On Hearts, Minds, and Piracy

This article in the UAE paper The National takes the hearts and minds approach necessary to fight piracy to the next level.

“In Somalia, there are over 2,300 maritime pirates who include trained military men, security experts, professional translators and experienced brokers,” Farhat Hussameddin wrote in an opinion piece for Egypt’s pro-government Al Ahram.

These organised, hi-tech gangs have managed to seize a Ukrainian vessel carrying tanks, arms, ammunition and military equipment and their ransom demands are high.

“These pirates have become rich and powerful and the owners of many commercial institutions,” he wrote.

“Pirate Jama Shino in the Somali town of Garowe, threw the most lavish wedding party for his second marriage and invited hundreds of people from the local authorities and among citizens,” Hussameddin wrote.

“The bride and the young women who attended the party, said: “Marrying a pirate is every Somali girl’s dream. He has power, money, immunity, the weapons to defend the tribe and funds to give to the militias in civil war.”

Emphasis mine.

I may be disqualified from this conversation, I was the dad who let his 13 year old put a picture of Johnny Depp on the wall in her room, so is it really hard to believe the ladies of Somalia see the real thing as "dreamy"?

Moving beyond the love angle of the story, there is a lot of good information here that describes the piracy problem the international community faces in Somalia. Keeping in mind Somalia has a culture of conflict, one can get a feel for the network behind the guys in boats with this article.

The question is, with piracy a high visibility problem but in context, a very low cost problem from a global commerce perspective, are there low cost, effective international solutions to either curb the growth of piracy or even reverse the trend of piracy? For example, Peter Chalk's RAND study of global piracy cited the IMB as suggesting piracy was costing somewhere between $1 billion and $12 billion globally. What a range! It highlights how nobody has any idea how much the real cost is. However, he also notes the World Trade Organization estimates the value of maritime commerce in 2005 to be $7.8 trillion. What is the real effect of $12 billion costs to a $7.8 trillion dollar industry?

Unfortunately, without local control and action in Somalia, solutions to piracy from the perspective of the West are both violent and brutal, meaning politically they are unlikely to be utilized by western nations. Add on top of that they are probably somewhat expensive, and you have a recipe for inaction. The most likely outcome is that containment will be attempted on the cheap, and we will wait until pirates do something that creates an economic ripple before serious action is taken against Somalian pirates by the West.