“If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that’s brotherhood. But if you—if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that’s not brotherhood, that’s hypocrisy.”—Malcolm X
Evidently, not much has changed in our foreign policy since Gonzi (former Prime Minister of Malta) took us into the Libyan war! However, rest assured that the people would judge you all when they awake!
Since, when in 1991, the government of Somalia—in the Horn of Africa—collapsed, its nine million people have been teetering on starvation—and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump their nuclear waste in their seas.
So without any government to protect the rich Somali waters, and thus with no one to stop them, ships from Western and other developed countries began sailing into Somali waters. Thousands of unmarked toxic barrels were dumped off the Somali coast. The coastal population suffered from strange rashes and produced deformed babies. Then in 2005 when the tsunami hit, these leaking barrels were washed up onto the shore. The people suffered with radiation sickness leading to the death of hundreds of Somalis. Simultaneously, foreign ships were looting the ungoverned Somali seas, stealing in-excess of US $300 million of sea life a year and with it the livelihood of Somali fishermen and community.
Consequently, many Somali fisherman turned to the only alternative ‘save our seas’ and livelihood. And so, these good guys with a ‘Robin Hood’ complex were termed as ‘pirates,’ who were simply angry fishermen who boarded foreign vessels and demanded a ‘fee.’ But as the illegal fishing persisted, some early pirates banded together and called themselves “coast guards.” They claimed to be looking after Somalia’s territorial integrity until the government could pull itself back together. And why not, after all they were not stealing anything from somebody else’s backyard!
In fact, when the Somali pirate spokesman, Mr. Sugule, was questioned as to why the ‘pirates’ were attacking foreign ships he replied; “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters.”
The UN special envoy for Somalia had for long sounded the alarm about rampant illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off the coast of this lawless African nation. “Because there is no (effective) government, there is so much irregular fishing from European and Asian countries,” Ahmedou Ould Abdallah told reporters. “It is a disaster off the Somali coast, a disaster (for) the Somali environment, the Somali population,” he added. In spite of which, the UNSC (United Nations Security Council), a number of whose members may have ulterior motives to indirectly protect their illegal fishing fleets in the Somali seas, passed Resolutions 1816 and 1838, giving a license to any nation who wants a piece of the Somali marine cake.
The powers that be have no decency in that they are causing millions of deaths in Africa for control of natural resources. And all this goes on and the mainstream media rarely talk about it or even worse lying on all possible occasions and thus side-stepping the illegal fishing industry. That makes them complicit too. It is very disturbing.
We need truths. We need the WHOLE story as most of our folks are totally ignorant of the conspiracy of commissions and omissions.
But we do contribute towards the development of Somalia, don’t we? Surely, we do! In September 2013, the Maltese government bound itself to contribute 50,000 Euros yearly for three years to Somalia to help efforts to rebuild the country, emphasizing the importance of institution-building. Apart from the shame of this pittance we can never have a peaceful conscience knowing the extent of the robbing and looting we are aiding to the detriment of the Somalis. Besides, we vaunt of establishing diplomatic relations with Somalia with our Prime Minister bragging of this “important step forward in the context of the immigration crisis,” and that this will make it easier for Malta to request the help of Somali experts to identify whether migrants arriving here are genuinely from Somalia. Is that all our depth of thinking and consideration? Aren’t we, at least, ashamed of being so blatantly dishonest? We are contributing to subdue the Somalis who are revolting because their seas are being ravished by foreign powers. Somalia is a ravished country. The stance taken by the Maltese government is disgraceful and also out-rightly hypocritical
And we sent our soldiers, not to help these poor people but to defend the illegal looting by other developed countries. This is a total disgrace and hypocrisy on the part of our Government and specifically of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who either doesn’t know any better or is out-rightly hoodwinking the people and all the electorate who trusted him in the belief of his faithfulness to the tenets of the MLP (Malta Labour Party) and our Constitution, not to involve our country in any armed conflicts. Or did he have his arm twisted to forgo all our national interests and Constitutional obligations and join the bandwagon of political betrayals.
Why is there no common outcry against the risking of the lives of our soldiers in somebody else’s battles? Doesn’t our Minister of Foreign Affairs realise that we could be bringing back our boys (or girls?) in metal caskets? And then, dear Minister, what are you going to tell their families, relatives and friends? That you sent them over to bring democracy to that country? Playing about with lives is no joke, Mr. Minister!
Every time I am touching this African reality I get rage and tears of sadness in my eyes.
Somali ‘piracy,’ or rather the Somali ‘coast-guard’ is currently at a 5 year low. However, the pity of it all is that the underlying conditions which lead Somalis to ‘piracy’ remain largely unchallenged. So there is no incentive to stop what the West call Somali ‘piracy’!
Well, had I been a powerless, starving Somali, most probably I would have been a ‘pirate’ fighting Maltese soldiers!
“The idea of democracy has been stripped of its moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy.”—Paul Wellstone
Joseph M. Cachia, resides in Malta and is a freelance journalist. Contact him at jmcachia@maltanet.net.
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Comical . . . if it weren’t so sad
Posted on July 22, 2014 by Joseph M. Cachia
Evidently, not much has changed in our foreign policy since Gonzi (former Prime Minister of Malta) took us into the Libyan war! However, rest assured that the people would judge you all when they awake!
Since, when in 1991, the government of Somalia—in the Horn of Africa—collapsed, its nine million people have been teetering on starvation—and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump their nuclear waste in their seas.
So without any government to protect the rich Somali waters, and thus with no one to stop them, ships from Western and other developed countries began sailing into Somali waters. Thousands of unmarked toxic barrels were dumped off the Somali coast. The coastal population suffered from strange rashes and produced deformed babies. Then in 2005 when the tsunami hit, these leaking barrels were washed up onto the shore. The people suffered with radiation sickness leading to the death of hundreds of Somalis. Simultaneously, foreign ships were looting the ungoverned Somali seas, stealing in-excess of US $300 million of sea life a year and with it the livelihood of Somali fishermen and community.
Consequently, many Somali fisherman turned to the only alternative ‘save our seas’ and livelihood. And so, these good guys with a ‘Robin Hood’ complex were termed as ‘pirates,’ who were simply angry fishermen who boarded foreign vessels and demanded a ‘fee.’ But as the illegal fishing persisted, some early pirates banded together and called themselves “coast guards.” They claimed to be looking after Somalia’s territorial integrity until the government could pull itself back together. And why not, after all they were not stealing anything from somebody else’s backyard!
In fact, when the Somali pirate spokesman, Mr. Sugule, was questioned as to why the ‘pirates’ were attacking foreign ships he replied; “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters.”
The UN special envoy for Somalia had for long sounded the alarm about rampant illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off the coast of this lawless African nation. “Because there is no (effective) government, there is so much irregular fishing from European and Asian countries,” Ahmedou Ould Abdallah told reporters. “It is a disaster off the Somali coast, a disaster (for) the Somali environment, the Somali population,” he added. In spite of which, the UNSC (United Nations Security Council), a number of whose members may have ulterior motives to indirectly protect their illegal fishing fleets in the Somali seas, passed Resolutions 1816 and 1838, giving a license to any nation who wants a piece of the Somali marine cake.
The powers that be have no decency in that they are causing millions of deaths in Africa for control of natural resources. And all this goes on and the mainstream media rarely talk about it or even worse lying on all possible occasions and thus side-stepping the illegal fishing industry. That makes them complicit too. It is very disturbing.
We need truths. We need the WHOLE story as most of our folks are totally ignorant of the conspiracy of commissions and omissions.
But we do contribute towards the development of Somalia, don’t we? Surely, we do! In September 2013, the Maltese government bound itself to contribute 50,000 Euros yearly for three years to Somalia to help efforts to rebuild the country, emphasizing the importance of institution-building. Apart from the shame of this pittance we can never have a peaceful conscience knowing the extent of the robbing and looting we are aiding to the detriment of the Somalis. Besides, we vaunt of establishing diplomatic relations with Somalia with our Prime Minister bragging of this “important step forward in the context of the immigration crisis,” and that this will make it easier for Malta to request the help of Somali experts to identify whether migrants arriving here are genuinely from Somalia. Is that all our depth of thinking and consideration? Aren’t we, at least, ashamed of being so blatantly dishonest? We are contributing to subdue the Somalis who are revolting because their seas are being ravished by foreign powers. Somalia is a ravished country. The stance taken by the Maltese government is disgraceful and also out-rightly hypocritical
And we sent our soldiers, not to help these poor people but to defend the illegal looting by other developed countries. This is a total disgrace and hypocrisy on the part of our Government and specifically of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who either doesn’t know any better or is out-rightly hoodwinking the people and all the electorate who trusted him in the belief of his faithfulness to the tenets of the MLP (Malta Labour Party) and our Constitution, not to involve our country in any armed conflicts. Or did he have his arm twisted to forgo all our national interests and Constitutional obligations and join the bandwagon of political betrayals.
Why is there no common outcry against the risking of the lives of our soldiers in somebody else’s battles? Doesn’t our Minister of Foreign Affairs realise that we could be bringing back our boys (or girls?) in metal caskets? And then, dear Minister, what are you going to tell their families, relatives and friends? That you sent them over to bring democracy to that country? Playing about with lives is no joke, Mr. Minister!
Every time I am touching this African reality I get rage and tears of sadness in my eyes.
Somali ‘piracy,’ or rather the Somali ‘coast-guard’ is currently at a 5 year low. However, the pity of it all is that the underlying conditions which lead Somalis to ‘piracy’ remain largely unchallenged. So there is no incentive to stop what the West call Somali ‘piracy’!
Well, had I been a powerless, starving Somali, most probably I would have been a ‘pirate’ fighting Maltese soldiers!
Joseph M. Cachia, resides in Malta and is a freelance journalist. Contact him at jmcachia@maltanet.net.