|
April 23, 2009: Lacking a legal system that
can deal with pirates, or willingness to fight the brigands, Western
nations are now demanding that shipping companies stop paying ransoms,
and are considering bribing the warlords running the Transitional
National Government (TNG, now run by more moderate Islamic radicals),
Somaliland and Puntland (where most of the pirates are based) to go
after the pirates. The problem is that there is no real government in
Somalia, just attempts by various collections of warlords to work out
power sharing deals. Giving money to these "governments" has a high risk
of sparking more fighting because of disagreements over how the
financial aid should be divided. The shipping companies will not stop
paying ransoms, because they don't want to take the media heat for
"abandoning" their employees. Demands that nations dependent on sea
transportation send troops ashore and destroy the pirate bases, are
ignored. No one wants to take the media heat for "committing war crimes"
against Somali civilians the Somali gunmen frequently use as human
shields.
The TNG advises that by not paying ransoms, and by giving the TNG
several hundred million dollars (to build up their security forces), the
piracy problem would go away. Previous efforts to give the TNG aid money
had failed because most of the cash was stolen by the TNG leadership.
The pirates have attacked 80 ships this year, and currently hold 17 (and
about 300 crew). The pirates will sometimes give discounts. On April
14th, a Lebanese ship, captured while on its way to India to pick up
7,000 tons of food for starving Somalis, was released after the payment
of only $100,000. This was arranged by Somali clan leaders and
merchants, who apparently threatened the pirates with "traditional
justice" if they did not take the deal. Somalis will attack and steal
ships bringing in foreign aid (food, medicine and other goods to be
distributed for free to needy Somalis), and the donor nations have
increasingly provided warships to escort the aid. Much of it is stolen
anyway, once ashore, even though the foreign aid groups try to use
bribes to hire guards to keep the bandits away.
April 22, 2009: There are about fifty European ocean going fishing boats
operating within 1,500 kilometers of the Somali coast, and they are
asking for protection from pirates. None of these fishing ships are
within Somali's "economic zone" (about 360 kilometers from the Somali
coast), but the pirates are now going 1,500 kilometers or more from
Somalia looking for victims.
April 21, 2009: The UN has halted its effort to send peacekeepers to
Somalia. The newly elected TNG leadership opposes foreign peacekeepers.
April 20, 2009: In the central Somalia town of Beledweyn, gunmen from
the Islamic Courts and Islamic radical group Hezbul Islam, leaving ten
dead and over 30 wounded. Meanwhile, the principal Islamic radical
group, al Shabaab, denounced the TNG vote to establish Sharia law
throughout the land, as a deception and fraud. The TNG adopted Sharia in
order to reduce the power of al Shabaab, which has always demanded the
adoption of Sharia.
April 19, 2009: In central Somalia, a group of armed men kidnapped two
foreign aid workers (employed by Doctors Without Borders), and are
demanding a ransom of over a million dollars for their release. Nearby,
another foreign aid worker was shot dead outside a mosque.
April 18, 2009: The Somali government (TNG) parliament has passed a low
establishing Sharia (Islamic) law as the legal system to be used for
criminal and civil problems.
Source: Strategy Page
|
