Somali pirates: Sea bandits or coastguards?

Piracy off the coast of Somalia is seen as a rapidly growing problem that world governments are struggling to solve, however pirates view themselves as "coastguards" that protect their waters from illegal fishing and waste dumping, which they say has been overlooked by the west for years.

As a result of two decades of civil war, Somalia has long been plagued by lawlessness and extreme poverty that has killed more than tens of thousands of civilians, uprooted one million and left more than a third of the population in need of emergency aid.

The country has been relatively neglected up until the anarchy on land started to wreak havoc on global interests as vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden—one of the world's busiest shipping routes—were seized by unknown groups of men.

Although the hijackings off Somalia's coast is not a new phenomenon and has been going on for at least 15 years it was in 2008 when the number of attacks more than doubled to an estimated 120, 35 of which were successful, from 25 in 2007, according to the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization.

Navy ships, U.N. resolutions and global meetings have yet to stop the pirates and have left the world asking who these brazen pirates are and what exactly are they after.

Lawless land, stormy seas

The collapse of the Somali government in 1991 left a power vacuum in a country made up of various clans and warlords and turned its land and sea into virtually lawless areas.

The pirates are believed to originate from the semi-autonomous northern Puntland region—which is also the home of regional President Abdullahi Yusuf—and come from three predominant backgrounds of expertise, needed to carry out successful hijackings.

The pirates are made up of militia men who supply the weapons and military might, fishermen who know the sea and men who can operate technical hardware such as satellite phones and GPS systems.

Hijacking a ship takes no more than 15 minutes and pirates live on "mother ships," storing arms, fuel and other supplies on board. They catch target vessels using high-speed boats, heavily-armed men boarding with rope ladders, a report by British think-tank Chatham House revealed.

Around three speedboats may be used in an attack, each carrying six to 10 men armed with AK-47 assault rifles and sometimes rocket-propelled grenades.

In November, Somali piracy reached new heights as a Saudi super tanker carrying 200 million barrels of oil—worth $100 million—on its way to the United States was hijacked.

Hijacking the 330-meter-long Sirus Star and holding it for a $25 million ransom sent shockwaves through the shipping world and showed just how capable the pirates had become as just a few years ago ransoms were in the tens to the hundreds of thousands of dollars range.

Fancy houses and poor people

Pirates are believed to be between the ages of 20-35-years-old. Unable to find jobs, Somalia's youth are flocking to the risky business in search of a life of luxury, money and power, things that are very difficult to find in the war-ravaged African nation.

And although the trappings of success may be new to the job, according to U.N. statistics pirates made about $120 million from ransom payments last year, turning Puntland into a booming coastal town.

Fancy houses are being built, expensive cars are being driven and pirates are marrying and providing for several wives. Towns that were once poverty-stricken and chaotic are now bustling, turning pirates into local heroes of prosperity.

Despite the perceived success, the danger of entering Somali waters has had a negative impact on the impoverished country, which relies heavily on international aid. In 2007, the World Food Program (WFP) was forced to suspend deliveries of food and aid by sea due to the risk of being hijacked.

Somalia will require at least 185,000 tons of food aid in 2008, according to the WFP, which does not deliver by land as it is just as risky and is seen as impractical for transporting large quantities of aid.

With the lack of much needed goods the situation in Somalia is set to worsen as poverty-stricken civilians seek a means of survival, turning the lucrative piracy business into an appealing solution, creating a never-ending vicious cycle.

Sea bandits or coastguards

However, pirates and Somali officials cite the root cause of the highly organized and lucrative business as a result of illegal fishing made possible by years of relentless fighting between a myriad of clans, Islamist groups and Ethiopian troops.

With no official body to guard Somalia's rich waters the fishing industry collapsed and fishing vessels from all corners of the world began invading the area, plundering Somalia's marine resources.

Hundreds of illegal fishing boats were in Somali waters at any one time engaged in a $90 million a year business, mainly in tuna, the Kenya-based Seafarers Assistance Program reported in 2006.

Pirates have justified their actions saying: “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits, we consider sea bandits 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,” pirate spokesman Sugule Ali was quoted by the New York Times as saying.

We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits, we consider sea bandits 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.

Pirate spokesman

There is also a long history of toxic and industrial waste being dumped in Somali waters, which literally washed up on shore after the 2004 Tsunami and left hundreds of locals ill.

"The Somali coastline has been destroyed, and we believe this money is nothing compared to the devastation that we have seen on the seas," a spokesman for the pirates Januna Ali Jama was quoted in published reports as saying.

The ransom demand is a means of "reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years," Jama said.