Qoraalkii hore ee Maxamed Abshir Waldo uu kag ahadlay labada
Nooc ee Burcadda ka jira Soomaaliya
THE TWO PIRACIES IN SOMALIA: WHY THE WORLD IGNORES THE
OTHER?
By Mohamed Abshir Waldo
Jan. 08, 2009
THE SHIPPING PIRACY & THE INVASION OF THE SOMALI SEAS
Much of the world’s attention is currently focused on the Somali
sea lanes. The navies of big and small powers are converging on
the Somali waters in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. The
recent hijacking of the Saudi oil tanker and Ukrainian MV Faina,
laden with arms for Kenya, off the coast of Somalia by Somali
pirates captured world media attention. War has been rightly
declared against this notorious new shipping piracy. But the
older and mother of all piracies in Somalia - illegal foreign
fishing piracy - in the Somali seas is ignored, underlining the
international community’s misunderstanding and partiality of the
underlying interdependent issues involved and the impracticality
of the proposed actions to find ways to effectively resolve the
piracy threat.
A chorus of calls for tougher international action resulted in
multi-national and unilateral Naval stampede to invade and take
control of the Somali territorial and EEZ waters. The UN
Security Council, a number of whose members may have ulterior
motives to indirectly protect their illegal fishing fleets in
the Somali Seas, passed Resolutions 1816 and 1838, giving a
license to any nation who wants a piece of the Somali marine
cake. Both NATO and the EU issued Orders to the same effect and
Russia, Japan, India, Malaysia, Egypt, Yemen and anyone else who
could afford an armed boat and its crew on the sea for a few
months joined the fray.
For years, attempts made to address piracy in the world’s seas
through UN resolutions have failed to pass largely because many
of the member nations felt such resolutions would infringe
greatly on their sovereignty and security and have been
unwilling to give up control and patrol of their own waters. UN
Resolutions 1816 and 1838, which were objected to by a number of
West African, Caribbean and South American nations, was then
tailored to apply to Somalia only, which had no strong enough
Somali representation at the United Nations to demand amendments
to protect its sovereignty. Also Somali civil society objections
to the Draft Resolutions were ignored.
This massive “Global Armada” invasion is carried out on the
pretext to protect the busy shipping trade routes of the Gulf of
Aden and the Indian Ocean from Somali shipping piracy, which
threatens to disrupt these international lifeline sea ways.
While there are two equally nasty, criminal, inhuman and
exploiting gangs of pirates in Somalia, only one of them is
publicized by the western media: the Somali shipping pirates
attacking merchant shipping in these sea lanes, where the
illegal poachers are also actively operating.
THE ILLEGAL FISHING PIRACY
The other more damaging economically, environmentally and
security-wise is the massive illegal foreign fishing piracy that
have been poaching and destroying the Somali marine resources
for the last 18 years following the collapse of the Somali
regime in 1991. With its usual double standards when such
matters concern Africa, the “international community” comes out
in force to condemn and declare war against the Somali fishermen
pirates while discreetly protecting the numerous Illegal,
Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing fleets there from
Europe, Arabia and the Far East.
Biased UN resolutions, big power orders and news reports
continue to condemn the hijackings of merchant ships by Somali
pirates in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. If response to
both piracy menaces was balanced and fair, these condemnations
would have been justified. European Union (EU), Russia, Japan,
India, Egypt and Yemen are all on this piracy campaign, mainly
to cover up and protect their illegal fishing fleets in the
Somali waters.
In all these piracy ballyhoo and campaigns, why is the other key
IUUs fishing piracy ignored? Why are the UN Resolutions, NATO
Orders and EU Decrees to invade the Somali seas fail to include
the protection of the Somali marine resources from IUU
violations in the same waters? Not only is this outrageous
fishing piracy disregarded but the illegal foreign marine
poachers are being encouraged to continue their loot by as none
of the current Resolutions, Orders and Decrees apply to the
IUUs, which can now freely fish in and violate the Somali seas.
The Somali fishermen can no longer scare away the IUUs for fear
of being labeled pirates and attacked by the foreign navies
unlawfully controlling the Somali waters. Even the traditional
Somali trading dhows are in panic of being mistaken for pirates.
a) The IUU Menace and Fish Laundering Practice
There is no doubt IUU is a serious global problem. According to
the High Seas Task Force (HSTF), IUU does not respect national
boundaries or sovereignty, puts unsustainable pressure on
stocks, marine life and habitats, undermines labor standards and
distorts markets. “IUU fishing is detrimental to the wider
marine ecosystem because it flouts rules designed to protect the
marine environment which includes restrictions to harvest
Juveniles, closed spawning grounds and gear modification
designed to minimize by-catch on non-target species….In so doing
they steal an invaluable protein source from some of the world’s
poorest people and ruin the livelihoods of some legitimate
fishermen; incursions by trawlers into the inshore areas
reserved for artisanal fishing can result in collision with
local fishing boats, destruction of fishing gear and deaths of
fishermen” says HSTF. In its report, Closing the Net: Stopping
Illegal Fishing on the High Seas, HSTF puts worldwide value of
IUU catches at $4 to $9 billion, large part of it from
Sub-Sahara Africa, particularly Somalia.
IUUs practice fish catch laundering through mother ship
factories, transshipment and re-supply at sea. “This means that
vessels can remain at sea for months, refueling, re-supplying
and rotating their crew. IUU fishing vessels never need to enter
ports because they transfer their catches onto transport ships.
Illegally caught fish are laundered by mixing with legally
caught fish on board transport vessels”, writes HSTF.
Apparently, fish laundering, which generates hundreds of
millions dollars in the black market is not as criminal as money
laundering! Countries used for Somali fish laundering include
Seychelles, Mauritius and Maldives.
As EU closed much of its fishing waters for 5 to 15 years for
fish regeneration, as Asia over fished its seas, as
international demand increases for nutritious marine products
and as the fear of worldwide food shortage grows, the rich,
uncontrolled and unprotected Somali seas became the target of
the fishing fleets of many nations. Surveys by UN, Russian and
Spanish assessors just before the collapse of the Barre Regime
in 1991 estimated that 200,000 tones of fish a year could be
caught by both artisanal and industrial fisheries and this is
the objective of the international fishing racket
There is no doubt that the actions of the shipping pirates are
reprehensible and this paper does not seek to justify or explain
their odious actions. They must be stopped. But the notorious
shipping piracy is unlikely to be resolved without
simultaneously attending to the fraudulent IUU piracy, too.
b) The Origin of the Somali Piracy War
The origin of the two piracies goes back to 1992 after the fall
of the Gen. Siyad Barre regime and the disintegration of the
Somali Navy and Police Coastguard services. Following severe
draughts in 1974 and 1986, tens of thousands of nomads, whose
livestock were wiped out by the draughts, were re-settled all
along the villages on the long, 3300kms Somali coast. They
developed into large fishing communities whose livelihood
depended inshore fishing. From the beginnings of the civil war
in Somalia (as early as 1991/1992) illegal fishing trawlers
started to trespass and fish in Somali waters, including the
12-mile inshore artisanal fishing waters. The poaching vessels
encroached on the local fishermen’s grounds, competing for the
abundant rock-lobster and high value pelagic fish in the warm,
up-swelling 60kms deep shelf along the tip of the Horn of
Africa.
The piracy war between local fishermen and IUUs started here.
Local fishermen documented cases of trawlers pouring boiling
water on the fishermen in canoes, their nets cut or destroyed,
smaller boats crushed, killing all the occupants, and other
abuses suffered as they tried to protect their national fishing
turf. Later, the fishermen armed themselves. In response, many
of the foreign fishing vessels armed themselves with more
sophisticated weapons and began to overpower the fishermen. It
was only a matter of time before the local fishermen reviewed
their tactics and modernized their hardware. This cycle of
warfare has been going on from 1991 to the present. It is now
developing into fully fledged, two-pronged illegal fishing and
shipping piracy conflicts.
According to the High Seas Task Force (HSTF), there were over
800 IUUs fishing vessels in Somali waters at one time in 2005
taking advantage of Somalia’s inability to police and control
its own waters and fishing grounds. The IUUs, which are
estimated take out more than $450 million in fish value out of
Somalia annually, neither compensate the local fishermen, pay
tax, royalties nor do they respect any conservation and
environmental regulations – norms associated with regulated
fishing. It is believed that IUUs from the EU alone take out of
the country more than five times the value of its aid to Somalia
every year.
Illegal foreign fishing trawlers which have being fishing in
Somalia since 1991 are mostly owned by EU and Asian fishing
companies – Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Russia, Britain,
Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen, Egypt and
many others. Illegal vessels captured on the Somali coast by
Somali fishermen during 1991 and 1999 included Taiwanese
trawlers Yue Fa No. 3 and Chian Yuein No.232, FV Shuen Kuo
No.11; MV Airone, MV De Giosa Giuseppe and MV Antonietta, all 3
Italian vessels registered in Italy; MV Bahari Hindi, Kenyan
registered but owned and managed by Marship Co. of Mombasa. A
number of Italian registered SHIFCO vessels, Korean and
Ukrainian trawlers, Indian, Egyptian and Yemeni boats were also
captured by fishermen and ransoms of different sizes paid for
their release. Many Spanish seiners, frequent violators of the
Somali fishing grounds, managed to evade capture at various
times.
According to a report in the Daily Nation of October 14, 2004,
even Kenyan registered fishing vessels are known to have
participated in the rape of the Somali fishing grounds. In
October 2004, Mr Andrew Mwangura, Kenya Coordinator of the
Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP) asked the Kenya Government to
help stop illegal fishing in Somalia. “Since Somalia has been
without government for more than 11 years, Kenya trawlers have
been illegally fishing along the country’s territorial waters
contrary to the UNCLOS and the FAO instruments, he said. SAP
further reported that 19 Kenyan registered fishing vessels also
operated illegally in the Somalia waters.
In arrangements with Somali warlords, new companies were formed
abroad for bogus fishing licensing purposes. Jointly owned mafia
Somali-European companies set up in Europe and Arabia worked
closely with Somali warlords who issued them fake fishing
“licenses” to any foreign fishing pirate willing to plunder the
Somali marine resources. UK and Italy based African and Middle
East Trading Co. (AFMET), PALMERA and UAE based SAMICO companies
were some of the corrupt vehicles issuing such counterfeit
licenses as well as fronting for the warlords who shared the
loot.
Among technical advisors to the Mafia companies – AFMET, PALMIRA
& SAMICO - were supposedly reputable firms like MacAllister
Elliot & Partners of the UK. Warlords Gen. Mohamed Farah Aidiid,
Gen. Mohamed Hersi Morgan, Osman Atto and Ex-President Ali Mahdi
Mohamed officially and in writing gave authority to AFMET to
issue fishing “licenses”, which local fishermen and marine
experts call it simply a “deal between thieves”. According to
Africa Analysis of November 13, 1998, AFMET alone “licensed” 43
seiners (mostly Spanish, at $30,000 per 4-month season. Spanish
Pesca Nova was “licensed” by AFMET while French Cobracaf group
got theirs from SAMICO at a much discounted rate of $15,000 per
season per vessel.
Not to be outdone, in October 1999 Puntland Administration, gave
carte blanche to another Mafia group known as PIDC, registered
in Oman to fish, issue licenses and to police the Puntland
coast. PIDC in turn contracted Hart Group of the UK and together
they pillaged the Somali fishing grounds with vengeance, making
over $20 million profit within two years. The deal was to split
the profits but PIDC failed to share the spoils with Puntland
administration, resulting in revocation of their licenses.
Having reneged on their part of the deal, PIDC/Hart quit the
country with their handsomely won chips.
Somali Complaints and Appeals on Illegal Fishing & Hazardous
Waste Dumping
Another major problem closely connected with the IUUs and
illegal fishing is industrial, toxic and nuclear waste dumping
in both off-shore and on-shore areas of Somalia. Somali
authorities, local fishermen, civil society organizations and
international organizations have reported and warned of the
dangerous consequences of these criminal actions. In a Press
Statement dated 16 Sept 1991, the SSDF, which then administered
the Northeastern Regions of Somalia, sternly warned “all
unauthorized and illegal foreign fishing vessels in the Somali
waters are prohibited, with immediate effect, to undertake any
further illegal fishing and to stay clear of the Somali waters”.
In April 1992, SSDF Chairman, Gen. Mohamed Abshir Musse wrote to
the then Italian Foreign Minister, Gianni De Michelis, drawing
his attention to the robbery of the Somali marine resources and
ecosystem destruction by unlicensed Italian trawlers.
In September 1995, leaders of all the Somali political factions
of the day (12 of them) and two major Somali NGO Networks
jointly wrote to the UN Secretary General, Dr Boutros Boutros
Ghali, with copies to the EU, Arab League, OIC, OAU and to other
involved parties, detailing the illegal fishing and hazardous
material dumping crises in the Somali sea waters and requesting
the UN to set up a body to manage and protect these waterways.
They pointed out that since ICAO already manages the Somali
airspace, so could IMO or a newly created organization run
Somalia’s seas until an effective Somali national government is
able to take control of it. Again, from 1998 to 2006,
consecutive Ministers of Fisheries of Puntland State of Somalia
have repeatedly appealed to the international community: UN, EC,
African Union, Arab League and to individual nations, advising
the members states of these organizations to help keep poaching
vessels and crews from their countries out of the Somali waters.
The Ministers also complained of oil spills, toxic and nuclear
waste dumping in the Somali coast.
Somali fishermen in various regions of the country also
complained to the international community about the illegal
foreign fishing, stealing the livelihoods of poor fishermen,
waste dumping and other ecological disasters, including the
indiscriminate use of all prohibited methods of fishing: drift
nets, under water explosives, killing all “endangered species”
like sea-turtles, orca, sharks, baby whales, etc. as well as
destroying reef, biomass and vital fish habitats in the sea
(IRIN of March 9, 2006). Fishermen in Somalia have appealed to
the United Nations and the international community to help them
rid the country's shores of foreign ships engaged in illegal
fishing. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
estimated 700 foreign-owned vessels were engaged in unlicensed
fishing in Somali waters in 2005. However, FAO said it was
"impossible to monitor their fishery production in general, let
alone the state of the fishery resources they are
exploiting….there is also strong suspicion of illegal dumping of
industrial and nuclear wastes along the Somali coast", IRIN
09/03/06.
"They are not only taking and robbing us of our fish, but they
are also trying to stop us from fishing," said Jeylani Shaykh
Abdi, a fisherman in Merca, 100km south of Mogadishu. "They have
rammed our boats and cut our nets", he added. Another Merca
fisherman, Mohamed Hussein, said [Our] existence depends on the
fish. He accused the international community of "talking only
about the piracy problem in Somalia, but not about the
destruction of our coast and our lives by these foreign ships."
Jeylani noted that the number of foreign ships had increased
over time. "It is now normal to see them on a daily basis, a few
miles off our shores" (IRIN 09/03/06).
Describing the activity as "economic terrorism", Somali
fishermen told IRIN that the poachers were not only plundering
the fish but were also dumping rubbish and oil into the sea.
They complained the Somali government was not strong enough to
stop it. "We want the international agencies to help us deal
with this problem," said Hussein. "If nothing is done about
them, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
Musse Gabobe Hassan and Mohamud Hassan Tako of the Mogadishu
Maritime and Fisheries Institute accuse foreign ships of illegal
fishing and dumping of hazardous waste in Somali waters.
“Somalia’s coastal communities who eke their livelihood from the
sea are appealing to the international community for help stop
the illegal fishing fleets from both the developed and
developing countries that are robbing our marine wealth and
destroying its habitats”, they added.
Like the UN Security Council, Chatham House, an International
Affairs Think-Tank, in a much publicized recent Paper on piracy
in Somalia failed to present a balanced view of the issue and
concentrated on the shipping piracy side of the coin. Roger
Middleton, the author of the Paper, however, mentions in passing
that European, Asian and African (Egypt and Kenya) illegally
fish in the Somalia waters. In ignoring the principal IUU
factor, the origin and the purpose of the shipping piracy, UN
and Roger Middleton seem to be either misled or pressured to
take this one-sided course by powerful interests who want to
cover up and protect the profitable business of illegal fishing.
These crises of the illegal fishing, waste dumping,
warlords/mafia deals and the loud complaints of the Somali
fishermen and civil society have been known to UN agencies and
international organizations all along. The UN Agencies and
organizations, which have been fully aware of these crises,
often expressed concern and lamentations but never took any
positive action against these criminal activities. It appears as
if they have also failed to inform the UN Security Council of
this tragedy before it passed its resolutions 1816 and 1838
early this year.
Mr. Ould Abdalla, UN Secretary General Special Envoy for
Somalia, who should know better, continued to condemn Somali
shipping piracy in a number of press statements and rightly so
though biased. In his latest Press Statement of 11/11/08 on the
subject matter, he warmly welcomed the agreement by European
Union member states to send ships to combat piracy off Somalia.
“I am extremely pleased by the EU’s decision,” said Mr
Ould-Abdallah. “Piracy off the Somali coast is posing a serious
threat to the freedom of international navigation and regional
security”. But he forgot to condemn fishing piracy, mention the
Somali fishing communities’ livelihood security or to propose
concrete actions to deal with the two inter-related piracies,
which are like the two sides of the same coin.
An FAO study, Somalia’s Fishery Review by Frans Teutscher, Nov.
11, 2005, states, “In the absence of legal framework and/or for
capacities for monitoring, control and surveillance, extensive
illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) is taking place and
considerable quantities of non-targeted by catch are discarded
because they cannot presently be utilized”. The report said that
the foreign IUUs maximize their catch by fishing throughout the
year without regard to the wider marine ecosystem, not
respecting fish and crustacean spawning periods or irreparable
damage done by their massive drift nets and use of explosives or
the loss of local fishermen’s livelihood.
In a letter to the SSDF dated January 1998, Mr. Dominic
Langenbacher, UNDP Somalia Resident Representative, expressed
his apprehension of the danger posed to the Somali marine
resources and environment by foreign vessels. “The concern of
the international community is that the threat of toxic waste
dumping, pirate fishing by foreign vessels and over fishing of
Somali stocks could adversely, and perhaps permanently, affect
the ecosystem of the entire region” he said. “Furthermore,
Somalia currently has no provision to deal with potential oil
spills or other marine disasters and has no capability to
monitor and control her coastal waters and, if necessary,
provide sea search or rescue operations”, he added.
Dr Mustafa Tolba, former Executive Director of UNEP, confirmed
that Italian companies were dumping lethal toxic waste in
Somalia which might “contribute to the loss of life in the
already devastated country”. Dr Tolba added that the shipment of
the toxic wastes from Italy that could also aggravate the
destruction of the ecosystem in Somalia “earned a company, which
ships the waste, between 2 to 3 million dollars in profits”,
(Sunday Nation, 06/09/92).
In a proposal for action to the UNDP for Somalia in early 1990s,
Mr. John Laurence, a fishery consultant with PanOcena Resources
Ltd, reports the catastrophic and heartbreaking illegal foreign
exploitation of the Somali seas. “With regards to the controlled
exploitation of the Somali deep sea fishing grounds by the huge
foreign factory ships and vessels it is our opinion that the UN
must get involved. This area is recognized as one of the 5
richest fishing zones of the world and previously unexploited.
It is now being ravaged, unchecked by any authority, and if it
continues to be fished at the level it is at present stocks are
in danger of being depleted …. So, a world resource is under
serious threat and the UN is sitting back doing nothing to
prevent it”. “Secondly, the Somali people are being denied any
income from this resource due to their inability to license and
police the zone” and “ the UN is turning a blind eye to the
activities of the fishing vessels whose operators are not paying
their dues; which in any other circumstances would be enforced
by any international court of law”, argues Laurence.
Surprisingly, the UN disregarded its own findings of the
violations, ignored the Somali and international appeals to act
on the continued ravaging of the Somali marine resources and
dumping of hazardous wastes. Instead, the UN and the big powers,
invoking Charter IIV of the UN Charter, decided to “enter the
territorial waters of Somalia……and ..…use, within the
territorial waters of Somalia ….all necessary means to identify,
deter, prevent, and repress acts of piracy and armed robbery,
including but not limited to boarding, searching, and seizing
vessels engaged in or suspected of engaging in acts of piracy or
armed robbery, and to apprehend persons engaged in such acts
with a view to such persons being prosecuted” (Resolution 1816).
It should be noted that there is no mention of the illegal
fishing piracy, hazardous waste dumping or the plight of the
Somali fishermen in the UN Resolutions. Justice and fairness
have been overlooked in these twin problems of FISHING PIRACY
and SHIPPING PIRACY.
The Illegality and Impracticality of the actions of the UN, NATO
and EU
This Global Armada is in the Somali waters illegally as it is
not approved by the Somali Transitional Federal Parliament
(TFP). It is also unlikely it will achieve its stated objectives
to curb the shipping piracy as it is now conceived. The TFP and
the members of the European Parliament rejected these UN and
European decisions to police the Somali seas (both the Indian
Ocean and the Gulf of Aden) as both illegal and unworkable. At a
Press Conference in Nairobi on October 18th 2008, the Deputy
Speaker of the TFP, Mohamed Omar Dalha, termed the deployment of
foreign warships to the country's coast to fight piracy as
invasion of its sovereignty and asked the foreign warships to
“move out of the Somali waters”. The Speaker questioned the
intent of the deployment and suggested that the powers involved
had a hidden agenda. He said if these powers were genuine in
curbing the piracy they would have supported and empowered the
Somali authorities, who would be more effective in stopping the
menace. “If the millions of dollars given to the pirates or
wasted in the warship policing there were given to us, we would
have eliminated this curse”, he said.
Several EU members of parliament (MEPs) called the EU naval
mission to be deployed against pirates off the coasts of Somalia
as a "military nonsense," "morally wrong" and having "no
international legal basis." German green MEP Angelika Beer
underlined the lack of international law to sustain the proposed
European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) mission. "There is
no clarity to the limitations of this mandate. Will the EU be
able to sink ships and arrest pirates?" she asked. Portuguese
socialist MEP Ana Maria Gomes gave a fiery speech on the "moral
problem" of the EU mission, which, in her opinion, is only about
"protecting oil tankers." "Nobody gives a damn about the people
in Somalia who die like flies," she said (EU Observer of 15th
October 2008).
Conclusion
The EU, NATO and US Navies can, of course, Rambo and obliterate
the fishermen pirates and their supporting coastal communities
but that would be illegal, criminal act. Yet, it may temporarily
reduce the intensity of the shipping piracy but it would not
result in a long-term solution of the problem. The risk of loss
of life of foreign crews and ecological impact of major oil
spill would be a marine catastrophe of gigantic proportions for
the whole coastal regions of East Africa and the Gulf of Aden.
In their current operations, the Somali fishermen pirates
genuinely believe that they are protecting their fishing grounds
(both 12-mile territorial and EEZ waters). They also feel that
they exacting justice and compensation for the marine resources
stolen and the destroyed ecosystem by the IUUs. And their
thinking is shared and fully supported by the coastal
communities, whose protectors and providers they became.
The matter needs careful review and better understanding of the
local environment. The piracy is based on local problems and it
requires a number of comprehensive joint local and external
partners approaches.
Firstly, practical and lasting solution lies in jointly
addressing the twin problems of the shipping piracy and the
illegal fishing piracy, the root cause of the crisis.
Secondly, the national institutional crisis should be reviewed
along with the piracy issues.
Thirdly, local institutions should be involved and supported,
particularly by helping to form coastguards, training and
coastguard facilities. These may sound asking too much to donors
and UN agencies. But we should ask what it meant those who paid
tens of millions dollars of ransom and their loved ones held
hostage for months.
Fourthly, a joint Somali and UN agency like the present ICAO for
the Somali airspace should be considered.