Somali Piracy: A Form of Economic Terrorism
Abstract Piracy over the years has been driven by geography, political instability and the availability of safe havens. Apart from these established factors, economics too play a role. This article reviews and examines Somali piracy, which has flourished due to the international community ignoring the growing instability in Somalia, the rampant illegal fishing and toxic waste dumping. It examines the international response, the legal and economic factors and advocates that piracy be viewed as a form of economic terrorism and be combatted as such, as well as by land-based operations.
Fish, Family, and Profit: Piracy and the Horn of Africa
Abstract : The frightening increase in piracy off the coast of Somalia since the turn of the present century demonstrates just how fast this kind of threat can emerge and how severe the difficulties involved in understanding and subduing it can be. Since 1992, there have been 3,583 piratical attacks worldwide. According to the United Kingdom's House of Commons Transport Committee: "This represents an increase from 1993 to 2005 of 168%. In the same period, 340 crew members and passengers died at the hands of pirates, and 464 received injuries. In 2005 alone piracy resulted in over 150 injuries and assaults and over 650 crew members were taken hostage or kidnapped." Recent assaults on Japanese and French vessels near Somalia and the military response by the latter in April 2008 demonstrate the lasting significance of this problem and the complexity of its roots. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB), a division of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), has called for a combined response and solution -- that is, international naval assistance, especially along the Somali coast. It also initially encouraged merchant masters and navigators to observe a coastal approach limit of at least 50 nautical miles. The threat to international commerce extends to cargo and container ships, oil tankers, and even United Nations food and medical supply ships. In September 2001, a group of nations agreed to form Combined Task Force (CTF) 150 in response to UN Security Council Resolution 1373, which committed them to regional patrols as part of the global war on terrorism. The task force members include the United States, Pakistan, Australia, Great Britain, France, and Netherlands, among others. If navies intend to help keep the ocean open in an age of regional instability, piracy, and terrorism, combined operations regularly informed by professional historical perspective must become a permanent and essential part of naval practice.
PLEASURE, POWER, AND THE PURSUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOVIET YOUTH AND STATE-SPONSORED POPULAR CULTURE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR, 1945-1968
art, with certain students accused of “showing political immaturity, failing to understand the Party’s positions on art.” This episode constituted part of a broader crackdown on abstract art by the Khrushchev administration from late 1962, precipitated the the Soviet leader’s derision of such art forms in December 1962 at the Manege exhibit. Such instances demonstrate the limitations of the top-level promotion of youth grassroots initiative, as the Khrushchev leadership reigned in youth autonomy when it threatened to go beyond the boundaries of the permissible. The dates cited above have particular resonance, since both 1957-58 and 1962-63 represent two periods when those at the top of the Party hierarchy moved away from pursuing a more pluralistic, tolerant policy course, due to anxiety inspired by both sharpening Cold War hostilities and domestic developments. In these periods, official rhetoric censured what it labeled as 639 TsAOPIM, f. 635, op. 13, d. 546, ll. 56-57. This is likely related to criticism of the Party associated with the fallout from the Secret Speech and the Hungary invasion. For more, see Polly Jones, “From the Secret Speech to the Burial of Stalin: Real and Ideal Responses to De-Stalinization,” in Jones ed., The Dilemmas, 41-63. 640 TsAOPIM, f. 6083, op. 1, d. 52, ll. 166-67. 641 Susan E. Reid, “In the Name of the People: The Manege Affair Revisited,” Kritika 6.4 (Fall 2005): 673716. 642 On these anxieties, see Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer, 156-88.