A ship crammed with powerful weapons has brought Somali pirates to world attention, writes Rob Crilly
THE PIRATES of the Indian Ocean got far more than they bargained for when they boarded a Ukrainian cargo ship, the MV Faina, last month.
As they descended below decks to cast an eye over their loot they must have been stunned to find an arsenal of weaponry that could have turned Somalia's long-running conflict upside down in an instant. For the MV Faina was crammed with 33 Russian-made tanks, anti-aircraft guns and rocket-propelled grenades along with ammunition, tools and spare parts.
It was not the first time Somalia's pirates - modern day buccaneers armed with AK-47s who patrol the high seas in fast-moving skiffs - had claimed a juicy prize. But this time the world was not going to sit back and wait for a ransom to be paid.
With Somalia's Islamists quietly retaking swaths of the country from a marginalised and unpopular government, no one wanted the Faina's booty falling into the wrong hands.
So instead of sitting quietly on their prize, waiting for a dhow crammed with a ransom of US dollars to arrive, the ragtag band of pirates find themselves facing off against the world's mightiest navy.
Two American warships have their guns trained on the Faina, anchored about five miles from Somalia's golden coastline, and have warned the pirates not to attempt offloading the arms.
The world has finally woken up to Somalia's plight - a fractured, miserable desert of a country where there has been no functioning government worthy of the name for the best part of two decades, and where half the population is in desperate need of aid.
On land, armed gangs man roadblocks, run extortion rackets and assassinate aid workers at will.
At sea, the gun-toting entrepreneurs can earn more than $1 million for each hijacked ship. Already this year they have forced up insurance premiums 10-fold for shipping navigating the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Food aid can only reach Mogadishu if it travels with a naval frigate bristling with guns.
The question now is whether concern about the pirates will translate into meaningful action in tackling Somalia's deep-seated problems or whether the world - well the US - will pursue its familiar Horn policy of bomb and run.
So far the policy seems to be one of sending in the gunboats.
A Nato taskforce has sailed from the Mediterranean into the Indian Ocean while a European Union mission is also being readied. An existing taskforce - based around the US fifth fleet - has moved to set up a closely monitored corridor to protect shipping.
The good intentions have made little difference so far. Ships are still disappearing in Somalia's version of the Bermuda triangle. Most recently a Singapore-registered freighter was attacked inside Kenyan territorial waters but managed to flee.
And no-one is quite sure what to do with the pirates. The Danish navy was forced to put a boatload of suspects ashore in Somalia when it became clear they could not be charged with an offence - sailing around in international waters with AK-47s and RPGs is not in itself a crime. The problem of course is that Somalia's seas are not the real problem.
The real problem is on land, where an impoverished, hungry people have only one tool with which to make money - guns.
Recent visitors to Eyl, one of the pirate strongholds in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, say the little town is full of new 4x4s and mansions built with the proceeds of plunder. Men in suits describe themselves as "pirate accountants" and enterprising locals have set up kitchens to cater for the crews of hijacked ships moored just offshore.
Money is rolling into a country where millions live on less than a dollar a day.
Somalia's feeble government has no coastguard or navy to protect its waters leaving the buccaneers free to plunder with impunity.
Meanwhile, political attempts to bring stability seem destined to founder.
The latest attempt at finding peace in Djibouti is going the same way as all the rest. The Islamist leaders who control most of the fighters on the ground are not represented and there are as many spoilers as speakers on the government side.
The band of gunmen aboard the MV Faina has forced international powers to wake up to the problem of piracy. The danger is that it will go no further than another short-term battle in the war on terror, and we will all have forgotten the pirates by next year.
Now the challenge is to use Somalia's raised profile to develop a real political effort to tackle the corruption, violence and fragmentation of power on land that fuels the country's never-ending cycle of misery and anarchy, which drives young men to the water.
Until then, tackling pirates at sea, as one analyst told me, is little more than swatting mosquitoes without draining the swamp.
• Rob Crilly is a correspondent in Nairobi