Standoff with Somali pirates shows limits of naval response

As the standoff between the US Navy and Somali pirates intensified Friday in the Indian Ocean, with pirates vowing to fight on as the US encircled them, analysts were pointing to the episode as evidence that international naval power may have a limited role in ridding the seas of the pirate scourge.

Central to stemming the attacks is addressing issues in Somalia, where the weak government is powerless to intervene without substantial financial and logistical support from donor countries.

“Twenty years ago we had a strong government, with maritime forces and armed forces, and ships to defend our waters," says Abdi Haji Gobdoon, spokesman for the Somali government. “There was never any problem like this.”

“At the moment, we have no ability to protect the waters or defend against the pirates,” he said by telephone from the Somali capital. The fledgling government controls only a small portion of the capital, let alone its 1,879 miles of coastline. He added that requests for financial assistance or technical help had been made repeatedly to donor nations, but continued to fall on deaf ears.

“No one wants to help us with this. I don’t know why, because it is a problem for everyone now,” he said. “They send ships but we need stability on land.”

Somalia has had no effective government since 1991. With no coast guard or military to defend its territorial waters, Somalis, whose livelihoods depended on fishing, could only watch as foreign trawlers emptied the seas of fish. To survive, many took up piracy instead.

Last year was a bumper year for Somali pirates, who hijacked more than 40 vessels and earned millions of dollars in ransom in a country riddled with drought, war, and poverty. The intensified attacks have prompted an international response, with more than 12 governments sending warships to patrol the busy shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden last year.

But this year, the pirates have begun attacking further afield to evade capture. And they captured the world’s attention this week when four pirates boarded a US-flagged container ship, the Maersk Alabama, Wednesday after a high-speed chase. That attack was the sixth such strike over the past week.

The 20-man crew eventually managed to overpower their attackers on Wednesday. But in a dramatic twist, the captain of the Danish-operated vessel, Richard Phillips, handed himself over to the gunmen to secure the safety of his crew.

He has spent the past 48 hours adrift in a lifeboat with his captors as the US Navy, in the form of a guided missile destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, keeps a close watch. Friday morning, Captain Phillips attempted to escape, but was recaptured by the pirates. Even as the US sent reinforcements to the area, pirates were doing the same, with Reuters reporting that skiffs and motherships were heading to the area, including four foreign ships that had been captured. A total of 54 hostages are on two of the ships, citizens of China, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, the Philippines, Tuvalu, Indonesia, and Taiwan, Reuters reported.

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