Somalia – Land of the Lawless
By
Somalia has been in the news quite a bit lately, with pirates hijacking ships on the high seas, but what do we really know about this country?
On June 26 1960, British Somaliland gained it’s independence. Days later on July 1 1960, Italian Somaliland also gained it’s independence and united with British Somaliland to become The Republic of Somalia. A 1969 coup installed an authoritarian socialist style rule that lasted a couple of decades. After the collapse of this regime in 1991, the country descended into complete turmoil and anarchy.
Today we have The Independent Republic of Somalia which is governed by the Transitional Federal Government, a weak central government structure basically observing law in principle (de jure) as opposed to law in practice (de facto). Â The capital of the country is war-torn Mogadishu, where there is a long history of atrocities and unrest. Here, there really is no functioning government, leaving most of the public buildings, schools and colleges as refugee camps. Anarchy has reigned for nearly two decades and in all appearances, without outside assistance, will continue well into the future.
Life in this part of the world is mainly controlled by rival clans who drive around in pickup trucks fitted with machine guns. Peace and harmony exists in only a few blocks at a time as most of this nation has long ago fallen into lawlessness. This environment of instability and desperation has given rise to a scourge of criminals who have taken to pirating on the high seas. They are likely seen as heroes by sympathizers back home, and cursed as low-life criminals by others.
The hijacking of commercial vessels has become a lucrative source of income, with the seizure of more than 40 ships and the collection of $30 million dollars in ransom money in 2008. It’s a business model that works for the criminal element of Somalia. This activity is not going to go away soon, as this lawless country has next to no alternatives to offer in terms of income earning potential. The international community must come together on this problem and remove this continual threat upon maritime commerce. This will mean a deployment of armed security on ships, or some sort of escort service, but whatever the answer, the transporting of commercial goods on the high seas has reached a pivot point.
To really address this pirating problem, the nations of the world will have to go onshore and help install some form of government that actually governs. With no laws or enforcement in place, even the honest fisherman of this failed state are being frozen out of their livelihood because of the illegal plundering of Somali waters by fishermen from other nations. This has become an international free-for all, with an estimated $300 million worth of seafood flat out stolen annually from their waters, according to a United Nations report. This is a huge loss to Somalia’s business community, further exacerbating problems and adding to the overall environment of desperation. This is already the most lawless place on the planet and opportunists see this as an excuse to commit crimes. This pilfering of the seas off the coast of Somalia has been going on heavily since the early 1990s. In fact, this is what gave rise to organized fishing gangs which set out to defend these waters from trawlers from as far away as Japan and Spain. Today’s pirates are what these gangs have become, aggressively hijacking ships taking hostages and collecting ransoms.
The global seafood industry is a huge business and the waters off of The Horn of Africa continue to be highly fertile with extremely large yields of tuna, lobsters, mackerel, sardines and a host of other species.
This region will never stabilize without international intervention and unless the nations of the world realize this and undertake measures to bring about this end, chaos and anarchy shall continue to reign in Somalia. In an area where 90% of the world’s trade passes through, one would think this would have been addressed long ago. The cost of nearly twenty years of inaction has suddenly spiraled out of control.
