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TechnoratiForeigners Are the Real Pirates, Says Former Somali Fisherman
The first time Farah Ismail Eid set out to hijack a ship off the coast of Somalia his boat was easily outrun. On the second occasion he kept pace but his boarding ladder was too short. On the third attempt he was captured.
![[Suspected Somali pirates hold onto their boat in the Indian Ocean near the Gulf of Aden in this photo released by the Spanish Ministry of Defence on May 7, 2009. (REUTERS/Ministry of Defence/Handout)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/pirates_indianocean.jpg "pirates_indianocean.jpg")
Eid, 38, from Eyl on the Somalia coast, is one of an estimated 1,500 fishermen-turned-pirates who have made the seas between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean the most dangerous shipping route in the world.
“I believe the title of pirates should be given to those who come to our waters illegally,” he told The Times after shuffling into a room at the British colonial-era Mandheera prison, 40 miles south of Berbera, wearing plastic sandals, a T-shirt and a length of printed material wrapped around his skinny waist.
Eid may have not proved himself much of a pirate, but others have attacked at least 114 ships this year, 29 successfully. About 20 ships and 300 crew are being held hostage, while dozens of international warships now patrol the Gulf of Aden.
International forces have been wringing their hands over how to deal with captured pirates. In many cases they are simply released after their equipment is destroyed — but Eid and his four-man crew were tried and given 15-year prison terms. “When we capture the pirates we bring them to justice,” said Ahmed Ali, the deputy head of the ill-equipped Somaliland Coastguard.
Mandheera prison is straight out of a spaghetti western: hot wind blows dust devils across a scorched plain surrounded by rocky, scrub-covered hills. A few eucalyptus trees offer scant shelter from the 40C (104F) heat. Barred windows in the 6m (20ft) walls let little light into the sweltering cells that are home to 633 prisoners, including the five pirates caught in September last year. Another 31 have been captured and brought here since.
Eid blamed foreigners for the rise of piracy. He said he had a couple of boats and a fish-trading business in Eyl until illegal trawlers ruined the fishing: “The fish we caught used to be enough for the local people and enough to sell, but now there is not even enough to eat.”
Foreign ships started dumping toxic waste in Somali waters, he said, and one day he found shoals of fish floating. “We thought we were lucky. We collected the fish and stored them in refrigerators, then later we discovered they were like plastic.
“These problems fell on us like rain,” he said, his right leg twitching as he chewed on a mouthful of qat, a narcotic leaf enjoyed by many Somalis.
Eid said that fishermen bought guns and set out to exact informal taxes on the foreign owners of illegal trawlers. The kidnapping business proved lucrative, with ransoms of hundreds of thousands of dollars regularly paid out — and any noble motives were soon forgotten as pirate gangs launched attacks on cruise liners and cargo ships, including those carrying food for Somalia’s starving millions.
He justified the attacks as a way of highlighting their concerns. “We are quite aware that what we are doing is wrong, but this is a way of shouting to the world,” he said. “The world should ask: ‘Are these people wrong or were they wronged themselves?”
Eid has his own solution to the problem. “The international community should come and talk to us; they should compensate us for the problems caused to our waters by illegal fishing and toxic waste,” he said. “Then, until the government is in place in Somalia, we could protect the ships as they cross our waters.”
The international community is unlikely to take him up on the offer.
36 Comments so far
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It all comes down to the U.S. and E.U. to classify the Somali Pirates as "Terrorist". Then they can do what ever and detain these captured pirates and the world will forget them. Will the next altercation with Sea Shepherd Society or Greenpeace with the illegal whaling in the Antarctic be considered a terrorist act? Look where this is going - "The Big Picture" folks.
No, the West would never do something like this! Governments' sanctioned stealing, that is what it is. The Somalis should defend themselves anywhich way they can.
Why not pass the hat, buy them some modern fishing equipment? 10 trawlers, nets, poles, nav, sonar-would feed thousands and thousands daily.
Didn't some famous guy feed people with fish? oh, no, he judged, convicted and put them in cages.
azjoe, it's not that simple. Some of the Somali pirates have said that they started out as sort of maritime vigilantes against foreign trawlers that were (and still) fishing off the coast of Somalia, cutting into their traditional livelihood. And then they saw the "opportunity" in piracy and taking hostages. So, to "feed thousands and thousands daily" assumes that only local fishermen do the fishing. The ocean, as everything else on this planet, is NOT limitless.
There is competition for limited resources. Right now, in the Somalian coast, the fight is between unequal parties. Wait till you see the competition for resources in the Arctic region. Countries staking a claim there are the U.S. and Russia (of course), as well as Canada (it's their backyard, anyway) and Denmark (wouldn't be surprised if Britain has thrown in the hat as well).
Alcyon, right on-
Maybe we could help with irrigation, seeds, assistance learning some techniques, obtaining the implements, tractors...a little help,
In the past couple of days, it is reported by NPR, the UN Security Council unanimously authorized interested parties to seize and board ships bound for North Korea which might be carrying materiel considered "contraband" including nuclear material and to remove (steal) the same. Even with the imprimatur of the UN Security Council, a global oligarchy more often than not at odds with the UN General Assembly, how does this differ from "piracy"?
-30-
They (the un approved pirates) have a 'letter of marque'.
Kinda like how ole QE the first gave Raleigh and his friends the 'right' to raid the ships of the Spanish Armada in the 1500s.
In the 1980s, the US Government provided confiscated drug running boats, captured in the Caribbean, to international development organizations.
These aid organizations used confiscated drug smuggling boats to develop fishing industries in Africa.
Somalia was a recipient of these drug running boats.
Drug running boats from the caribbean are now being used by Somali pirates to attack international shipping
Divine justice... or divine irony ?
I hope I piss a lot of people off by saying this: the international view of industrialized nations toward Somalis is nothing more than no-count niggers! It's the same reason so few people really received the help they needed four years ago after Katrina down in my part of the country - nobody cares about rednecks and niggers, because that is how we are perceived to be by so many others. Had the recent shootings in Kansas and Washington been done in the deep South, there would be a lot more national coverage, but since it happened outside of the deep South, both shootings will soon be forgotten. We poor black and white folk of the South and third world-ers of color are held to a different standard than the rest of the world. We have to play by the rules, while everyone else can get away with murder and other crimes and it just seems to be OK.
Predators will chase anything that runs from them. If you can't defend yourself, they perceive you as on the run. Never argue with somebody who buys ink by the barrel.
thank you common dreams for posting article like this, i told friends and family about articles like this and they just laughed and said it wasn't true.
hence, corporate tv.
please more article like this.
Yes, we need more articles like this. Somalia has been gutted by forces beyond the control of its people, and justice has not been served - once again. It would be wonderful if this dreadful state of affairs can be turned around.
While it's easy to blame the western nations and their navies, what about the general public in these countries, as well as affluent countries such as Japan? It's their demand for fish and seafood that's the problem. How is it possible for all these people to buy seafood and eat at seafood restaurants day after day, year after year? It has to come from somewhere - and deep sea trawlers are all over the oceans catching anything and everything that moves - threatening some species with extinction and damaging other marine ecosystems. About a century ago, it would have been possible for the majority of people to eat meat and seafood only on occasion. If, despite the increase in population, everyone gets to buy or eat meat and seafood everyday, it's possible only by factory farming and overfishing - and both are unsustainable. And there's a connection with what happens in Somalia or the rain forests in South America and South East Asia.
Oh, you are so right. Over-fishing has decimated our eco-system. The few of us who actually care are being laughed off. Until there are no more viable options, this will continue unabated. We must do something.
I think that both McConnell, the author, and Eid, the would-be pirate are out of their minds to try to justify piracy by such a silly argument!!
bligh4
Since the Somali pirates are attacking ships 500 miles out to sea, I wonder where everyone thinks Somali territorial waters end?
Because dumping toxic waste 500 or a million miles is still dumping something illegal. I guess you support toxic waste dumping by WHITE BOYS just as you defend terrorism by WHITE BOYS and WHITE (NON)JEWS.
bligh4
Horrified- lay down the crack pipe and go lie down.
Horrified, someone doing something bad way away from your home doesn't necessarily mean you get to go start shooting him or threatening to shoot him. If that were the case, old W would have been justified in stomping Hussein. Somalis levying "taxes" on ships in their waters, attempting to protect themselves when no one else will, have a tenuous legal argument. 500 miles away, they have none, any more than the U.S. can sail into Havana and try to enforce their regulations on marina sanitation. The fish 500 miles away would not be under Somali jurisdiction even if they were a first-world nation with a carrier fleet to enforce their writ. I am unfamiliar with the law on disposal of waste in international waters, but at 500 miles offshore, other countries WITH navies are in just as much danger as the Somalis.
The self-defense justification of the Somali pirates ultimately fails because, whatever the crimes being committed of their shores, they have shown no inclination to limit their predations on law-breakers. Rather, any undefended ship within their range appears to be fair game. One cannot justify taking hostages on an innocent passerby by claiming others in the same area have wronged you, or committed some crime. And most of the ships passing through are doing just that- passing through, neither committing nor complicit in the commission of any crime. Unless you think that because they are from the same culture or are the same color as the criminals, they deserve to be treated as criminals themselves? (I note that color seems to play a large role in your deliberation.)
Somalis have suffered and continue to suffer the predations of other nations as well as each other. But these attacks off their coasts are no popular uprising, patriotic self-defence force, or the armed wing of a class struggle. This is brigandage, discriminating only against the slow and unarmed. Far from a step forward against global capitalism, this is a step backwards.
so what are we doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and now in Pakistan?? Please enlighten me.
Being "big league" pirates, of course, and of the very worst sort. But I don't think that changes the given perspective on the (legal) legitimacy of Somali piracy. Maybe I missed something?
Well said!
Mr. Wanderer seems to have problems with "wandering political thoughts" and keeping on the subject matter about pirates and their predicament.
It is unfortunate the people who suffer under conditions not of their making of this world have to endure times such as these. Many other countries will exploit rather than taking the initiative to improve the conditions of their neighbors. At some point we can only hope that we as humans will realize we are all in this together. The pirates' dilemma sounds similar to the Nigerian residents of the Niger Delta having their land and seas exploited by the Shell Oil Company polluting their fishing waters and destroying their livelihoods. Maybe the Somali Pirates should file a lawsuit in New York City and in every other country that pollutes their waters?
stewed64, I was trying to provide perspective on orders of magnitude.
Indigenous people all over the world are suffering 'development'. The native people in Peru are trying to stop the deforestation of the Amazon---and are being shot dead! We, the 'developed' nations, are so ignorant. Our way of life is ecologically non sustainable. We are sickening ourselves and seriously damaging the earth. The indigenous people have lived for centuries following wise methods of caring for themselves, their children and the environment. We have so much to learn from them, but we are continuing to kill them.
You speak the double truth, wantrealdemocracy!
"At some point we can only hope that we as humans will realize we are all in this together."
At some point we may, not just "as humans" but as one species out of a (diminishing) multitude. However, I'm not optimistic about what the world will look like by that time.
Some nations steal their fish and others poison the water with toxic and radioactive dumping. Now those same nations can pay and pay to keep their flotilla of warships patroling for poachers and illegal dumpers. How do these big nations manage to get up in the morning without putting both feet in the same pant leg?
That's why "The international community is unlikely to take him up on the offer.".
Look how the US Treasury has been looted by Obama's friends.
So good I had to say it twice -
apologies for the posting hiccup.
Obama's friends, GWB's friends...this is not partisan. All the politicians are owned by the corporations...the corporations that have been dumping toxic waste off the coast of Somalia for years.
If by all you mean to exclude Nader and McKinney.
Nader and McKinney are not a legislators so I don't know why you mention them. I will say that Kucinich is not on the take.
Because I can read. Try it.
Kucinich is great, but once he said impeachment was a side show, I'm not sure that even he is too wrapped up in the party.
Look how the US Treasury was looted by Obama's friends.
Capitalists are the REAL pirates.