Quote:
Nicht allein die Überfallkommandos verdienen am Lösegeld, an der nahezu staatenlosen Küste Somalias und dem – mehr oder weniger unabhängigen – Puntland, entstehen derzeit geradezu wohlhabende Wohngegenden mit vielen Bungalow-Neubauten, in deren Garagen die Nobelmarken der Welt abgestellt sind, wo Warlords, Clanchefs und eine Vielfalt von Dienstleistern darum bemüht sind, sich schadlos an der Piraterie zu halten. Gewissermaßen als Zulieferindustrie für die kriminelle Branche haben sich rund um Eyl, Harardhere und Hobyo unzählige Restaurants und Garküchen angesiedelt. Ihre größten Umsätze erzielen sie mit den Hunderten von Geiseln, denen sie – mangels Konkurrenz – die Preise frei diktieren können. Experten taxieren den Jahresumsatz von Lösegeld bei den Piraten am Horn von Afrika auf etwa 300 Millionen Dollar. Dies wären 150 Prozent des öffentlichen Budgets des vermeintlichen „Staatsgebietes“ von Puntland, in dem Eyl liegt.
http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/artic...-ist-frei.html
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summary:
Experts estimate the annual ransom earned by those pirates to be around 300 million dollar, which is 150% of Puntlands income. Whole villages live by supporting assault commandos. Along the coasts, whole small towns with many villas have been build where the warlords and clan-chiefs are residing and live a life in wealth and luxury. Piracy has turned into a profitable industry, and whole restaurants and their kitchens pop up to supply both assault commandos and hostages with food. Village communities are in almost complete support of pirate operations, and have made it the basis of their economic living.
I think this gives an idea of what we are talking about. This is not just some poor, poor fisherman not catching eniough fish anymore and being driven by hunger whn they chase those big ships instead - this is a profitable enterprise on large scale, run by warlords and militias chasing the big money. No reason to have romantic images of the noble but poor natives in your mind. Considering it, I would expand my intial tactic, send in a carrier, and let the bombers clean the whole coast of all those noble restaurants and villas and new townships and burn them down and flatten all the pirate nests completely. In other words: waging unlimited war on land. these pirate enterprises are as desperate and innocent as is the FARC innocent of having turned from an ideologically driven guerilla into an a usual common mafia group commiting acts of ordinary organised crime: smuggling drugs and weapons, and kidnapping for ransom, not following any ideals beyond that anymore.
the original article in full also mentions that it is deeply worrying that this tanker was hijacked:
outside the dangerous waters, far away from the coats nad in open blue water, pirates having used a hijecked big trawler to get out to the open sea that far and just near the tanker boarded their small attack boats. This is a complete new quality, and a very dangerous escalation.
the article also says the EU is hammering out a deal with the german navy that would allow them to be a bit more active and eventually arrest pirates - to hand them over to the somalias (very good joke), or hand them over to german authorities if they had directly threatened german "Rechtsgüter". No word on preventing attacks by tying to strike the attacking boats. It is so much safer to send a rubber boat with commandoes to recapture the ship, or have a helo hovering over a ship that is hijecked by persons armed with missile launchers.
idiots, idiots, idiots.
11-18-08, 03:30 PM
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