Somalia: Give them food rather than freeze their assets.

Medeshi
April 15, 2009
Somalia: Give them food rather than freeze their assets.
The United States four point plant to tackle pirate problems in Somalia will not work simply because it aggravates the situation. One of the main reasons why the pirates have resorted to this activity is because they were not able to get food from the sea. This has been due to illegal fishing of huge trawlers at the Somali coast , therefore , depriving these poor and young fisher-men their livelihood.
The plan of freezing assets of the pirates as proposed by the US secretary of State (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jm1_2wEAxWnfgeqyOI8UUqpcndMA) will simply make the pirates look for more ships to hijack , extra cash and ways to hide their money through the complex Somali banking (Xawaala) system.
Creating functioning government in the pirate invested areas along with creating jobs and other activities that would give incentive and self-esteem to these young adventurers would do better than the proposed drastic steps which I think will be fruitless.
US policy has already failed in Somalia and this could be doomed , too, if the US doesn’t consult the stakeholders in–land and stop direct interferences.