Ref: codo/109/10
Date: 15/12/10
Sub: CODO assessment report of Somali
Coastal conditions and piracy acts
The Piracy in Somali maritime, Definition of How it works
and Begun,
Piracy off the coast of Somalia has been a threat to International shipping since 2005.
Piracy has impeded the delivery of shipments and increased shipping expenses, costing
an estimated $6.6 to $6.9 billion a year in global trade per Oceans Beyond Piracy
(OBP).
Pirates have been attacking vessels passing the Horn of Africa since 2005, when they
received a $315,000 ransom for Feisty Gas, a ship owned by a company in Hong Kong.
Since then, the payments have risen continuously and reaching a high amount of
money.
Who Formed the Piracy and Why?
You can be in suspicious and stressed person if you try to define the root cause of
Somali Piracy without touchable investigation with fairness approach but globally a
United Nations report and several news sources have suggested that piracy off the
coast of Somalia is caused in part by illegal fishing.
According to the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) and the U.S.House
Armed Services Committee, there is also information indicating that the dumping of
toxic waste in Somali waters by foreign vessels has also severely constrained the ability
of local fishermen to earn a living and forced many to turn to piracy instead.
Globally is believed that, the local coastal communities "strongly support the piracy as a
form of national defense of the country's territorial waters", and the pirates believe they
are protecting their fishing grounds and exacting justice and compensation for the
marine resources stolen.
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The Fact of Somali Piracy
The Coastal Development Organization (CODO) conducted a grassroots level survey
on Somali Piracy from 2009 to 2010 in order to investigate the root cause of piracy
attacks and acknowledge on how coastal communities are dealing with pirate men.
As already mentioned by UN and International Research Institutions reports, Somali
Piracy has begun with illegal fishing and when illegal foreign vessels started fishing
Somali maritime, threatened and get rid of the ability of local fishermen to earn a living
and forced many to turn to piracy as an alternative.
The toxic waste dumping in Somali waters by foreign vessels is genuine and widely
acknowledged locally and globally but pirates are using it as haven propaganda to
survive. And this comes after when the global efforts on eradicating piracy acts in
Somali waters and Indian Ocean in general has come up.
The Growth of Somalia Piracy and Coastal Community
The Coastal Development Organization (CODO) acknowledged during its ground
survey that the pirates are now much more than ever and has three faces with different
motives.

The first one is defeating the foreign vessels fishing illegally Somali waters and
basically it was the first motive of Somali fishermen to keep up their fishing and
earning a sustainable living.

The second face is that, many who joined the pirate’s acts since 2007 to now are
mainly fighters for Somali’s many warlord factions, who have fought each other
for control of the country since the collapse of the government in 1991 including
clan based militias’ as well.

The third face is the involvement of Shabab and other radical Islamist groups
who are controlling most of the area and their motives are mixture of
entrepreneurialism and survival via the ransom money from the Piracy acts
across Somalia waters.
Obviously, the radical groups’ involvement caused the coastal community support by
feeling fear of possible reprisals if they refuse piracy actions going on their livelihoods
and they don’t have any participation rights to comment or public meeting about the
Piracy of Somalia.
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Pirates Attack on the Humanitarian delivery
Local and International Organizations including Humanitarian Aid Agencies have
expressed concern over the rise in acts of Piracy. On May 2007, following a deadly
attack on an aid ship in the waters of Somalia, the United Nations World Food
Programme (WFP) appealed for international action against piracy, warning that it is
seriously threatening relief deliveries to the country.
Shipping is the main and fastest route WFP uses to move large amounts of food to
Somalia. Despite the challenges, the agency recently began a new round of food
distributions to 122,500 people forced to flee fighting in Mogadishu. The Jordanianregistered MV Victoria sent out a distress call when it came under attack in May, 2007
from pirates aboard boats about 60 nautical miles from Merka, south of Mogadishu, en
route to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam after discharging 4,000 metric tons of
WFP food.
CODO Recommendations and Actions Raised
In the early 1980s, the Somali Ministry of Fisheries and the Coastal Development
Agency (CDA) launched a development program focusing on the establishment of
agricultural and fishery cooperatives for artisanal fishermen. It also received significant
foreign investment funds for various fishery development projects, as the Somali fishing
industry was considered to have a lot of potential owing to its unexploited marine
stocks. The government at this time permitted foreign fishing through official licensing or
joint venture agreements, forming two such partnerships in the Iraqi-Somali Siadco and
Italian-Somali Somital ventures.
CODO is recommended the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia to re-establish
such like that bilateral cooperation and institutions to enhance sustainable development
over Somali maritime territorial waters.
Due to improved anti-piracy measures, CODO believes that if the International
Community create a vocational trainings of Somali Youth and fishing industry society
the success of piracy acts on sea will decrease dramatically and will finally end officially.
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The Coastal development Organization (CODO) organized a media roundtable based
on Somali Piracy violence and Environmental issues in general in Nairobi-Kenya, in
order to reach its goals and advised as well as engaged the young Somali journalists to
expand their coverage on Piracy and the environment related news and stories to
ensure Somali’s future hope of sustainable development and food security at large.
Beneficially, the CODO media roundtable paved the way formation of the National
Association of Somalia, Science and Environmental Journalists (NASSEJ) in 2010 by a
group of professional journalists who attended the CODO media roundtable event at
Barakat hotel in Nairobi, Kenya.
For more information about the workshop and CODO in
general please don’t hesitate to contact us thought the below address;
Contact address.
Coastal Development Organization (CODO),
Tell: +254721459367 or +25215852535,
Email: [email protected], [email protected],
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