Sorry I’ve been MIA the past week, I was captured by pirates.  Bad joke, too soon?  Not really, unless you are one of those pirates.  In what could be considered Obama’s first…what were the exact words?…”International Crisis” (thank you Biden) he has proven himself a respectable Commander in Chief, and seems to have pleased both ends of the spectrum with his recent action in regards to the hostage situation off the coast of Somalia.  And while everyone is pretty content with the result of the simple yet resounding military action (Navy SEALS are pretty badasss) and Obama himself has promised to “halt the rise of piracy“, there seems to be a general lack of interest in WHY this occurred in the first place.  So cheers to the State Department, welcome home Captain Phillips, and good shooting Navy Snipers, but there is an ugly truth about piracy in the Indian Ocean, and though we love our Action Adventures here in the US, this story is not as simple as good guys versus bad ones, and no one looks like Johnny Depp.

Here is Africa.  On the easternmost coast, The Horn of Africa, jutting up into the Arabian Sea, is Somalia, one of the poorest countries in the world.  Notice its proximity to the Middle East, and most especially its access to the trade routes to and from Saudi Arabia.  What, might you ask, is all the fighting about?  Did you guess oil?  If so, you’re actually wrong.

To understand the current climate in Somalia, a little history is required, and while it dates back over 2000 years, for our purposes we can begin in 1990, when the ongoing civil war first broke out in the East African nation.  After the complete collapse of central government and a disruption in agriculture and food distribution, Somalia saw a prolonged period of widespread famine.  First, and perhaps most memorably in 1992, when UNISOM I was established by the UN and UNITAF by the US, but then again in 1996, and 1999, and 2001, and 2006, and 2008.

The proximity of Somalia to the ocean is a major factor in its economic development, and a modern fishing industry helped fuel the country’s economy through previous periods of drought.  With the dissolution of the central government, however, the waters off Somalia became ungoverned, quite obviously.  This allowed for two very serious problems to occur simultaneously in the waters off the coast.

Following the massive tsunami of December 2004, there have emerged allegations that after the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in the late 1980s, Somalia’s long, remote shoreline was used as a dump site for the disposal of toxic waste. The huge waves which battered northern Somalia after the tsunami brought with them tons of nuclear and toxic waste that was dumped in Somali waters, by several European firms. The European Green Party followed up these allegations by presenting before the press and the European Parliament in Strasbourg copies of contracts signed by two European companies — the Italian Swiss firm, Achair Partners, and an Italian waste broker, Progresso — and representatives of the warlords then in power, to accept 10 million tons of toxic waste in exchange for $80 million (then about £60 million)….there are far higher than normal cases of respiratory infections, mouth ulcers and bleeding, abdominal hemorrhages and unusual skin infections among many inhabitants of the areas around the northeastern towns– diseases consistent with radiation sickness….

At the same time, illegal trawlers began fishing Somalia’s seas with an estimated $300 million of tuna, shrimp, and lobster being taken each year depleting stocks previously available to local fishermen. Through interception with speedboats, Somali fishermen tried to either dissuade the dumpers and trawlers or levy a “tax” on them as compensation. In an interview, Sugule Ali, one of the pirate leaders explained “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits (to be) those who illegally fish and dump in our seas.” Peter Lehr, a Somalia piracy expert at the University of St. Andrews says “It’s almost like a resource swap, Somalis collect up to $100 million a year from pirate ransoms off their coasts and the Europeans and Asians poach around $300 million a year in fish from Somali waters.“

So while the people of Somalia were literally starving to death, a multitude of European and Asian countries saw the opportunity to fish illegally and dump toxic waste off the Horn of Africa.  NOT VERY NICE!   Democracy Now has a really good interview about this very subject that I suggest to anyone who is interested in the whole truth, and not just the sliver we’re fed.