Pirates of the Gulf

IT WAS A story of heroic self-sacrifice that would not have been out of place in a Hollywood film. Captain Richard Phillips, a regular at church in his native Vermont, offered himself up as a hostage to Somali pirates who had tried to seize his US-flagged Maersk Alabama ship as it sailed along the Somali coast on April 7.

  Capt Phillips, 53, traded his own safety for that of the crew on board his 17-ton ship. It was a courageous act that US President Barack Obama said should act as “a model for all Americans.”

  The gang of pirates held Capt Phillips at gunpoint aboard one of the ship’s lifeboats for five days, before a daring operation by US Navy SEALS saved him, leaving three of his captors dead and a fourth in US custody.



Not an isolated incident



  Members of the Vermont Catholic parish where Phillips, 53, and his wife, Andrea, regularly attend mass, were overjoyed at the news.

  “We’ve been praying at mass for his safe release,” Donna Schaeffler, secretary of St. Thomas Church in Underhill Center, Vermont, told the US-based Catholic News Service.

  “Our pastor, Fr. Charles Danielson, also asked everyone to pray for the Phillipses during the Easter morning mass. We were just so happy to hear the news of his rescue later in the day,” she said.

  Fr. Danielson said he prayed with Capt Phillips’ wife privately at the couple’s home the day before the dramatic rescue, and spoke to “excited and overjoyed” family after he learned the captain was safe.

  For the Vermont parish, the event brought seemingly distant global tragedies into sharp focus.

  “It’s been a real eye-opener, I’ll tell you that,” Fr. Danielson told Catholic News Service. “An event like this really humanizes the news. It really brings home that the faces of people in the news belong to real human beings.

  It’s someone in your parish, in your community, and we’re hoping and praying for the best.”

  He said the ordeal had brought the community closer together, showing how they cared for each other and banded together in difficult times.

  The dramatic story of Capt Phillips and the Maersk Alabama is not an isolated incident. Hundreds of pirates operate with near impunity off the coast of the Horn of Africa, seeking refuge in port towns along the coastline of the largely lawless country.

  Lacking a formal government since 1991, Somalia has been rocked by two decades of near constant civil war, with various areas controlled by a nominal government, Islamist militants, cabals of warlords and crime families. The near anarchy has provided a fertile breeding ground for pirates to operate.



UN-sponsored conference



  In June, the International Contact Group on Somalia (ICGS) said efforts should be increased to fight the “root causes” of Somali piracy, such as poverty and weak government.

  “We all agreed that the root causes of piracy are on land: poverty, lack of discipline, lack of a government totally controlling the situation,” said the International Contact Group on Somalia chairman Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah.

  He was speaking as the group issued a statement after two days of talks in Rome which called for “actions to address the root cause of piracy, namely the political, security and social crisis in Somalia”.

  Mr Abdallah said the presence of navies from around the world off the Horn of Africa had had an impact on piracy in the region, but noted that pirates were still holding some 14 ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, as well as 200 seamen.

  Continuing piracy in the region has resulted in as many as 20 foreign warships at a time being deployed off the Somali coast to safeguard major shipping lanes. A number of foreign navies are now patrolling the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden to deter pirates, but their attacks continue.

  International donors at a UN-sponsored conference earlier this year pledged more than $250m in military and development aid to Somalia. UN bodies will oversee funding earmarked for the government, which wants to build a police force of 10,000 and a separate security force of 6,000. But the perilous situation on the high seas was highlighted by the absence of Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who remained in Mogadishu to oversee the struggle against a renewed offensive by Islamist rebels to topple the government. He was represented at the talks by Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke.

  The group’s communiqué condemned the “recent attempt by extremist armed opposition groups to overthrow the legal, legitimate and internationally recognised Somali government”.

  Twenty-five countries were represented at the talks as well as the African Union, the European Commission, the Arab League, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the United Nations and the World Bank.

 

Big Business

  

  Research by the New York Times newspaper estimates that profit by all pirate crews comes in at more than $120 million annually, compared to the average Somali household income of $600. But the pirates are not the only ones benefiting from Somalia’s lawlessness.

  In Mogadishu, the trade in smuggled weapons has made Osman Bare a fortune.

  “Peace means bankruptcy for us,” said the weapons dealer, one of 400 Somali men running Mogadishu’s main arms market.

  “I have only been in the weapon business five years, but I have erected three villas. I have also opened shops for my two wives.”

  With hand-grenades retailing for $25 each, landmines for $100, and AK47s for between $140 and $600, trade is brisk.

  Despite the danger of arrest – or execution, if they are caught by Islamists – the dealers run a roaring trade in the commercial heart of Mogadishu. They are well-stocked, and clearly well-protected.

  “There are hundreds of retailers and wholesalers, and each has four well-armed guards,” said Mr Bare.

  The customers range from Islamist militants to government workers or private parties, and their stock does not go off if high supply leads to a low demand. “The good thing is that our goods are not perishable.”

  However, the dangers posed by theft or violence in one of the world’s most dangerous cities remain high. “We get a lot of cash, but we are always in terror.”

  A UN-imposed arms embargo has failed to stem the flow of illegal weapons into Somalia, making the likelihood of ending Africa’s longest-running conflict all the slimmer. Analysts suspect the weapons come from various sources. Ethiopian soldiers who intervened in Somalia from 2006 until the start of this year have been accused of selling their weapons to the rebels, as have groups from Eritrea, Kenya and Djibouti. Even African Union peacekeepers are alleged to have fuelled the illicit trade.

 

Immoral gains



  Pirates and weapons dealers aside, there are others who are profiting from Somalia’s vicious war.

  Bankers fare well due to the increase in cash received from wire transfers, and anyone dealing with death is seeing a strong turnover.

  Cloth dealers have seen an upturn in demand for shrouds, used to cover the bodies of the dead. Similarly, grave-diggers have been doing brisk trade for the past couple of years, charging $15 per grave and sometimes digging as many as 20 a day.

  Coffin salesmen are doing well, but, in a sign of the times, so too are sellers of iron sheets – which are cheaper than wood for coffin makers.

  Oxfam’s co-ordinator for Somalia says this crisis is the worst Africa has seen for years. Somalia has been riven by civil conflict since its central government collapsed in 1991, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and at least one million people internally displaced.

  In the latest cycle of civil war, militant Islamists from groups such as Hisbul-Islam and al-Shabab – which control swathes of southern and central Somalia – have been fighting the Somali government for the last two years, and 18,000 civilians have been killed in the crossfire.

  Although a moderate Islamist president took office in January and introduced Sharia law to the strongly Muslim country, the Islamist guerrillas – who are accused of having links to al-Qaeda – have kept up their fight.

  The hands of some 4,300 African Union peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi – ostensibly in the capital to help bolster the government – are tied as they do not have a mandate to pursue the insurgents.

  As well as those refugees streaming across the country’s border, there are hundreds of thousands of internally-displaced people, surviving with little food or shelter, and with nowhere to go. Fighting has increased in recent months between Islamist guerrillas and pro-government forces.



A dire situation



  The BBC’s Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu said residents of Mogadishu have been taking advantage of lulls in the fighting to flee the city, taking only what belongings they could carry. He said thousands of people – predominantly women and children – sought refuge under trees to the south of the capital. Hassan Noor, Oxfam’s humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, described the situation as “dire”.

  “I have seen the situation in Darfur, northern Uganda, some parts of Congo, but what is actually happening now in Somalia is indeed the worst kind of humanitarian situation in Africa in many years,” he added.

  The worsening situation has brought calls from the Vatican for more attention from the world’s leading powers. Back in November 2007, Pope Benedict urged world leaders to focus their efforts on combating the growing violence in Somalia.

  “I encourage the efforts of those who, despite the insecurity and difficulties, remain in that region in order to bring aid and relief to the inhabitants,” said Pope Benedict.

  Sadly, it seems that only through the publicity garnered from such incidents as the hostage-taking of Capt Richard Phillips will the desperate reality of the situation in Somalia be brought home to many in the West.