September12, 2008:
The Transitional National
Government (TNG), and its Ethiopian allies are still trying to work out
political and economic agreements. While the TNG represents the majority of
Somalis (or at least according to population controlled by clans and warlords),
the smaller number of groups allied with the religious radicals of the Islamic
Courts are more disciplined and militarily effective. But the Islamic groups
are not powerful enough to dominate and rule the majority.
The natural
state of Somalia, over the last few centuries, has been violent anarchy. For
the last century, however, order was imposed, first by colonial governments,
and then by post-colonial dictators. But Somali dictators have been unable to
maintain their rule over the entire region known as "Somalia." A
government of sorts was always found in some of the coastal towns, which
enabled trade with the outside world. But this has been threatened by the
recent growth of piracy. Some warlords are taking over coastal villages and
running piracy operations from them. This is possible because of the current
anarchy. In the past, piracy was suppressed by foreign navies destroying the
towns of villages the pirates used as bases. This is no longer politically acceptable,
and no one is yet willing to send troops ashore to fight the warlords who
created and maintain the pirate operations. The nations with the military
forces able to go into Somalia (like the U.S., Britain and France) are well aware
of the region's history, and the willingness of the Somalis to just keep
fighting. The availability of speedboats, satellite radio and GPS have made it
possible to conduct piracy deep into the Straits of Aden (a major choke point
for international shipping). Many nations are sending warships to try and
control the pirates at sea, without going ashore. This will be expensive, but
is believed to be ultimately less expensive than skyrocketing insurance rates
for ships.
At least
someone is trying to do something about the growing pirate activity off
Somalia's north coast. As the risk of ships getting seized in the Gulf of Aden passes
one percent, the maritime insurance companies have raised premiums (covering
passage through the 1,500 kilometer Straits of Aden) from an average of $900 to
$9,000. That's expected to go higher because, when you do the math, you realize
that the current increase does not quite cover the million dollars per ship
ransom (which is also going up.) The insurance increase has made certain that
all ships moving through the area are aware of the pirate risk, and more ships
are alert enough to spot and speed away from the pirates. Most ships moving
through the Straits of Aden have a top speed in excess of what the pirate
speedboats can achieve. But the larger ships take time to reach their top
speed, and the trick is to rev the engines of the larger ship soon enough to
get away from the approaching pirate speedboats. This requires posting more
lookouts (because the speedboats are low enough in the water to not show up
well, if at all, on the navigation radar of larger ships). The pirates will
continue to go after the ships that they can catch, and these will tend to be
the smaller and slower ones from poor (often Moslem) nations. That could have
interesting repercussions.
September 8,
2008: An American warship caught 14
Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, arrested them and destroyed their boats. Inside
Somalia, the group that seized a Canadian journalist last month, are demanding
a $2.5 million ransom for her release.
September 5,
2008: Ten ships have been hijacked by Somali
pirates in the Gulf of Aden during the last two months.