No, not the Pittsburgh Pirates. I don't follow sports. I don't even know if it is baseball season, to be honest. I'm talking about...
THE SOMALI PIRATES!
As some of you, I'm sure, are aware, Somali's have taken hold of one of the largest ever hijacked vehicles ever, an oil tanker called the Sirius Star which is Saudi owned. They have recently, over the last two days, hijacked 3 more ships, and I'm hearing the number of ships they have hijacked and ransomed is somewhere over 60.
Check these pirates out in action in the photo here.
I haven't heard of these actions until recently, when Shusli mentioned the hijacking of the oil tanker a few days ago. So I started reading. In all the articles I have read, there has been no mention of why, other than ransoming. I just knew there had to be more. There just had to be because they weren't quoting any pirates or representatives thereof. Sounded somewhat like a cover up. Well...IT WAS.
Turns out that a few years prior to the civil war, many Euro and other corporations starting signing illegal pacts to dump their toxic waste off the coast of Somalia. These were amped up during the civil war, another FLAGRANT violation of international law by the Swiss and other Euro nations.
After the Tsunami in 2004, thousands of barrels of toxic waste dumped mostly by European companies ILLEGALLY off the coast of Somalia washed ashore and thousands of Somalis because sick from the toxic waste.
Euro's have ADMITTED to their illegal actions, yet still claim that the actions the Somali's are taking are not the way to go about things. Why is that? Would talking stop them? Would asking nicely, "HEY, EURO CORPORATE ASSHOLES, WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP KILLING OUR PEOPLE?" Would that have stopped them? No! In fact, not even the piracy thus far has seemed to stop these criminal actions by Euro's and other nations.
Now, there is a pattern to this. You see, the same shit happens in Indian Country here in the states. When Shusli and I were at the Indigenous Environmental Network Conference in Minnesota in 2006, we heard many a story from mostly people in the Southwest region of toxic wastes dumped on their nation by corporations signing pacts with corrupt tribal governments. So, what is the pattern here?
Wealthy folks not only create wealth by robbing the poor, they create it by cutting costs. When dumping waste, it is CHEAPER to do so on land that is unregulated and thus they corporations can get away with criminal behaviors that kill and harm people while filling their already vast bank accounts. The wealthy get wealthier, and the poor get sicker and die. A few people in the middle make a few bucks via corruption and can avoid the toxic areas because they can afford to move away from the toxic lands.
Same with Somalia. Wealthy corporations and the wealthy people that run them can pay as little as $2.50 a ton for their ILLEGAL dumping, where as if they did so legally in their own nations it would cost up to $1000.00 a ton. Thus, the wealthy make $9997.50 by dumping it illegally off of the coast of Somalia. Of course, there is all the illness, death, and enviornmental destruction that they cause...BUT WHO CARES! Somalia is a nation most folks know little about and here in the U.S., most folks consider a terrorist nation because of that crappy movie, "Blackhawk Down."
So, let me cheer on the Somali pirates...
GO PIRATES GO!
And may more pirates be created all over the world in order to protect the people from the wealthy that would gladly force us all to suffer so they can fill their bank accounts with our blood and the blood of our children.
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