Craig Offman, National Post   — Using a successful formula of shooting, kidnapping and extortion, seafaring bandits off the Somali coast are causing panic in the Gulf of Aden. But as the international community scrambles to deal with the high seas hijackings, a contrarian view of the story is emerging told by maritime experts and one of Somalia’s most famous exports, a Canadian rapper.

They say the pirates are reacting to an influx of Asian and European ships that are taking advantage of Somalia’s lawlessness to plunder its fish stocks and despoiled its waters with toxic waste.

“This provoked the local people to respond,” Somali-Canadian rapper K’naan told the National Post, adding the world community and the United Nations have repeatedly brushed off complaints about dumping and overfishing.

“I don’t know what other options there are for Somalis.”

While the Mogadishu-born musician said he doesn’t condone these attacks, he has maintained dumping is a more heinous crime than piracy.

“There is very little violence with way [the pirates] operate — at least thus far. But think about the deaths — 300 deaths that have linked with toxic-waste dumping — and the environmental damage and the future damage.”

Although some of K’naan’s recent comments on the crisis have proved controversial, many regional experts would agree.

Somalia is a freewheeling breeding ground for piracy of all kinds. Except for a few blinking moments of stability, the impoverished African country has been unhinged since 1991, when several armed factions refused to recognize the government, a crisis that dissolved into civil war, anarchy and rampant starvation. Eventually it became home to Islamist movements, al-Qaeda and a continuing humanitarian disaster.

In the absence of a strong government and centralized law enforcement, trawlers from Spain, France and Portugal arrived in search of its abundant tuna, dolphin fish and shrimp.

But inhabitants of one of its poorer coastal regions, the semi-autonomous state of Puntland, took matters into their own hands. Rather than sit around, the unemployed fishermen turned to crime.

Bandits from the area formed naval groups that extorted money from fishing boats, a practice that now reaps an estimated $18-million to $30-million a year.

Although the proceeds usually go to the pirates’ family and the rest to dealers, bosses and government officials, the bandits portray themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods.

“I’m not a pirate. I’m a saviour of the sea,” one told the BBC.

As late as 2006, Somali fishermen complained 700 foreign ships were casting their nets along the country’s roughly 3,300 kilometres of coastline, essentially vacuuming up one of its few means of subsistence, an industry worth at least $100-million to which they had shrinking access.

“There is illegal fishing going on, and these are legitimate grievances” said Ken Menkhaus, a former special advisor to the UN operation in Somalia who teaches at North Carolina’s Davidson College.

“But this ceased being an issue about fishermen long ago. It’s essentially a Mafiosi activity.”

In 2006, militias from the short-lived government of the Union of Islamic Courts helped curtail piracy, a crime it made punishable by execution. But after the UIC fell to Ethiopian forces, the pirates returned to sea.

So did the polluters.

The coast remains an easy dumping ground for toxic and nuclear waste.

“It’s a real problem,” said Roger Middleton, a Somalia expert and researcher for the London-based think tank, Chatham House.

“There are very shady goings-on, mostly involving the Mafia.”

The force of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami pulled up dozens of toxic-waste containers, leaving a lethal trail along the Somali coast.

A UN report found as a result many residents suffered “acute respiratory infections, heavy coughing, bleeding gums and mouth, abdominal haemorrhages, unusual skin rashes, and even death.”

Two years later, a team of specialists discovered nine toxic waste sites along 700 km of coastline in southern Somalia.

“Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste starting in the early 1990s, and continuing through the civil war there,” Nick Nuttall of the UN’s Environment Program told the television channel Al-Jazeera, echoing similar findings from other reports.

“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.”

The waste came from European companies, which paid shady intermediaries as little as $2.50 a tonne to dispose of it, compared with about $1,000 a tonne in Europe.

So far, the eco-pirating problem has not been mentioned as part of a general solution. Instead, an armada of British, U.S. and Chinese ships is en route to the region. Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State, has advocated freezing the pirates’ assets. U.S. lawmaker Ron Paul has suggested a private navy.

Bringing extra muscle into the volatile waters, however, is arguably a piecemeal solution.

K’naan thinks the United States should try a grassroots approach, meeting village elders to whom pirates typically defer.

Ahmed Hussen of the Canadian Somali Congress said if foreign ships patrolled against overfishing, for example, indigenous trawlers could head back out to sea, help revive the economy, and undermine the Robin Hood image pirates enjoy among locals.

“That would remove the support for piracy,” he said. “Right now, they have the veneer of respectability.”

National Post

coffman@nationalpost