year of the pirate

Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Shocking how little coverage the US intervention in Somalia received in the media, really. I mean, I knew they had conducted some 'operations' there, but nothing like what the Times talks about in that article.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
Shocking how little coverage the US intervention in Somalia received in the media, really. I mean, I knew they had conducted some 'operations' there, but nothing like what the Times talks about in that article.
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The Ethiopians were acting as American clients, I think that was largely accepted at the time, though a lot of the coverage was quite sympathetic as the Somali Islamists were painted almost like an African branch of the Taliban. Interesting to read this different perspective.

Still, the Saudis certainly know how to hit the western rhetorical g-spot.

In the first public comments made by the Saudi government on the issue, Prince Saud Al-Faisal said: "Piracy, like terrorism, is a disease which is against everybody, and everybody must address it together."
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They'll have to close this down too.
 
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Agent

Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
lots of pirate activity this year in addition to Somalia. Seasteads remind me of Peter Lamborn Wilson' pirate communities. Lenders hijacked the stock market. Guinea pirates (terrifying). Is that like the year of the Rooster in Chinese astrology?

Don't worry. When Obama takes office we'll see what Biden's interventionist policies look like in Africa (Somalia, Darfur), the Middle East (Pakistan), and Asia (Burma, Georgia).
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
Agent Nucleus said:
Don't worry. When Obama takes office we'll see what Biden's interventionist policies look like in Africa (Somalia, Darfur), the Middle East (Pakistan), and Asia (Burma, Georgia).
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Don't think the Georgians or the Pakistanis would appreciate your geography ;)

Edit: seems Pakistan and Georgia are now both in the Middle East. It's a Bushism.

The Greater Middle East (also known as "The New Middle East[1]") is a political term coined by the Bush administration[2] to englobe together various countries, pertaining to the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey, marginal countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.[3] Various Central Asian countries and the lower Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia[4] ) and Cyprus and Greece are sometimes also included. Some speakers may use the term to denote areas with significant Muslim majorities, but this usage is not universal.
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swears

swears

preppy-kei
The attackers generally treat their hostages well in anticipation of a big payday, hiring caterers on shore to cook spaghetti, grilled fish and roasted meat that will appeal to a Western palate. They also keep a steady supply of cigarettes and drinks from the shops on shore.

And when the payday comes, the money sometimes literally falls from the sky.

Pirates say the ransom arrives in burlap sacks, sometimes dropped from buzzing helicopters, or in waterproof suitcases loaded onto tiny skiffs in the roiling, shark-infested sea.

"The oldest man on the ship always takes the responsibility of collecting the money, because we see it as very risky, and he gets some extra payment for his service later," Aden Yusuf, a pirate in Eyl, told AP over VHF radio.

The pirates use money-counting machines — the same technology seen at foreign exchange bureaus worldwide — to ensure the cash is real. All payments are done in cash because Somalia, a failed state, has no functioning banking system.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081119/ap_on_re_af/af_pirate_boomtown
 
P

polystyle

Well-known member
The pirates who took the ship with all those arms of it must be still circling around or docked somehwere,
Far as I know they didn't get paid for their efforts yet ...
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The attackers generally treat their hostages well in anticipation of a big payday, hiring caterers on shore to cook spaghetti, grilled fish and roasted meat that will appeal to a Western palate. They also keep a steady supply of cigarettes and drinks from the shops on shore.
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Dang, I gotta get me piratised one of these days!

The pirates use money-counting machines — the same technology seen at foreign exchange bureaus worldwide — to ensure the cash is real. All payments are done in cash because Somalia, a failed state, has no functioning banking system.
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Now this I don't get: if there's no banking system, why and how is cash worth anything anyway? Surely it's just pieces of paper? Or do they demand dollars? Otherwise I'd have thought a barter economy would be the order of the day.

Also, it seems odd to remark that kidnappers would demand ransoms to be paid in cash...I can't really see them accepting a cheque somehow.
 
jambo

jambo

slip inside my schlafsack
You don't need a functioning banking system to use cash, especially if it's in a currency that is good for trading with other nationalities. You do need a functioning banking system for electronic transfers and so on. I would imagine they prefer dollars or euros. Pieces of eight?
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
jambo said:
You don't need a functioning banking system to use cash, especially if it's in a currency that is good for trading with other nationalities. You do need a functioning banking system for electronic transfers and so on. I would imagine they prefer dollars or euros. Pieces of eight?
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Well they'll steer clear of sterling if they've any sense at all.
 
sufi

sufi

lala
http://icc-ccs.org/
these folks actually distribute pictures of real pirate ships - ahoy!!!

some more good links below:

Somalia: Piracy and the Policy Vacuum

AfricaFocus Bulletin
Nov 22, 2008 (081122)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note

"While the responsibility for this crisis [in Somalia] lies first
and foremost with the Somali leadership, the international
community, principally the U.S. government and members of the UN
Security Council, has also failed ... They have failed repeatedly
to take a principled engagement to solve the crisis, acknowledge
the power realities on the ground, support peace negotiations
without imposing external agendas, or provide independent
humanitarian assistance." - Refugees International

Oil tanker Sirius Star, which was carrying $100 million worth of
crude oil when captured by Somali pirates on November 15, is still
being held for ransom a week later, as is the Ukrainian MV Faina,
captured almost two months ago with a cargo of heavy weaponry.
Actual and attempted hijackings by Somali pirates have more than
doubled from last year, with more than 60 through October 2008 as
compared to 25 in all of 2007. The world's military chiefs and
diplomats seem helpless to do much more than caution ships to post
armed guards on deck, grease their railings, or take the long route
around the Cape of Good Hope.

[For the most recent news on Somali piracy (over 16,000 stories as
of this morning!), see http://tinyurl.com/597ap3 (Google News) and
http://allafrica.com/somalia

For a 12-page background briefing paper on Somali piracy, see
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-/id/665

For an analytical article placing piracy in historical perspective, see
http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/briefings/data/000090 ]

But while the rising threat of piracy off the Somali coast is now
attracting world-wide attention, the United States and other world
powers still have no serious policy to cope with the humanitarian
and political crisis in Somalia. The country's one recent
experience of some months of relative stability, under the Union of
Islamic Courts in 2006, was ended with a U.S.-backed Ethiopian
invasion which has helped make the country the largest humanitarian
crisis in the world. The Transitional Federal Government formed in
exile in Kenya in 2004 with international support and now kept in
power in Mogadishu with the aid of Ethiopian troops, is generally
agreed to be both illegitimate and ineffective. Sporadic peace
talks under way in Djibouti have not slowed the advance of
insurgents, and there is no coordinated international plan to
promote peace (see
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81499 )

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a call for a new policy by
analysts of the Washington-based Refugees International who have
recently returned from the region.

For a report of the November 20 Security Council meeting on
Somalia, see http://tinyurl.com/64w9zm The Secretary-General's
report, dated November 17, is available at
http://tinyurl.com/6bsaw4 (22-page report in PDF format).

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Somalia, and additional
background links, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/somalia.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++

Somalia: Policy Overhaul Required

November 19, 2008

Refugees International 
2001 S Street NW  Suite 700  Washington, DC 20009
Phone: 202-828-0110 Fax: 202-828-0819
Email: ri@refintl.org

http://www.refintl.org
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sufi

sufi

lala
o yeh by the way.....
the somali banking system is way more sophisticated than you all seem to imagine,
because the diaspora is so widely distributed and as the national economy is so dependent on remittances, the 'xawala' money transfer system has branches in most countries (probly much more than barclays/hbos - losers!) a lot are shops - dahabshiil, almustaqbal are the ones you'll recognise from green lanes, but a huge and unregulated amount are strictly private thru trust based on family contacts/networks (although i get the feeling this may be a much lower proportion since somalis society got mashed up thru the 90's),
this is not just a somali thing - a lot of islamic cash gets moved this way, reliance on predatory/incompetent western/capitalist banks is just not good business sense and hawala is more efficient anyway - no commission and money instantly available for overseas collection!
so ... the americans tried to bust the sector after 911, and took down al-barakaat, the biggest hawala operator, ostensibly because of terrorism, but in reality because they wanted control of a HUGE international cashflow.
$20million dollar ransom is tbh a drop in the ocean of hawala
 
sufi

sufi

lala
mother ships at IMB
http://icc-ccs.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75&Itemid=60

Intelligence sources revealed that there are now three suspicious vessels in the Gulf of Aden believed to be pirate mother vessels looking to attack ships with the intent to hijack.

The description of the suspected trawlers - long white, Russian made stern trawlers with names "BURUM OCEAN or ARENA or ATHENA". One of the trawlers is believed to be operating at approximately 60 NM NE of Bossasso, Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. Also intelligence indicates a blue-coloured tug operating in the same vicinity

The centre has received information that the suspected pirate mother ships are at the following positions:

BLUE-COLOURED TUG: 1159N 05056E at 25 0500 UTC Aug 08

Fishing trawler BURUM OCEAN: 1411N 04951E at 25 0930 UTC Aug 08

Suspected Pirate Mother Vessels:

burum1.jpg


burum2.jpg


athena_sml.jpg

Source: Coalition Forces
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the weekly bulletin is a cracking read me hearties:D
 
W

waffle

Banned
sufi said:
o yeh by the way.....
the somali banking system is way more sophisticated than you all seem to imagine,
because the diaspora is so widely distributed and as the national economy is so dependent on remittances, the 'xawala' money transfer system has branches in most countries (probly much more than barclays/hbos - losers!) a lot are shops - dahabshiil, almustaqbal are the ones you'll recognise from green lanes, but a huge and unregulated amount are strictly private thru trust based on family contacts/networks (although i get the feeling this may be a much lower proportion since somalis society got mashed up thru the 90's),
this is not just a somali thing - a lot of islamic cash gets moved this way, reliance on predatory/incompetent western/capitalist banks is just not good business sense and hawala is more efficient anyway - no commission and money instantly available for overseas collection!
so ... the americans tried to bust the sector after 911, and took down al-barakaat, the biggest hawala operator, ostensibly because of terrorism, but in reality because they wanted control of a HUGE international cashflow.
$20million dollar ransom is tbh a drop in the ocean of hawala
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Aren't most of these transfers (especially remittances) now undertaken via mobile phone (and/or the internet), making a branch network even less important?

BTW, a $20m ransom would be significant for Somalia. The budget of the government is just $30m, while the now alternative 'pirate' gov has already raised much more than that via the ransoms. This is an object lesson in the abject failure of the international community to do anything other than aggravate this conflict ...
 
S

scottdisco

rip this joint please
re something Waffle just said, Richard Dowden (Royal African Soc, among other gigs, if you are unfamiliar) two summers ago in the Indie

Somalis bitterly remember the bungled American intervention in 1991 which ended with some thousand Somalis and 18 American soldiers killed in a single night - the Blackhawk Down incident.
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off-topic, but Horn-related:

does anyone - Sufi perhaps? - know what sort of reply from Rice, if any, Feingold got to this re Ogaden?

.pdf link here
 
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