Somali Pirates

This is seen as away of life in Somalia and is totally acceptable in the region the Somali pirates are millionaire’s living the good life building the best of houses for themselves and their families and sure they are stealing the yachts and keeping them. Who indeed wouldn’t want to be a pirate I’d get me a parrot and a hat and call myself Long Beard of the Somali Sea.

There are more and more pirates by the day in Somalia because of the social acceptance of this piracy of the sea. People see that others get away with it with ease and want the big payoff in a couple of weeks or months they are willing to wait for it don’t they have the ships to hold for collateral not to mention the hostages they took along with them.

Any hostage they have taken they have always treated well as to not alert the international human rights agencies. The hostages think it’s a great idea if you can get away with it and in Somalia it appears you can. These pirates buy up houses and guns and treat their family and friends well, the moneys not wasted on trying to start a war or overthrow the government or anything like that. You could say they are just like us in a way only we don’t pull up along side a ship with a rocket launcher for money we have regular jobs, but if you knew that there were no guns on board and you had a boat and a rocket launcher in you hand wouldn’t you give it a go, knowing that once you get it back into Somali waters your home free. All it takes is a phone call from there to collect your millions.

Most of the pirate gangs are made up of three different kinds of people there are ex military operatives used for weapons tactics and training most of these have fought in Somali clan wars over the years. Then there are the ex fishermen that have been fishing in Somalia down through the years and they know the sea in that area and what routes other ships like nobody else does. The third are computer geeks known as technical experts they build GPS systems, satellite phones, military hardware the ships blue prints etc. Its not just a bunch of thugs that just got the idea in their heads and took to the sea with a RPG or a Bazooka. These men know exactly what they are doing and that they can get away with it too. They steal hundreds of ships and boats every year some you here about some you don’t.

Most of the worlds imports travel through this shipping lane between Yemen and Ethiopia and into the Indian ocean and the pirates sit and wait for them to pass through and launch an attack. Everything passes through this shipping lane from helicopters, sports cars, food supplies to military supplies to oil tankers you name it, it travels through here.

Pirates are an unstoppable force that scour the seas of Somalia in search of the biggest ship with the most valuable goods aboard. These are mostly oil tankers or just huge valuable ships the bigger the better right. They take them into Somali waters and hold them for ransom. There are coves filled with huge ships all along the coast of Somalia belonging to lots of different countries and companies. The Somali’s don’t care to much for what is inside the ships, they have to give them back in most cases the way they got them to get the ransom.

Somalia has been through its fair share of conflicts down through the years it was under British rule up until the sixties and it just seemed to tear itself apart since. The government only ruled 10% of the country up until the early nineties when the Americans had to step in to get food and aid to war torn areas. Recently as May 2006 saw Somalia’s worst outbreak in violence in ten years sparked by Islamist militias called the SICC Somali Islamic Courts Council battling rival warlords. By June of the same year they had taken over the capital Mogadishu and gained most of the southern regions of Somalia the Somali government were in unsuccessful peace talks for months and Ethiopia’s saw these Islamic militias as a threat to their security and deployed its troops to Somalia’s border by December 06. Mid December 06 Ethiopia launched air strikes on Mogadishu and the Somali army and the Ethiopian army launched a ground assault and forced the militia out in a few days. Ethiopia vowed to keep its troops in Somalia until it stabilizes and a fundamental government was formed.

In January 2007 the Americans air struck retreating Islamist militias that were fleeing the Ethiopian and Somali armies thinking they were Al Qaeda rebels killing innocent Somali’s. The Somali’s and Ethiopian’s attacked the Insurgents while they were attacking the Islamist groups leaving 300 civilians dead and 320,000 fleeing the fighting in Mogadishu in just two months. The violence intensified in October where another group formed The Alliance for the Re liberation of Somalia they were made up of moderate Islamist leaders they agreed to a cease fire 2008 to allow the Ethiopian troops that were stabilizing the country at the time to be replaced by United Nations troops the problem was that the UN couldn’t form a big enough coalition to sustain lasting peace. The UN had troops tending to other conflicts in the Congo and other places neighbouring the Congo protecting refugees. They simply didn’t have enough troops to keep peace in Somalia as where as everywhere.

Because of the chaos going on in the south pirates get to roam free and do as they please so what if they are killing themselves down south we are okay up here is the attitude of most of the pirates. The government have enough to be dealing with in the south and in the capital what would they care if there are hundreds of ships along their coasts its not like they are in the position to give them back. They can hardly deploy troops to the area so the pirates are laughing all the way out to see.

I asked myself why don’t they put armed personal on board these ships or attack the Somali coast and its only after hours of reading I found the answers. They cant put the armed guards on the ships because in other seas it is illegal to bare arms and a whole lot of laws in lots of countries would have to be changed not seeing the end of legal proceedings for the next ten to fifteen years and some countries see it as not their problem so why should they invest in a law that doesn’t benefit them another way to look at the same solution is you will only be expanding the pirates borders. And why don’t they just attack the Somali coast and retrieve their ships ? This one is simply straight forward there is enough war going on in the country and most of the countries have peace troops in there trying to stabilize the conflict in the south and the capital.

There was a fear that Russia were going to attack 2008 when the pirates pushed their boat out a little bit to far and hi jacked a Ukrainian ship carrying Russian military equipment with ground to air missile launchers and a whole load of tanks and a couple of helicopters. The Russians were not impressed they had to be talked out of attacking because of the negotiations going on with the conflict in Mogadishu a ransom was paid it was said to be 3.5 million and the ship was freed. The pirates know they have such leverage over the situation and they can ask for what they want.

There was another case in 2008 where the pirates stole an oil tanker this was the biggest to date of all the hi jacks $100,000,000 in words its 100 million worth of Saudi Arabian oil tanker. It was three times the size of an aircraft carrier and 500 miles off the African coast in foreign waters. This was a definite planned hit, but it was unusual for pirates to go this far outside their borders. Temptation got the better of them they approached the unguarded tanker in a speed boat put the rocket launcher to the hull and said throw down a ladder they boarded the ship armed rounded up the crew of 25 put them in a room and took the ship back into Somalia and docked it in the Somali port in EYL on the gulf of Aden until they can sort a ransom out and there it stayed all $100 million of it, this was quarter of the daily production of crude oil in Saudi Arabia. This made Saudi Arabia contemplate using military force to retrieve the ship but the hostage situation complicated things. The pirates received $25 million in ransom for their efforts.

All the way up along the north coast in Somalia quiet fishing villages turned into pirate colonies all the fishermen became pirates when they saw how much money they would make and they were all qualified for the job . Most children you see will tell you they want to be a pirate when they grow up because of the great way of living they see that comes from being a pirate. And you cant blame them either if they can get away with it. On the other hand the violence wont last forever in the south and the pirates could be facing themselves taking on the government.