What Are the Ethical Issues Surrounding Piracy in Somalia - Term Paper Example

What are the ethical issues surrounding piracy in Somalia For couple of years now, Somalia, a country of around 10 million people, is in news for allthe wrong reasons. The infighting amongst the warlords, the instability of a credible government, poverty and neglect prevailing within the region are today some of the typical features associated with Somalia. These features have so far resulted in depriving fellow Somalis from a decent life and human rights. The sea piracy is yet another characteristic which finds its connections with Somalia. In the last couple of years the sea pirates have started becoming a big threat for a number of Asian and European countries using the sea route through Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, for trading and travelling activities. These pirates catch hold of the ships and take the travellers and crew as hostage. Subsequently they start asking for huge sums of money from the ship owners or the respective governments. Some such major incidents taking place in the recent past include; On 8th April 2009, the Maersk Alabama, a US container ship carrying food aid for Somalis, was attacked in the Indian Ocean. After some negotiations, the pirates let go the crew but held the ship's captain as hostage in one of the lifeboat on the high seas. Subsequently, the captain was rescued in a daring attack by US Navy on 12th April, killing all the hostages. This was said to be the first instance of holding a US captain as hostage (Sheikh and Guled, 2009). Some months back, Somali Pirates caught hold of 'MV Faina', on 23rd September 2008. A Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and antiaircraft guns was held by these pirates for about five months and released it only on 6th February after receiving the ransom amount (Jones and McGreal, 2009). Since the ship was loaded with explosive material bound for Kenya, six US warships kept a continuous vigil on the warship to ensure that these arms are not siphoned off elsewhere. Somali pirates seized MV Sirius Star, a 300,000-ton, 1,000-foot-long Saudi oil tanker on 18th November 2008 and released it only after more than a month. MV Sirius Star is stated to the largest ship ever held hostage by sea-pirates. Loaded with more than two million barrels of oil worth $100m the ship was set free only after a ransom amount of $3 million was dropped on the ship through a parachute (NBC, 2009). Though we are just into the fourth month of the year 2009, but there have been more than 66 such attacks already by the Pirates (McCrummen and DeYoung, 2009). The manner in which these pirates are able to extract big money from the corporate world seems to suggest that it is one of the most thriving things ever happened to Somalia. After extracting money from the ships, these pirates go on partying and enjoying for many days, which in turn must have been helping the Somali economy. This raises the ethical question about the manner in which such practices are in a way being encouraged form within Somalia. After knowing about such acts of terror from these bandits on Somali waters, one would be tempted to think about ways and means to counter such heinous acts. No civil society would encourage such actions. But, in case of Somalia, things do not appear as straight and simple. There are people, particularly from Somalia who think that these pirates are resorting to such acts of piracy in retaliation to what they have suffered all this while at the hand of European and Western nations. This raises the ethical questions as to why these pirates are being encouraged by the civil society. To find an answer to this question we will have to take a look at the recent past. Somalia has been at war with itself, particularly during the late 1980s and 1990s. The country was ruled by Mohamed Siad Barre, with an iron hand from 1969 to 1991. As public resentment started growing against this dictator, he was thrown out of power in 1991 and thereafter the country went into lawlessness. Though UN led forces remained in Somalia for some time after that, but with the increasing incidents of a failed state, the UN forces withdrew completely from there in 1995. Mogadishu warlords subsequently took over their areas of influence and the anarchy kept growing. In 2006, the country saw a ray of hope in the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). This was an effort funded by some businessmen to make way for some degree of law and order in the country. But the country is yet to see a full-fledged stable government ruling entire Somalia. The country has remained more or less a failed state all these years. But, what appears shocking is, instead of getting due attention from the international community for restoring peace and tranquillity in the region, instances came to light suggesting that some European companies and governments have been exploiting the Somali resources. There were indications in the early 21st century that huge amount of nuclear and other harmful waste into Somali waters. But, the Somali government, being preoccupied with itself, did not have enough resources to take control of its sea borders, check the illegal infiltration and illegal dumping of such waste. This continued for many years till the Tsunami of 2004 brought huge amounts of toxic waste on the coastlines of Somalia. It was considered big threat to the environment and the Somali people. Soon after, it became known that many European companies would pay Somali warlords about $3 per ton for disposing off the waste in Somali waters (Vazquez, 2009). It is worthwhile here to mention that such disposal requires a systematic arrangement on the part of these companies and in Europe it would have cost about $1,000 per ton. Therefore, purely for their commercial interest these companies kept disposing off the toxic waste in Somali waters. Vazquez (2009) also points out that while estimating the level of damage inflicted on Somalia, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) stated that, "The containers had many different kinds of waste, including uranium, radioactive waste, lead, cadmium, mercury and chemical waste." The effects have also become quite apparent on the health of Somali people. The estimated population of around 1.5 million of coastal areas is exposed to the toxic waste, with the municipalities in no way capable of handling the waste (Pilcher and Alsuhaibany, 2000). In fact when the Somali pirates took the Ukrainian ship hostage, they were accusing that the European companies have dumped huge amount of toxic waste off the Somali coast, and they were demanding the ransom of $8 million saying that, "The money will go towards cleaning up the waste" (Abdullahi, 2008). Well, to extent the money went towards the environmental concern in anybody's guess, but it certainly leaves with something for the community to think over. It might very well be asked as to why the world's superpowers can't think it fit enough to indulge in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not towards Somalia. Nobody would suggest that piracy should be a daily routine for the living of Somali people, but at the same time, what will happen to a society where the Engineers, Doctors, Computer Engineers, IT professionals are left without any job, any opportunity for their livelihood. There are some analysts who point out that besides having a big share of mentally sluggish elements, the pirates also comprise of well educated professionals like doctors, engineers, pilots, computer scientists, professors1 etc. while everybody around the world today knows quite well that Somali pirates are an emerging danger for sea trade, very few would agree that Somalia is a country where more than three million people-about one third of the country's population is badly in need of humanitarian assistance (Sadowsky, 2009). In addition, Somali's have also complained that Western fishing companies resorted to rampant fishing in Somali waters all through the disturbed period. The Somali fishermen, even after noticing such illegal activity by European companies could not do much, as there was no credible government in Somalia for many decades. This resulted in looting of the Somali resources, which otherwise might have helped the Somali people in living a decent life. But as the loot continued, the resources kept depleting, with little left for the Somali fishermen. This also resulted in frustration and anguish of the Somali people. When the entire population finds that they have nothing to live and help their families, they resort to desperate measures. The Indian Ocean proved to be a source of income for the Somali people, and they seem to be enjoying the high risk, high income potential business. Well, everybody might not be in a position to enjoy the booty, as often these pirates have to indulge in sever gun battle with the security forces from other countries, but they seem to point out that it might be better to die a death where there might be some promise of wealth, instead of dying on the land, fighting amongst themselves. This debate therefore leaves us with a question mark as to what ails the new world order of today, when nobody seems apparently to care about a whole country and its people. In fact, the world community seems to have taken note of Somalia and its people only after the news items about Piracy started appearing the mainstream media. References: 1. Abdullahi, Najad (2008). 'Toxic waste' behind Somali piracy. Al Jazeera. Available online at http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/10/2008109174223218644.html (April 21, 2009) 2. Jones, Sam and McGreal, Chris (2009). Somali pirates release Ukrainian arms ship. Available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/05/somali-pirates-free-military-ship (April 21, 2009) 3. 4. McCrummen, Stephanie and DeYoung, Karen (2009). 'Somali Pirates Capture American Sea Captain'. The Washington Post. Available online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040800940.html (April 21, 2009) 5. NBC (2009). 'Parachuted Pirate Payment Buys Tanker's Freedom- Giant ship full of oil released for pennies on the dollar'. Available online at http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/us_world/Parachuted-Pirate-Payment-Buys-Tankers-Freedom.html (April 21, 2009). 6. Pilcher, N. and Alsuhaibany, A., (2000). Regional Status of Coral Reefs in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. In Wilkinson, C. Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2000. Australian Institute of Marine Science and Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, Townsville. 7. Sadowsky, Dan (2009). There's more to Somalia than piracy. Mercy Corps. Available online at http://www.mercycorps.org/countries/somalia/15565 (April 21, 2009) 8. Sheikh, Abdi and Guled, Abdi (2009). 'U.S. Navy rescues captain, kills Somali pirates'. Reuters. Available online at http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE53A1LP20090412sp=true (April 21, 2009) 9. Vazquez, Michael (2009). 'Why We Don't Condemn Our Pirates. The Huffington Post. Available online at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-vazquez/on-pirates_b_186015.html (April 21, 2009) Read More