Some good signs, including a substantial drop in attacks off Somalia. Elizabeth Dickinson:
After a slew of hijackings last fall, the world's navies finally seemed to get serious about fighting the pirates. Previously, many countries feared that arresting pirates could lead to awkward legal proceedings and even amnesty suits by suspects claiming they could be put to death at home if extradited. All good points. But then, so are the tens of thousands of ships that pass through the Gulf of Aden each year. From the looks of it, squeamish fighters once reluctant to pick up pirates are increasingly keen to do just that. Whatever they're doing, it seems to be working.The most important shift in tactics seems to be a much greater willingness to arrest pirates, and subsequently to turn them over to authorities in either Kenya or Somalia. The French Navy, operating under the aegis of the EU's Operation Atalanta, last week pursued and arrested a group of pirates following a failed attack on a Panamanian ship. Turning over pirates to Somali authorities remains a touch sketchy, but apparently the French believe that there are some actors in Somalia who'll prove reliable enough for prosecution and imprisonment. Not every pirate needs to be stopped; if the success rate for attacks declines substantially, the number of attacks will also drop.
However, it remains to be seen how long the navies of the world will stay interested in Somalia. There are almost as many motivations for deploying off Somalia as there are warships deployed; the United States wants to keep tabs on Islamists in the region, the French want to prove that the security institutions of the EU work, the Chinese want to learn how to conduct long-range maritime operations, the Russians want to demonstrate that they're still an important player, and several countries want to create the impression that their expensive warships are good for something. At some point, the various components of this armada may get tired or bored, and go home. Unless Somalia has stabilized, the pirates will come back.
On that point, it looks as if the United States may be doing something useful: the State Department (with the participation of AFRICOM) is helping to fund a Somali police force that includes both "government" forces and moderate Islamists. Put simply, there will be no quasi-stable government in Somalia that doesn't include Islamist forces; much of the stupidity of US support for the Ethiopian invasion is based on misunderstanding this point. That said, establishing moderate Islamic rule in much of Somalia won't completely solve the problem, because the pirates largely come from Somalia's semi-autonomous regions. However, having a functional legal system in parts of Somalia will make it much easier for France et al to capture pirates and render them for trial.
--Robert Farley
