Somalia has an ethnic homogeneity unusual in Africa, with Somalis constituting 85% of the population. Most of its citizens share a common language, religion and culture. Yet it has never achieved lasting stability as a nation. Since the early 1990s its civil war has been one of the most destructive in recent African history. European colonization resulted in the division of Somali territory into five different colonies.

Reunification preoccupied successive elites at the cost of addressing more concrete issues. National issues remained undebated while the cultivation of clan and subclan interests accentuated the demise of kinship and the rise of clannism, the politicisation of the clan structure for personal gain.

Various possibilities have been proposed in seeking to explain why one of the few nations on the continent with predominantly one ethnic group, one religion, culture and language should have become overcome by a devastating civil war. Some scholars relate this political instability to the Somali clan system, in which retaliation for offences committed by rival clans can easily escalate into warfare. Others argue that Somalia's recent turmoil reflects efforts by elites to manipulate clan loyalties in the hope of increasing their own wealth. Still other contend that Somalia's homogeneity is in fact a myth that obscures long -standing tensions between nomadic groups and the descendants of Bantu-speaking slaves. Moreover, some analysts trace the roots of conflict to the colonial period, when access to power and pastoral resources - long regulated by Somalia's many widely dispersed clan leaders - came under the control of the centralized colonial and later post colonial - state.

Look at any map of Africa and there on the Horn of Africa you'll find a geographic entity labeled Somalia. But the country of Somalia doesn't exist and hasn't existed since the government of Siad Barre collapsed in 1991 in the wake of the Cold War. Somalia today remains a state of mind and not much more. It is a dream unfulfilled and yet Western governments persist on continuing the Somali nightmare.

The tragedy of Somalia is ever more harder to comprehend since the Somali are one of the largest and most homogeneous ethnic groups in Africa that live in a relatively contiguous territory unlike the Peul, Tuareg or the Hausa who are spread out across the Sahel. More than eight million Somalis live in a territory stretching north from northern Kenya to Djibouti and west from the Indian Ocean into the scrubland desert of the Ogaden in Ethiopia. An unified Somali homeland is in the realm of possibilities but for the fact the West won't allow borders carved out in Berlin in 1885 to be altered. European maps and American ones by extension, it seems, are sacrosanct.

For over a century, the Horn of Africa has seen foreign powers play their imperial games on this distant shore. Colonialism was not kind to the Somalis, who were largely nomadic. By the end of the 19th century, European powers had partitioned the Somali home territory into the British Somaliland Protectorate, French Somaliland, Italian Somalia, northern Kenya and the Ogaden in Ethiopia. Independence would come in 1960 with a fusion of the British and Italian zones into the Republic of Somalia with the two territories facing the daunting challenge of integration that in truth were never breached but rather unity was achieved through authoritarianism. And with 40% of Somalis living outside Somalia, the government in Mogadishu quickly became an irrendentist one laying claims to the Ogaden, Haud and parts of northeastern Kenya and the whole French Somaliland, present day Djibouti.

As with most of Africa, independence didn't change much. The rules of colonialism and imperialism shifted but were now imbued with a Cold War overlay. Pan-Somalism was born but in a space of 30 years that dream of an unified Somalia would find itself on the wreckage of Cold War geo-politics. With Ethiopia already in the American camp, Somalia quickly found itself in Soviet camp. And for the Soviets, Somalia had one critical advantage, a warm water port on the Indian Ocean that quickly became home to the largest Soviet fleet outside of Soviet Union itself.

In terms of internal politics and again like most of Africa, Somalia achieved independence as a one-party state. However, internal politics became bogged down in petty personal politics, clan rivalries and a north versus south divide that largely reflected the former British versus Italian colonies. In October 1969, the facade of Somali democracy, such as it was, crumbled. A military coup unseated the civilian government and out of this would emerge the 22 year dictatorship of Major General Mohammed Siad Barre, one of the most brutal dictators on a continent that has too many brutal dictatorships. To cement his power, Siad Barre exploited the traditional rivalries among various Somali clans, including the Isaaq of the north, Ogadeni of the south and Hawiye of central Somalia. In the space of two years as many as 500,000 Somalis starved to death as warring clans struggled for power.

In 1977, Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie was ousted in a socialist coup that brought Lt. General Mengistu Haile Mariam, another butcher, to power. And Barre, who with Soviet support had developed one of the largest national armed forces on the continent, the Somali National Army (SNA), saw his moment to pounce. He slowly moved in and launched offensives to regain the Ogaden and Haud regions that were under Ethiopian control. The war between Somalia and Ethiopia lasted from 1977-1978.

In its wake, the Somalis suffered a bitter and humiliating defeat at the hands of the then still US-backed Ethiopian military. But the human catastrophe was even greater. The crushing defeat in the Ogaden War left many Somalis further disillusioned with Siad Barre's regime. Hundreds of thousands were made refugees and tens of thousands died of hunger and disease. The war caused a massive influx of Somali and Oromo refugees from the Ogaden region and the economy that was struggling to support its own people, found itself responsible for refugees. International agencies estimated an influx of approximately 650,000 refugees, perhaps higher. The burden of the sudden influx placed a heavy strain on Somalia's already stressed resources.

Finally the switch of Soviet support from Somalia to Mengistu's Ethiopia meant that Somalia suddenly found itself a client of the US. The US was quick to seize the opportunity to use the naval base at Berbera. For the Carter Administration stung by the lost of Ethiopia, Somalia was the consolation prize. However, the US was wary of giving Somalia military aid beyond its internal security needs lest another Somali-Ethiopia war break out. While the Reagan Administration would provide more aid after 1981, the Carter Administration's failure to act lead decisively caused the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands.

Propped up by a more welcoming Reagan Administration, the Barre regime would last another decade often brutally suppressing any and all dissident. In 1982, Somalia became the recipient of the largest US military aid ever given to a Sub-Saharan African country. While the Carter Administration provide a paltry $45 million over two years, the Reagan Administration embraced the Siad Barre regime with over a half billion dollars in military aid over a five year period plus another $115 million in economic aid. The difference in amount tells you the nature of the priorities of the US militarism. Guns aplenty, butter not so much. Now here's the kicker, that $500 million is $100 million more than the US had given Ethiopia during the entire course of their 25 year relationship. Somalia became an armed camp thanks to that coldest of cold warriors, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

It is not a coincidence that the Somali state collapsed at the end of Cold War. Who needs an expensive client state on the Horn of Africa when the Soviet Union had collapsed. Beginning in 1987, the US would curtail aid to Somalia partly on human rights concerns but mainly because the US no longer needed the use of Berbera and US priorities shifted out of Africa towards Eastern Europe. Over the course of 1988-89, Somalia began a slow and steady slide in civil war. Two events in 1990 would signal the long overdue collapse of Siad Barre's regime but with it came the rather unintended collapse of the Somali state. In May 1990, a group of various prominent political leaders from across the clan spectrum formed the Council for National Reconciliation and Salvation (CNRS) to push for political change. They presented a Manifesto signed by 114 leading Mogadishu citizens calling for political change. In June 1990, a soccer match in Mogadishu turned into a mass anti-Barre riot. Barre's forces opened fire on the demonstrators and at the same time Barre sentenced 45 signatories of the Manifesto to death. This just served to further fuel anti-Barre sentiments in the capital and waves of opposition and armed fighting eventually led to the removal of Barre from power in January 1991. In the end, Somalia failed because the the Somali state was Siad Barre. The Barre regime failed to construct an edifice of government beyond Siad Barre himself.

With Barre gone, Somalia embraced an anarchy because it could. Reagan's guns were still there and the various claimants to power tapped the immense larder. Nearly twenty years after Somalia's collapse, the country still faces an uncertain future.

Today, Americans celebrate another of their jingoistic orgasms. Three Africans are dead and one American sea captain has been rescued from pirates. I've read blogs across the political spectrum.  It seems no one cares to ask a very easy question. Why are there pirates off the coast of Somalia?

Here's Seth Cropsley of the Weekly Standard:

The hijacking of the Alabama offers President Obama an exceptional opportunity to act resolutely, justly, and effectively in reducing the likelihood of more attacks against American--and other--ships off the increasingly dangerous coast of east Africa, near one of the world's most important oceanic choke points: the Strait of Bab al Mandeb where the Red Sea empties into the Gulf of Aden. Some 20,000 vessels, most of them on their way to or from the Suez Canal or the Straits of Hormuz, pass through the gulf each year.

Actually no, it doesn't because it doesn't answer my rather easy question. Why are there pirates off the coast of Somalia?

Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and today he has an op-ed in the New York Times. He takes a pitiful stab at the problem.

PIRACY is the maritime ripple effect of anarchy on land. Somalia is a failed state and has the longest coastline in mainland Africa, so piracy flourishes nearby. The 20th-century French historian Fernand Braudel called piracy a "secondary form of war," that, like insurgencies on land, tends to increase in the lulls between conflicts among great states or empires. With the Soviet Union and its client states in Africa no longer in existence, and American influence in the third world at an ebb, irregular warfare both on land and at sea has erupted, and will probably be with us until the rise of new empires or their equivalents.

Somali pirates are usually unemployed young men who have grown up in an atmosphere of anarchic violence, and have been dispatched by a local warlord to bring back loot for his coffers. It is organized crime carried out by roving gangs. The million-square-miles of the Indian Ocean where pirates roam might as well be an alley in Mogadishu. These pirates are fearless because they have grown up in a culture where nobody expects to live long. Pirate cells often consist of 10 men with several ratty, roach-infested skiffs. They bring along drinking water, gasoline for their single-engine outboards, grappling hooks, ladders, knives, assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and the mild narcotic qat to chew. They live on raw fish.

The skiffs are generally used to launch attacks on slightly larger crafts, often a fishing dhow operated by South Koreans, Indians or Taiwanese, taking the crews prisoner. In turn, they use the new ship to take a larger vessel, and then another, working up the food chain. Eventually, they let the smaller boats and crews go free. In this way, over the years, Somali pirates have graduated to attacking oil tankers and container ships; the bigger the vessel, the higher the ransoms, which the pirate confederations can then invest in more sophisticated equipment.

Pitiful especially when part of the problem is nested within his prose which is a prelude for increased military expenditures. Mr. Kaplan is partly right. The anarchy on the land has led to piracy. But one man's pirates is another man's navy. These, the pirates of Puntland, are defending their coasts and their fishing grounds which since the collapse of the Somali state have been open waters to fishing fleets from Korea, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Russia and Greece.

Here's a portion from a 1998 report:

A Fishery in Crisis

With no national ocean governance, fisheries policy or management structure in place, Somali fisheries are truly open access.  Somali fisheries are driven principally by foreign interests and demand for high-value tuna, shark and ray fins, lobster, deepwater shrimp and demersal whitefish.  Since it is unknown whether marine resources are being harvested sustainably, biological resources are potentially at risk and may face imminent collapse, affecting long-term socio-economic welfare of coastal communities.  Lobster and shark resources are fished intensely - almost a mining operation.  Local fishing pressure on lobster stocks is very intense due to its being a high-value species for overseas export and relatively easy to harvest.  Biodiversity concerns relate to by-catch of turtles, dolphin, and dugong by foreign vessels in the offshore fishery and the inshore artisanal gillnet fishery, plus destruction of critical reef habitat by foreign trawlers.

With decentralization of fisheries enforcement to the grass-roots level, community empowerment has filled an institutional vacuum as AK47-armed militia protect their perceived property rights, and some have been successful in arresting vessels.  A Taiwanese fishing vessel apprehended off northern Somalia in January 1998 was found to carry a licence of dubious legality, written on ex-Somali government letterhead and signed by a warlord in Mogadishu claiming to represent the previous Barre regime, and providing fishing access rights to demarcated areas of the Somali zone.  The bogus licence was issued under an ongoing licensing scheme set up in 1996 to "authorize" foreign-flagged vessels to fish Somali waters in the 24 to 200 nautical mile zone.  A London-based licensing corporation was given access to waters from the Kenyan-Somali border to about 9 degrees north latitude.  It is unknown who the London-based shareholders are in these companies, but it is alleged that five authorities or clan faction leaders along the Somali coast receive royalties from the corporation through these operations.  Tensions are exacerbated among different Somali sub-regional administrations aware of this activity.

Fishing vessels known to operate off Somalia include the following flags: Belize (either French or Spanish-owned purse seiners operating under flag of convenience to avoid EU regulations); France (purse seiners targeting tuna licensed to the food company Cobrecaf); Honduras (EU purse seiners targeting tuna under flag of convenience); Japan (longliners now operate under licence to the Republic of Somaliland); Kenya (Mombasa-based trawlers); Korea (longliners targeting swordfish seasonally); Pakistan (trawlers, but also targeting shark); Saudi Arabia (trawlers); Spain (purse seiners targeting tuna); Sri Lanka (trawlers, plus longliners targeting shark under licence to the Republic of Somaliland and based at Berbera, Somaliland); Taiwan (longliners targeting swordfish seasonally); and Yemen (trawlers financed by a seafood importer in Bari, Italy). Formerly operated as the Somali national fleet, four Yemeni trawlers and a collector vessel are now based in Aden.

When you've got Honduran trawlers off the coast of Somalia, now that's really something. All this was driven home to me one day a few years ago when I was visiting a refugee camp in the Cape Verde Islands. There the fishermen were from Benin and Togo. I asked why are you leaving your homes? "There are no fish. I need to feed my family," came the oft-heard reply. I am tired of this Sabine rape of Africa that preys on the most defenceless.

But it doesn't end there. The world isn't just taking from Africa, it has also become the world's dumping ground. In 1994, Italian journalist Ilaria Alpi found this out and paid with her life. Ilaria Alpi uncovered a relationship between European toxic waste companies and Somali warlords.

Then in 1998, the European Green Party presented to the European Parliament and the media copies of contracts signed by two European companies and representatives of the then "President" -- Ali Mahdi Mohamed -- to dump in Southern Somalia 10 million tonnes of toxic waste in exchange for $80 million. The Italian newspaper, Famiglia Cristiana, first broke the stories and wrote a series of articles exposing in detail the extent of illegal dumping by a Swiss firm, Achair Partners, and an Italian waste broker, Progresso. The deal in which Mr. Mahdi was receiving reportedly worked out somewhat like less then $10 per tonne, while in Europe the cost for disposal and treatment of toxic waste material could go up to $1,000 per tonne" in those days.

But the magnitude of the toxic waste dumping only to light after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. In addition to toxic waste, Somalia's coast has also been receiving shiploads of industrial, hospital, chemical, leather treatment and other toxic waste. "Most of the waste was simply dumped on the beaches in containers and disposable leaking barrels without regard to the health of the local population and any environmentally devastating impacts," a UN report suggests. However, United Nations Environment mergency Programe (UNEP) falls short of naming the corporate culprits responsible for the dumping of the radioactive waste. It simply says, "European firms are known to be engaged in the business of dumping hazardous waste in Africa."

From the Somali Monitor:

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy for Somalia confirmed to Al Jazeera the world body has "reliable information" that European and Asian companies are dumping toxic waste, including nuclear waste, off the Somali coastline.

"I must stress however, that no government has endorsed this act, and that private companies and individuals acting alone are responsible," he said.

Allegations of the dumping of toxic waste, as well as illegal fishing, have circulated since the early 1990s.

But evidence of such practices literally appeared on the beaches of northern Somalia when the tsunami of 2004 hit the country.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) reported the tsunami had washed up rusting containers of toxic waste on the shores of Puntland.

Nick Nuttall, a UNEP spokesman, told Al Jazeera that when the barrels were smashed open by the force of the waves, the containers exposed a "frightening activity" that has been going on for more than decade.

"Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste starting in the early 1990s, and continuing through the civil war there," he said.

"European companies found it to be very cheap to get rid of the waste, costing as little as $2.50 a tonne, where waste disposal costs in Europe are something like $1000 a tonne.

"And the waste is many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals like cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, and there are hospital wastes, chemical wastes - you name it."

Nuttall also said that since the containers came ashore, hundreds of residents have fallen ill, suffering from mouth and abdominal bleeding, skin infections and other ailments.

"We [the UNEP] had planned to do a proper, in-depth scientific assessment on the magnitude of the problem. But because of the high levels of insecurity onshore and off the Somali coast, we are unable to carry out an accurate assessment of the extent of the problem," he said.

However, Ould-Abdallah claims the practice still continues.

"What is most alarming here is that nuclear waste is being dumped. Radioactive uranium waste that is potentially killing Somalis and completely destroying the ocean," he said.

Toxic waste

Ould-Abdallah declined to name which companies are involved in waste dumping, citing legal reasons.

But he did say the practice helps fuel the 18-year-old civil war in Somalia as companies are paying Somali government ministers to dump their waste, or to secure licences and contracts.

"There is no government control ... and there are few people with high moral ground ... [and] yes, people in high positions are being paid off, but because of the fragility of the TFG [Transitional Federal Government], some of these companies now no longer ask the authorities - they simply dump their waste and leave."

Ould-Abdallah said there are ethical questions to be considered because the companies are negotiating contracts with a government that is largely divided along tribal lines.

"How can you negotiate these dealings with a country at war and with a government struggling to remain relevant?"

In 1992, a contract to secure the dumping of toxic waste was made by Swiss and Italian shipping firms Achair Partners and Progresso, with Nur Elmi Osman, a former official appointed to the government of Ali Mahdi Mohamed, one of many militia leaders involved in the ousting of Mohamed Siad Barre, Somalia's former president.

At the request of the Swiss and Italian governments, UNEP investigated the matter.

Both firms had denied entering into any agreement with militia leaders at the beginning of the Somali civil war.

Osman also denied signing any contract.

`Mafia involvement'

However, Mustafa Tolba, the former UNEP executive director, told Al Jazeera that he discovered the firms were set up as fictitious companies by larger industrial firms to dispose of hazardous waste.

"At the time, it felt like we were dealing with the Mafia, or some sort of organised crime group, possibly working with these industrial firms," he said.

"It was very shady, and quite underground, and I would agree with Ould-Abdallah's claims that it is still going on... Unfortunately the war has not allowed environmental groups to investigate this fully."

The Italian mafia controls an estimated 30 per cent of Italy's waste disposal companies, including those that deal with toxic waste.

In 1998, Famiglia Cristiana, an Italian weekly magazine, claimed that although most of the waste-dumping took place after the start of the civil war in 1991, the activity actually began as early as 1989 under the Barre government.

Beyond the ethical question of trying to secure a hazardous waste agreement in an unstable country like Somalia, the alleged attempt by Swiss and Italian firms to dump waste in Somalia would violate international treaties to which both countries are signatories.

Legal ramifications

Switzerland and Italy signed and ratified the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, which came into force in 1992.

EU member states, as well as 168 other countries have also signed the agreement.

The convention prohibits waste trade between countries that have signed the convention, as well as countries that have not signed the accord unless a bilateral agreement had been negotiated.

It is also prohibits the shipping of hazardous waste to a war zone.

Abdi Ismail Samatar, professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota, told Al Jazeera that because an international coalition of warships has been deployed to the Gulf of Aden, the alleged dumping of waste must have been observed.

Environmental damage

"If these acts are continuing, then surely they must have been seen by someone involved in maritime operations," he said.

"Is the cargo aimed at a certain destination more important than monitoring illegal activities in the region? Piracy is not the only problem for Somalia, and I think it's irresponsible on the part of the authorities to overlook this issue."

Mohammed Gure, chairman of the Somalia Concern Group, said that the social and environmental consequences will be felt for decades.

"The Somali coastline used to sustain hundreds of thousands of people, as a source of food and livelihoods. Now much of it is almost destroyed, primarily at the hands of these so-called ministers that have sold their nation to fill their own pockets."

Ould-Abdallah said piracy will not prevent waste dumping.

"The intentions of these pirates are not concerned with protecting their environment," he said.

"What is ultimately needed is a functioning, effective government that will get its act together and take control of its affairs."

Now ask yourselves, why are there pirates off the coast of Somalia?  

Sorry, but I am not indifferent to the plight of Somalis especially when the root causes of their misery is US militarism and corporate greed. The US and the Europeans continue to put their noses where they don't belong. They poke at snakes and then wonder why the snake bites back.

Sources:
Arms for the Horn: US Security Policy in Ethiopia and Somalia, 1953-1991 by Jeffrey A. Lefebvre. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991.
"America's role in nation-buidling: From Germany to Iraq" by Keith Crane, John McGinn, Michael Jones, Rollie Lal, Rachel Swanger, Andrew Rathnell . RAND Publishers, Santa Monica, 2003.
Toxic Waste off Somalia by Najad Abdullahi. Somali Monitor December 2008.
Taking Advantage of War by Richard Abdy. Ethical Corporation May 2005.