Merrytime Enterprise
The Pirates of Penzance may have enjoyed a long theatrical tradition to the great acclaim of Gilbert and Sullivan's appreciative audiences, but it's taken the pirates of Somalia to make the entire shipping world sit up and take notice. And groan, and rattle the depth of their pockets for the loose change these enterprising maritime pests exact as 'taxes'; justifiable as any claimed by any recognized country, because they too have to make a living.No fewer than 92 piratical instances of independent enterprise off the coast of a country that hasn't seen much other than ongoing wars and weary social turmoil in the last 17 years. A country whose pathetically struggling government has indicated it is now largely in the hands of violently insurgent Islamists, an effective part of the Islamic scourge that has been possessing Africa of late.
Granted, a mere 36 of those attempts has seen success; but what a monumental level of success, claiming millions in 'fees' before the release of cargo, crew and ship. Not all have yet been settled; the feisty pirates, some of them well armed and heartily invested youths, still hold fourteen ships to ransom.
In some instances, international warships have been close enough to the scene of attacks to fend off the pirates, but others, not so fortunate.
Of which the latest two appear to be the real prizes; the Ukrainian vessel MV Faina, loaded with military hardware, awaiting an $8-million ransom, and the most recently detained Sirius Star brimming with two million barrels of Saudi oil; for which, Somali sources claim, $25-million will set crew and ship and cargo free to continue their journey.
At the present time, pirates are patiently holding some 268 unfortunate crew members representing the as-yet-unpaid levy imposed for their freedom.
The government of Somalia, incapable of instilling any semblance of law and order in the tiny portion of the country still under their control, can do nothing about its new industry, so troubling to the rest of the world.
And the pirates, initially funded by kindly overseers in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Gulf, to enable them to procure adequate weaponry and boats to persuade unarmed merchant ships to glide along with them to port, gave good interest accountings to their benefactors. With more than enough left over for the pirates to personally enrich themselves.
After paying for new state-of-the-art weapons and faster speedboats, purchasing grand houses, expensive vehicles, and - oh dear - additional wives. In fact, a thriving local economy has grown up around these activities, where the port town of Eyl in the Puntland region of Somalia has developed as a base with local industries to cater to this growing trade.
Who ever said that Africans lacked a spirit of enterprise - very free enterprise - ingenuity, entrepreneurship, joie de vivre?! "We enjoy life with the money we get as a ransom. this is just like any business for us. We care about it, just like anyone would care about their jobs." How's that for a business spirit, dedication to a thriving enterprise?
While maritime security experts hem and haw and speak in outraged tones of the unprecedented lawlessness, and a dreadful widening of pirate activity into an immense oceanic area impossible to patrol, the pirates complacently view their business as an indication of their acumen in identifying a hitherto-unexplored and very lucrative business enterprise.
"All we do is ask ransoms from the ships we hijack because we believe a ransom represents a legal tax that a government may have taken." And the local economy is booming.
Labels: That's Life, Troublespots, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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