At some point or another we have all felt that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. But what should we feel when truth reads exactly like fiction? I have sometimes felt a chill down my spine.
Over the last two weeks, the news from Somalia did just that.
Somalia is a failed state, meaning effective government has all but collapsed. There is an insurgency led by Islamic militants. In January, the Ethiopian peace-keeping troops, which had been in the country to support the fragile government, withdrew. The only peacekeepers now, who represent the African Union, are from Burundi and Uganda. How long those peacekeepers will remain is unclear. Last week, a massacre led by the Islamic insurgents left 11 peacekeepers from Burundi dead and 15 others seriously hurt.
The news concerned the seizing of the Greek-owned cargo ship, the mv Saldanha, by Somali pirates. The Saldanha is registered in Malta.
It is not just the Malta connection that I related to, nor that this is not the first Maltese-registered vessel to have been seized by Somali pirates. In the past fortnight alone, two vessels were captured.
Only last November, as part of my MEP duties, I attended a meeting of the African, Pacific and Caribbean states in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. High on our agenda was piracy and, though Somalia is not the only country involved, it featured directly in the discussion.
Various options were put forward to resolve the problem. One was to have naval units protect ships that travel in convoys. Another was to blockade the coast of Somalia. A third option was to arm cargo ships, either by arming the crew or by having a fighting unit on board.
Not one of these options is easy. As the BBC reported, in the case of the capture of the Saldanha, a UK warship was 100 kilometres away when the capture took place. However, the pirates relayed a message warning the ship to stay away. In the end, the HMS Northumberland judged it beyond its remit to recapture the ship. Its mandate is to protect ships not recover them.
Piracy has become the most lucrative activity in Somalia today. Journalist descriptions of its port towns read almost like a scene from a fictional picture book or film about Blackbeard or the Black Pirate. In this case, one is tempted to call the Somalis the "blue pirates", after the colour of their national flag. Except that, on realising one is reading the news, not fiction, the sense of adventure is replaced by a chilling of the blood.
Garowe, the capital of the Somali region of Puntland, where most of the pirates are from, is flush with money after their return. Bars, brothels and gambling dens thrive. Armed men swagger around decked in jewellery and quickly dissipate their new-found fortunes. Others, more calculating, invest their wealth in faster boats and heavier ammunition. It is said that the takeover of a cargo ship need consume only a few minutes.
Most pirates are aged between 20 and 35 years. They live, by Somali standards, a glamorous life. They wed the most beautiful girls, it is said; are building big houses and driving big cars. All this in a country that has been ravaged by 17 years of non-stop conflict and where much of the population depends on food aid to survive. The accumulation of wealth is being accompanied by the accumulation of power. Pirates are now financing businessmen.
Last year, it was calculated that Somali piracy had cost something like $30 million in ransoms.
While Somalia might seem remote, therefore, it is actually having a direct, expensive and politically challenging effect on Europe as a whole, and on individual countries like Malta.
It poses two problems in particular: One has to do with the country's instability, which is, of course, the major cause of massive migration from Somalia, much of it ending up, eventually, in Europe, including Malta, the other is that piracy disrupts European economic activity, an expensive loss, and, in addition, plunders it.
Both problems challenge Europe to act in unison and not in a fragmented way. Indeed, the problems are linked and so Europe must address them in a focused way.
Addressing the source of the problem means that Europe must consider the extent to which it must be prepared to use its economic and political muscle to bring order to Somalia. But for Europe to get that far, the European Parliament and other institutions must take the matter more seriously than they have till now.
Dr Attard Montalto is a Labour member of the European Parliament.