Sailors are positively butchered

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

"Positively Butchered" DER SPIEGEL weekly cover story:

The skull and crossbones are undergoing a renaissance on the oceans of the world. More and more often, yachts, freighters, but also tankers are being plundered and hijacked. Japan already sees its main supply artery as being seriously threatened, while pirate hunters worry that ships with no one at the helm could cause environmental disasters. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB), an organisation of banks, insurance companies and shipping companies in London, registered 469 attempted attacks by pirates over the past year – 56 percent more than the year before. But many incidents are not even reported in view of the resulting paperwork this involves, so the number of cases that go unreported could well be three times as high. The estimated damage caused by pirates comes to about three billion dollars a year. And last year 77 people died at the hands of pirates. "Positively Butchered"

“Selayang, Oh God, Can You Hear Us?”

The Strait of Malacca is a pirate’s paradise. They come from the impoverished coast of Indonesia and raid ships carrying the treasures of the world economy. The most recent victim: a tanker belonging to Shell. On board: 3500 tonnes of fuel oil and a crew of 14. Piracy pays. 500 dollars for a murder on board, a month’s pay for an ordinary seaman. A dock worker who reveals what cargo a ship is carrying gets 1000 dollars, a captain who allows himself to be bought off gets 10,000 dollars, and a pirate can make 20,000 dollars per operation. But the people at the top can earn many hundreds of thousands of dollars with 3500 tonnes of oil, and a great deal more if the ship subsequently sails for them. Who is on which side, who are the goodies and who the baddies, is a matter of chance, and things could be entirely different again tomorrow.

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/english/0,1518,150751,00.html

NOTE: This is the English summary - the entire article is far more complete, but also in German.

-- Rich Marsh (marshr@airmail.net), August 21, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ