Last night I was on youtube. Yeah I know what you're think, "Such a youtubeawhore!" Yep that's me! But while on youtube I started to watch some interviews with K'naan, the Somali born-Canadian reared rapper. K'naan talked about the piracy issues that his country's facing. He gave me so much insight on the history behind Somali pirates.
We know that Somalia hasn't had a government in effect since it's civil war in 1991. Because there is no government in place there is no one watching their seas. And because of this, European and Asian private companies have been illegally dumping nuclear and toxic waste on the Somalia's coastline. This nuclear dumping has had major effect on the health of the coastal population.
"At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died."
Moreover, there has been illegal fishing. There has been an estimated $300 million of shrimp, tuna, and lobster taken each year depleting the stocks previously available to local fisherman. "Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters.""
Because all of these atrocities were occuring and there was no government to protect the people - the people started the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia. These were ordinary fishermen who tried to stop others from dumping and illegally fishing and they also tried to enforce taxes.
Of course every pirate is not enforcing a tax. However, I believe that this background information on what has happened and is happening in the Somali seas gives us a complete story. Countries have combined forces to rid the seas of these Somali pirates. I wanna know, will some countries combine forces to will rid the seas of private companies illegally dumping and fishing on Somali shores? Just a thought.
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment