Somalia, a Devastated Country is Starving
to Death, with Rich Countries Flocking in to Snatch Away the Fish
and on the way,they Contaminate the Waters with Toxic and Nuclear Waste: This
is the Context
The saga begins with a classic US
covert military coup of the country of Somalia in 1969, with the installation
of the puppet dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre. The motives behind this were due to
Somalia's strategic location, along the sea lanes through which most Middle
Eastern Crude is distributed, worldwide.
This dictatorial regime was finally
ended after 3 years of civil war in 1991 when Barre was forced to flee the
country. The civil war between 1988-1991 had devastating consequences for the
Somalian people, killing than 300,000, with one and a half million people displaced
and a terrible famine that affected the whole country, made worse by a
prolonged drought.
The dictator's departure did not
bring about peace and Somalia descended into a clan warfare, which has not
stopped since. At present, the government cannot even maintain control of its
own capital city and Somalia is considered the most dangerous country in the
world.
Fishing ships from various
industrialized countries in Europe, the US and China then began to take
advantage of this chaotic situation, practicing a kind of fishing labeled
I.U.U. Illegal, Undeclared, Unregulated. Their incessant and uncontrolled
activity, employing methods of fishing that are prohibited in other regions of
the world is depleting the fish reserves of a country that lacks the authority
and resources to protect its coasts.
Currently, more than 800 ships from
different countries are fishing in this zone. It is estimated that the income
generated by the illegal fishing amounts to more than 450 million dollars. Tuna
fishing has experienced a vertiginous and unsustainable increase in the last 10
years.
The tuna fleet alone, comprised of
Spanish ships, with 60% of the catch and French ships, with 40%, who, poaching
illegally in Somalian waters take approximately 500,000 tons of tuna each year.
These fishing fleets from two powerful countries in the European Union are in
the lead, as far as this criminal mass-poaching is concerned, which has further
accelerated the impoverishment of one of the most miserable regions of the
world.
They are robbing the local
population of its principal source of protein, while destroying the local
fishermen's way of life and their ability to sustain themselves, bringing about
an intractably hopeless situation, without remedy, to a fragile country in agony
and almost dead from starvation.
Since 1990, the Somalian community
has protested repeatedly before the United Nations and before many
intergovernmental organizations. Somalia's protests have never been listened to
or given any importance, The United Nations Monitoring Group for Somalia has
also documented and mentioned the systematic depredation of the zone in its
reports on the foreign fishing fleets. The United Nations doesn't even listen
to its own advisors and has done absolutely nothing to stop the looting. But
the nightmare doesn't end there:
Since the fall of the government in
1991, other ships began to appear near the Somalian coast. Their activities
were more mysterious. The ships would enter Somalia's territorial waters, throw
barrels into the sea, and leave. This suspicious activity further alarmed the
Somalian fishermen, who, lacking any other support, tried on their own to
dissuade the carriers who engage in this dumping. They've been unsuccessful and
the dumping has continued unbated for 14 years.
The contents of these barrels
remained a mystery until the end of 2004 - the year in which a terrible tsunami
struck Southeast Asia. When the tsunami reached Somalia, hundreds of barrels
landed on the coast and many barrels broke open and began to leak upon the
beaches. The people in the area became sick with respiratory infections,
intestinal hemorrhages, strange chemical reactions on the skin and more than
300 sudden deaths, causing great alarm to the population. After a time, babies
began to be born with severe birth defects and a range of illnesses.
Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the
United Nations environmental program has stated that when the barrels were
broken by the strength of the tsunami, they brought to light an appalling
activity: Somalia has been being used as a dumping ground for toxic wastes
since the beginning of the '90s and which has continued, non-stop, since that
country's the civil war.
The toxic trash is of comprised of
several different varieties: principally, radioactive uranium and heavy metals
like cadmium and mercury. There is also hospital and industrial waste, chemical
wastes and others, which the filmmaker does not care to name, at this time.
The most alarming factor is the
dumping of nuclear waste. The radioactive waste is killing the Somalian people
and is totally destroying the oceans. Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, The United Nations
special representative to Somalia declared to Al-Jazeera that dumping of toxic
wastes continues to take place into the present time. The diplomat affirmed
that he had reliable information proving that European and Asiatic corporations
are dumping the chemicals and nuclear wastes on the Somalian coasts. Yes, the
United Nations sent representatives to observe the catastrophe and without any
more thought, the chapter was closed.
At the moment, there hasn't been a
single trial, detention, or sentence for the these criminal acts And, this does
not only occur in Somalia. The waters of other African countries, like Ivory
Coast, Nigeria, Congo, and Benin are also used by industrialized nations as
dumping grounds for toxic wastes. In 2001 alone, 600,000 tons of toxic wastes
arrived in Africa: The African continent has been converted into the dumping
ground for radioactive wastes generated by rich countries
Somalia, is a devastated country
that is starving to death, with rich countries flocking in to snatch away the
fish and on the way, they contaminate the country's waters with toxic and
nuclear waste: This is the context in which the men that some call
"pirates" appeared.
Presented with this situation of
complete defenselessness, some fishermen reacted in a desperate way. They begin
to form alliances of small armed groups and using motorboats, they tried to
drive away the foreign fishing boats and dissuade the ships that dump wastes
into their waters.
As one fisherman said, "Many
years ago we used to fish a lot... It was enough to eat and to sell at the
market. But then the foreign, illegal fishing ships arrived that many times
dump toxic substances which decimate the fish reserves. I don't have any other
alternative"
They call themselves "Volunteer
Somalian Coastguard" and they have the complete support of the local
population According to a survey, 70% of the Somalian population strongly
supports this activity as a form of defending the country's territorial waters.
One of their leaders, Sugule Ali, explains their motives: "To put a stop
to the illegal fishing and the dumping in our waters We don't consider
ourselves outlaws of the sea. We consider those who fish illegally and dump
toxic wastes to be the outlaws."
At first, no one took them
seriously. The foreign fishing fleets continued to fish with impunity and the
toxic waste dumping continues. Given that all of this is happening in a country
that is armed to the teeth and divided into rival groups of current and
ex-combatants, soon these groups joined the fishermen and this the erstwhile
fisherman-based "Volunteer Somalian Coastguard" become heavily armed.
Due to newfound weapons and aided by
trained warriors, they began to see a lucrative business in the capture of
these ships by creating the financial need for their rescue. As soon as they
they began hijacking these these malevolent ships, the area began seeing a
mass-clearing and the foreign fleets, who stopped arriving with such frequency.
The powerful nations saw their
lucrative fishing business threatened and themselves deprived of their private
and cheap dumping ground for toxic and nuclear wastes. The United Nations,
which has systematically ignored the Somali's complaints, began listening now
to the countries affected by Somalian "pirates": Spain and France,
countries with important fishing fleets in the area are heading the petition
for a joint military action. This is how "Operation Atlanta" was born
The mission brought eight battle ships, supply ships and surveillance
aircrafts.
Following the failure of the
operation, its duration and budget was increased, with more than 20 ships and
1,800 soldiers. The approximate cost for this operation to the Spanish
government amounts to more than 6 million euros per month The cost of the
Galician and Basque tuna fishermen's private security forces amounts to half a million
euros per month. The Spanish government takes responsibility for half of this
cost, using the nation's general budget.
Let's remember the definition of a
pirate: They rob at sea, taking possession of that which does not belong to
them. They carry out their actions, heavily-armed and on occasion, they have
the protection of a nation-State
But...Why do these fleets fish
there? Can't they do it in their own territorial waters? In their own oceans?
No. And they reason they can't is terrible: It's been completely fished-out.
They have ravaged and plundered all their own reserves. The rich countries have
exterminated the marine life in their own oceans. The marine ecosystems of
Europe have been exploited to the limit, with the objective of maximizing profits.
The
marine species' capacity for regeneration has been destroyed in the European
region; the food chain has been broken and species have now become extinct.
According to Greenpeace International, at least one quarter of all of the
marine life that is captured is thrown back into the sea, including dead
whales, dolphins, albatrosses, sea turtles: They are what the fishing industry
frivolously labels "by-catch."
From the seas of the north to the
Gulf of Biscay the Cantabrian and the Mediterranean, the habitat of many
species has been depleted and destroyed. A professor of the history of
political thought, Jose Carlos Garcia Fajardo, affirms: "Our European
fleets went in search of the rich fisheries of Africa, Latin America and Asia.
In many countries they benefited from unscrupulous governments from countries'
lack of resources to defend their own waters or from fake corporations created
for the purpose of exploiting the countries' riches.
In
the year 2006, trying to protect its natural resources, Senegal stopped
renewing its fishing agreements with European Union countries - but it seems
impossible to stop the European fishing fleets They mock the law, creating fake
corporations and buying licenses from other countries and flying flags of
convenience. One can purchase flags of convenience in a few minutes on the
Internet for less than 500 euros.
In Senegal, fishing boats have
ceased to be useful for their intended purpose and now they are used to
transport immigrants, looking for a better future in European countries.
Ironically, they are flocking to the very same countries that have plundered
their futures in their own countries. In Somalia, the boats can no longer be
used for fishing and now they are used for piracy.
The global conference on the Oceans
announced that 75% of the world's fish reserves have disappeared. The Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also reported that 80% of the
worlds fisheries are over exploited and 30% of all marine species are under the
biological security limit.
Taking all of this into account,
many scientific studies calculate that in the year 2048 all of the world's
fishing reserves will have been depleted.
- See more This film charts the
shocking events, which led to the heretofore unknown phenomenon of Somalian
Pirates, whose fame was recently given the Hollywood treatment, in a film
starring Tom Hanks.AT:
http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/videos/crime/the-real-pirates-of-somalia.html#sthash.umGO8iVo.dpuf
(Video:
23 and a half mins):
The
REAL Pirates of Somalia
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