Somali Pirates: International Hypocrisy and Pretext for Military Invasion and Economic Imperialism

 Wednesday, April 15, 2009

          By Nyankor Matthew 

In an introduction to a 2008 article titled “China, Afrika, and Oil”, Stephanie Hanson, News editor at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) wrote:

As global demand for energy continues to rise, major players like the United States, European Union (EU), and Japan are facing a new competitor in the race to secure long-term energy supplies: China. As its economy booms, China is intent on getting the resources needed to sustain its rapid growth, and is taking its quest to lock down sources of oil and other necessary raw materials across the globe. As part of this effort, China has turned to Afrika, an oil-producing source whose risks and challenges have often caused it to be overlooked economically. Some reports describe a race between China and the United States to secure the continent's oil supplies. Others note that while Chinese interests in Afrika have surged, Western states still make the vast majority of investments in Africa and remain highly influential [i]

According to a November 2008 National Intelligence Council (NIC) assessment/report titled "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,”

“Sub-Saharan Afrika will continue to be a major supplier of oil, gas, and metals to world markets and increasingly will attract the attention of Asian states seeking access to commodities, including China and India”.

The Yale Global article titled, “Somalia’s Piracy Offers Lessons in Global Governance”, points out the hypocrisy of the international community regarding the pirates situation by stating:

Contrary to common perception, the swift and coordinated international response to piracy off Somalia’s coast has been less of a success than reports make it out to be. In fact, it masks deeper problems of unfairness in international economic order and local governance. Somalia’s pirates are a motley crew: some are fishermen defending their turf, while others are guns for hire. And the international response to these pirates has been, not surprisingly, military. But more is needed, including action that addresses the deeper issue in Somalia: a lack of economic growth and good governance. Yet, UN Secretary General Moon’s appeal to 50 countries for broader assistance received almost no response. Of the countries that contributed naval vessels to the anti-piracy operation, half are nations engaged in fishing in the Indian Ocean with a vested interest in deterring piracy.[ii]

It is against the backdrop of the above statements that I shall attempt to expose the so- called “pirates” propaganda being used as a smokescreen to invade, destabilize, and control the Horn of Afrika.  The Pirates are the pretext to justify all means of military invasion in Somalia that could eventually lead to military invasion/intervention in the horn of Africa.  The so-called pirates crisis is a struggle between China, America and the West to control the strategic waterways in Somalia and the Horn of Afrika.  Somalia's strategic position in the Horn of Africa means that any nation that dominates this area will have tremendous control over world trade.

For the West and the U.S, control of this region will allow them to counter the dominance of China in the region, as well as use the region as a base to conduct operations on “terrorists” and nations accused of “harboring” terrorists.

Does it not bother the Afrikan people that out of nowhere, a group of men now being called pirates and terrorists by the western media seemed to have all of a sudden emerged on the global political scene?  As of today, April 12, it’s being reported that eighteen nations, led by the U.S, British, and Chinese have sent military ships on the coast of Somalia to deal with the men now called “pirates”. 

The hypocrisy and double standard of the West regarding the so called “pirates” does not shock me at all, because hypocrisy is the foundation of Western foreign policy towards Afrika.  Far too little has been said about European and Asian companies’ outright theft of Somalia’s resources, as well as the destruction of their environment by dumping tons and tons of toxic waste on Somalia’s shores.  Where was the UN Security Council when this economic terrorism against the “stateless” Somali people was taking place? Now, the same nations that have been engaged in massive theft and economic degradation on Somalia’s coasts are calling for blood and military action to ensure that economic terrorism against the Somali people is not interrupted. 

The hypocrisy can be compared to the U.S and its allies killing thousands of Iraqis and referring to the murder of these Iraqis as killing the "enemy" and fighting for "freedom and liberty", yet when these desperate individuals decide to fight back, they are called insurgents, terrorists, and enemy combatants.

After years of plundering their resources, the Somali fishermen finally decided to fight off the real pirates, thieves, and terrorists, and instead of being called voluntary coast guards, they are being labeled as criminals, pirates, and terrorists.  I am not so naïve to believe that all the fishermen now being called pirates are doing so for nationalistic purposes, but does it matter?

In my humble opinion they are totally justified in their actions because they are doing nothing different than what is being done to them by the same people calling them pirates.  The only difference is that unlike the propagandists, the Somalis don’t have a voice.

The truth about the Somalia Pirates crisis is being suppressed, and a lie is being told to the world.  There’s more to the story that isn’t been told by the corporate-controlled western media.  What’s even more disheartening to me is the poor reporting and lack of analysis from the Afrikan media.  Instead of correcting the lies being told by the propagandists, many have elected to regurgitate biased western reports.  The notion that the so-called “pirates” are a bunch of rag tag terrorists whose only intention is to harass helpless foreign ships is not accurate.

The international human rights and nature protection NGO, ECOTERRA, working in Somalia since 1986 also wrote:

they “… had requested the international community many times for help to protect the coastal waters of the war-torn state, but now lawlessness has seriously increased and gone out of hand. Funding requests for marine surveillance and coastal monitoring, the development of fishing cooperatives and the rehabilitation of legal fishing activities were never met, neither by the EU nor the UN.”

Since no appropriate help to assist Somali fishing communities or the numerous governance attempts was forthcoming to protect and regulate the Somali waters, organized crime dealing with fake fishing licenses first and later engaging in the hi-jacking of commercial vessels has in the meantime taken over the scene.

ECOTERRA International warned ship-owners as far back as 1992, that they were fishing illegally within the Somalia's Exclusive Economic Zone. When foreign vessels refused to stop pirating Somalia's ocean resources, EcoTerra repeatedly appealed to the US and the international community for help to protect the coastal waters of the war-torn state to no avail. This void provided an opening for the rise of Somalia's pirate fleets.[iii]

Since the collapsed of the central government in 1990, there has been no central authority to enforce and regulate Somalia's waterways, especially the fishing area along its coast, which is said to be the most extensive coast on the continent. The result has been local Somali small fishing vessels and fishermen, who have no protection or rights over the country's waterways, and large foreign ships with sophisticated fishing equipments (mostly Europeans and Asians) have been able to take control of the country’s waterways and its fishing-stocks, completely overwhelming local fishermen. Due to the plundering of their waters, local Somalis sought to extract "license-fees" from the international fishermen and they were dismissed.  The fishermen also complained to the UN as well as other environmental NGOs to no avail; and over time this situation has escalated and the Somalis have taken matters into their own hands. Their decision to fight back has made them the world’s most wanted criminals.

Rampant illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off the coast of Somalia

A 2006 Reuters News article provides evidence of the economic terrorism the Somali people have endured since the collapsed of their government in 1990.

Fishermen in Somalia have appealed to the United Nations and the international community to help them rid the country‘s southern shores of foreign ships allegedly engaged in illegal fishing.

The article quotes a local Somali fisherman, Muhamman Hussin from the coastal town of Marka, as saying:

“we want international agencies to help us deal with this problem…if nothing is done about them, there soon won’t be much fish left in our coastal waters.”[iv] 

More evidence of economic terrorism against the Somali people is presented by Huffingtonpost Columnist John Hari, in his article “You Are Being Lied to About Pirates”:     

 In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by over exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving.

This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas.[v]

The Somali pirates are making a political point which of course they are profiting from as well, but their profit is noting compared to those being made by foreign fishing fleets; and why shouldn’t they earn a living when foreigners are stealing their resources and making millions off these illegal resources? The escalation of this issue has to do with the deprivation of livelihood for a large segment of Somalia. They want an end to the massive commercial fishing that has taken away their industry, but due to a lack of any legitimate central government, Europeans and Asians have been extracting millions from the waters of Somalia while local fishermen are deprived of earning a living. 

There is “reliable information” that European and Asian companies are dumping toxic waste, including nuclear waste, off the Somali coastline, and Somali fishermen and citizens whose livelihood and lives are at risk due to over fishing and toxic waste exposure, have been concerned with the tons and tons of ocean dumping off their coast, which has fouled the waters; yet the very news agencies labeling these men pirates and terrorists have not bothered to make any mention of rampant illegal fishing and large amount of toxic waste that is dumped on Somalia shores annually by European and Asian companies. 

In June 2008, Mr. Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, a UN special envoy for Somalia told reporters about rampant illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off the coast of Somalia by stating:

“Because there is no (effective) government, there is so much irregular fishing from European and Asian countries."  He further added, "It is a disaster off the Somali coast, a disaster (for) the Somali environment, the Somali population,"

In the article “UN envoy decries illegal fishing, waste dumping off Somalia”, Mr. Abdallah adds, “the phenomenon helps fuel the endless civil war in Somalia as the illegal fishermen are paying corrupt Somali ministers or warlords for protection or to secure fake licenses…I am convinced there is dumping of solid waste, chemicals and probably nuclear (waste).... There is no government (control) and there are few people with high moral ground,"

I have presented more than sufficient evidence that shows we are being lied to by the corporate controlled western media about these so called pirates.  I am of the opinion that the so called pirates crisis is nothing more than a clandestine effort on the part of those involved, for the purposes of establishing economic hegemony and imperialism, first on the Horn of Afrika, and eventually on the entire continent.  The Afrikan people cannot and should not sit by idly and allow western media agencies to create false realities that could eventually become realty for us.  For too long the Afrikan reality has been created by our former oppressors; for too long our story has been white washed and told from the perspective of our former oppressors.  In this new global world order, the Afrikan people must find it necessary to tell our stories from an Afrikan worldview.

We need to be aware of what’s really happening (the story behind the story) with this new movement to control the continent, instead of being distracted by noncritical analysis and poverty reduction plans created by the international loan sharks called the IMF and World Bank.  We need to use our third eye to analyze below the surface of issues that involve the so called international community, and Afrika and the Afrikan  people. Afrika is a strategic continent that has been and still is a gold mine for the rest of the world except the Afrikan people.  WAKE UP AFRIKAN PEOPLE.  This isn’t about pirates; it is an orchestrated crisis; it is about economics and the control of Afrika’s natural resources.

Nyankor Matthew can be reached at Nyankorm@gmail.com

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