Indian Ocean Piracy

Somalia is the eastern most country in Africa on the "Horn of Africa." The country first gained independence from Britain and Italy on July 1st, 1960. The country's capital is Mogadishu, bordering Kenya and Ethiopia. The geopolitical location is very important because it is located between Sub-Sahara Africa and Southwestern Asia. Somalia has the longest coastland of any African country. Corruption and poverty have stricken the country for years. Geographically it suffers from intense climate conditions. It consist of dry, hot, and flat savannas with mountains on the coast. The majority of Somalia people are clan based Muslims with about three-fifths living a mobile way of life, pursuing nomadic pastorialism or agropastorialism (Janzen2020).

From 1969 to 1991 communist dictator Mohamed Siad Barre ruled but was eventually overthrown by clan militias. After Siads exit the country fell into a catastrophic civil war. With no stable central government the country and its capital was ripped apart by warlords, clans, and militias fighting for power. Somalia disintegrated into a number of poorly defined tribal territories; Puntland, Somaliland, Jubaland, Rahaweynland, and Marihanland. During this civil war all infrastructure was destroyed, key waterways were taken over, and the already weak economy was destroyed. Thousands of people left the country seeking refuge in neighboring countries. Since 1991 around 1,000,000 people have died from disease, starvation, and the wars. Piracy is just the result from years of terrible governments and infrastructure. In an interview the president of the Somali state of Puntland said “From the international point of view, piracy may be considered the number one issue, but from our point of view, it is a tiny part of the whole Somali problem – a phenomenon prompted by the collapse of the Somali state"(soy 2018).

Attached to the Indian Ocean is also the Gulf of Aden. The Gulf of Aden borders the north of Somalia with very resourceful waters. As famine and struggles continued throughout the country people were desperate to find alternate ways to survive. With no government in place areas were run by corrupt local officials and people began to solely survive off of the surrounding waters in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. In the 90s during the early years of the civil war Somali fishing and subsistence coexisted with the illegal foreign fishing in the Somali water in the gulf. As the Somalis fished on a local level the operation sizes of foreign fishing vessels continued to increase. Most of the fish caught by big ships were packaged and processed in the middle east, and then shipped across the world for big profit margins. The Somali people saw none of these profits as their waters were fished dry. As fish populations rapidly declined local fishermen began to move outward into the deeper waters. At the same time foreign fishing crews began moving more inward leading to intense encounters (Weldemichael 2012).

In the beginning Somali people viewed themselves as almost the coastguard of the waters. Since there was no real government the locals had to step up themselves to protects their zones. Along with over fishing many vessels would dump their toxic waste and chemicals in the nearby waters killing off most wildlife. Local vigilante groups would fend off and make illegal fishing ships retreat. After years of mild encounters between the two sides things began to change. In 2006 the true beginning of modern piracy in the Indian Ocean was sparked. As Somalis continued to defend the waters illegal foreign fishing crews now started coming back with heavy duty weapons, quickly escalating the situation. With more money, resources, and better equipment the foreign vessels began to take advantage of the local people (Weldemichael 2012).

With no other options for the Somali people they turned to a different tactic, piracy. Now they were targeting any weak or vulnerable boats. It didn't matter whether the boat was fishing or not, everything in the nearby waters was on their radar. There are various forms of piracy but the Somali people took the ransom route. They were not interested in goods or merchandise. Their primary goal was to take everybody hostage and use their lives as a bargaining token for ransom money. Once the first pirate hijackings were successful it just fueled the increase in attacks even more because the pirates knew they could get money out of it. Most pirates thought it was justified because of the way their people had been treated. The youth and unemployed were immediately drawn to this way of life. As international counter-piracy programs began it forced the pirates to ramp up their tactics and techniques.

During 2009 piracy became one of the worlds fastest growing businesses. While the rate of attacks increased so did the median ransom amounts. Piracy quickly turned into a certain form of business. Groups began to form and one of the most powerful ones was the Somali Marines. They became so advanced that the group turned into almost a military. There was a fleet admiral, admiral, vice admiral, and even a head of financial operations. These groups even created special attack tactics. Their most common one is the “mothership model,” having one larger boat for deep water missions and then a couple smaller ones to aboard others ships. During the height of Indian Ocean Piracy from 2008 - 2012 it was estimated that piracy costs the world around 10 billion dollars annually between damages, shipping delays, ransom amounts, and anti-piracy operations (Carter 2011).

In the early years of Somalian piracy the average ransom for a hijacked ship was about 150,000. During the peak in 2011 pirates were able to negotiate for 5 million a ship. A single group of pirates could earn up to 200 million dollars a year. Even with all this money it still turned into a negative outcome for the Somalian society. Almost none of the money was redistributed to help other poor locals fighting for survival. Drug and alcohol usage increased. People were speeding and crashing luxury vehicles. Pirates would spend excessive amounts of money making inflation drastically increase. This made it even more difficult for the ordinary people to support themselves (Reva 2018).

One of the most infamous pirate attacks happened on April 8, 2009. The last American ship that had been captured by pirates dated back all the way to the 1820 until this day. The MV Maersk Alabama was warned the day before to stay at least 600 miles off the Somali coast. However the captain ignored the protocols and stayed much closer. On April 8th their ship was boarded by 4 armed pirates. Most of the crew was able to get to a safe room on the boat. Although the pirates were able to take Captain Richard Phillips hostage. After back and forth negotiation the pirates fled the ship on a life boat with Captain Phillips. Their goal was to use him as a bargaining chip for the ransom money. The U.S. navy quickly got involved and a three-day standoff ensued between them. After multiple failed negotiations the seals were given authorization to take out the pirates. The seals executed a perfect plan that was able to save Captain Phillips and his crew (A&E Networks 2020).

The series of events were so crazy that a movie was actually made about the true story called Captain Phillips with Tom Hanks. The movie gives a very good insight to how serious and intense these hijackings are.