The Gulf of Aden, though which over 20,000 merchant vessels
pass each year, funnels a number of shipping routes into the Red Sea and on to
the Suez Canal. It is a vital artery of
global trade, and Europe is dependent on the cargoes that are transported along
this vital line of communication.
In 2008 the were 111 incidents of
piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia and 42 vessels were hijacked,
by July 2009 there had been 143 attempted attacks and 31 successful hijackings.
So the rate of attacks had more than
doubled on a six monthly basis, and the number of hijackings had increased by nearly
the same amount. As I have pointed out elsewhere, I expect the last three
months of 2009 to see a significant increase in attacks on shipping in the Gulf
of Aden and the Eastern water of the Indian Ocean. The pirates can now far better funded, and
the ample rewards have encouraged more poor young men to try their luck, and
old rich men to back them.
I have often heard it argued that
Somalia is a special case, a “failed state” without any effective government
which has enabled lawless behaviour to be rewarded and for safe anchorages to
be available to pirates to moor their prizes.
There is an element of truth in these claims, but we would argue that
the difference between Somali and other poor and tribal territories in merely
one of degree, and that there are many areas of the world which operate along
virtually similar lines, although blessed with governments which attend the
United Nations.
An ethically homogenous society,
Somalia has four main tribes, or clans, the Darod, Isaaq, Hawiye, and
Digil/Mirifle, although there are many people who belong to other tribal groups,
such as the Midgo', Tumaal, Yibir, Caadaqaate, Rer Baxar, and Gabooye. The situation is further complicated by the
existence of sub-clans and family groups and by restrictions on intermarriage
between some groups. After Somalia
gained independence in 1960 the homogenous nature of the society ensured
harmony however, since 1991, when the hatred President Mohamed Siad Barre fled the
country, Somalia has been without a stable central government.
In 1992, because of the political chaos and humanitarian problems
in Somalia, the UN launched peacekeeping operations. On October 1993 in the “Black Hawk Down” incident, U.S.
troops lost 19 dead and 80 others wounded, in a battle with Somali gunmen in Mogadishu;
Somali causalities were enormous. As a result of the loss of political will the
United States withdrew from Somalia in 1994, followed by other UN forces in
1995. The conflict in Somalia has been driven by inter-clan rivalry, as Paul
Collier (from the World Bank) writes, “The resulting violent conflict in effect
turned what had been a patchwork of closely related clusters of people, into
large rival groupings which hated each other. The conflict created the equivalent
of inter-ethnic hatred in an ethnically unified society.”
There have been a number of attempts at resolution of the
internecine conflict, in January 2004, two dozen or so warlords reached a
power-sharing agreement after talks in Kenya, this created the Transitional
Federal Government (TFG), but by May 2006, heavy fighting broke out in
Mogadishu between the non TFG-affiliated Supreme Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and
TFG warlords. By June 2006 the ICU controlled
Mogadishu and much of Southern Somalia. Ethiopia and the United States have
been involved in this conflict, Ethiopia in order to ensure its control over
the Ogaden and the United States because of fears that Somalia will become a
base for Al-Qaida. In January 2009 Ethiopia withdrew its troops from Somalia,
although they later re-entered the country in May. Al-Shabaab, a group that developed following the decline of the Islamic
Courts Union, is now in control of most of Mogadishu after a full-scale battle
in May. A recent IML blog, which refers
to Martin Bell’s report on his visit to Somalia describes the foreign elements
with Al-Shabaab (http://www.idaratmaritime.com/wordpress/?p=37
). Since 1992 there has been Al-Qaeda involvement in Somalia, initially this
included training for Mohammed Farah Aidid’s men, and it seems reasonable to
conclude that this involvement has been continuous, but essentially low-level,
to the present day. If Al-Shabaab comes to dominate Somalia this may make
Somalia a more attractive sphere of operations for Al-Qaeda. It is clear that the U.S. also continues to
follow developments in Somalia closely; there was a U.S. attack in Southern
Somalia by a AC-130 fixed-wing gunship in January 2007 and there have been
other reports of CIA operatives being based at Galkayo, in Puntland. In a
post-Bush world the language of the “War on Terror” may have been toned down,
but U.S. policy is still based on the perceived threat from Al-Qaeda and
related terrorist groups. The war in Afghanistan is based on the premise that
America needs to deny Al-Qaeda bases in that country, as the Taliban are not a
direct threat to the U.S.
The situation in Somalia, even if we discount the problem of
piracy, remains confused and uncertain, and the country could still see further
intervention by western forces, unpopular though that would undoubtedly be with
the western public. Such a policy may be
officially launched as anti-piracy operations, rather than an anti Al-Shabaab
operation.
But if we are to fully understand the environment which
enables piracy to emerge we also need to look at the other pirate territory in
the Gulf of Aden, the Yemen. The Yemen, like Somalia, is tribal in its
loyalties. Today there is an active secessionist movement in the south and a tribal rebellion
in the north by the powerful al-Houthi tribe. The Yemeni Army has been involved
in sporadic fighting in the north since 2004, when the army killed Sheikh
Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, a religious leader of Zaidis, a branch of Shi'a
Islam. In South Yemen, the old British colony of Aden, calls for secession have
increased as economic reforms have failed to improve life for the inhabitants.
Like Somalia the Yemen is also a land
which has few natural resources, about from the ability to grow qat, and
a severe lack of water. The economic problems and
water shortages are compounded by an annual population growth of 3.3 percent, one
of the highest in the world.
Again in this confusion of tribal
loyalties, lack of development and weak government Al-Qaeda has been a presence
in the Yemen for over ten years, the October 2000 attack the USS Cole in Aden being
the highest profile operation in the Yemen. In February 2006 23 al Qaeda
suspects, including those believed responsible for the USS Cole bombing,
escaped from prison in Sana'a. Nasir al-Wahishi, the head of Al-Qaeda in the
Yemen was one of those who escaped. Al-Qaeda has attacked the U.S. Embassy and
killed a number of Westerners in Yemen since the prison escape, including four
South Korean tourists in March 2009. Gregory Johnsen,
a Yemen specialist at Princeton University told Reuters, in June 2009, that he doubted
there was firm evidence showing recent militant arrivals in Yemen were from
Pakistan. It seems that Al-Qaeda in the Yemen and in Somalia represent local
responses to local problems, attempts to strengthen local groups with the
ideology of militant Islam, rather than a direct threat to the West.
Somalia and the Yemen should be seen as having common
issues, poverty, tribalism and a tendency to use violence to resolve problems.
The UN reported that pirate mother ship supply ports exist at Al Mukallah and
Al Shishr, Sayhut, Nishtun and Al Ghaydah on the Yemeni coast, in addition to Bossaso,
Aluula and Mogadishu on the Somali coast. Although Eyl in Somalia remains the main base
for piracy and Garaad Mohamud Mohamed, Mohamed Abdi Hassan “Afweyne”, and Farah
Hirsi Kulan “Boyah”, from Somalia, were the original main backers of the piracy
“business”, the fact is that many attacks occur in Yemeni waters, and one
recently occurred in Omani waters.
In conclusion, we argue that the conditions in Yemen are
conducive to piracy, and that there is already a measure of coordination and
cooperation between Yemenis and Somalis involved in piracy, as the 2008 U.N. Report
makes clear. Given the problems of other
countries in the area, such as Eritrea and Sudan, we would not exclude local
involvement there. In the main, as I
have argued before, I believe that piracy will trend to develop now, wherever
you have a combination of very weak and/or corrupt governments, with severe
poverty and tribal loyalties which give individual groups great cohesion. This is the modern version of the Arabian
tribes fighting over camels and women, or the Scots raiding across the Borders
for cattle and sheep. Terrorism, in this context, is a red-herring, and that Islamic extremists
merely blend into the chaotic and violent local mix, whether in Somalia or in
the Yemen.