The toxic wastes polluting Somalia’s seas did not just end up there by accident after being washed up the shore by the tsunami of 2005.
These barrels of wastes, believed to be thrown by European, Asian and American fleets, have already killed 300 people, as confirmed by international authorities, and have left thousands more sick with unusual diseases caused by radioactivity.
Toxic-dumping agreements
In one of her columns which appeared in the Guerrilla News Network (GNN), Ms. Loretta Napoleoni, the well-known author of Terror Incorporated, Insurgent Iraq, and Rogue Economics, disclosed how European and Asian countries contracted leading waste-disposal firms, the Swiss Archair Partners and the Italian Progresso, to export their undesirable refuse to impoverished countries with weak governments.
Napoleoni, also a senior partner of G Risk, a London-based risk agency, is an expert on the financing of terrorism and advises several governments on counter-terrorism.
She said the most popular destination for the unwanted and undesirable refuse (wastes) of rich countries is Africa, with Nigeria and Somali as favorite spots.
“Among the toxic material unveiled by the tsunami there was radioactive uranium, cadmium, mercury, lead and also highly toxic chemical, industrial and hospital materials from Europe. The shipment dated back to 1992 when a group of European companies recruited Swiss company Archair Partners and the Italian company Progresso, both specialised in the export of undesirable waste. Between 1997 and 1998, the Italian weekly Famiglia Cristiana and the Italian branch of Greenpeace denounced such business in a series of articles. Greenpeace even managed to get hold of a copy of the agreement signed by President of Somalia Ali Mahdi Mohamed, wherein he agreed to receive 10 million tons of toxic waste in exchange for $80 million. This equates to a cost of $8 per ton against a recycling and dismantling cost in Europe of $1,000 per ton,” she said.
Mr. Nick Nuttal, the United Nations (UN) Environmental Program’s media chief, said it is cheaper to dump wastes in Somalia than to have it disposed within Europe.
“It cost as little as £1.70 ($2.51 based on the prevailing exchange rate) a ton, whereas waste disposal costs in Europe was something like £670 ($989.48),” he said in a statement after inspecting Somalia.
He also confirmed Napoleoni’s reports.
“And the waste is of many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury. There are also industrial waste, hospital wastes, chemical wastes – you name it,” the UNEP media chief said.
Inaction of authorities created pirates’ groups
Simon Assaf of the Black Star News, a leading investigative newspaper in New York today, said that despite the evidence uncovered by the tsunami, an investigation into the practice of toxic dumping was dropped. “There was no compensation and no clean up,” he said.
Neither did the UN bodies act on the proliferation of illegal trawler fishing in the Somali seas.
In 2006, Assaf said, the Somali people complained before the UN about the problem of illegal trawler fishing in their area, which was causing the plunder of their fish stocks – especially the prized yellow fin tuna, red snapper and barracuda.
“Despite repeated requests, the UN refused to act. Meanwhile, the warships of global powers that patrol the strategically important Gulf of Aden, did not seize any vessels dumping toxic chemicals off the coast,” Assaf explained.
“So the angry Somalis, whose waters were being poisoned and whose livelihoods were threatened, took matters into their own hands. Fishermen began to arm themselves and attempted to act as unofficial coastguards. They began to seize ships in late 2006. These [ships] were released after a ransom was paid,” he furthered.
The self-proclaimed “pirate” leader Januna Ali Jama, explained to the international media that the ransom they demanded for the release of the Ukranian ship which they seized in November 2008 is to be used for the coastal cleanup.
“We are just reacting to the (dumping of the) toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years,” Ali Jama said, quoting from Assaf’s report.
“The Somali coastline has been destroyed. We believe that this money is nothing compared to the devastation that we have seen on the seas,” Ali Jama added.
The warlords join the “show”
Due to the handsome amount that the sea militias receive, Somali government officials who formed part of the Western-backed Transitional Federation Government (TFG) soon joined the “show”.
“They have transformed the piracy operation into a multi-million industry that funded their lavish lifestyles,” Assaf said.
The officials have begun to fund the militants-turned-pirates with guns, ammunitions and grenade launchers.
Despite their ouster during the popular rebellion of the Union of Islamic Courts in July 2006, the piracy continued.
To date, the Somali buccaneers operate in five well-organized groups, drawing members from large clans, which are extended family networks.
“These groups,” said Crispian Cuss of the London-based Olive Group, “are controlled by warlords and criminal gangs who recruit local fishermen and take a lion’s share of the profits.”
The profit sharing, according to a news report from the leading news wire service, works like this: 20 percent of the ransom goes to the group bosses; 30 percent is used for bribing corrupt officials; 20 percent goes into capital investment like guns, ammunition, fuel, food, and cigarettes; and the remainder goes to the operatives themselves.
It is desperation to earn a living said Andrew Mwangura of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers’ Assistance Program that pushes these fishermen to go into piracy.
Today, there are about 2.5 million Somalis who go hungry everyday, depending only on food aids being shipped to Somali by the UN’s World Food Programme.
“Today, they (the pirates) number around 1,500 up, from around 100 five to seven years ago,” the seafarers’ advocate said.
“They’re earning a lot of money and everyone wants to join,” Mwangura said, adding, “They’re getting new recruits everyday.”
With the bounty coming from the crime, some Somalis have considered piracy as a noble profession, some observers say.
“They always travel in beautiful four-wheel drive luxury cars and look like people who are working for a big business company,” a certain Mahad Shiekh Madar, said to be a car salesman in the northeastern port of Bossaso on the tip of the “lawless” horn of Africa.
Abdulahi Salad, 43, also a former pirate in the central coastal village of Gaan, said pirates were different from the ordinary gunmen in Somalia: they are not thin, and they have bright faces and are always happy.
At late morning last April 20, speedboat-riding pirates sprayed bullets on M/V New Legend of Honor late morning of the said date, aiming to stop the ship. But the hijack attempt was thwarted when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ships patrolling in the area responded to the distress signal.
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