Why Somalia suffers
Mahmoud Abdelrashid
Your article in the latest issue (African Business November 08 issue) entitled “Pirates rule the waves” which discussed the hijackings by Somali pirates on the high seas of the Ukrainian cargo ship Faina, failed to mention that this was just one of 30 piracy incidents this year alone.
Rather than solely citing the ineffectiveness of international organisations, the responsibility has to be placed to The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia who where mentioned just once in the article.
The regularity of this crime indicates this government’s lack of resources and inability to mobilize its defense forces. The challenges this issue throws up need to be met with the utmost urgency as they are severely affecting Somalia’s international relations.
For example, the Indian government has announced that given Somalia’s inability to protect international shipping it would send warships to protect its container vessels from the pirates operating off the Horn of Africa’s coast.
The article should have delved into the strategies that the UN and coalition forces can employ to control this escalating crisis. The effect on the Somali population of this mismanaged crisis further damages the already shaky international relations that Somalia has with the rest of the world.
I hope your magazine will find these points worthy of further investigation in the near future and we shall see it conduct a complete investigation of all the relevant details.
Mahmoud Abdelrashid
Nairobi, Kenya
COPYRIGHT 2008 IC Publications Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
