Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me! It be soundin' utopian, mateys.Somali pirates living the high lifeBut can it last? Can the love of money hold pirate clans together?
Most of them are aged between 20 and 35 years - in it for the money.
And the rewards they receive are rich in a country where almost half the population need food aid after 17 years of non-stop conflict.
Most vessels captured in the busy shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden fetch on average a ransom of $2m.
This is why their hostages are well looked after.
The BBC's reporter in Puntland, Ahmed Mohamed Ali, says it also explains the tight operation the pirates run.
They are never seen fighting because the promise of money keeps them together.
Wounded pirates are seldom seen and our reporter says he has never heard of residents along Puntland's coast finding a body washed ashore.
Given Somalia's history of clan warfare, this is quite a feat.
Only as long as the vast majority have little to nothing. A perfect example is piracy in the United States. Oil company executives should be bitter rivals. Instead they are part of a brotherhood of pirates that lives by their own little pirate code. Aye, we be gunnin em down and rapin em, but we be sharin the booty. And the pirates living the high life can act amicably towards each other as long as they are all part of the rich elite sailing on the seas of the corpses of the oppressed working class. Yo ho ho and a bottle of 100 year scotch!
Or maybe the Somali pirates have a killer public relations department.
1 comment:
Some truths make me want to cry a little.
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