Dear Radio Four

[susanreads]

I've just listened to this evening's Report [on Radio 4] and was struck by the way piracy was viewed as just a law and order problem, with no mention of the reason for it. The program ended with a comment that until the legal issues are resolved, Somali pirates will continue to plunder the High Seas.
The pirates may be "armed gangs" out to make a fortune on the "high seas" now, but they started out as, in effect, the coastguard, protecting their local waters, since there wasn't a Somali state in a position to commission an official coastguard. The original plundering of the seas in that region was done by illegal trawlers from Europe; European shipping was also dumping toxic waste in the area, secure in the knowledge that no local government was likely to stop them.
I first read about this on the internet last year.
The problem isn't going to go away until we address the cause.

I wanted to include a link to http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html but there wasn't room on the comment form. I actually first read about it on Dreamwidth.

Comments

[sasha_feather]

Huh! Wow, thanks for calling this to my attention. I had no idea.

[susanreads]

If you want to read more about it, I found the Johann Hari link on a linkspam by shewhohashope (though that's not where I first read about it). There's also been outrage about misrepresentation of Somali pirates in a DC comic, as I was reminded when I searched for the vaguely-remembered posts from last year.

I got an autoreply from Radio 4, and decided I was more likely to get a substantive response if I sent it in hard-copy, so I'll do that (yay, I have a printer that works! after a long time with one that didn't. It's so much easier than writing legibly).