Beyond Piracy on the East African Coast: Interrogating Illicit Trafficking

Abstract

This paper examines piracy on the East African coast which has not received enough scholarly attention. Significantly, the challenges facing East African maritime security are many, and without viable measures taken to combat growing sea-borne threats, the region is destined to remain in a state of instability and war. With the use of both primary and secondary sources and looking past East Africa’s most publicized maritime problem especially in piracy, this paper discusses illicit trafficking of arms, drugs and people into, out of and throughout East African countries - an equally threatening, but less well-known issue, currently inhibiting the stability of the Horn of Africa. The influx of drugs, ammunitions and other illicit goods arms and funds terrorist organizations and militias not only on Africa’s Eastern coast but in the rest of the continent as well. Somalia’s al Shabaab, Kenya’s al-Shabaab affiliate, al Hijra, and the Congolese
rebel group M23, are all examples of groups sustained through illegal maritime smuggling. Weapons enter the region not just through the vulnerable Gulf of Aden and the Somali coastline, but also through considerably more stable and peaceful countries like Kenya and Seychelles. Once ashore, illicit materials easily find their way through the hands of corrupt government officials to destabilizing, violent non-state actors. The paper concludes by showing the strong link between this illicit trafficking in weapons and the high incidence recurring conflicts in the region.