Somalis in Norfolk, Va., convicted of piracy

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Dec 15, 2010

Five Somali nationals were convicted of piracy in a U.S. federal court in Norfolk, Va., on Nov. 24, with their sentencing set for March 2011. Based on slave-era laws and criminal statutes that have not been enforced since the 1820s, the Somalis could be sentenced to life in prison.

The captured Somalis claimed they were fishing off the coast of the country and were forced to fire on the Nicholas, a U.S. boat that was part of an international flotilla of warships stationed in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Government prosecutors tried the case on the allegation that the defendants fired on a U.S. military boat thinking it was a commercial ship that could be held for ransom.

U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride stated after the convictions, “Today marks the first jury conviction of piracy in more than 190 years. Today’s conviction demonstrates that armed attacks on U.S.-flagged vessels are crimes against the international community and that pirates will face severe consequences in U.S. courts.” (examiner.com, Nov. 27)

The trial lasted for nine days and resulted in the convictions of Mohammed Modin Hasan, Gabul Abdullahi Ali, Abdi Mohammed Umar, Ali Abdi Wali Dire, and Abdi Mohammed Guerwardher. The five were found guilty of “piracy, attack to plunder a vessel, act of violence against persons on a vessel, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon on federal officers and employees, conspiracy to use firearms during a crime of violence, and multiple firearm counts, including the use of a rocket propelled grenade.” (examiner.com, Nov. 27)

These convictions come amid a chorus of demands from imperialist military forces to intensify their aggressive dominance of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean near the Horn of Africa. Since 2008 both the European Union and the United States have led a coalition of naval forces that have pledged to control the flow of goods, oil and arms through the Gulf of Aden and to work toward the prevention of the Islamic resistance forces from seizing power inside Somalia.

Philippe Coindreau, the European Union commander of the anti-piracy naval force known as NAVFOR, told media that the area of operations for the NAVFOR forces had broadened. (AFP, Nov. 25) In addition to the U.S. trial in Norfolk, ten Somalis arrested in the Indian Ocean went on trial in Hamburg, Germany, in November.

Despite the cooperation of the neighboring east African nation of Kenya, which has been assisting the imperialist states in the anti-piracy campaign in the region, a recent trial in that country resulted in the acquittal of 26 people also charged with hijacking vessels for ransom. More than 700 people are now in custody in 12 different countries for piracy.

Proposals have been put forward by the United Nations to establish an anti-piracy court, ostensibly under Somali control, that would put on trial people arrested and charged with this crime on the high seas. Kenya has been suggested as a possible location for the new court.

Trials provide pretext for U.S. intervention

The trial of the five Somali men in Norfolk should be viewed within the past and present political context involving U.S. foreign policy aims and objectives.

As part of its so-called “war on terrorism,” Washington has targeted Somalia. At present the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), underwritten largely by U.S. military appropriations, is propping up the Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu, the capital. The U.S.-backed governments of Uganda and Burundi supply several thousand soldiers to the AMISOM forces.

U.S. interest in Somalia goes back decades, when during the 1970s, the Carter administration sought to weaken the revolution in neighboring Ethiopia by bribing the military government of Mohamed Siad Barre into an alliance with the Pentagon. A subsequent U.S.-instigated invasion of Ethiopia by Somali forces in 1978 met with decisive defeat by the Ethiopian military, assisted by Cuban internationalist forces that were inside the region to help consolidate a socialist revolution in Ethiopia at the time.

Another U.S. intervention in Somalia took place from 1992 to 1994. Under the guise of a humanitarian mission to feed the hungry and displaced, U.S. marines invaded the country. Within a few months of the intervention, the Somali masses had risen up against both the U.S. and U.N. forces inside the country, compelling a withdrawal in 1994. In recent months the Pentagon has hinted of its desire to engage in another direct military assault on Somalia.

These U.S. ruling-class efforts stem from Washington’s desire to control the strategic trade routes in the Horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula regions. This is also linked to claims on oil concessions by U.S. multinational firms in and around Somalia.

In neighboring Djibouti, the U.S. and France both have military bases that are often used in war games conducted by the Pentagon and the EU military forces stationed in the region. The imperialists want no government to come to power in the region that is independent of U.S. influence.

This policy is manifested inside the U.S. when U.S. agents arrest Somali expatriates and charge them with crimes related to the “war on terrorism.” In Portland, Ore., during late November, a 19-year-old Somali youth, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, was entrapped and charged by the FBI in a sting operation involving a nonexistent plot to set off a bomb at a holiday celebration. The FBI concocted and engineered the entire plot, which it then used to ask for more domestic spending on homeland security as well as defense spending to wage a permanent war in the so-called Third World.

In April 2009, the U.S. Navy shot dead three Somali youth, wounded another and then brought a captured 16-year-old Abdiwali Muse to New York to stand trial for piracy.

These criminal cases, coupled with targeting the Somali community inside the U.S., have created an atmosphere of hostility among Somali expatriates around the U.S.