Some People Took National Talk Like A Pirate Day A Little Too Seriously

[ORD_Buckeye]

For U.S. Navy, high stakes in pirate standoff -- chicagotribune.com

 

[Mac]

 

[PlanetFrnd]

Holy hell - the NYTimes scored an interview with the pirates!

October 1, 2008

Somali Pirates Tell All: They're in It for the Money

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

NAIROBI, Kenya - The Somali pirates who hijacked a Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition said in an interview Tuesday that they had no idea the ship was carrying arms when they seized it on the high seas.

"We just saw a big ship," the pirates? spokesman, Sugule Ali, told The New York Times. "So we stopped it."

The pirates quickly learned, though, that their booty was an estimated $30 million worth of heavy weaponry, heading for Kenya or Sudan, depending on whom you ask.

In a 45-minute-long interview, Mr. Sugule expounded on everything from what the pirates want - "just money" - to why they were doing this - "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters" - to what they have to eat on board - rice, meat, bread, spaghetti, "you know, normal human-being food...

...Mr. Sugule said that his men are treating the crew members well (the pirates would not let the crew members speak on the phone, saying it was against their rules). "Killing is not in our plans," he said. "We only want money, so we can protect ourselves from hunger...

 

[PlanetFrnd]

Sorry to post the whole thing, but this is pretty cool:

Q. & A. With a Pirate: We Just Want the Money - The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog

Q. & A. With a Pirate: "We Just Want the Money"

By Jeffrey Gettleman

Somali pirates in small boats hijacked the Faina, a Belize-flagged cargo ship owned and operated by Kaalbye Shipping Ukraine, on Sept. 25.
Sugule Ali, the spokesman for the Somali pirates holding hostage the Faina, a Ukrainian freighter loaded with weapons, spoke to me by satellite telephone today from the bridge of the seized ship. In the holds of the Faina, which the pirates seized on Thursday, are 33 Russian-built battle tanks and crates of grenade launchers, anti-aircraft guns, ammunition and other explosives. American officials fear that the weapons could fall into the hands of radical Islamist insurgents who are battling Somalia?s weak government. My questions were translated into Somali, and Mr. Ali?s responses into English, by a translator employed by The New York Times.

Q. Tell us how you discovered the weapons on board.
A. As soon as we get on a ship, we normally do what is called a control. We search everything. That?s how we found the weapons. Tanks, anti-aircraft, artillery. That?s all we will say right now.

Q. Were you surprised?
A. No, we weren?t surprised. We know everything goes through the sea. We see people who dump waste in our waters. We see people who illegally fish in our waters. We see people doing all sorts of things in our waters.

Q. Are you going to sell the weapons to insurgents?
A. No. We don?t want these weapons to go to anyone in Somalia. Somalia has suffered from many years of destruction because of all these weapons. We don?t want that suffering and chaos to continue. We are not going to offload the weapons. We just want the money.

Q. How much?
A. $20 million, in cash. We don?t use any other system than cash.

Q. Will you negotiate?
A. That?s deal making. Common sense says human beings can make deals.

Q. Right now, the American Navy has you surrounded. Are you scared?
A. No, we?re not scared. We are prepared. We are not afraid because we know you only die once.

Q. Will you kill the hostages if attacked?
A. Killing is not in our plans. We don?t want to do anything more than the hijacking.

Q. What will you do with the money?
A. We will protect ourselves from hunger.

Q. That?s a lot of money to protect yourselves from hunger.
A. Yes, because we have a lot of men and it will be divided amongst all of us.

Q. [There are 20 crew members, most of them Ukrainian, being held hostage.] How are you interacting with the hostages? Eating with them? Playing cards?
A. We interact with each other in an honorable manner. We are all human beings. We talk to one another, and because we are in the same place, we eat together.

Q. What if you were told you could leave peacefully, without arrest, though without any ransom money. Would you do it?
A. [With a laugh] We?re not afraid of arrest or death or any of these things. For us, hunger is our enemy.

Q. Have the pirates been misunderstood?
A. We don?t consider ourselves sea bandits [?sea bandit? is one way Somalis translate the English word pirate]. We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.

Q. Why did you want to become a pirate?
A. We are patrolling our seas. This is a normal thing for people to do in their regions.

Q. Isn?t what you are doing a crime? Holding people at gunpoint?
A. If you hold hostage innocent people, that?s a crime. If you hold hostage people who are doing illegal activities, like waste dumping or fishing, that is not a crime.

Q. What has this Ukrainian ship done that was a crime?
A. To go through our waters carrying all these weapons without permission.

Q. What is the name of your group? How many ships have you hijacked before?
A. I won?t say how many ships we have hijacked. I won?t talk about that. Our name is the Central Region Coast Guard.

 

[Mac]

"Our name is, The Central Region Coast Guard."

 

[AKAK]

Pirates hijack Saudi 'super tanker' - CNN.com

The "Coast Guard" is at it again...

(CNN) -- Pirates inhave hijacked a Saudi-owned oil tanker with 25 crew aboard off the coast of Kenya the U.S. Navy and the British Foreign Office confirmed on Monday..

The Sirius Star -- a crude "super tanker" flagged in Liberia and owned by the Saudi Arabian-based Saudi Aramco company -- was attacked on Saturday more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, the statement said. The crew include British, Croatian, Polish, Filippino and Saudi nationals.

The UK Foreign Office confirmed two Britons were aboard and said it was seeking more information about the incident.

A multinational naval force including vessels from the U.S., the UK and Russia has been patrolling the Indian Ocean waters seas near the Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, following a sharp increase in pirate attacks in the region.