The truth on the Somali 'pirates'

[blackstone]

All the media is reporting on how 'Pirates' have Struck a U.S. cargo ship, But Is the Media Telling the Whole Story?

First, I'm not here to paint the Somalis responsible as heroes or as vigilantes, but i'm not going to condemn them as well. The issue is very complicated and this story sheds alot of light on the situation.

http://www.alternet.org/audits/135716/%27pirates%27_strike_a_u.s._ship_owned_by_a_pentag on_contractor,_but_is_the_media_telling_the_whole_ story/?page=entire



According to Hari:

As soon as the [Somali] 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.
…

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."



Here is a youtube of the Somali hip hop artist K'naan speaking on this very issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTxJLlQCe4U


Because the is no Somali government, there is no State. There is no institution that police the water and enforce international or national laws,rules, regulations. Consider what one pirate told (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/world/africa/01pirates.html?ref=world) The New York Times after he and his men seized a Ukrainian freighter "loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition" last year. "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits," said Sugule Ali:. "We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard." Now, that "coast guard" analogy is a stretch, but his point is an important and widely omitted part of this story.

[pastradamus]

Firstly K'naan kicks ass.
Secondly, The Somali Pirates are the consequence of a non-existent state. Basically When you live in a country that badly off your gonna try and make money by any means necessary. The Pollution, Over-fishing in the gulf of aden, of a people so Dependant on fishing for food is being exploited by larger Imperialist states is something I find terrible.
So a good point and a good post. Well done blackstone.

[Patchd]

Agreed with pastradamus, thanks for the post, it's been very enlightening. All I've heard about modern Somalia is the crap we get off the news here, obviously trying to portray them all as bloodthirsty, money hungry, pirates. Thanks for this new insight :)

[Dominicana_1965]

In the early 1990s (some claim under Barre) a contract allowed European firms to dump toxic waste on the Somali coast which led to the destruction of the livelihoods of locals (which largely depended on fishing). So the locals fought the dumping by attacking the incoming ships.

I think the current "piracy" is a result of the lucrative rewards that they realize they can receive from holding these ships, another possible reason is because the "pirates" want to clean up the actual waste.


"European companies found it to be very cheap to get rid of the waste, costing as little as $2.50 a tonne, where waste disposal costs in Europe are something like $1000 a tonne.


"And the waste is many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals like cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, and there are hospital wastes, chemical wastes – you name it."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/10/2008109174223218644.html

[blackstone]

Thanks for contributing palatrinov, paradamus and Dominica.

Keep your eyes open because you'll be hearing more and more about Somali 'pirates' in the news.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

That's a really really good video. I always smile when I hear about the pirates. What do they do with the money. Are they completely corrupted now or do they do some Robin Hood stuff with it like Comrade Palaiokostas?

[WorkersRepublic32]

haha its funny, so because there poor it makes it ok for them to hijack ships and steal there cargo, doing who knows what to the crew? i suppose there is no difference between some poor black guy walking into a shop and holding the staff hostage?

[Psy]

haha its funny, so because there poor it makes it ok for them to hijack ships and steal there cargo, doing who knows what to the crew? i suppose there is no difference between some poor black guy walking into a shop and holding the staff hostage?

They are basically a militia seizing ships originally to defend the sovereignty of Somaila's water yet have branched to seizing ships for profits.

[Mike Morin]

The Capitalists Fascists and their lackey press organizations are ridiculous.

This is a case of sabre rattling while the US Military budget is at issue.

I saw one report that they cargo ship was delivering "humanitarian" supplies". WE all know that the ship is carrying weapons and other logistical military supplies to Israel, Iraq and other parts of the "Middle East" and to be sent to Afghanistan.

Liars, the gullible and brainwashed barbarians of the USA are the most dangerous people on the planet and their ignorance and apathy does not contribute to the prospects for peace and a future for the progeny of the planet.

They're probably headlining the US Nazional News Reports with:

"AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE: DAY 4"

Shah, Czar, Tsar, Kaiser, and Ceaser...it's more than a coincidence.


MM
peu

[Chapter 24]

Wow. I knew there was a one-sided argument with everything when it came to the media, but I had no idea that Somali piracy involved these suspicious European ships. Sure enough as this all develops it will become all the more interesting.

And fucking props for putting in K'naan! :thumbup1:

[Jay Rothermel]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html)
You Are Being Lied to About Pirates
[By Johann Hari]


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 labeling as "one of the great
menace 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 thief that lingers today was created by the British government in a
great propaganda-heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates
were often rescued 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 to find out. 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 for a second, the
all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you
slacked consistently, 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
against their tyrannical captains - 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. 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 popular, 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-pirating to live." In 1991, the
government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million
people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of 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 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
over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m
worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year
by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The
local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are 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 men we are calling "pirates" have emerged.
Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took
speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a
'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia -
and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the
pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing
and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We
consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas
and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott
would understand those words.


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 the "pirates" have the overwhelming support of the local
population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews
conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking
- and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of
national defence of the country's territorial waters." During the
revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding
fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they
had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is
this so different?


Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches,
paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in
restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn't act on those crimes -
but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor
for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil."
If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause - our
crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia's criminals.


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 in today - but who is the robber?


Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent newspaper. To read more of his
articles, click here. or here.


POSTSCRIPT: Some commenters seem bemused by the fact that both toxic dumping
and the theft of fish are happening in the same place - wouldn't this make
the fish contaminated? In fact, Somalia's coastline is vast, stretching to
3300km. Imagine how easy it would be - without any coastguard or army - to
steal fish from Florida and dump nuclear waste on California, and you get
the idea. These events are happening in different places - but with the same
horrible effect: death for the locals, and stirred-up piracy. There's no
contradiction.














-

[Killfacer]

just to clarify, i heard they held hostage an aid boat, anyone know if this is true?

[cyu]

so because there poor it makes it ok for them to hijack ships and steal there cargo, doing who knows what to the crew? i suppose there is no difference between some poor black guy walking into a shop and holding the staff hostage?


Exactly. As Emma Goldman said, "Necessity knows no law, and the starving man has a natural right to a share of his neighbor's bread... Ask for work. If they do not give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread."

The laws of man are much easier to break than the laws of survival. If your society isn't providing enough legal ways to make a decent living, then more and more people will resort to illegal ways.

This isn't to say I'm encouraging everyone to take bread or ships, because while I think it's justified for those who need to do it to survive, I don't believe (for obvious reasons) that it's a good economic strategy.

I would instead encourage the taking of the actual means of production (land, raw materials, equipment, etc) - like what the MST of Brazil did or what the rest of the Latin American recovered factory movements are doing.

[( R )evolution]

Thank you for this post. This is a prime example of the distortion of truth in western media. They spread the message that vile, dangerous, brut scary men from Somali are man handling ships and taking hostages just for the pursuit of hostage money. While some are obviously doing this, there are still others fending off their own waters from the imperialist forces of the west.


But one thing I will note, that 70% percentage of the Somali population supporting the pirates is prolly a little inflated because of response bias. The question is loaded.

[DancingLarry]

It's long been said that the difference between pirates and the state is that pirates won't persecute you for your opinions. I guess it's more true than I ever thought.

[Killfacer]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090411/ts_nm/us_somalia_piracy

Yes, the way to save our country is to attack aid shipments!

[Dust Bunnies]

Before I heard this I was against this piracy. Now I see it as an unfortunate job in order for the Somali people to survive. But if this does show something, it shows anarchist societies of any kind can form their own militias to operate.

[skki]

Pathetic.

And I suppose the millions of dollars they make in ransom money is just an inevitable side effect of the humanitarianism?

[Bright Banana Beard]

Pathetic.

And I suppose the millions of dollars they make in ransom money is just an inevitable side effect of the humanitarianism?

It so they can buy better ship, GPS precise technology, heavy gun in order to defend their water. Now who have the rights to destroy the local dependence on fish?

[Hoxhaist]

someone is helping these pirates from a high position. They can find these ships 300 miles of the coast and know where the ships are and which ships are valuable

[Patchd]

To those who are criticizing the pirates making profit more than anything off of this: no one's defending them.

Agreed, what can be said though is that it's understandable why piracy did occur in this region, it was the logical, yet unfortunate outcome. Obviously, when simply defending your waters against ships dumping toxic waste in the waters you get your main staple food from, and not only that, but also have trawlers that are profitting from fishing vast amounts of fish in the same seas, thus depriving the local community of their staple diet, those same people are going to want to defend their right to live.

When it became clear that not only could they defend their food source through piracy, but they could actually make more out of it, then hostage taking and ransoms became more common. It's simply the logical outcome.

[skki]

It so they can buy better ship, GPS precise technology, heavy gun in order to defend their water. Now who have the rights to destroy the local dependence on fish?

And expensive cars and elaborate mansions?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7650415.stm

But you go ahead with your romantic little myths. I'm not going to waste my time on such an absurd discussion.

[himalayanspirit]

Who is supplying weapons to the pirates? I whole-heartedly support them.

[bcbm]

And expensive cars and elaborate mansions?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7650415.stm

But you go ahead with your romantic little myths. I'm not going to waste my time on such an absurd discussion.

Yeah, what kind of asshole who lives in a war-torn country with few opportunities that is dependent on foreign aid actually buys nice things when he discovers a way to get back at the people who've been destroying his country and make some money off it. If only the evil pirates would go away so Europeans could go back to trawling the waters and dumping toxic waste!

[skki]

Yeah, what kind of asshole who lives in a war-torn country with few opportunities that is dependent on foreign aid actually buys nice things when he discovers a way to get back at the people who've been destroying his country and make some money off it. If only the evil pirates would go away so Europeans could go back to trawling the waters and dumping toxic waste!

According to the BBC link, many of the pirates are ex-militiamen for the Somali warlords. They are actually one of the main reasons the country is so war-torn.

Try again.

[Killfacer]

It so they can buy better ship, GPS precise technology, heavy gun in order to defend their water. Now who have the rights to destroy the local dependence on fish?

That's laughable. Stop trying to paint them as modern day robin hoods. Really pathetic.

I have some sympathy for them, but they take aid ships hostage. Hardly the act of someone who gives a fuck.

[Patchd]

No no no! It's not "they take", "they do this", "they do that". The Somali pirates are not one homogenised group. Remember, as someone said here already, they are similar to militias. Militias are usually autonomous to an extent, so the fact that some aid ship(s) have been taken hostage is most certainly no reason to condemn the rest of the pirates.

They are more of an exception rather than the rule. I'm sure when the pirates started out, they were originally locals protecting their fishing waters, either way, we shouldn't condone the West's suppression of these people, many of whom have not been involved in taking hostage ships, but of expensive yachts and cargo ships.

[PCommie]

Wow. Until I read this, I was vehemently opposed to the pirates. Thank you for the insight, comrades.

I would do the same thing. If toxic waste is being dumped off their shore, and their fish are being stolen, no one can expect them to sit down and take it. They're going to get up and fight, and they're damn right in doing it. It doesn't make everything they do right, such as taking that captain hostage and such, but defending their nation? Go for it.


According to the BBC link, many of the pirates are ex-militiamen for the Somali warlords. They are actually one of the main reasons the country is so war-torn.

Try again.

The BBC? You mean, an Imperialist news source that is biased against them? Right, because that is so acceptable here. Also, I point you to Palachinov's last post on this page. You try again.

-PC

[black magick hustla]

Yeah, what kind of asshole who lives in a war-torn country with few opportunities that is dependent on foreign aid actually buys nice things when he discovers a way to get back at the people who've been destroying his country and make some money off it. If only the evil pirates would go away so Europeans could go back to trawling the waters and dumping toxic waste!

:shrugs: you can say this about virtually every gang, including drug gangs who had made of my country a battlefield. But I am sure its all prole glory cuz dem people's army are kidnapping rich people right?

[Zurdito]

It's pretty funny to see some of the outraged replies on this thread. Nobody said the Somali "pirates" were going to save the country, or that they were humanitarian! People just posted informative articles stating facts and explaining the causes. Seeing as Johann Hari supported the war on Iraq and calls the Iraqi resistance "fascists", I very much doubt he is arguing for "critical support" for the pirates either - and, I'm proved right in doubting this when I read his article.

Also funny to see that that all three of these ranting, raving, morally outraged commenters come from Britain, just as it is the British navy being sent in to deal with the pirates. Proof of the effectiveness of propaganda?

[Patchd]

:shrugs: you can say this about virtually every gang, including drug gangs who had made of my country a battlefield. But I am sure its all prole glory cuz dem people's army are kidnapping rich people right?
Drug gangs cannot be compared to people attempting to reclaim their fishing waters and their right not to have toxic waste dumped in those same waters.

Drug gangs, unless I'm mistaken, arose due to the gap in the market for drugs because of the criminalisation of drugs, it was rich criminals who realised they could make a profit from the trade, how can that be compared to local fishermen protecting fishing waters? Unless the drug gangs were local people protecting their right to take drugs! :lol:


Also funny to see that that all three of these ranting, raving, morally outraged commenters come from Britain, just as it is the British navy being sent in to deal with the pirates. Proof of the effectiveness of propaganda?

Well the BBC yesterday did mention the dumping of toxic waste and of the theft of the staple food of the area, although obviously this wasn't stressed enough.

[JimmyJazz]

Fuck pirates, the world must be made Safe For Commerce!

Really, I couldn't care less what the pirates' motivations are or what they are spending the loot on. I just think it's funny and awesome that rich people from modern countries are getting screwed by such seemingly anachronistic methods as piracy.

I hope to see a near-future revival in the practice of rich people and politicians killing each other by duels as well. :lol:

And anyone seriously expending mental energy to take a correct line on 'the pirate question' is just silly.

[bcbm]

:shrugs: you can say this about virtually every gang, including drug gangs who had made of my country a battlefield. But I am sure its all prole glory cuz dem people's army are kidnapping rich people right?

There are always opportunists who will take advantage of those doing risky things to actually improve to simply make money for themselves. I'm not suggesting they're all glorious heroes, but they certainly aren't all scumbags just out for profit either. It isn't a real or long-term solution to the issues Somalia faces, but if it keeps tankers from dumping nuclear waste on the shores and ruining the livelihoods of the coastal residents of the country for now, I don't see it as a completely bad thing.

[Psy]

Well the US escalated the conflict by killing the pirates holding the US captain hostage, word is the pirates have responded by declaring war on all French and US merchant ships saying they will now kill all American and French (it was a joint operation between the US and France) crew members on the ships they board in retaliation rather then hold them hostage (I don't know if this is media spin on the reaction by the pirates).

[Pawn Power]

Pirates have been plundering Somali coast lines for decades. 300 million dollars worth of fish and other sea life are stolen from Somali waters each year. That, plus the European's have been dumping pollution there for years as well. http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/us-aircraft-and-elite-navy-seals-defeat-three-somalis-lifeboat