The Age
The world is paying the price for its long neglect of Somalia.
SOMALIA
is a case study in what happens when a failed state is left to its own
devices. Anarchy has reigned since the overthrow of military dictator
Siad Barre in 1991. Somalia exports most of the unwanted products of
anarchy: refugees, instability, terrorism, criminality and its recent
spectacular growth industry, piracy.
A
lawless land with a coastline of 3900 kilometres provides a vast
sanctuary for pirates who plunder shipping through the Gulf of Aden,
amounting to 20 per cent of world trade and 12 per cent of global oil
supply. Pirates have attacked about 100 ships this year, about 40
successfully, and are holding more than a dozen vessels for ransom.
About 300 crew are being used as hostage shields against attack by the
many warships patrolling the region.
The
mission of the most recent arrival, the European Union's seven-ship
fleet, includes escorting food aid shipments to Somalia. Conflict,
famine and disease have claimed the lives of more than 1 million people
there. The United Nations estimates 30 per cent of the surviving 10
million need aid. Indeed, the piracy had its origins in the loss of
Somalia's ability to protect its fisheries. Local fishermen resorted to
arming themselves, before turning to the more lucrative business of
piracy.
Ever since US forces were humiliated in the 1993 clashes that inspired the movie Black Hawk Down,
the international community has had little stomach for confronting the
chaos of Somalia. But the startling escalation of piracy, climaxing in
the capture of a Saudi supertanker last month and a Ukrainian freighter
carrying 33 battle tanks in September, has made it impossible to stand
by any longer. The seizure of one of the world's biggest ships, the
Sirius Star, 450 nautical miles off the coast may have been a turning
point. US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Michael Mullen admitted to
being "stunned". The act of piracy against a ship carrying a quarter of
Saudi Arabia's daily oil output made clear the threat to the global
economy.
Shipping lines, including the world's biggest,
have diverted their fleets around the Cape of Good Hope, a long and
costly detour that the ailing global economy can ill afford. Even
distant Australia is affected: as a nation reliant on shipping, we pay
for any disruption of maritime trade routes.
Piracy in the
once-notorious Strait of Malacca, a much smaller area of water, has
been controlled by naval patrols co-ordinated by Malaysia, Singapore
and Indonesia. However, the Kuala Lumpur-based head of the
International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre, Noel Choong,
observes that Somalia's piracy problem is different because the country
has no functioning government. Indeed, the only time piracy was
suppressed was in 2006 when an Islamic Courts alliance briefly held
sway before Ethiopia, a hostile, Christian-dominated neighbour, invaded
with tacit US support.
Two years on, the Islamists have hit
back. A transitional government, propped up with UN blessing by fewer
than 3000 African Union peacekeepers and Ethiopian troops, faces
collapse. Despite uniting against a common enemy, the Islamists are
deeply divided. Even if they take the capital, Mogadishu, more conflict
is likely in the absence of a bold intervention to restore proper
government and law and order.
The shadow of Iraq hangs over
any such mission, but other, more hopeful precedents exist on Africa's
west coast, notably Sierra Leone and Liberia. Decisive interventions by
African and UN forces ended long-running civil wars in 2001 and 2003
respectively, paving the way for stable democracies. To the south,
Zimbabwe also cries out for action.
However, any
intervention force must be impartial — the Ethiopians are not. The
debacle in Iraq highlights the need to get all aspects of the process
right. First, intervention must be justified by problems of an
international nature, a criterion Somalia satisfies on several fronts:
humanitarian need, economic and criminal impact and security threats.
Second,
military force must be proportionate and a last resort. Somalia's more
moderate Islamist faction has been open to negotiation with the
transitional Government, but diplomacy on its own offers little
prospect of ending 17 years of chaos, and piracy with it, unless the UN
expands the small, ineffectual peacekeeping force in Mogadishu.
Finally,
any intervention must do more good than harm. Given what Somalia has
been through, the continued suffering of its people and the disastrous
consequences for the world, the case for substantial intervention is
strong.
SOURCE: The Age, Tuesday, December 09, 2008