Piracy in Somali Waters: What Will Be The Solution?

Piracy is at an all time high off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden. Unlike the days of old today’s pirate is not armed with a sword they are armed with speed boats, knives, guns, and rocket launchers. They are a threat to every country that ships anything through these waters. They Hi jack large oil tankers, cruise ships, and yachts that pass through their waters. They operate from the shores of Somalia and despite the efforts of NATO and the European Union piracy is still on the rise. It is easy for us to judge these people but before we judge we should take a look back through time and find out how this all came about.

In the early 1990’s Somalia’s government collapsed due to tha civil war. The fishermen that had made their living from the sea were suddenly bombarded with foreign ships coming into their waters and fishing. This got so bad that there were very little fish left for these people to make a living to support their families. Despite there cries to the world, their plight went unheeded.  To make matters worse these ships that passed through their waters used these waters as a dump for toxic waste. This totally depleted what fish was left in the waters leaving a poor country that much poorer.

At first these fishermen banded together to fight back the only way they knew how. They took up arms and started Hi jacking the very ships that had stolen their livelihood. It was the only way they knew for survival. It wasn’t long before the fishermen found out what a lucrative business Hi jacking was. The companies that owned these ships would pay millions of dollars in ransom to get their ships back. So what began out of necessity became a way of life. The ideals of the fishermen that started this were soon forgotten in the amount of booty that they brought home.

These ideals today have vanished and it is no longer retaliation to what was done to their waters. Today’s pirates operate under organized crime. Their base is in Somalia where there is a government that is in chaos that looks the other way. Where there is no law and order piracy has flourished. When a country is stripped of its resources and a man is watching is family starve it is not difficult to take up arms and join a criminal organization where the benefits are more money in one Hi jacking than you hoped to see in a life time. Today there are organizations such as the Tamil Tigers which are feared by many. Despite the effort of putting more warships in the area piracy rages on in the waters off Somalia.

These are some of the poorest countries in the world and as long as we have poverty without a government there piracy will rule. The answer to this problem is not yet worked out by the governments that want to put an end to this lawlessness. They are catching some of the pirates but prosecuting them proves to be another problem. Instead of hitting these pirates on the seas they should hit them where they live on land. But this is proving to be more than the governments can handle as if they enter Somalia by land it can open up a whole other can of worms that most governments would rather stay away from. But until Somalia’s government is fixed this problem will continue far into the future.