Freeze the accounts of the pirate Mafia - Course correction needed in Somalia policy

The deployment of soldiers or armed federal police on board German merchant ships, as called for by German shipping companies, will not effectively curtail the piracy off the Somali coast, argues the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). On the occasion of the "anti-piracy summit" to be held in Berlin on Monday between the German government and representatives of the maritime industry, the human rights organization points out that prosecuting individual pirates is hardly a deterrent in the face of continued impoverishment of tens of thousands of Somali fishers. For every pirate arrested, five more young men are ready to step in. Only determined action against the international operators contracting the pirates will stop the violence against seamen in the long term. This means a course correction is urgently needed in Europe's Somalia policy. As long as the country continues its decline into chaos and violence, the battle against piracy cannot be won.

"If you want to effect long-term curtailment of piracy off the coast of Somalia, you must expose the Mafia-like networks that are behind the piracy, and freeze their bank accounts," says the head of the Africa section at the STP, Ulrich Delius. There are numerous indications that the financial backers and their informants are not based in Somalia, but in countries such as Kenya, where ransom money is being invested on a large scale in real estate and industry. US investigators also assume that several of the networks are controlled from within the United Arab Emirates. "The international community must take more targeted action against the instigators of the violence if they want to put a stop to these Mafia gangs." The pirates themselves are both perpetrators and victims. Faced with chronic unemployment, widespread violence and an average life expectancy of 48 years, many Somalis choose to hire out as pirates.

"The battle against piracy will be decided on land, not at sea," stated Delius. Pirates react to the increased sea patrols of the EU's Operation Atalanta by moving their attacks to the coasts of India, Madagascar and the Seychelles. As long as war, lawlessness, corruption and despotic rule dominate in Somalia, the pirate Mafia can carry on unchecked. "Unfortunately, there will be no peace for German sailors until there is peace in Somalia," said Delius.

If Europe wants the civil war in Somalia to stop, it will have to take a new direction in its Somalia policy. Weapons and trainers will not end war in Somalia. Only peace talks among all parties to the conflict can stop the murder. "But that means the EU must stop dealing exclusively with the interim Somali government - which doesn't control even half of the capital - as the only contact partner."