#1 For all the bad press the pirates get, once you actually look at where they came from, it makes a lot of sense. Sure, piracy is illegal, but they're not particularly bloodthirsty.
In the 1990s, a group of fisherman in settlements there banded together to prevent illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off their shores. When some ships illegally fishing were boarded in attempts to police the region, the reward offered for the boats return was enormous—amounts that were many times the monthly income of entire villages.
Who can blame them? Their shore was being efficiently stripped bare by Taiwanese factory fishing boats. When all that money got dangled in front of their faces, they put 1+1 together and got 2, which is a lot more than most African societies can manage. |
