It is in the media on a regular basis that the Somali pirates have hijacked a ship and are asking for ransom to release the ship and its crew. Many Pakistani seamen and their families have suffered. It gives an impression that all the Somalis are pirates. Or, all the pirates are from Somalia. Somalia is a lawless place. There is no dispute and no doubt about it. The lawlessness in turn, is contributing directly to the piracy and all other problems. The dispute is that who is responsible for the lawlessness and still contributing to prolong it. The pirates are the foot soldiers; petty criminals, hired to carry out the actual acts of piracy. They cannot plan, hijack and keep a ship somewhere on their own.
There must be a big organization with hundreds of people and control over a vast area to undertake an operation on such a scale. A ship is too big to be kept in a safe or locker just like cash or jewelry. It is not a car also to be kept in a garage. It will have to be kept in a port or at an anchorage; an area of several square kilometers. That vast area with its own infra structure, must have several hundred people to run and maintain it. Those hundreds of people must have an overall in charge, just like any other port and port city. That in charge must be an admiral, a general or a minister in the Somali transitional government.
Or, at least, he must be closely linked to some powerful man in the transitional government. It means that he is a business partner of a man on the USA payroll. The entire world knows that the transitional government was set up and is still being sustained by USA.
Khurshid Anwar
Peshawar
