Monday, April 20, 2009
Somali Piracy: Wash Post confirms origins in fight against illegal ocean use
Once you get past the mis-lede of today's Washington Post story on Somali Piracy, you find this:
It confirms what I've been blogging here and here.
Piracy began as a violent reaction to rampant illegal fishing by commercial fishing companies, mostly from European and Asian countries, according to U.N. officials, who say the fishermen often operate with fake licenses.
A Somali man who gave his name only as Ali said he became a pirate in 2004 after several confrontations with commercial fishing vessels operating in Somali waters.
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"We used to put our nets at night in the sea and go back in the morning to see our catch, but we'd just see a big ship taking our nets out of the water," said Ali, 25, now a shopkeeper in Nairobi.
When he and his colleagues steered their boat close to the vessel, he said, the crew sprayed them with hot water, and one of them fired bullets. Ali said his friend was injured, their boat was sunk and they had to swim to shore. The next time they went out to sea, he said, they were hauling AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
"Our plan was to attack the illegal fishing boats," he said. "We took ransoms to cover our wounded people . . . in all, we took 16 ships."
It confirms what I've been blogging here and here.
Technorati Tags: Energy, Environment, Framing, Global, Poverty, Press, privatization
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