Somali pirates continue to be an expensive problem, costing shipping companies that must use the Suez Canal or visit East African or Persian Gulf ports over US$500-million a month (for security measures), according to a report by Strategy Page. That extra cost is paid by those having cargo moved through the area and, ultimately, the consumer.
The traditional cure for piracy is to shut down their bases. But the major seafaring nations are unwilling to go ashore in Somalia to do this. Most of the pirates operate out of the northern Somali statelet of Puntland. There, the pirates have bribed or intimidated local officials to leave the pirate bases alone.
However, some major seafaring nations, like China and India, are talking more aggressively of attacking the pirate bases. The EU (European Union) recently authorised its ships and aircraft off Somalia to hit individual targets on land (like fuel storage, vehicles and other key pirate assets.) This would lead to civilian casualties, and would be publicly condemned by the UN and many nations. But the seafaring nations would quietly encourage such action, a solution for piracy that has worked for thousands of years.
Fearing just such an old-school response, the Somalis have refrained from rough treatment of their captives. Nevertheless, the pirates have, in the last five years killed over sixty civilian sailors and injured hundreds. But the pirates know that if they got too rough with their captives, their bases would be at risk of attack. Some of the more thoughtful pirates also realize that it won't last. This can be seen by how much money the wealthier pirates are moving out of the country (usually to Kenya or the Arabian Peninsula).
