Russia Proposes, The UN Disposes

April 12, 2010: Pirates and the foreign warships of the anti-piracy patrol are playing cat and mouse off the east coast of Somalia. The pirates are going farther out to sea, to avoid the warships. Because the warships practice a "catch and release" policy, all the pirates risk is losing their weapons and speedboats (the mother ships are usually stolen). Merchant ships in the region (where over a fifty of the planets maritime traffic passes) are reluctant to equip ships with weapons (only five percent have done so.) The situation remains as it has been for over a decade. Unless the pirate bases in Somalia are shut down, the pirates will continue to attack and take ships. No one wants to supply troops to go ashore in Somalia. Aside from the loss of life, there would be all the bad publicity, and criticism from Moslem countries (for "attacking Islam.") The Transitional Government has offered to establish a coast guard to shut down the piracy, but foreign donors don't trust the government (a loose coalition of warlords and tribal leaders) to pull this off. Corruption is a major problem in Somalia, and most money given to the Transitional Government in the past has disappeared. The Somalis get very angry when aid donors attempt to supervise distribution of aid (to prevent theft). The Somalis admit that, if they actually established a coast guard, they would go hunting for pirate boats and ships, and people would get killed. Western donors are squeamish about being associated with that sort of violence.
April 11, 2010: Somali pirates seized another merchant ship, the Rak Afrikana, off the Seychelles islands. Another pirate group has released five of the eleven dhows (wooden sailing ships that carry cargo between the Persian Gulf or Yemen and Somalia) that were seized last month. In the past, dhows were generally left alone, partly because they had no insurance for ransom. The dhows could be used as mother ships, but that does not seem to be the case either (as they require a larger, and experienced, crew to handle the sails). Only a few dhows have been seen used as mother ships. The pirates may just be stealing the cargoes (owned by Somali merchants), and selling them on shore. Several dhows were released by the pirates when the auxiliary engine ran out of fuel, and the pirates did not want to deal with guarding the crew to work the sails. The dhow seizers may just be an act of desperation, as the anti-piracy patrol has made it more difficult to go after more lucrative targets.