Wayne Long is the man; finally, a rational oped on Somalia.

(My smarter than I am friend Andrea and I were discussing this Sunday night over dinner - bc that's what we talk about over dinner for real - and she had reservations about this strategy. It reminded her of 'collective punishment'; for example she drew a smart parallel between this and Israeli destruction of the homes of Palestinian involved in attacks against Israelis. I kind of agree with her. But here is the post anyway.)

And from someone with experience; Wayne Long was the UN chief security officer in Somalia from 1993-2003 and negotiated the release of many hostages. I love this guy.

In the oped he discusses how his team would withhold aid from pirates clans, therefore pressuring them to give up hostages who feared the wrath of their family and tribes.

I am just going to post an excerpt from the article:

Somalia is pretty much a stateless state. Humanitarian aid and clan association are major centers of gravity. In fact, clan leaders stay in power in part by controlling the distribution of aid. Our strategy was therefore simple: United Nations assistance was withheld from the Somali clan or region by which or in which hostages were being held until those hostages were released. In every case there was a release, and in no case were hostages harmed or ransom paid. (On the downside, no pirates were brought to trial or punished in any way.)

In 1995, for example, the water supply for Mogadishu, the capital, was shut off by the United Nations humanitarian agencies until a hostage who worked for another aid organization was released. On the first day of the shutoff, the women who collected water from public distribution points yelled at the kidnappers; on the second day they stoned them; on the third day they shot at them; on the fourth day, the hostage was released.

On another occasion, in 2000, two French yachtsmen were taken by pirates in their 40-foot sloop off Somalia as they made passage from Djibouti to Zanzibar. The French Embassy in Nairobi asked the United Nations team to help, and I entered into face-to-face negotiations in the remote port of Bossaso.

After demonstrating that the hostages were alive, the pirates demanded $1 million in ransom. I responded that the United Nations would suspend all civic improvement in the region — education, animal husbandry, vaccination, water projects. The aid would resume when the hostages were released.

This drove a wedge between the pirates and their home clan, the Darod. Clan elders put pressure on the pirates. After several weeks, the Frenchmen were released to me in return for resumption of all United Nations humanitarian aid. (I was unable to negotiate the release of the yacht.)