¡Piratas!

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Duration: 23 minutes and 26 seconds

Country: Spain

Language: Spanish

License: CC - Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives

Genre: Documentary

Producer: Juan Falque

Director: Juan Falque

Views: 552,497 (55,687 embedded)

Posted by: juanfalque on Jan 28, 2011

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Fearless...
Adventurous...
Seductive...
Romantic...
and also a bit naughty
Stories of pirates have always captivated us
in literature, film and on television.
Piracy is as old as navigation itself.
But... what is a pirate?
A pirate is an outlaw who robs and plunders at sea.
He takes possession of that which does not belong to him
And he does it heavily armed and with disregard for the law.
On occasions, they have the protection of a state or a nation,
and they act under what was previous known as a
"letter of marque"
In that case they were called "Corsairs"
"The Somalian pirates have expanded their area of action"
"these are two of the pirates"
"The military attempted to capture the pirates"
"Finally the frigate 'Canarias' reaches the skiff and captures the two pirates"
"About 60 pirates will divide the booty of 2 and a half million Euros between them"
"There has been a fire on the 'Inters-Ono-Dos' repelling the pirates"
"We have 63 pirates on board right now"
"The group of about thirty pirates are armed, have consumed alcohol and are very aggressive"
"Somalian hell"
"At the present time the piracy in Somalia monopolizes the communications media.
But... does such piracy exist?
What does it consist of?
And... who are the pirates, really?
In order to find that out, it is necessary to go back to the origin.
"Pirates"
Somalia was colonized by Italy and England
It won its independence in 1960
But the democratic government only lasted 9 years.
In 1969 the dictator Mohamed Siad Barré
stages a coup d'etat and takes control of the country
He obtains power with the unconditional support of the United States
Thanks to that, the principal oil companies from the United States
obtain important contracts to exploit the oil that belonged to Somalia.
Somalia occupies a geostrategic position that is key
for the transportation routes that unite Europe and Asia.
More than 20,000 cargo ships pass by Somalia's costs through the Gulf of Aden each year
transporting more than 10% of the world's commerce
and also a great deal of the oil extracted from the Middle East.
Since long ago, regional nations and foreign powers have entered into disputes over these waters
as a strategic point for maritime transport routes.
Siad Barré's military rule lasts until 1988
when the National Somalian Movement rebles against the dictatorship.
The uprising gives way to a bloody civil war
which lasts until 1991
when Said Barré finds himself obligated to abandon his position of power and flee from the country.
But his departure doesn't bring peace.
In the absence of power, various clans fight against one another
to take control of the country
impeding the existence of a stable government to the present day.
The civil war had devastating consequences for the Somalian people.
More than 300,000 dead
One and a half million displaced people
and a terrible famine that affects the whole country
made worse by the prolonged drought.
Currently, the fragile government can barely maintain control of the capital city
The confrontations between different factions of the population are constant
Violence, chaos and anarchy reign in the streets of Somalia
and it is considered the most dangerous country in the world.
Taking advantage of this chaotic situation
without control or government
a multitude of fishing ships from various countries
begin to fish with out any sort of liscence in the waters in front of Somalia,
Including Somalia's territorial waters.
These ships, from the United States of America, Asia and the European Union
practice 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 country
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 the 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
Just the tuna fleet, fundamentally composed
of Spanish ships, with 60% of the captures,
and French ships with 40%,
capture in Somalia approximately 500,000 tons of tuna each year
The fishing fleets of powerful countries
with the European Union in the lead
contribute in this way to the impoverishment
of one of the most miserable regions of the world
They rob the population of its principal source of protien
and destroy the local fishermen's way of life
and ability to sustain themselves
and that brings condemnation without hope of a remedy
to a fragile country that agonizes
and dies of 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 importance
The United Nations Monitoring Group for Somalia
has also documented and mentioned the
systematic depredation of the zone in its reports
that is being carried out by 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 here
since the fall of the government in 1991
other ships have begun to appear near the Somalian coast
Their activities are more mysterious
The ships enter Somalia's territorial waters,
throw barrels into the sea,
and leave
This suspicious activity
alarms the Somalian fishermen
who try to dissuade the carriers
who carry out the dumping
But they are unsucessful
The dumping has continued for 14 years
The content of these barrels
had been a mystery until the end of 2004,
the year in which a terrible tsunami
strikes Southeast Asia
When the wave of the tsunami reaches Somalia
hundereds of barrels are are thrown against the coast
The barrels break open
There is leakage. The contents reaches the surface
and ends up on the beaches
the people in the area become sick
Respiratory infections...
intestinal hemorrhages...
strange chemical reactions on the skin
and more than 300 sudden deaths cause alarm in the population
after a time babies begin to be born
with malformations and a range of sicknesses
Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the United Nations
environmental program explains that
when the containers were broken by the strength of the waves
the containers brought to light
an appalling activity:
Somalia is being used
as a dumping ground for toxic wastes
since the beginning of the 90s and continued
together with the beginning of the civil war in the country
The trash is of many classes:
principally, radioactive uranium
and heavy metals
like cadmium and mercury
There is also hospital and industrial waste
chemical wastes
and others that wish not to be named
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
continue to take place at the present time
The diplomat affirmed that he had
reliable information proving that they are
European and Asiatic corporation that 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
A devastated country that is starving to death
The rich countries flock 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
taht some sources label "pirates" appeared
Presented with this situation of complete defenselessness
some fishermen react in a desperate way
They begin to form alliances of small armed groups
and using motorboats they try
to drive away the foriegn fishing boats and dissuade the ships
that dump wastes into their waters
"Many years ago we used to fish a lot...
It was enough to eat and to sell at the market.
But then the foriegn 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"
But at first no one takes them seriously
the foreign fishing fleets continue to fish with impunity
and the toxic waste dumping continues
Given that all of this happens in a country
plagued with weaponry and divided into rivaled groups
ex-combatants soon join the fishermen
and the groups become heavily armed
They see a lucrative business in the capture of these ships
and creating the need for their rescue
When they begin to withhold these ships
the area starts clearing and the foriegn fleets
stop arriving with such frequency
The powerful nations see their
lucrative fishing business threatened
and they are deprived of their private and cheap
dumping ground for toxic and nuclear wastes
The United Nations, which has systemitically ignored the Somali's complaints
is listening now to the countries affected by these actions
Spain and France, countries with important
fishing fleets in the area
are heading the petition for a joint military action
That is how "Operation Atlanta" is born
The mision begins with
8 battle ships, supply ships
and surveillance aircrafts
Following the failure of the operation
its duration and budget is increased,
with more than 20 ships and 1,800 soldiers
The approximate cost for 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 ocasions they have the protection
of a state of a nation
But... Why do these fleets fish there
Can't they do it in their own territorial waters?
In their oceans?
No
And they reason why is terrible
There is nothing left to fish
They have ravaged and plundered all their reserves
Rich countries have exterminated the marine life
in their own oceans
The fishing systems in the capitalist countries
have been industrialized
The marine ecosystems are exploited to the limit,
with the objective of maximizing profits
The marine species capacity for regeneration is destroyed
the food chain is broken
and species become extinct
According to Greenpeace international
at least ¼ of all of the marine life that is captured
is thrown back into the sea dead
whales, dolphines...
albatross,
sea turtles
They are what the fishing industry frivilously labels
by-catches
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 or 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 natrual resources,
Senegal stops renewing its fishing agreements
with European Union countries
But it seems impossible to stop
the capitalist fishing fleets
They mock the law creating fake corporations
and buying licenses from other countries
and flying flags of convenience
Currently, on the internet
flags of convenience can be bought
in a few minutes and 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
who look for a better future in European countries
Ironically, they are the same countries
that have taken away their future
In Somalia, the boats have can no longer be used for fishing
and now they are used for piracy
The global confernece 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.

¡Piratas!

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