The largest ransom ever has been paid for the release of a ship off East Africa. Andrew Mwangura, a Somali living in Kenya was the negotiator of the deal.
Andrew Mwangura has the underground world of African piracy wired. Somali pirates trust him. Warlords respect him. And human-rights activists admire him for putting his neck on the line to keep sailors safe on the lawless high seas
Read his interview on the Daily Beast.
Also, check on AfricanLoft to read about the two groups of pirates operating off the Somali coast: one group blogs to the seven pirate clans in Somalia, but the other does not. They are foreigners, and they don’t hijack ships, they loot Somali coastal waters of its fish stock, and pollute the water in return.
Okay, my issue with this whole Pirate nonsense is that African governments have once again allowed piracy solution to become a market cornered by foreign governments and organizations.
The pirates make all this money from their ‘business activities’. Where does the money go? – Switzerland, Cayman Islands, Monaco, etc
The pirates patrol African waters. Who comes in to ‘regulate’? India, US, European interests.
What do Africans have to say about what is going on in their own waters? Nothing.
The only country doing anything smart is Somaliland which has offered their port as a launchpad for anti-piracy efforts. Hopefully that will work out for them.
We are all so busy dealing with the issues we should have solved decades ago to deal with 21st century menaces.
God help us.
February 13, 2009 at 5:09 pm