1. FAIRPLAY - POWERHOUSE 19 AUG 2015
Somalia piracy survey questioned
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The Fair Fishing Station in Somaliland - experts say navies are limiting the Somali fishing industry
Researchers have warned that initiatives to crack down on piracy can go off track and increase
social tension
A recent survey, conducted on 66 Somali pirates by the UN Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC) and
Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP), found that the leading deterrents to piracy were navy patrols, prison time,
and family and social disapproval.
However, recognised authorities on Somali development and security have questioned those results.
They said other prisoner interviews, statistical evidence, and international development challenges within
Somalia suggested a different reading of piracy deterrence.
Brittany Gilmer, author of Political Geographies of Piracy: Constructing Threats and Containing Bodies in
Somalia (Palgrave, 2014), is a former consultant for the UNODC.
She said her interviews with pirates at Montaine Posse prison in the Seychelles in 2009 revealed no
rejection of piracy. Two attitudes did emerge: wrongly arrested prisoners “wanted to take up arms and
become pirates to avenge their arrest”, and the other group (pirates or not) said they would return to
piracy on release because suitably paid alternative employment was lacking.
OBP conceded that its survey findings “should be viewed through the lens of what prisoners wanted to
report to the UNODC and not a wholly neutral survey”, and that responses might depend on where the
interviews were held.
For example, prisoners in Somalia fear any frank admissions could “diminish their chances of early
release”, noted Gilmer, who expressed concern that piracy’s decline had led to a rewriting of the counter-
piracy narrative, with negative results.

2. This reconstruction must include the continued threat of piracy, which justifies a continued naval
presence, added Gilmer, who noted that this is part of a “market that promotes the containment of
particular actions and bodies in Somalia”.
As a result, fishermen are being deterred from venturing too far out to sea, or from going out at all, for
fear of being arrested by the navies. Therefore, private ship security is preferable to a navy presence as
having “the least negative effect on the Somali people”.
Private security does not feature in the latest survey. And Gilmer expressed frustration that private
security was often cited at maritime security conferences as being of secondary importance to navies in
piracy deterrence.
Stig Hansen, who conducted field research in Mogadishu in 2005/14 and is the author of Al Shabaab in
Somalia – The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group, 2005–2012 (Oxford University Press,
2013), agreed with this assessment.
“There is an underestimation of private security and best management practice (BMP). I think these are
… [the] most important tools in explaining how Somali piracy [was stopped]”, said Hansen, who noted that
“statistically, private security was more important”.
Statistics on attacks can vary but appear to support this view. Counterpiracy reports gathered by maritime
intelligence and advisory service Risk Intelligence showed that 220 attacks were foiled by best
management practice, related measures, or armed security teams in 2011/12. NATO records also show
that navies disrupted 68 attacks in the same period.
Hansen said navies were of great assistance but “the withdrawal of private security and the relaxing of
BMP would be much more serious” than the loss of navies.
If private security measures were relaxed, Hansen predicted “local subsistence pirates” would launch
attacks, with their success dictating whether big investors returned to piracy. If just the navies withdrew,
Hansen predicted a “small increase in attacks against local traffic lacking BMP/private security”.
Both Gilmer and Hansen observed that development projects ashore, including the prisons, can increase
internal tensions by ignoring cultural and political realities, such as failing to ensure good, regular wages
for prison guards and custodial officials.
“It’s the biggest crime in Somalia for the past 10 years: raising armies, raising police, raising custodial
officials, and not paying them. This helps piracy a lot and it helps Al Shabaab a lot,” Hansen said.