detail on Somali fears of sea theft.

And to keep balance on the diverse culture in Somalia, you can learn some positives covered in my other post, Somalia's Greatest Hits.

Photo credit: Daniel J Gerstle (Boys tallying fish at Bosasso Port on the Aden Gulf, Puntland, Somalia)