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‘World only cares about pirates’
‘World only cares about pirates’
Onderstaand berichtje las ik van het weekend. Het onderwerp is niet wat de titel doet vermoeden. Er gebeurt dus veel meer onwenselijks in dat ongecontroleerde stukje oceaan …‘World only cares about pirates’
Ex-Somali Army Colonel Mohamed Nureh Abdulle lives in Harardhere – the town closest to where the hijacked Saudi oil tanker, Sirius Star is moored.
He tells the BBC, via phone from his home, that the town’s residents are more concerned about the apparent dumping of toxic waste than piracy.
The Harardhere-born military man advises the town’s elders on security matters and is in his fifties.
Somalia has been wracked by conflict since 1991 – when its last national government was forced from power.
The super-tanker is close to our coast. It is a very, very long ship. Some time ago we had our own problems of piracy in our town but that has not happened lately.
The people who have been hijacking these ships in our seas are not from our region. We do not know any of the guys on the super-tanker and they haven’t made any contact with us.
You know, our problem is not piracy. It is illegal dumping.
These problems have been going for sometime and the world knows about it. The Americans have been here in the region for a long time now – they know about the pollution.
Instead, no, the world is only talking about the pirates and the money involved.
Mysterious illnesses
Meanwhile, there has been something else going on and it has been going on for years. There are many dumpings made in our sea, so much rubbish.
It is dumped in our seas and it washes up on our coastline and spreads into our area.
A few nights ago, some tanks came out from the high sea and they cracked it seems and now they are leaking into the water and into the air.
The first people fell ill yesterday afternoon. People are reporting mysterious illnesses; they are talking about it as though it were chicken pox – but it is not exactly like that either. Their skin is bad. They are sneezing, coughing and vomiting.
This is the first time it has been like this; that people have such very, very bad sickness.
The people who have these symptoms are the ones who wake early, before it is light, and herd their livestock to the shore to graze. The animals are sick from drinking the water and the people who washed in the water are now suffering.
Isolated
We are people who live in a very remote town and here, we are isolated; we only rely on God.
This town is close to the sea. It is a very old town which has a mixture of Somali clans. It is not big but it has a well-knit community.
Our community used to rely on fishing. But now no-one fishes. You see, a lot of foreign ships were coming and they were fishing heavily – their big nets would wipe out everything, even the fishermen’s equipment. They could not compete.
So the people here began farming and keeping greater numbers of livestock. Like in any other Somali town, all one can do is rely on oneself.
But now we have these medical hazards. What can we do about it?
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7 Reacties
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Re: ‘World only cares about pirates’
Dit geeft je wel te denken. Maarja, er is heel veel piraterij op de wereldzeeen en ik weet echt niet of dat allemaal Robin Hoods zijn. Denk iemand dat ze het land gaan opbouwen en de stranden schoonmaken van het geroofde geld. Dat is ook niet wat het stukje beweerd, maar het wordt lastig als je deze twee verschillende misdaden met elkaar in verband brengt.
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Re: ‘World only cares about pirates’
Nee, zeker niet. In een ander artikeltje van de BBC kon ik al lezen dat die piraten het behoorlijk breed laten hangen; gigantische villa’s, meerdere vrouwen, dure auto’s, en zo. Kan dus allemaal blijkbaar in dat land.
Dit stukje is vanuit het gezichtpunt van een gewone wan.
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Re: ‘World only cares about pirates’
Wat een gruwelijk onrecht!
En dat , omdat ze veel meer willen als ze echt nodig hebben!
Dat stelen ze dan op die manier van machtelozen die in harmonie met de natuur willen leven.
Laat alle schepen die geen rotzooi dumpen voor de Afrikaanse kust ,of de zee leegroven ,vrij doorvaren.
Al die anderen , KAPEN EN BETALEN! -
Re: ‘World only cares about pirates’
even offtopic, want dit heeft niks mee de zee en milieu te maken, maar hier het betreffende stukje over het er aan toe gaat in die piratengemeenschap:
Life in Somalia’s pirate town
By Mary Harper
BBC Africa analyst
Whenever word comes out that pirates have taken yet another ship in the Somali region of Puntland, extraordinary things start to happen.
Pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia have been surgingThere is a great rush to the port of Eyl, where most of the hijacked vessels are kept by the well-armed pirate gangs.
People put on ties and smart clothes. They arrive in land cruisers with their laptops, one saying he is the pirates’ accountant, another that he is their chief negotiator.
With yet more foreign vessels seized off the coast of Somalia this week, it could be said that hijackings in the region have become epidemic.
Insurance premiums for ships sailing through the busy Gulf of Aden have increased tenfold over the past year because of the pirates, most of whom come from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.
In Eyl, there is a lot of money to be made, and everybody is anxious for a cut.
Entire industry
The going rate for ransom payments is between $300,000 and $1.5m (£168,000-£838,000).
A recent visitor to the town explained how, even though the number of pirates who actually take part in a hijacking is relatively small, the whole modern industry of piracy involves many more people.
“The number of people who make the first attack is small, normally from seven to 10,” he said.
“They go out in powerful speedboats armed with heavy weapons. But once they seize the ship, about 50 pirates stay on board the vessel. And about 50 more wait on shore in case anything goes wrong.”
Given all the other people involved in the piracy industry, including those who feed the hostages, it has become a mainstay of the Puntland economy.
Eyl has become a town tailor-made for pirates – and their hostages.
Special restaurants have even been set up to prepare food for the crews of the hijacked ships.
As the pirates want ransom payments, they try to look after their hostages.
When commandos from France freed two French sailors seized by pirates off the Somali coast in September, President Nicolas Sarkozy said he had given the go-ahead for the operation when it was clear the pirates were headed for Eyl – it would have been too dangerous to try to free them from there.
The town is a safe-haven where very little is done to stop the pirates – leading to the suggestion that some, at least, in the Puntland administration and beyond have links with them.
Many of them come from the same clan – the Majarteen clan of the president of Somalia’s transitional federal government, Abdullahi Yusuf.
Money to spend
The coastal region of Puntland is booming.
Fancy houses are being built, expensive cars are being bought – all of this in a country that has not had a functioning central government for nearly 20 years.
Observers say pirates made about $30m from ransom payments last year – far more than the annual budget of Puntland, which is about $20m.When the president of Puntland, Adde Musa, was asked about the reported wealth of pirates and their associates, he said: “It’s more than true”.
Now that they are making so much money, these 21st Century pirates can afford increasingly sophisticated weapons and speedboats.
This means that unless more is done to stop them, they will continue to plunder the busy shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden.
They even target ships carrying aid to feed their compatriots – up to a third of the population.
Warships from France, Canada and Malaysia, among others, now patrol the Somali coast to try and fend off pirate attacks.
An official at the International Maritime Organisation explained how the well-armed pirates are becoming increasingly bold.
More than 30% of the world’s oil is transported through the Gulf of Aden.
“It is only a matter of time before something horrible happens,” said the official.
“If the pirates strike a hole in the tanker, and there’s an oil spill, there could be a huge environmental disaster”.
It is likely that piracy will continue to be a problem off the coast of Somalia as long as the violence and chaos continues on land. Conflict can be very good for certain types of business, and piracy is certainly one of them. Weapons are easy to obtain and there is no functioning authority to stop them, either on land or at sea. -
Re: ‘World only cares about pirates’
Mooi principe ouwe, de vervuiler betaalt.
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Re: ‘World only cares about pirates’
Don Chedi;703178:
even offtopic, want dit heeft niks mee de zee en milieu te maken, maar hier het betreffende stukje over het er aan toe gaat in die piratengemeenschap:Life in Somalia’s pirate town
By Mary Harper
BBC Africa analyst
[B]WConflict can be very good for certain types of business, and piracy is certainly one of them. Weapons are easy to obtain and there is no functioning authority to stop them, either on land or at sea.
Oude wijn in nieuwe zakken .
Al duizenden jaren zijn er piraten en piratensteden.
Toen met bronzen kanonnen en rooksignalen en nu met gsm en mitrailleurs.
Ik vind het keurig dat er geen doden vallen.
Zo pakken de kleurlingen een beetje terug van alles,wat de blanke al heeft gestolen uit Afrika.
De wet is simpel ,Wie in de buurt komt moet betalen.
Wil je niet betalen vaar je maar een stkkie om.
Het zeerecht dat de zee van iedereen is ,is een uitvinding van de blanken.
De Afrikanen zijn het daar niet mee eens.
Alle zee die nodig is voor de bewoners van het aanliggende land is eigendom van dat land.
Als je wilt passeren moet je betalen ,als je het vervuild wordt je zwaar gestraft en als je het leeghaalt krijg je de doodstraf. -
Re: ‘World only cares about pirates’
Overigens kwam dat ook naar voren bij één van die intervieuws:
de drijvende krachten achter die piratenondernemingen zijn voormalige vissers, die geen droog brood meer konden verdienen in eerste instantie door de verwoestende werking van illegale trawlervissers.
Dat geeft inderdaad een wat andere kijk op het hele verhaal. In een ideale wereld is geen misdaad nodig. Maar wie heeft alle antwoorden? Ik niet.
