Officials get together to discuss pirate situation

The solution to the crisis caused by a recent spate of pirate attacks in ships in the Gulf of Aden will not be found with more armoured ships on the high seas, but rather through development on land, according to African and Turkish officials.

With more ships taken hostage, including two Turkish vessels, more countries are sending military vessels to the region to provide protection to ships flying their flag, officials from the African Union and the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency, or TİKA, are holding a conference. The Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies' fourth annual Turkey-Africa Congress is on the African Union's, or AU, handling of the situation of Somalia and the pirates

The director of the African Union Commission, Couavi A.L. Johnson, spoke with the Hürriyet Daily News on the sidelines of the conference. He stated the AU was doing whatever was possible to solve the Somalian problem. "We know that there is no forced solution to the problem. Right now, there is no state there and some of the warlords and their groups get involved with piracy every now and then."

The AU does work with the international organization's fleets, making agreements with the Union to attack the pirates. But the Union's main priority remains on land, with its troops being sent to provide peacekeeping in the failed state. But with only 3000 of the 8000 troops needed available, the Union has been pushing member states and United Nations Security Council to contribute more.

In the end, "It isn't so much about fighting warlords now as much as the government is ineffective," he says. The peacekeeper's mission is mainly supporting the government, while the AU itself has been supporting political dialogue between different factions. Currently, Somalia's President, Prime Minister, and Parliamentary Speaker are at odds, but the AU brought them together in Nairobi last December and in Adis Ababa just two weeks ago.

Turkey shares the African Union's views that the piracy problem is really a development issue. The problem, Vice-Chairman of TİKA Mustafa Şahin told the Daily News, was the lack of any functional system, "Why don't people take to piracy in Turkey? Because there is a strong state. That state needs to be made successful."

Turkey is a rising donor country and the percentage of the $630 million it has given in the past three years that goes to Africa has increased from six percent to 12 percent. TİKA currently only has three offices in Africa: Sudan, Ethiopia, and Senegal, but it was able to contribute to the Somali situation by providing much-needed financial support to establish a Somali embassy in Ankara in 2008.

"They didn't have the means to do it themselves and now that they have a representative here we can get in touch with them and start working on projects together," Şahin said. "Fixing Somalia isn't something one country can do, its something the whole world has to work together on, but each of these is just one step in the right direction."