I just read this and found it interesting.

Any thoughts?


Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates

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?

j.hari@independent.co.uk

Go read up on Captain Kidd.

I have...just thought this might be interesting to some others.

They need to stop dumping toxic waste off the coast of Somalia

They seem to have a problem telling the difference between a fishing boat and a cargo ship. Its no mystery as to why they are doing this.

If the euro nations are truly dumping in the waters, where is the world court? Shouldn't we be seeing indictments of heads of states that are doing the dumping? Shouldn't there be an inquiry into these crimes against humanity?

This latest ship to be boarded was a humanitarian ship, carrying food for starving people. The Somali pirates have decided that instead of hijacking the food once it reaches shore, and have to sell it for far less than they can get by hijacking the ships. Stealing and then re selling humanitarian aid is as common as the sun rising. It takes a much larger operation, to steal the food and then transport it. As we saw, 4 men carrying ak-47s can hijack a ship.

This guy can make all the excuses he wants, but at the end of the day, these people are criminals. All they are doing is hurting the people that this food was intended to help. If this kind of nonsense continues, the ships will be fewer, and more africans will die of starvation.

we need pirates to combat global warming

Pirating the ships and then demanding ransom then letting them go? I would think that they would destroy the ship and its cargo instead of asking for millions then giving it back?

They have also in recent years tried or did..pirate passenger ships. Also personal yahts.

I am for not allowing them to dump into our oceans or land. Sooo what do we do? We quit making nuclear anything? I am all for that. I hate that idea anyway. With it comes poisoning of our world.

Kat

Another British propaganda, Indian people are savages and incapable of advanced knowledge.

But, on the front of piracy lets not deny who is behind the organization. During the US/Somalian conflicts in the 1990's it has been confirmed the Taliban provided the theatre for war.

International agency donated medical aid and food supplies were hijacked, ransomed and used to solicit weapons. After an assault in 92 that left 18 American soldiers dead the US pulled out. Watch Black Hawk Down.

This current state of piracy about Somali people protecting their lands is propaganda. This is about an unrecognized Government forcing it's way into power.

Sadly, the song remains the same.

I would like to only take a small opposition to the above quoted statement.

You should know, that there is no "humanitarian help" provided to anyone for the purpose of simply feeding the starving.

If this was the purpose, then we would be teaching them how to grow things.

The humanitarian assistance is provided with the purpose of underselling their local farmers, and pushing them out of business.

Consider yourself a farmer. If I dump a lot of food that is the same or a substitute for what your far produces anywhere your usual clients can reach for free, all I am doing is pushing you out of business.

Once you are pushed out of business, then I can sell my own food to the same old consumers of yours, at my new prices.

At the same time, a secondary effect is to make sure that the people of that country are not trying to do something, are not trying to be productive. There is no need to work, the food is free.

Third factor is what it does to the crime climate. Sometimes such assistance is provided with the purpose of growing up the crime levels. Because, frequently, the food is given to local "humanitarian centers" which then transfer it all to local organized crime structure, which sells it for a good profit to fund it own operations.

what would you do if your choices were starve to death or go pirating?

Don't know exactly where Somalia is or the big crack in the Atlantic Shelf is. It's common knowledge for years our Navy has been dumping nuc. waste in there. Why would they want to bring courts into it?

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the ultimate answer. The governments are the ones dumping and polluting without any risk.

Companies may try to do that, but those are risking huge fines and imprisonment.

Governments are the ones that are doing it risk free.

why are pirates so mean?? cause they just rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! oh yea, we should level Somalia

good point

They're dead now!

after this incident and the infamous "Black Hawk Down" incident,we should just bomb Somalia back to the stone age but i don't think the curent Administration has the b@lls to bomb anyone be seeing you

Seeing as I served in Somolia I dont forsee a reason to bomb them back to the stone age . Thats just ignoratnt. There are a lot of people over there who need help and cant get it because of the drug lords stealing all the humanitarian aide thats sent over there. I highly doubt that these pirates are starving people, they are a part of this drug ring. Why else would they hijack these cargo ships and be demanding millions? It's like what was said earlier in this thread they pick and chose the ships they want and I have yet to hear about any smaller vessels with nothing really worth while on them being taken. They go for the ones they know they can get millions for. Now as I said in a different thread what are we going to do to stop them?

I find this worrying:

sorry...i'm sleepy and not much to contribute