MOGADISHU, Somalia — A Saudi-owned supertanker held by pirates off the coast of Somalia for two months has been released for a ransom of $3 million delivered by air drop, according to one of the pirates and residents of Xarardheere, a pirate town on the Somali coast near where the tanker was being held.
The tanker, about the length of an American Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, is the largest ship to have been seized in the history of piracy, and it was fully loaded with two million barrels of oil.
The pirates were due to leave the ship after they received the money, paid by the ship’s owners, on Friday, according to the pirates and residents, who later said the ship had moved away from the coast where it had been anchored since November.
NEW YORK TIMES
2 comments:
Go pirates. I really dont have much sympathy for multinational corporations shipping their oil riches through the seas of one of the most impoverished and disenfranchised nations in the world. The way i see it, that $3M is the tax they have to pay to the people of Somalia for travelling through their waters. Given the value of the cargo, its doesnt seem like too much to ask, and they never harmed anybody on the ship. Strictly business, pirate style.
Oh these companies have earned a lot worse than what they have reaped.
Check out Drilling and Klling by Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill from The Nation and now DemocracyNow. This story is about how Shell and Chevron paid Government officials in Nigeria(known as the Shoot n Go) to slaughter protesters occupying an oil rig.
Oct, 2008 update about the trial starting in San Fransisco against Chevron.
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