The increase in Somali piracy has sparked a flood of news items and commentaries on this issue. But to those who are familiar with the Somali situation and are honest about it, much of these news articles and commentaries are dishonest and misleading, particularly when it comes to how to solve this problem.
To illustrate what we mean, let us look at a typical statement that is often repeated by foreign governments and media:
“State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Monday that it's crucial to deal with the ‘root cause’ of the piracy issue, which he said is lawlessness and the lack of a stable government in Somalia.” (CNN, Apr.14, 2009)
On the surface, what the State Department spokesman said seems reasonable but in reality it is inaccurate because it ties the problem of piracy, which is predominantly a Puntland phenomenon, to conditions in Mogadishu. But if the State Department spokesman only alluded to the connection between the lawlessness of Mogadishu and Puntland’s piracy in general terms, the CNN reporter, as if on cue from the State Department, went even further and provided the details:
“Efforts to replace the Ethiopians with an African Union-led peacekeeping mission faltered as the violence worsened, and heavy fighting in Mogadishu and other cities drove hundreds of thousands from their homes. The lawlessness also spilled onto the seas off the Horn of Africa, where international vessels are routinely hijacked by pirates, suspected to be Somali, who demand large ransoms.” (CNN, Apr.14, 2009)
In the above quotation, the CNN reporter linked the exodus of many of Mogadishu’s residents to the outlying areas of Mogadishu during the war between Ethiopian troops and insurgents, to the issue of piracy which has nothing to do with that war. But this does not matter to CNN. All that matters is that they repeat and amplify the State Department’s talking points.
Leading this campaign of deception regarding the piracy issue is, of course, the UN. To prove this we need look no further than the horse’s mouth, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who said at the donor’s conference in Brussels: "The risks of not supporting the new government are too high and the costs of failure too enormous". This is false as false can be. The Somali government, which is only a government in name, and barely controls a few blocks in Mogadishu is unlikely to have any impact on the pirates in Eyl, Garowe and Bosaso, no matter how much money that so-called government is given.
Besides the lack of a central government, another mantra that is often repeated by the international community in order to justify their failure to stop piracy, is that the Somali coast is too long and that the area they have to guard is four times the size of Texas. Again, the international community and foreign media are deliberately misleading the public to give the impression that pirates originate from all over the Somali coast, when in fact pirates operate from a few known bases in Puntland and not throughout the Somali coast.
A reader of this editorial may ask: even if it were true that the international community and the international media are lying about the real causes of the Somali piracy and its best cure, why are they doing it? What is their motivation?
Answer: lying about the problem by declaring that the Somali coast is too long and calling for a conference to support a non-existent government in Mogadishu allows the international community to make a lot of noise about how much they are helping Somalis, while actually doing nothing for Somalis other than filling the pockets of a few individuals at the top of a government that was foisted on Somalis by the international community itself.
The international community may fool their own citizens and those who are not familiar with the Somali problem but they cannot fool most Somalis who know what is going on: that the $213 million being collected in the name of Somalis is not meant to help Somalis but rather to execute the agendas of the donors. Somalis have seen this show before during Operation Restore Hope in which more than $6 billion dollars was spent in the name of Somalis and Somalia was left in a worse position than before.
The international community had a lot of opportunities to disprove the negative view that most Somalis hold towards its policies by granting development aid to peaceful areas such as Somaliland. The fact that it has not done so for almost two decades, is clear evidence that the international community has its own agenda. More and more Somalis are coming to see that international agenda as anti-Somali agenda.


 

Home | Contact us | Links | Archives | Search