There is one big mystery to Wednesday's attack by EU helicopters on Somali pirate vessels beached or moored at their bases; it is that it has not been done before. You do not need to be a naval strategist to see that the best tactical way of containing the scourge of pirates is to prevent their vessels from leaving Somali territorial waters. There ought to be no shortage of intelligence on them, gained from drone and satellite surveillance and interception of their communications. If the 25-nation Combined Task Force 150 were to deploy sufficient vessels to blockade the Somali coast, they could stop the pirates from putting to sea and catch those returning, with or without a vessel and crew to ransom. It may be that this tactic has become all the more necessary since shipowners, many of whom are losing money in the economic downturn, are ordering their captains to save fuel and money by slow-steaming through pirate infested waters. It is proving cheaper for them to hire armed guards to protect their ships. No vessel with such security has yet been seized, but it is surely a matter of time before the pirates organize a large-scale coordinated attack on a prize target and overcome and kill the guards. Yet even as the international effort to stop the pirates moves up a gear, with these attacks on the boats ashore, a new concern ought to arise. The military action against the raiders has always been nothing more than a treatment of the symptoms of the problem. Nothing is being done to address the causes, among which is the fact that Somalia continues to be a failed state. There is however another probable cause of the piracy which remarkably, has been little explored. Most of the pirates are fishermen from communities where earning a living from the sea has gone on for generations. There are reports that a large part of Somalia's fishing industry is now in ruins, because ships from elsewhere in the world have been dumping toxic waste in the country's coastal waters. With all the naval resources now available to protect them, should not research ships be sent to the seas off Somalia to investigate this toxic dumping and if possible, through analysis, identify the source and likely perpetrators? For such an operation to make sense, it is likely that some of the Somali pirates, who were once fishermen, will have to be consulted. This should be done, regardless of the sensitivities involved. The reality is that most of the raiders running out from the Somali coast to prey on shipping, are doing this for economic reasons. Piracy may pay better than fishing but it also carries many more hazards. If Somalia's fishing grounds are damaged and if that damage can be fixed, then the international community should take the job on and give the pirates back their original livelihood. This is the peaceful, long-term fix that will work far better than the heaviest and most sophisticated naval assaults. __
