Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa

"Piracy" in the Gulf of Aden: Profit, Media, and Superpower Redemption?

Part I: Pirates in the Gulf of Aden: "The enemies of mankind?"

By Isaac Kamola

 The impoverished Somali teenager, wearing a waterproof jumpsuit, was handcuffed and chained at the waist...Nevertheless, Mr Wal-i-Musi, who told one Maersk Alabama crew member that he dreamt of traveling to America, beamed with delight as he was met in New York by a host of TV cameras. 

- James Bone, The London Times, April 22, 2009

When I first started handling pirate cases, I thought these guys would be like kidnappers, strong, you know, and really crafty and sophisticated,” Mr. Kadima [a Kenyan lawyer] said. “But not these guys. They're just ordinary. If anything, they're expressionless.

 - Quoted by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, April 24, 2009

During 2008 and 2009 reports of Somali pirates captured the imagination of many in the U.S. and around the world.  This made-for-TV spectacle reached a crowning height in April 2009 when U.S. Navy snipers shot three pirates holding captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama hostage onboard a lifeboat.  Journalists, academics and policy researchers, however, were quick to point out that piracy is not only an oddly anachronistic spectacle but also an economic and security threat.  According to the International Maritime Bureau, in 2008 pirates attacked more than one hundred ships off the coast of Somalia netting a yearly windfall of approximately $30 million in ransom money.  Some observers express concern that pirates in the Gulf of Aden might be supporting groups like al-Shabaab.  While this link to terrorism remains speculative and hotly debated, the best evidence so far points to piracy’s popularity as resulting from the extreme poverty in the region.  For example, Sugule Ali—a pirate onboard the Faina, a Ukrainian ship carrying military hardware to Sudan via Kenya—stated that his goal was “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters” and that “[w]e only want money so we can protect ourselves from hunger” (quoted in: Gettleman 2008).

While pirates have been seizing smaller vessels off the Somalia coast for a number of years, only when pirates started ransoming increasingly larger ships did the world’s superpowers take notice.  In 2008, the UN issued a historic four resolutions targeting piracy in the Gulf of Aden, including Resolutions 1816 making it possible for ships to pursue pirates within Somalia’s territorial water and Resolution 1838 encouraging nations to deploy naval vessels and aircraft to the area.  To this end, NATO, the European Union Naval Force, the U.S., Iran, Pakistan, China, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Russia and other nations all dispatched considerable military assets to the region.

By any measure, this show of force amounts to a substantial intervention.  However, while the world’s superpowers have quickly responded to confront piracy, this effort stands in sharp contrast to a long tradition of refusing to intervene in a number of more devastating conflicts, including the genocides in Darfur and Rwanda and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  The contrast between the response of the “international community” to piracy versus their failure to intervene to prevent violence elsewhere raises a number of questions concerning what international law is designed to protect.

On the one hand, laws against piracy represent one of the oldest examples of international law.  For centuries pirates have been defined as hostes humani generis, or “the enemies of humankind.”  As a consequence, states possessed the jurisdiction to execute pirates without trial.  Similarly, the United National Convention on the Law of the Sea (1983) mandates that every state “co-operate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas.”  This document gave all states the right of “universal jurisdiction” meaning that they could “capture and punish pirates under its own municipal laws even when the accused pirate is not a national of the state and the act of piracy was neither committed in its territorial waters nor against its national” (Passman, 13).  Today, many of the pirates captured off the coast of Somalia are being tried in civilian courts in the U.S., France and Kenya.  While Abduhl Wali-i-Musi (the lone pirate to survive the seizing of the Maersk Alabama) is being tried in New York, Kenya has become the preferred destination for pirates captured in this region.  In addition to this established legal precedent for states to prosecute pirates, the fact that piracy takes place in international waters means that laws against it can be enforced without violating nation sovereignty. 

This raises an interesting paradox, however.  On the one hand, the hard task of global governance and enforcing international law is relatively easy in the case of piracy.  On the other hand, piracy is a relatively minor issue compared to the perpetrators of mass violence—including governments—allowed to operate unconstrained by international law.  The enforcement of international law against piracy, in other words, appears focused on securing the massive amounts of wealth flowing just off the Somali coast.  14% of world trade—including 26% of all oil exports—passes through the Gulf of Aden on route to (or from) the Suez Canal.  Furthermore, foreign trawlers have over-fished the Somali coast and other ships have disposed of toxic waste by dumping in the Gulf of Aden; little has been done to address these issues.  Despite the fact that 75% of Somalis live on less than $2 a day, none of the UN resolution or plans for international intervention address the huge economic asymmetries that make piracy an attractive option for many living on the Somali coast.   

The issue of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, therefore, raises a number of questions regarding the politics of international law and humanitarian intervention.  Is international law, like so much of domestic law, simply designed to protect private property from those who might otherwise take it?  Is it possible to conceptualize a humanitarian intervention that would create and enforce greater economic equality?  Right now it seems like the fight against piracy is akin to calling shoplifters “the enemies of humankind” while letting the mass murders go free.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Gettleman, Jeffrey. 2008. Pirates Tell Their Side: They Want Only Money. The New York Times, October 1, A6.

Passman, Michael. 2008. Protections Afforded to Capture Pirates Under the Law of War and International Law. Tulane Maritime Law Journal 33(1), Winter 2008.

 

Isaac Kamola is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College.  He can be reached at: Isaac.A.Kamola@dartmouth.edu

"Piracy" in the Gulf of Aden: Profit, Media, and Superpower Redemption?

Part II: A Movie Coming to Your Neighborhood Soon: Pirates Of the Somali Coast and the Curse Of the Failed African State

By Tekle Woldemikael

On April 8, 2009, the whole world woke up to watch pictures on televisions and computers of four gun-toting young Somali “pirates” who were holding hostage the crew of a ship which was carrying cargo bound for Mombasa, Kenya.  They were asking for ransom in exchange for releasing the hostages unharmed. Five days later, the drama ended with the killing of three “pirates” and the capture of one by snipers from the US Navy Seals.  This event drew much world attention.  It was a drama played out in the media around the world.   On the television screen one could easily watch the vessel, the hostages and the “pirates” involved, and the journalists and experts narrating the story unfolding in front of one’s eyes.  This drama had its villains, the “pirates,” and its hero, Captain Richard Phillips, who offered himself in exchange for freeing his crew and his ship.  The one captured “pirate” will be facing criminal charges in a US court.   This is a perfect story of the West, how it faces adversaries and challenges in the uncharted seas and lands around the world and succeeds in defeating its enemies.  As usual, its success story involves a commoner who becomes a singular hero who gives testimony to the western myth that the average person in the West is a member of a superior people, culture and morality.   To be fair, there were some writers who attempted to provide a narrative to counter this epic story by depicting the Somali “pirates” as heroes, whose acts represented an expression of resistance and defiance by impoverished fishermen who were defending their communities and their livelihood against unscrupulous foreign (mostly European and Asian) fishing ships and companies that dumped nuclear waste and other heavy metals in the Somali Coast. 

This second narrative might be true, but there is also a need for a full and careful investigation of the consequences of the collapse of the Somali state in 1991 for the Somali people as well as the U.S.   The Somali youth who conducted such brazenly daring acts of “piracy” did not seem to either know or care about the imperial powers they were dealing with and their effects on the lives of their communities.  They were not demanding that shipping companies stop their unethical practices. It seemed all they wanted was to be paid their ransom.   Once they had their demands met, the “pirates” would let the abducted men and ship free, but they gave no guarantees they would not do it again to others. 

The new world order that came on the heels of the decline of the Soviet Empire has one imperial superpower, the U.S., patrolling every corner of Africa and other parts of the world under the claims of fighting international terrorism and maintaining international peace and security.  This new imperial US obsession with fighting terrorism came after a series of terrorist acts in the U.S. soil on September 11 2001 by 19 hijackers who belonged to a group known as Al-Qaeda.  The drama of the Somali “pirates” entered the world stage after eight years of the U.S. government’s search for “terrorists” and enemies, big and small, anywhere and everywhere.  This search brought the small Somali criminals into the global media focus.   The “pirates” played the media as much the global media played them. The U.S. wants the whole world to focus on the “war on terror” and help it in hunting and capturing “terrorists” anywhere around the world.  This is perhaps especially true in East Africa, where the U.S. withdrew ingloriously from Somalia in 1994, after it sent troops to stop inter-clan fighting among Somalis and to conduct humanitarian relief efforts under the name, Restore Hope, in 1992.   The U.S.’s insistence on fighting a global war on terror has given a free hand to the global media to focus on every petty crime that could be tangentially connected to “terrorism.”  By chance, the Somali case of “piracy” provided the stage for the media to script this new angle on terror and security.  It has turned into quite a show, with all the props for a good drama.  It has twists and turns, dangers and resolutions, and an American hero who gallantly wins at last.  This story could not have been told without the global reach of the Western media and technology that makes events taking place in distant locations appear immediate, intimate and personal.  Reporters sensationalized the event and dubbed the abductors  “pirates,” evoking images of European “pirates” of the Middle Ages, who supposedly roamed the high seas committing crimes.

Yet such a success story barely tells us anything about why this “piracy” happened.  The “pirates” seemed to play along, aware of the power of their defiance, and were emboldened by the media surrounding their high stakes acts of abduction.  It is safe to hypothesize that the collapse of the Somali state has opened the opportunity for so called “pirates” to roam the waters around Somali, the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean with impunity. They can be considered as opportunistic small criminals who help themselves by filling the power vacuum created by the absence of a strong Somali state.  Yet it is possible that the media is the biggest winner in this drama.  The ransom the “pirates” ask for seems a pittance compared to the potential media profits.   The drama’s end portrays the U.S. once more asserting its powers and affirming to itself the superiority of its people and its morality.  It will not take long before Hollywood produces a blockbuster movie with the title: “Pirates of the Somali Coast: the Curse of the Failed African state.”  Watch out, it may be coming to your neighborhood soon!

 

Tekle Woldemikael is Chair and Professor of Sociology, Chapman University. He can be reached at: woldemik@chapman.edu.

 

 

The Double-Edged Gift: Sifting Through the Electronics Morass and Toxic Waste in Africa

By Dele Ogunseitan

“The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depend on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.”

 “I've always though[t] that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City.”

 - Lawrence H. Summers (current Head of the Obama Administration’s White House Economic Council).  Dated December 12, 1991 – As Chief Economist of the World Bank.

As long as Mr. Larry Summers holds public office, the content of the memo that he signed as Chief economist of the World Bank in 1991 will continue to haunt him.  Although his subsequent successes in gaining high profile positions suggests that he has disavowed himself of the views expressed in the memo, it is necessary to keep asking if these views remain unspoken but potent international policy effectors.  For example, it is difficult to explain why, among the member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States remains the only country that has not ratified the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal (http://www.basel.int/).   Without doubt, this loophole has contributed to the exportation of toxic electronic waste (e-waste) from the U.S. to countries where the infrastructure for safe disposal or recycling is not well developed.  The Basel Action Network has documented major environmental pollution resulting from disposal in the notorious Alaba market in Lagos, Nigeria (http://www.ban.org/).  Similar problems probably exist in Ghana, Kenya, and other Sub-Sahara African countries where the ambition to support rapid economic development through the electronic product revolution has fueled a growing market in “used” consumer products imported from affluent countries. 

The politics of donor evaluation requirements: A practitioner’s reflections

By George Wachira, NPI-Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya

My reflections are from the perspective of a practitioner, having been involved in peacebuilding practice for the last eighteen years. NPI-Africa, the organization I work with, has had for a number of years now the privilege of accompanying organizations, individuals, and communities in peacebuilding in varying contexts in Africa.

It has been apparent to me and to some of my practitioner colleagues that traditional notions of evaluation of peacebuilding initiatives may not be fully appropriate to the peacebuilding endeavor as we understand it, thus raising the challenge for the peace researcher and practitioner communities to come up with methodologies and approaches that resonate well with what is being evaluated.

Forty Years of Pandemic Quiescence Ushers in New Questions about the Focus of Global Health

Dele Ogunseitan

On Thursday 11 June 2009, Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) invoked the highest level of global alert (level six) based on human morbidity and mortality associated with influenza A virus (H1N1 or swine flu); essentially declaring a pandemic – the first since 1968, 40 years ago.  At the remarkable press conference in Geneva, the announcement provoked numerous questions and lots of uncertainties in the responses: How severe is a “moderate” pandemic? Are countries allowed to unilaterally close their borders? Suspend travel? Be more selective about trading partners? Restrict immigration?  Hoard vaccines? In addition to the current prevalence of H1N1 and its pandemic status, there is another virus (H5N1) that represents a looming threat, currently at level-3 alert.  Together, these two viruses raise the prospects of worldwide panic.  The experts are moderately worried, but insist that panic is not warranted – yet. Incidentally, no country in sub-Saharan Africa has reported a single case of swine flu, and the continent remains remarkably free of the disease weeks after its emergence.  What does this really mean for global health? That Africans do not travel much, are resistant to swine flu, or do not have the infrastructure to discover, test and report cases to a global database?  The politics associated with the naming of H1N1 as a pandemic despite these knowledge gaps demonstrate the difficulties of defining “global health” and arrogating resources for this “new” enterprise, issues that ministers of health in most countries are now forced to confront head-on.  

Shrinking Malaria's Map- but who gets left behind?

Uli Beisel

The last decades have been characterised by a resurgence of malaria, mainly caused by resistance against the malaria drug chloroquine. In the light of biological resistance malaria prevention and treatment measures had to change significantly. Rather than having a stable malaria policy, effective control today requires flexibility; approaches have to react to resistance and new innovative options in treatment and vector control have to be developed continuously.

Forget the ICC: Reflections on the Bashir Arrest Warrant

Adam Branch

Seven years into its operation, the International Criminal Court remains a court that prosecutes only Africans.  The issuance of an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan is only the latest example of this propensity, which has come as a surprise to many African leaders who endorsed the Rome Statute; as President Wade of Senegal put it, “this wasn’t my intention when I signed.”  What many of the ICC’s original supporters did not expect was that the ICC would intervene in ongoing armed conflicts in ways that experts warn can only undermine the chances for peace.  Many were surprised to discover that the ICC apparently was taking sides in those conflicts, aligning with Western allies and prosecuting Western enemies, regardless of crimes committed by all sides.

A Humane Gaze: Historicizing the West's Construction of Humanitarian Need in Africa

Laura J. Mitchell

In response to the prompt at the heart of the "Humanitarian Interventions in Africa" conference, I decided to focus on European ideologies of humanity and how specific challenges to notions of shared humanity were embedded in early colonial interactions.  I wanted particularly to think about whether or not one can identify the portrayal of humanity in European drawings of Africans, specifically a set of anonymous seventeenth-century drawings of Khoe helpd by the South African Lubrary in Cape Town.[1]

Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa launches its blog

The two posts below start off our blog, which both accompanies and transcends our conference (at UCI on January 16 and 17, 2009) on “Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa.” 

We invite comments on these submissions as well as your own contributions (the latter should be between 500-1200 words) on any aspect of humanitarianism on the continent.  Submissions can be theoretical or conceptual, policy related, artistically inspired, commentaries on current events, or a combination of any of the above.  We intend to make this ongoing blog a forum for humanitarians and students of humanitarianism across a wide variety of expertise and disciplines, in Africa as well as the West (and elsewhere).  We therefore welcome contact information for additional participants.

 We recognize that individual scholarly disciplines, the NGO world, foundations, donors, and policy-makers each have their own vocabularies and terminologies, some of which have become well-known to members internal to the group, some of which are shared among groups, and some of which can be difficult to decipher to those outside a given group. These terms and vocabularies have social and ethical as well as practical implications.  We cannot always avoid the use of particular terms, but we can strive to make them understood across discourses wherever possible.  Therefore, we also welcome questions and interventions about the meaning and translatability of terms and vocabularies used in debates about humanitarianism in Africa.

 To comment on the posts below, please click on "Comments" and follow directions to post a comment.

To submit a post, contact either Morgan Kronberger (mkronber@uci.edu) or Guillermo Narváez (gnarvaez@uci.edu).

 

Wherefore Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa?

Cecelia Lynch

Kibera, the Nairobi neighborhood usually called a slum that is home to between 600,000 and one million people (depending on who is counting, how, and when), is the working site of over 500 local and transnational nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), one aid worker told me in the summer of 2007.  While northern Uganda and Sierra Leone crawl with humanitarian aid convoys, activists working in Rwanda complain that their conflict, along with the programs and funds attached to its resolution, is rapidly fading from donor memory.  Malaria is arguably the new HIV/AIDS in Africa, in part because it appears more “solvable” (according to one transnational NGO representative), but another NGO representative from Kenya said, “It’s not as if we haven’t been dying of malaria forever.”  The legal distinction between NGOs, IGOs (intergovernmental organizations), IFIs (international financial institutions) and governments is both exacerbated and eclipsed by practices of humanitarian assistance and the imperative to democratize, raising anew the question of state sovereignty vis-à-vis transnational forms of economic and military power in Africa.  Paternalism, race, and religion remain issues for the complex of local and transnational NGOs (in Kenya, local NGOs have grown exponentially in number and influence, but in neighboring Somalia and across the continent in Sierra Leone, fledgling groups tend to be ignored by many Western-based transnational and donor organizations).   Humanitarian aid groups and other NGOs provide an increasing number of jobs in both Africa and the West, and university programs created to train students to work in NGOs proliferate.  While the complex interrelationship of donors, NGOs, UN agencies, corporations, foundations, and governments disciplines and channels Western aid, it also shapes local modes of production and local health, educational, and social services.   Magazine covers and movies spark Western imaginations and highlight the necessity of assistance (e.g., the multiple July 2007 Vanity Fair covers featuring twenty different combinations of Western celebrities with prominent African religious and cultural figures; films on conflicts in Sierra Leone, Uganda, and other places have proven to be huge box-office draws).