Britain leads dash to explore for oil in war-torn Somalia

[saras]

3. That's why they've had no government for so long

It wasn't in the interest of the European nations who fished out their coastline, then used it as a toxic waste dump, that Somalia have an effective government. It wasn't until the pirates got competent that anyone minded. The pirates were ORIGINALLY cattle herders far from the coast. They "lost" their land, were driven to the coast, and told to make a living. They did until industrialized nations moved in. They started by trying to protect their equipment from the big ships, then fighting back when they couldn't fish any more, and as more of the country goes down, more people join and raise the scale of it.

They were, before all this, a somewhat functional country.