New Take on Somalian Pirates

[Che Gookin]

Some are clearly just gangsters. But others are trying to stop illegal dumping and trawling

Monday, 5 January 2009

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labelling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell – and some justice on their side.

Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" – from 1650 to 1730 – the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often saved from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains Of All Nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence.

If you became a merchant or navy sailor then – plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry – you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.

Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied – and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century".

They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy." This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves.

The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".

No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand.

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail – but who is the robber?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...s-1225817.html

[Anonymous]

So, wait, the Europeans are pouring toxic waste in the same place they're catching fish?

*cough*Bullshit*cough*

[Oscar]

So, wait, the Europeans are pouring toxic waste in the same place they're catching fish?

*cough*Bullshit*cough*

Think about all those batteries you save because you dont need them once you become fluorescent after eating a lot of fish.

[Che Gookin]

From what I'm gathering the South Koreans are trawling for fish and the French are kicking barrels of nuclear waste over the side.

[try another castle]

that would actually make sense, since France has more nuclear power plants than anyone else.

This is interesting news. The first story I had heard about the somalian pirates were the ones who tried to raid a cruise ship. Captain used one of those super loud sound thingies which convinced them to go elsewhere.

[Che Gookin]

Personally I think the governments preparing to shoot the shit out of the Somalian shoreline ought to take the Somalian claims seriously and move to secure all of their territorial waters from piracy, illegal dumping, and illegal fishing.

The obvious end result will either prove that Somalia is full of shit, or the French are going to be pissed as hell now that they can't chuck their nuke waste over the side like a diseased mackerel.

Does anyone even care what the South Koreans will think?

Having lived in South Korea for 3 years I sure as hell don't.

[Ursus]

Pirates seize Belgian ship; NATO frees 20 hostages
 By KATHARINE HOURELD and TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writers   – 1 hr 39 mins ago

NAIROBI, Kenya – Somali pirates attacked two ships off the Horn of Africa on Saturday, capturing a Belgian dredger and its 10-man crew. NATO forces intervened in the other assault, chasing the pirates down and freeing 20 fisherman on a Yemeni dhow.

As pirates forced the Belgian ship to slowly head north toward Somalia, 430 miles (700 kilometers) away, a Spanish military ship, a French frigate and a French scout ship all steamed toward the area to try to intercept it.

In Brussels, government officials held an emergency meeting to discuss the situation and possible intervention.

The high-seas drama underscored the dangers off the coasts of Somalia and east Africa despite the best efforts of an international flotilla that includes warships from the United States and the European Union.

Pirates from anarchic, clan-ruled Somalia have attacked more than 80 boats this year and are now holding 18 ships and over 310 crew members hostage.

In Saturday's first attack, pirates hijacked the Belgian-flagged Pompei in the Indian Ocean, a few hundred miles (kilometers) north of the Seychelles islands, said Portuguese Lt. Cmdr. Alexandre Santos Fernandes, who is traveling with the NATO fleet patrolling the region.

Belgium reported the ship sounded three alarms before dawn Saturday indicating it was under attack on its way to the Seychelles with a cargo of concrete and stones. It had 10 crew: two Belgians, one Dutch captain, three Filipinos and four Croatians.

"There is no contact with the pirates, not with the crew, not with any other parties," Jaak Raes, director general of the Belgian Crisis Center, told reporters. "We are sure that the ship now is heading to the coast of Somalia."

Just a few hours after that hijack, pirates further north in the Gulf of Aden attacked a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker with small arms and rockets. Fernandes said that ship, the Handytankers Magic, issued a distress call shortly after dawn but escaped the pirates using "speed and maneuvers."

A Dutch frigate from the NATO force responded immediately to the tanker's distress call. It trailed the pirates "on a small white skiff, which tried to evade and proceed toward a Yemeni-flagged fishing dhow" that had been seized by the pirates Thursday, Fernandes said.

He said pirates were using the Yemeni vessel as a "mother ship," a boat that allows the pirates' tiny skiffs to operate far off the Somali coast.

The pirates boarded the dhow and Dutch marine commandos followed soon after, freeing 20 fishermen whose nationalities were not known. There was no exchange of fire and Dutch forces seized seven Kalashnikov rifles and one rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Seven Somali pirates were detained, but they were soon released because "NATO does not have any detainment policy," Fernandes said. The seven could not be arrested or held because they were seized by Dutch nationals and neither the pirates, the victims nor the ship were Dutch, he explained.

The Gulf of Aden — a vital short cut between Europe and Asia — is one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. For that reason, it has been hard hit by pirates, who can earn $1 million or more in ransom for each hijacked vessel.

AccuWeather.com says weather in the region is likely to favor the pirates for the next several weeks. Very small waves and light winds make it easier for the pirates to operate the small speedboats they use to attack ships. Unrestricted visibility at day will help lookouts on vessels watching for attacks, but little or no moonlight works for the brigands, the weather service said.

Pirates plucked from the sea by navy warships could be tried anywhere from Mombasa to New York, Paris to Rotterdam — but most are simply set free to wreak havoc again because of legal issues.

Among the difficulties facing prosecutors is assembling witnesses scattered across the globe and finding translators. Many countries are wary of hauling in pirates for trial for fear of being saddled with them after they serve their prison terms.

The United States, the European Union and Britain all have signed agreements with Somalia's southern neighbor, Kenya, clearing the way for a slew of court cases in the southern port city of Mombasa.

And the most prominent recent case — a scrawny Somali teenage pirate who stormed the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama this month and was later arrested by the U.S. Navy — will be tried in New York.

The captain of the Maersk Alabama, Richard Phillips, got a hero's welcome Friday when he returned to his hometown of Underhill, Vermont.

___

Associated Press writers contributing to this report include Michelle Faul and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi, Larry Neumeister in New York, Aoife White in Brussels, Mike Corder from The Hague, Netherlands, and John Curran in Underhill, Vermont.


Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

[dishdutyfugitive]

I hope the CIA and the Obama administration are considering this somalian situation as a possible diversion from other critical areas.

Sure these somali degenerates need a swift and final kick to the groin but it smells fishy to me.