Y’know, there are hundreds of millions of desperately poor people who don’t take up kidnapping and murder. Poverty certainly makes the option more attractive than it otherwise might be, but there’s still a choice. A choice the majority of impoverished and oppressed still manage to come down on the other side of.

“Is it just me, or does it seem like an obvious answer would be to staff all ships that travel off the coast of Somaila with Indians and Africans, providing valuable jobs for these under-represented sailors, yet underscoring their low worth to the pirates.”

It’s just you, because the owners of the cargo are not interested in ransoming the crew. They are interested in reclaiming the valuable cargo. If they could do *that*, they wouldn’t pay a dime for the crew.

And a crew of Westerners is only valuable because it would be a (minor) P.R. debacle for a Western company to let said crew be executed.

The ship owners want the ship returned. The crew is expendable.

@14: Care to cite sources for those claims, rather than just assuming that all Western companies must clearly not care about human life at all? Even the interviewee here completely disagrees with you.

@19: “Defending themselves” would be a viable excuse if they were requiring that ships stay out of their waters, and sinking or capturing the ships that don’t. That’s not quite what they’re doing, is it? Are you saying that if you trespassed on someone’s land, you wouldn’t mind if they went, kidnapped your family, and threatened to kill them if you didn’t give them money? Except maybe you just went near their land, and didn’t even step foot on it; you just happen to be part of a society that might have had a hand, in addition to a number of other factors, some of which are their own fault, in destroying their livelihoods.

Of course, I don’t believe his justifications.

I don’t think that governments could continue to ignore the non-oil middle east any longer, if everyone and their dogs are capturing virtual ships in the Gulf of Aden to feed their virtual families, seeing the old neighborhoods of the game going to ruin and more and more people taking up piracy just to get by. It could be a lot more than yet another documentary with pointing fingers and Al Gore as the lead figure.

The same would go for the general condition of Mogadishu with its warring factions and external influences (US, Ethiopia, the occasional Taliban etc.), that would both be the perfect stuff for a game and shed light on a largely ignored situation. (Any time before and after Black Hawk Down, that is.)

Again.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article418665.ece
Here’s a link from 2005 after the tsunami.

We begin asking a high price and then go down until we agree on a price.

That’s how they negotiate? That’s BRILLIANT! I’ve never heard of such an effective and sure-fire way to negotiate a ransom…

Is it just me, or does it seem like an obvious answer would be to staff all ships that travel off the coast of Somaila with Indians and Africans, providing valuable jobs for these under-represented sailors, yet underscoring their low worth to the pirates.

In many cases, I would be willing to bet that the millions of poor that don’t resort to kidnapping and murder fall into one of two categories: They either live in a place (like the US) where there is sufficient infrastructure and support services to survive without resorting to violence, or they live in areas where there just isn’t any point to it because there are no good targets or ways to profit from those targets.

In the article, he points out that the area’s economy has basically been erased by the exploitation of other country’s. I’d be willing to be that piracy is just about the only activity available with any profit-making potential. In poor countries like this, there are no food pantries, no public facilities, no welfare or medical clinics. You either find a way to survive, or you die.

You are right in that I’m guessing if these people had any real viable alternatives, most of them would probably take them. Not saying it makes it right. Just saying it’s probably the “rightest” option available to them.