Pirates, Fishermen and Peacebuilding: Options for Counter-Piracy Strategy in Somalia

Abstract

The dominant approach to counter-piracy strategy off Somalia is astonishingly narrow-minded. Deterrence, surveillance and military operations do not provide sustainable or efficient solutions; better strategic alternatives must draw on the lessons of 21st-century peace operations. This perspective leads to an understanding of counterpiracy as a problem of peacebuilding. This allows restructuring and reframing of the problem to permit a much wider repertoire of policy solutions than is currently conceived. This repertoire may include development and security assistance programmes as well as state-building programmes. The approach also permits integration of lessons learned in the frame of international peacebuilding operations, including avoiding technocratic solutions, focusing on power constellations, integrating local knowledge and incrementalism. If the international community wishes to take piracy seriously and respond to its complexities, it would be well advised to adopt a policy in which such alternatives are considered.

Acknowledgements

For comments and suggestions on a previous draft, the authors would like to thank Basil Germond, as well as the anonymous reviewers and editors of Contemporary Security Policy. Research for this study was partially supported by a grant from the research fund ‘The Transformation of Contemporary Societies’ of the Faculty of Social Science, University of Duisburg-Essen.

Notes

Here and thereafter we adopt the definition of piracy of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which, unlike the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), does not differentiate between piracy (occurring in the international sea) and armed robbery at sea (occurring in national economic zones). IMB defines piracy as ‘An act of boarding or attempting to board any ship with the intent to commit theft or any other crime and with the intent or capability to use force in the furtherance of that act’ (ICC-International Maritime Bureau, ‘Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships: Annual Report’, 1 January–31 December 2005, p.3).

For instance Winn and Govern see 10 September 1992 as the starting date for modern-day piracy, with two major incidents taking place in the Strait of Malacca. See John I. Winn and Kevin H. Govern, ‘Maritime Pirates, Sea Robbers, and Terrorists: New Approaches to Emerging Threats’, The Homeland Security Review, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2008), p. 132.

Daniel Sekulich, Terror on the Seas. True Tales of Modern-Day Pirates (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009), p. 12.

See James Kraska and Brian Wilson, ‘The Pirates of the Gulf of Aden: The Coalition is the Strategy’, Stanford Journal of International Law, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2009), pp. 243–86; James Kraska and Brian Wilson, ‘The Global Maritime Partnership and Somali Piracy’, Defense & Security Analysis, Vol. 25, No. 3 (2009), pp. 223–34; Basil Germond and Michael Smith, ‘Re-Thinking European Security Interests and the ESDP: Explaining the EU's Anti-Piracy Operation’, Contemporary Security Policy Vol. 30, No. 3 (2009) pp. 573–93.

Responding to a request from UNSC, the UN Secretary General has delivered a report laying out several options for a regional or international piracy tribunal: cf. UN Doc S/2010/394. See also Elizabeth Andersen, Benjamin Brockham-Hawe, and Patricia Goff, Suppressing Maritime Piracy: Exploring the Options in International Law (Washington DC: American Society of International Law & Academic Council on the United Nations System, 2010).

Cf. ‘Hi-tech Navies Take on Somalia's Pirates, Reuters, 16 May 2010.

UNSC Resolution 1816, UN Doc. S/RES/1816 (2008), paragraph 7.

Cf. EU NAVFOR's Seek, Disrupt and Destroy Policy Continues its Success, EUNAVFOR press declaration, Brussels, 2 May 2010.

See Kraska and Wilson, ‘The Pirates of the Gulf of Aden’ (note 4), Kraska and Brian Wilson, ‘The Global Maritime Partnership and Somali Piracy’ (note 4), and Lars Bangert Struwe, For a Greater Horn of Africa Sea Patrol. A Strategic Analysis of the Somali Pirate Challenge (Copenhagen: The Danish Institute for International Studies, 2009).

Douglas Guilfoyle, ‘Piracy off Somalia and the Gap Between International Law and National Legal Systems’, Paper presented at the 51st Annual Conference of the International Studies Association Conference, New Orleans, 17–20 February 2010.

‘Kenya Ends Trials for Somali Pirates in its Courts’, BBC News, 1 April 2010, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8599347.stm

Cf. Andersen et al., Supressing Maritime Piracy (note 5).

Guilfoyle, ‘Piracy off Somalia’ (note 10).

Douglas Guilfoyle, ‘Counter-Piracy Law Enforcement and Human Rights’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 1 (2010), p. 141; see also Tulio Treves, ‘Piracy, Law of the Sea, and Use of Force: Developments off the Coast of Somalia’, European Journal of International Law, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2009), pp. 399–414.

See for instance the summary of discussions among the US security community in Frank Bliss, ‘U.S. Military Considers Attacks on Somali Pirates’ Land Bases', Bloomberg, 13 April 2009, available at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aYhvgOfyTmYA (accessed 3 August 2009).

Ibid.

Struwe, For a Greater Horn of Africa Sea Patrol (note 9).

UN Doc S/Res/1851(2008), paragraph 6.

‘France Raids Ship After Crew Freed’, BBC News, 4 April 2010, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7342292.stm

The ICC International Maritime Board recorded 100 incidents of piracy and 11 hijacked vessels for the period between January and June 2010. While incidents decreased in the Gulf of Aden, they increased in the Indian Ocean and the wider Somali basin. For the complete year of 2009, Somali pirates attacked 217 vessels and managed to hijack 47. Cf. ICC-International Maritime Bureau, ‘Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships: Annual Report’ 1 January–31 December 2009, p. 21.

Quoted in ‘As Patrols Increase, Pirates Widen their Operational Terrain’, Neptune Maritime Security Blog, 28 April 2010, available at http://neptunemaritimesecurity.posterous.com/as-patrols-increase-somali-pirates-widen-thei (accessed 1 May 2010).

W.G. Dunlop, ‘Anti-Piracy Efforts Treat Symptom, Not Disease: Navy Chiefs’, Agence France Press, 13 May 2010, available at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jk8JeTNHcH1N_4ZcMf5Oa66eUKVg

Stephanie Hanson, ‘Combating Maritime Piracy’, Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2010).

Adam Entous, ‘U.S. Admiral: Military Ships Can't Stop Somali Piracy’, Reuters, 16 April 2010.

Cf. Germond and Smith, ‘Re-Thinking European Security Interests’ (note 4).

Cf. Germond and Smith, ‘Re-Thinking European Security Interests’ (note 4) for a discussion of the EU's interests and ambitions. Kraska and Wilson discuss the US initiative of a Global Maritime Partnership in Kraska and Wilson, ‘The Global Maritime Partnership and Somali Piracy’ (note 4). For a discussion of geo-strategic dimensions see Winner, Andrew C., ‘Coalitions and Counterpiracy Operations: Something Old, Something New’, Paper presented at the 52nd Annual Conference of the International Studies Association, Montreal, Canada, March 2011.

Michael N. Barnett, Hunjoon Kim, Madalene O'Donnell, and Leura Sitea, ‘Peacebuilding: What is in a Name?’ Global Governance, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2007), pp. 35–58.

Paul Collier et al., Breaking the Conflict Trap. Civil War and Development Policy (Washington DC: The World Bank, 2003).

Oliver P. Richmond, ‘The Globalization of Responses to Conflict and the Peacebuilding Consensus’, Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2004), pp. 129–50.

Roland Paris, ‘Saving Liberal Peacebuilding’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2010), p. 347.

H.W. Rittel and M.M. Webber, ‘Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning’, Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1973), pp. 155–69.

Rittel and Webber, ‘Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning’ (note 31), p. 161, italics in original.

Cf. Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter. Why Social Inquiry Fails and how it can Succeed Again (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Charles E. Lindblom Inquiry and Change. The Troubled Attempt to Understand & Shape Society (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1990); and William Easterly, The White Man's Burden. Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006).

Presenting findings from various power-sharing peace agreements: Lukas Krienbuehl, ‘Peace with Power-Sharing – Under What Conditions?’, SwissPeace Working Paper, SwissPeace, Bern, 2010.

See for example Flyvbjerg, ‘Making Social Science Matter’ (note 33) and Susan L. Woodward, ‘Do the Root Causes of Civil War Matter? On Using Knowledge to Improve Peacebuilding Interventions’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2007), pp. 143–70.

There is however an ongoing legal debate on how UNCLOS should be interpreted in this regard. For some the definition of piracy as ‘private’ points to economic motives, while others interpret it as relating to ‘non-state’ activities primarily. See for example the discussion in Treves, ‘Piracy, Law of the Sea, and Use of Force’ (note 14); Eugene Kontorovich, ‘The Piracy Analogy: Modern Universal Jurisdiction's Hollow Foundation’, Harvard International Law Journal, Vol. 45, No.1 (2003), pp. 183–237; and Lawrence Azubuike, ‘International Law Regime Against Piracy’, Annual Survey of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 15 (2009), pp. 43–59.

Jeremiah O. Arowosegbe, ‘Violence and National Development in Nigeria: The Political Economy of Youth Restiveness in the Niger Delta’, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 36 (2009), pp. 575–94; Ukoha Ukiwo, ‘From “Pirates” to “Militants”: A Historical Perspective on Anti-state and Anti-oil Company Mobilization among the Ijaw of Warri, Western Niger Delta’, African Affairs, Vol. 106, No. 425 (2007), pp. 587–610.

Stig Jarle Hansen, Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden. Myths, Misconception and Remedies. (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, 2009), p. 25ff.

Murphy makes this point and argues that these explanations are not mutually exclusive and, in fact, each one probably reflects part of the truth. See Martin N. Murphy, Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money (London: Hurst, 2009), p. 125; cf also Alex P. Schmid, ‘The Links Between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorist Crime’, Transnational Organized Crime, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1996), pp. 42, 44.

See for instance Beátrice Pouligny, Peace Operations Seen from Below: UN Missions and Local People (London: Hurst, 2006).

Mary Manjikian, ‘Diagnosis, Intervention, and Cure: The Illness Narrative in the Discourse of the Failed State’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 33, No.3 (2008), pp. 335–57.

Pouligny, ‘Peace Operations Seen from Below’ (note 40).

Pascal Vennesson and Christian Bueger, ‘Coping with Insecurity in Fragile Situations’, European Report on Development Working Paper, European University Institute, Spring 2009, pp. 21–3.

Peter T. Leeson, ‘The Laws of Lawlessness’, The Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2009), pp. 471–503.

Alice Bellagamba and Georg Klute, Beside the State. Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa (Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe, 2008); Pierre Englebert and Denis M Tull, ‘Postconflict Reconstruction in Africa. Flawed Ideas about Failed States’, International Security, Vol. 32, No. 4 (2008), pp. 106–39.

Dennis Rodgers, ‘The State as a Gang: Conceptualizing the Governmentality of Violence in Contemporary Nicaragua’, Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2006), pp. 315–30.

See Timothy Donais, ‘Empowerment or Imposition? Dilemmas of Local Ownership in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding Processes’, Peace & Change, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2009), pp. 3–26; Jonathan Goodhand and Mark Sedra, ‘Who Owns the Peace? Aid, Reconstruction, and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan’, Disasters, Vol. 34, No. S1 (2010), pp. 78–102.

Goodhand and Sedra, ‘Who Owns the Peace?’ (note 47).

Maurizio Carbone, ‘Mission Impossible: the European Union and Policy Coherence for Development’, Journal of European Integration, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2008), pp. 323–42.

Hansen, ‘Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden’ (note 38); see also Ken Menkhaus, ‘Somalia: ‘They Created a Desert and Called it Peace(building)’, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 36, No. 120 (2009), pp. 223–33.

Somaliland was established in 1991 and Puntland in 1998. While the former has separated from Somalia and seeks international recognition as an independent state, the latter sees itself as a federal state of Somalia and supports the TFG. See Brian Hesse, ‘Lessons in Successful Somali Governance’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2010), pp. 71–83.

See for example ‘Minister of Puntland State of Somalia Visits NATO Flagship. Standing NATO Maritime Group 2’ (NATO Press release 02.08.2010).

Counter Piracy Program Strategy Paper. Combating Maritime Piracy in the Western Indian Ocean. May (Vienna: United Nations Offcie on Drugs and Crime, 2010).

Ken Menkhaus, ‘Governance without Government in Somalia’, International Security, Vol. 31, No. 3 (2007), pp. 74–106; Marleen Renders and Ulf Terlinden, ‘Negotiating Statehood in a Hybrid Political Order: The Case of Somaliland’, Development and Change, Vol. 41, No. 4 (2010), pp. 723–46.

Hansen, ‘Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden’ (note 38), p. 25ff. See also UN Monitoring Group on Somalia, ‘Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1853’ (2008), UN Doc S/2010/91 (New York: United Nations, 2010), p. 35ff.

‘Somali Vigilantes Capture Pirates’, BBC News, 28 April 2010, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8022820.stm

‘Syrian Sugar Ship Freed by Pirates’, Ecoterra International, 8 August 2010, available at http://somalilandpress.com/syrian-sugar-ship-freed-by-somali-pirates-17605

Hansen, Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden (note 38), pp. 26ff.

‘Puntland Forces Arrest Wanted Pirate in Garowe’, Garowe Online Somali, 18 May 2010, available at http://www.garoweonline.com/artman2/publish/Somalia_27/Somalia_Puntland_forces_arrest_wanted_pirates_in_Garowe.shtml

Despite the fact that the group fights the TFG and its leaders are listed as terrorists, several observers have called for peace negotiations with its pragmatic and more moderate elements. These negotiations could also include the issue of piracy. See International Crisis Group, Somalia's Divided Islamists (Nairobi/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2010).

Hansen, Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden, (note 38), p. 57.

Cf. Michael van Notten, The Law of the Somalis: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa (Lawrenceville, New Jersey: Red Sea Press, 2005).

Karl Sörenson, ‘State Failure on the High Seas – Reviewing the Somali Piracy’, FOI (Swedish Defence Research Agency) Somalia Papers (Report No. 3). 2008, p. 40.

For example, Bawumia, Mahamudu, and U. Rashid Sumaila, ‘Fisheries, Ecosystems and Piracy: A Case Study of Somalia’, Fisheries Center Working Paper no. 4, University of British Columbia, Canada, 2010; Stefan Eklöf Amirell, ‘Maritime Piracy in Contemporary Africa. Global and Local Explanations’, Politique Africaine, Vol. 116 (2009), pp. 97–119.

See for example 10 March 2010, ‘Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia Submitted in Accordance with Resolution 1853, UN Doc S/2010/91 (2008).

Jeffrey Knopf, ‘The Fourth Wave in Deterrence Research’, Contemporary Security Policy Vol. 31, No. 1 (2010), pp. 1–33.

See Daryl Copeland and Evan H. Potter, ‘Public Diplomacy in Conflict Zones: Military Information Operations Meet Political Counter-Insurgency’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2008), pp. 277–97; Guy Olivier Faure, ‘Negotiating with Terrorists: A Discrete Form of Diplomacy’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol 3, No. 2 (2008), pp. 179–200; Juergen Kleiner, ‘Diplomacy with Fundamentalists: The United States and the Taliban’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2006), pp. 209–34.

See ‘Meeting Protocol, 6473rd Meeting’, UN Doc. S/PV.6473, 25 January 2011.

Emanuel Adler, ‘Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't: Performative Power and the Strategy of Conventional and Nuclear Defusing’, Security Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2010), pp. 199–229.