Pursuit of Somali pirates to get hotter
UN allows antipiracy forces to chase them onto land, attack them by air. But Security Council seems unprepared to address the instability that makes Somalia a 'failed state.'
United Nations, N.Y.
The United Nations Security Council has expanded the battle with pirates cruising the crucial shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia by authorizing action against them by air and on land.
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The United States hails the step as a victory for global trade and order. Still, the new measures fall short of addressing the root cause of piracy: instability and lawlessness that have racked Somalia for nearly two decades.
The Somalia-based pirates, who reportedly intercepted two more ships as the Security Council deliberated Tuesday, underscore the repercussions for the entire world when failed states go unaddressed – as was the case for the Al Qaeda-associated Islamists who operated in Somalia in the early 1990s.
The Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize countries conducting antipirate naval missions in the waters off Somalia – and that have the interim Somali government's express permission – to pursue pirates onto Somali territory. That authorization will last one year.
At the same time, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who lobbied in person at the UN on behalf of the resolution, announced an American-led contact group on Somali piracy that aims to better coordinate antipiracy actions among countries, international organizations, and the commercial shipping industry. Secretary Rice, noting the lack of coordination among countries battling the pirates, told the council "our response has been less than the sum of its parts."
The US has ships assigned to the task, and the European Union earlier this month launched Operation Atlanta, a naval mission that will put ships from EU-member navies in waters off the Horn of Africa. China, whose cargo vessels have come under attack, said this week it may participate in the global antipiracy effort.
This year alone, pirates off the Somali coast in East Africa have hijacked at least 70 vessels and extorted more than $150 million in ransom. The spectacular rise in piracy off Somalia has made the Gulf of Aden – an economic lifeline used for shipping a substantial portion of the world's oil – the most dangerous waterway on earth, according to the Piracy Reporting Center, part of the International Maritime Bureau.
