Pirates demand R33m for SA hostages

[STS]

Attack innocent travellers and hold them to ransom?

Yea... makes perfect sense.

as opposed to begging the west for aid, burning tires to get media attention, swimming up next to foreign trawlers and hitting them with sticks?

i'm not condoning this but this is just like the paedophile being beaten to death saga. shame, he attacked his daughter, so it's okay for him to get off, but other countries bully a weaker country, but they're worse when their citizens start using other means to get money?

blame the pirates, but don't stop with the blame there

 

[porchrat]

as opposed to begging the west for aid, burning tires to get media attention, swimming up next to foreign trawlers and hitting them with sticks?

If ALL these pirates were doing was giving a right flipping hiding to those illegal trawlers I would be cheering them on. You don't respond to violence against you by inflicting violence on some other innocent individual and expect everyone to feel sorry for you.

Hitting the trawlers with sticks? You think that is all they have? You think they capture all these other vessels with sticks? They have guns. Go shoot the illegal fishing trawler operators.

As to where the guns come from man we are talking about Somalia not South Africa. There is no effective gun control there and they have been shooting each other for generations now. Guns are all over the place.

i'm not condoning this but this is just like the paedophile being beaten to death saga.

You are attempting to justify their behaviour by talking about how the fishing trawlers pushed them into piracy. Those trawlers did no such thing. You don't kidnap innocent people. Go after the ones responsible for your fishing woes. There is NO justification for the kidnapping whatsoever.

shame, he attacked his daughter, so it's okay for him to get off, but other countries bully a weaker country, but they're worse when their citizens start using other means to get money?

Firstly not other countries, individual fishing groups. Unless you can provide evidence that those trawlers are state funded please stop claiming that this is other countries bullying a weaker country.

The citizens that use other means of getting money are kidnapping innocent people and holding them for ransom. Both them and the illegal trawler operators deserve to be thrown in prison and have a limpet mine attached to all their boats to scuttle them.

blame the pirates, but don't stop with the blame there

Still blame the pirates. When you find them holding individuals hostage do everything you can to liberate those individuals. That includes shooting these heartless motherfsckers in the face. You don't walk up to the pirates and go "yea I know those nasty fishing trawlers are smoking all your fish, and that forced you to go capture innocent people (as opposed to dealing directly with the fishing trawlers which would allow you to fish once again). I feel sorry for you."

 

[STS]

If ALL these pirates were doing was giving a right flipping hiding to those illegal trawlers I would be cheering them on. You don't respond to violence against you by inflicting violence on some other innocent individual and expect everyone to feel sorry for you.

i've posted links before where fishermen have chased these trawlers down and asked them for a tax for using their waters. randsoming and kidnapping are not the only thing somalians do and people are more willing to pay out for innocent victims than stupid fishermen/poachers who were breaking the law. i'm again, not asking people to feel sorry, i'm asking people to stop beating the branches only and get to the root of the problem.

Hitting the trawlers with sticks? You think that is all they have? You think they capture all these other vessels with sticks? They have guns. Go shoot the illegal fishing trawler operators.

that was my sarcasm, i apologise. here we throw bricks and swing cactii and use sticks to hit cars, why do they use guns? more importantly, where do they get these guns and how do they afford them? can you answer that for me? that is half the point i am already trying to make, other people profit from all of this besides somalians

As to where the guns come from man we are talking about Somalia not South Africa. There is no effective gun control there and they have been shooting each other for generations now. Guns are all over the place.

porch, for me that's the easy answer, that's saying "i don't know and i don't care." you've made up your mind that this is wrong and it is, and again, i want you to see why i don't want you to just be on the somalians case about this whole thing.

You are attempting to justify their behaviour by talking about how the fishing trawlers pushed them into piracy. Those trawlers did no such thing. You don't kidnap innocent people. Go after the ones responsible for your fishing woes. There is NO justification for the kidnapping whatsoever.

I am not justifying them any more than i am justifying criminals in our country, i am stating why they exist. i am fighting this whole mentality of "they are african so it's typical of them to demand." i am showing that for every action there is a reaction and you can't always squarely lay the blame on Africa. if i am failing to point this out i am sorry, i am trying to show that one evil creates another evil and for those that want to see Africans as to blame, i want them to look further.

Firstly not other countries, individual fishing groups. Unless you can provide evidence that those trawlers are state funded please stop claiming that this is other countries bullying a weaker country.

of course it is individuals, but then again there are corrupt individuals in the ANC, but people go on about the ANC as a useless government. i have seen in countless threads, the recent one being with an ANC minister telling the ANC to shape up, the members of this forum not applauding him but saying "whatever, we'll believe it when we see it." the fact is people have abused Somalia, people have affected the fisherman's trade there, and now they expect them to be okay with that?

this doesn't mean i accept that they have resorted to kidnapping and hijacking, but why are people surprised? that pisses me off. where were people when they were dumping toxic waste and when they were being robbed and killed by mercenaries? but oh no, now there are pirates and we have to deal with these somalians, how could they all of a sudden have done this out of nowhere?

The citizens that use other means of getting money are kidnapping innocent people and holding them for ransom. Both them and the illegal trawler operators deserve to be thrown in prison and have a limpet mine attached to all their boats to scuttle them.

i agree, and this is what somalians have become known for, like nigerians have become known for scams and zimbabwe have become known for farm murders. forget what everyone else does in a country

Still blame the pirates. When you find them holding individuals hostage do everything you can to liberate those individuals. That includes shooting these heartless motherfsckers in the face. You don't walk up to the pirates and go "yea I know those nasty fishing trawlers are smoking all your fish, and that forced you to go capture innocent people (as opposed to dealing directly with the fishing trawlers which would allow you to fish once again). I feel sorry for you."

i do and i am glad that they are safe, but when you read posts like:

Ohh, here we go again - they did this because they were hungry !!

i get irritated. why? because so long as they're not an inconvenience to people, we don't care that they exist. they could be starving, dying of AIDS and what not, but oh no, they're inconveniencing us now? all of a sudden a larger group cares. and as usual it's easier to have them executed and killed.

and the reason this all annoys me? an arms dealer whoe has given people the means to kill each other and innocent victims for years is given a 25 year sentence in prison while a pirate that is caught randsoming somebody is given 33 years.

to me this whole world is beating at the branches of all the evil and patting themselves on the back while nobody ever deals with the roots.

 

[porchrat]

You think "this is Somalia" is the easy answer?

The place is even worse than Mozambique and even there every second dude has at least one AK-47. Heck during one of my trips to Mozambique I saw a guy making fscking sculptures out of his surplus AK-47s. He made a lifesize man sculpture out of about 10 of them. I desperately wanted to buy it but I somehow doubt the dudes at the SA border would have just let me roll on through with an AK sculpture.

You need to get your mind out of thinking about how difficult it is to get your hands on a gun in this country and start thinking about how freaking easy it is to get a gun in a country that has been at war with itself for decades. You think people fight that never ending war with stones and colourful language? That is where the guns come from.


Stop talking about what the nasty fisherman are doing. I don't fscking care. NOTHING gives these pirates the right to kidnap innocent people. You saying "ah they only do it because of those nasty fisherman" is bullschit. If that is the case then the obvious answer is to shoot the fscking fisherman and leave the innocent people alone.

 

[STS]

You think "this is Somalia" is the easy answer?

The place is even worse than Mozambique and even there every second dude has at least one AK-47. Heck during one of my trips to Mozambique I saw a guy making fscking sculptures out of his surplus AK-47s. He made a lifesize man sculpture out of about 10 of them. I desperately wanted to buy it but I somehow doubt the dudes at the SA border would have just let me roll on through with an AK sculpture.

You need to get your mind out of thinking about how difficult it is to get your hands on a gun in this country and start thinking about how freaking easy it is to get a gun in a country that has been at war with itself for decades. You think people fight that never ending war with stones and colourful language? That is where the guns come from.

A United Nations report and several news sources have suggested that piracy off the coast of Somalia is caused in part by illegal fishing.[6][7] According to the DIW and the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, the dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters by foreign vessels has also severely constrained the ability of local fishermen to earn a living and forced many to turn to piracy instead

70 percent of the local coastal communities "strongly support the piracy as a form of national defense of the country's territorial waters", and the pirates believe they are protecting their fishing grounds and exacting justice and compensation for the marine resources stolen

this is how they see themselves, so no matter how many people get shot in the face, this is how the majority see their cause.

they have cash counters bought from Dubai, they have weapons bought from Yemen, they have their own base of operations in Harardhere where they even have their own stock exchange, they have rich muslims purchasing weapons on the behalf of the pirates to supply them.

I personally have never been to Mozambique and cannot compare, but all i can do is read, and i get the feeling you thinking that there are weapons everywhere there is like tourists assuming they'll be raped the minute they'll walk outside here. maybe we don't know what it is like there, you and i have not been there.

we both agree what the somalian pirates are doing is wrong.
we both agree that the people who put them into this **** situation are wrong.

all i can see that we disagree on is the difficulty to get hold of weapons.

edit: and lastly, here is an article about a sea pirate from somalia, you see what you think of him:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8010061.stm

 

[porchrat]

this is how they see themselves, so no matter how many people get shot in the face, this is how the majority see their cause.

You don't defend your country from illegal fishing trawlers by ransoming innocent civilians and capturing oil tankers. I really couldn't care what these fscktards believe. There is no logical justification for their actions.

they have cash counters bought from Dubai, they have weapons bought from Yemen, they have their own base of operations in Harardhere where they even have their own stock exchange, they have rich muslims purchasing weapons on the behalf of the pirates to supply them.

Evidence please.

I personally have never been to Mozambique and cannot compare, but all i can do is read, and i get the feeling you thinking that there are weapons everywhere there is like tourists assuming they'll be raped the minute they'll walk outside here. maybe we don't know what it is like there, you and i have not been there.

I have been to Mozambique many times to many different locations and trust me there are indeed weapons everywhere. I once gave a dude a lift back into the local town and we were cruising down the road (beach sand mostly) and he screamed for me to stop the vehicle. Turns out a buck had jumped into view on the road behind us. He said he would get off there and promptly ran off excited into his friends nearby hut to fetch the dude's AK to blow away the freaking buck.

Weapons EVERYWHERE. All left over from that stupid civil war. Somalia's ongoing conflict is on such a scale compared to the one that is now largely over in Mozambique that I wouldn't be surprised if those pirates each had 3 or 4 backup AKs.

we both agree what the somalian pirates are doing is wrong.
we both agree that the people who put them into this **** situation are wrong.

Yea but you seem to be hinting that we shouldn't be calling the pirates what they are because of the mean old nasty fishing trawlers that are causing nastiness.

When mentioning how bad the pirates are there is no need to bring up the fishing trawlers. You cannot excuse or justify the kidnapping of innocent people because someone is taking all the fish so why bother even mentioning some other morons doing something else that is repulsive in the same area. I don't care what the underlying cause of the piracy is these pirates have no respect for human rights and the world would be better off without them. You cannot reason with these pirates, there is no room for compromise. They don't actually care about the fishing because if they did they would be attacking the actual trawlers and not innocent bystanders.

We don't look at someone that just kidnapped a woman and held her to ransom and go "well he was just recently illegally fired from his job and so that mean old nasty company also is in some way responsible". That company is NOT responsible in any way. That individual made his own choice and must bare responsibility for his actions. He had an alternative, he could have taken that company to court. Just as the pirates have an alternative - actually attack the ones that are causing the problem in the first place. They choose not to, they get cannon fire in their faces.

all i can see that we disagree on is the difficulty to get hold of weapons.

Do yourself a favour and do a little travelling in Africa to see just how easy it is to get weapons elsewhere on this continent. In my opinion your views on the matter are tainted by your limited experiences in this country in isolation. I don't think you fully appreciate just how screwed up Somalia is compared to us. Even Mozambique is a paragon of technological advancement and cultural sophistication in comparison to Somalia.

 

[STS]

Actually i've only ever read news articles and reports on it, i've never read actual articles on the pirates themselves. I DO feel they are justified now and feel until the world wakes up then these problems will continue to exist.

Dahir Mohamed Hayeysi:

- "Years ago we used to fish a lot, enough for us to eat and sell in the markets. Then illegal fishing and dumping of toxic wastes by foreign fishing vessels affected our livelihood, depleting the fish stocks."
- "Piracy is not just easy money - it has many risks and difficulties. Sometimes you spend months in the sea to hunt a ship and miss. Sometimes when we are going to hijack a ship we face rough winds, and some of us get sick and some die. Sometimes you fail in capturing and sometimes you come under threat by foreign navies, but all we do is venture. "
- "Thousands of young desperate Somali [migrants] continue to risk their lives in the sea in search of a better life abroad. So it is no surprise to see us in the same water, pirating in search of money - there is no difference. We have local support; most of the people here depend on pirates directly or indirectly. Because if there is a lot of money in the town they can get some through friendship, relatives or business."

Other article:

-Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. "I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation," she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. "I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the 'company'."


Here is an idea, instead of sending all these war ships to go bomb the hell out of these pirates, why don't they give funds and support to this country? I mean they rescue people from pirates but they could never prevent these foreign trawlers from going into their waters and stealing their fish with the superior boats and equipment.

Things just seem so easy and here we worry about stupid things like Kim Slutdashians million dollar wedding, what hair style Justin Beaver has, how well Prometheus is portrayed, etc

 

[STS]

When mentioning how bad the pirates are there is no need to bring up the fishing trawlers. You cannot excuse or justify the kidnapping of innocent people because someone is taking all the fish so why bother even mentioning some other morons doing something else that is repulsive in the same area. I don't care what the underlying cause of the piracy is these pirates have no respect for human rights and the world would be better off without them. You cannot reason with these pirates, there is no room for compromise. They don't actually care about the fishing because if they did they would be attacking the actual trawlers and not innocent bystanders.

this is where i disagree. then you might as well not mention Apartheid then when you ask why criminals are so poor that the resort to crime. i would never justify fighting and suffering, but you can't let some of the evil people go free simply because they are not the evil people you are looking for now. you find evil and you eradicate it. you find suffering and you fix it. it's easy to demonise people that inconvenience us forgeting that they are abused humans too. i bet you the majority of people in africa wish they could have a job with a regular salary and a car that runs.

nothing is going ot change my mind on thi snow after reading the last two articles porch, thanks for the chat and the suggestions

 

[porchrat]

All of this nonsense aside you are going to have to explain to me why how exactly the pirates logically arrive at the conclusion that they are defending themselves by kidnapping innocent people. I would really love to hear how they arrive at that conclusion because I know the explanation would be laughable at best.

Then you are going to have to explain why. if this is all caused by illegal fishing trawlers, the pirates aren't solving the real problem. They have the weapons, they have the manpower. Instead of devoting that manpower to blowing the illegal fishing trawlers out of the fscking water they kidnap Joe and Jane Soap and demand 33 million dollars because that is uh... how much they would earn normally fishing if those darn nasty trawlers weren't running around stealing all the fish. Schit man those fishing boats must be made of solid platinum and their wives must be living like the Kardashians if that is the case.

I mean come on.

 

[dualmeister]

Watched a bit on the Somali pirates in a documentary recently (Indian Ocean With Simon Reeve) and its true a lot of them turned to piracy when the fishing started to dry up. Also the prisons are full of pirates, however I cannot condone their actions.

News 24 latest

London - Somali pirates seizing Indian Ocean ships were responsible for at least 35 hostage deaths in 2011, a report showed on Friday, with levels of violence rising.

The number of prisoners taken by pirates fell to 555, at least, in 2011 from 645 in 2010, the report by the US-based One Earth Future foundation and International Maritime Bureau said.

Eight were known to have been killed by their captors either during their initial capture or were executed later, it said, with another eight dying of malnutrition or disease. The remainder were killed either during rescue attempts by military forces or while trying to escape.

While solid data on previous years is limited, the total of 35 is seen as by far the highest number of piracy-related fatalities in a single year.

"We know these figures are almost certainly an underestimate," project manager Kaija Hurlburt said. "A lot of the ships now being taken are regional dhows that are often never reported. They might have 12 to 20 people aboard each time."

Despite a major naval effort by several nations, hundreds of young Somalis engage in piracy every year in the hope of ransoms that can run to millions of dollars.

With some ship-owners apparently simply abandoning their vessels and crews, particularly the smaller more vulnerable craft, crews have found themselves held for ever longer periods.

Tougher action

As more and more merchant ships carry armed guards, foreign navies take tougher action and some ship-owners prove unable or unwilling to pay up, some believe piracy itself is getting harder - and that is being taken out on those in captivity.

At least 149 hostages had now been held for more than a year, the report said, with 26 held for more than two years. Many of those released reported abuse including beatings, removal of fingernails and dumping in the sea.

More than 40% said that at some stage they had been used as human shields, often when pirates sailed captured vessels back out to sea to act as mother ships for new attacks. Most hostages were from developing countries, particularly the Philippines, India and China as well as Gulf and African states.

The level of violence being used was also increasing, the report said. In 2011, more than 3 800 personnel were aboard ships that were attacked by pirates with firearms in what were often prolonged and brutal assaults.

Casualties among the pirates were also almost certainly on the rise, with reports of at least 111 killed in 2011, some 70% in clashes with increasingly aggressive naval forces.

Sad that as more armed forces start to get involved making it more dangerous to be a pirate they are becoming more aggressive towards hostages.

How pirates should be dealt with.

[video=youtube_share;dc7kpM5Tzbo]http://youtu.be/dc7kpM5Tzbo[/video]

 

[patrick]

I'm sitting inside somalia at the moment...

I've only been here a couple of days, but the people here seem quite unique. Very open, very respectful. Unlike the rest of africa, they do not beg from you just because you're white.

In the security briefing I was told that some governments pay the ransom. The US/UK don't, they send rescue teams, but Italy, germany and some other european nations do. From speaking to my collegues and the security guys here, keeping your word is extremely important to somalis, so if they say the ransom is x amount it will be that. In the rest of africa when you reach the amount they'll try raise it, but here you get released.

Interesting, our staff members who are still being held keep getting their salaries, but we don't pay ransom as part of our policy. At times we've used connections with influential people to get victims released, but it normally takes some time...

Ps camel meat is pretty good!