Rab’s World

Somali pirate - Modern way to get paid!

Not a condescending statement at all! The pirates of the 16th and 17th century are veerrry old news! Replace your buccaneer tri-corner hat with a well-cropped haircut of the African persuasion. Replace that old school sword with a Russian-manufactured rocket-propelled grenade strapped to your back! Get rid of that eye patch strapped to your head! Glue a satellite phone instead to your ear! Don’t forget the handkerchief to mask all but your eyes on your face! Puntland (formerly part of the greater Somalia before 1991 in East Africa) showcase the world’s most prosperous and modern day pirates!

BBC News Africa published this report that these Somali pirates have taken advantage of one of the most important water passages in the world. The Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean waters of the coast of Somalia are hotbed of piracy. Huge ransoms are paid to the pirates who are highly organized. It doesn’t take much to overtake a slow moving transport vessel.

The United States; Britain and France have been heavily patrolling these waters. Largely because the pirates began their profiteering by attacking WPF (World Food Program), charted ships coming to Mogadishu and Merka. But the truth is that the USA is more preoccupied with “it’s” war on terrorism. Although this piracy can definitely be classified as world terrorism. Just not of the type to warrant massive US investigation and retaliation. This is not the first time in history that the USA has dealt with African piracy. Please recall the Barbary (derivative of Berber) pirates of North Africa (Magrehb/Mediterranean) during the early 1800s.

Big Guns and smarts get you paid when 'jacking!

It’s a rich enterprise for a young Somali with no hold or regard for law. True governmental law has been non-existent for a while now. Although the autonomous and unilateral Somaliland will disagree. There are other piracy areas such as the western island waters of Indonesia and the Niger Delta oil fields off Nigeria. There are reports of piracy off the coast of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea also. See this article. Truly gansta! But none come close to as this maybe because the Somali pirates do not have a political agenda. It is easy for a corporation to pay ransoms in excess of 2 million US dollars … cash!

Don’t believe me? Then see documented activities of these modern day Pirates.

MAP of Somali pirates - 2007 - 2008 activity - PDF

This map illustrates reported incidents of piracy in the Gulf of Aden from January to 30 September 2008; and was produced by UNOSAT in support of the ongoing humanitarian operations across the Horn of Africa, and in response to the UN Security Council Resolution 1816 (2008) adopted 2 June 2008, and IMO resolution adopted 29 Nov. 2007 calling for continued monitoring of Somali pirate activity. Satellite imagery has been used in this analysis for the identification of suspected hijacked vessel locations between the villages of Eyl & Garacad. All piracy incident data has been obtained from public media sources. Reported incidents in 2008 are highlighted with an intensity color scale. Previous incidents from 2005 to 2007 are also shown. Note, this is an initial assessment and has not yet been independently verified in the field. Please send additions/corrections to UNOSAT. Map scale for A2: 1:2750,000; Projection : Transverse Mercator; Datum : WGS 1984.

This Halloween in America, get one up on the competition. They’ll never guess who you are dressed as!