Somali piracy is at its lowest level in years and Tom Hanks helps show us why.

The Oscar-nominated “Captain Phillips” starring Tom Hanks depicts in terrific detail the hijacking of a giant container ship as it traveled through Somali waters in 2009. The film which has already won a screen writers award is up for six Oscar nominations.

Anyone watching the film right from the beginning is going to scream out, “Why doesn’t the crew have guns!?”

Well, most crews do now have guns. The Alabama was hijacked in 2009 when few merchant vessels from any country in the world were allowed to be armed.

That stemmed from a centuries long policy of governments worried that large vessels were capable of coups. Later in history rogue merchant vessels tried avoiding naval inspections as Britain and the U.S. started to police the high seas for contraband.

More recently the government of Egypt banned any type of armed vessel in the Suez canal, where most of the ships in Somali waters originate.

But after large naval task forces organized by the U.S. and European union were unable to stem increasing piracy by 2010 many countries including the U.S. began allowing on-board security. The U.S. remains the most restrictive, but many U.S. flag carriers can now carry weapons or commercial security.

In 2009 giant ships like the Alabama were completely unarmed. The movie details how the captain and crew had to behave without weapons. It shows how tiny little speedboats with a handful of men carrying old Uzis or AK47s could take over a ship 3 times the length of a football field, bigger than five 747s.

As a composite of the 500 ship hijackings that year, I believe the movie does a fabulous job. It may not have been so honest with regards to Capt. Phillips and the Maersk Alabama.

In fact quite to the contrary, the crew of the Alabama is suing the real Captain Phillips and his employer, Maersk, for more than $50 million for malfeasance.

“It is galling for them to see Captain Phillips set up as a hero,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer told the Guardian last October. “It is just horrendous, and they’re angry.”

The crew contends that Capt. Phillips should have done exactly what the film depicts Capt. Phillips doing! If the crew is telling the truth, it’s almost as if Columbia pictures read the litigants’ charges and wrote the screenplay from the depositions!

Water hose defense, engine room retreat, wave action, intentional power failures … all procedures the suit against Maersk contends Capt. Phillips refused to do or bungled.

The film does give one clue to Capt. Phillips’ culpability. U.S. recommendations which Maersk had adopted included keeping ships at least 300 miles and preferably 600 miles from the Somali coast. In the film the ship is about 200 miles from the coast when hijacked.

Because the litigation is current, neither Maersk or Captain Phillips will comment. At least until the Oscars are awarded, neither will Sony or Hanks.

The screenplay also dug into the reality of why there is piracy in the first place. I wish it had been developed more elaborately, but kudus to the writers for bringing up the subject of how the Somalis had been raped of their fisheries by multinational fishing companies.

Most pirates were once fishermen, or more correctly, would be fishermen if their industry hadn’t been plundered by multinationals taking advantage of the implosion of the Somali state.

In the movie there is a poignant scene where Capt. Phillips (Tom Hanks) challenges the chief pirate:

“You’re no fisherman!” Hanks charges and then asks the pirate why with his language skills and obvious other capabilities he doesn’t do something more legitimate.

“Maybe in America,” the pirate answers. “Not in Somalia.”

In 2009 when the Alabama was hijacked, there were nearly 500 hijackings annually. Last year it was about half that.

Piracy is down because of actions as depicted in the film by heroic crew, because of massive operations by European and American navies (including as masterfully shown in the film an exciting operation by Navy Seals), and probably most of all because of the pacification of Somalia itself.

Go see the flick! Hollywood finally gets it right.

I don’t like it but it’s good news. Should a private foundation in Somalia be doing what really should be the responsibility of the U.S. government?

Developing Somalia’s fishing industry is critical to sustaining peace in the region. Piracy was expertly developed as al-Shabaab’s principal source of revenue by enlisting former fishermen who had been systematically raped of their livelihoods mostly by western fishing companies.

Fishing had been Somalia’s main industry prior to the state failing in the 1990s. Numerous studies documented major western fishing companies, the majority from Italy and France, taking advantage of Somalia’s implosion to rape the seas of the Gulf of Aden.

With all the money and effort western powers have spent trying to oust the terrorists from Somalia, I can’t understand why they won’t rebuild its fishing infrastructure. Somehow, I guess, it’s just not militaristic enough.

So the job is being left to the private sector, which could be all well and good of course, but I fear without government to government involvement, here, a free-for-all is going to develop in these nutrient rich waters.

For several years now as the Somali war wound down, there have been reports of private companies violating fishing treaties and dumping toxic waste, in essence taking advantage of the lack of government (including multiple government, regional and UN) regulations.

The Oceans Beyond Piracy project brought together active western partners in Somalia at a Thursday conference in London which was striking for its positive outlook.

Led by a Danish NGO, Somali Fair Fishing, the conference wants to rebuild not only the infrastructure but the human capital of the Berbera port.

Berbera is Somaliland’s main port on the Gulf of Aden just before the Red Sea. Somaliland and Puntland are autonomous regions of Somalia that have been relatively peaceful for more than a decade.

Functioning as independent states, the two northern regions have seen realistic development over the last decade but been given little outside attention. World aid organizations, for example, are reluctant to promote what would become the fracturing of a former Somalia Republic.

New elections in Somaliland and new policy initiatives in Puntland announced this week, however, suggest that the two autonomous regions of Somaliland and Puntland are newly interested in reintegration.

It makes imminent sense for western powers and world aid organizations to go in full force to develop Somaliland’s Berbera. It’s wonderful what Oceans Beyond Piracy and other small NGOs are trying to do, but it’s just not enough.

There’s no point in developing a fishing industry if there’s no fish. Without reenforcement of existing world treaties about the Somali fishing harvests, and without worldwide enforcement to stop ships treating the Gulf of Aden as the world’s biggest public toilet, there won’t be any fish.

The foundation supporting the Oceans Beyond Piracy initiative is the One Earth Foundation of Colorado. The CEO, Marcel Arsenault, made his fortune anticipating the housing bust of 2008. As a new kid on the block of a growing number of private philanthropy organizations it doesn’t have a long enough track record for any critical appraisal.

But its mission looks good and I wish them success.

As always, though, I worry when private interests trump the responsibility of government institutions.

The Thursday conference attracted a number of giant players, like BP and Maersk. But these mega multinationals are not going to invest fully until western governments decide to invest as much in cranes and drones.

It’s an unending story of failed peace making. Nixon tried lamely to explain to a fatigued America that Vietnam could only be won by building factories, but it was an out of sync suggestion at the time it was made, way too late.

War is expensive. Fishing is much less expensive and far more productive.

Before we lose Somalia again, world powers should see what groups like One Earth and Fair Fishing are trying to do, and learn from them. USAid in Somalia should now be given as much support as AFRICOM.