The Somali pirates who hijacked a Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks, artillery and grenade launchers said in an interview on Tuesday that they had no idea that the ship was carrying arms when they seized it on the high seas. “We just saw a big ship,” pirates’ spokesman Sugule Ali told The New York Times. “So we stopped it.”The pirates quickly learned, though, that their booty was an estimated $30 million worth of heavy weaponry, heading for Kenya or Sudan, depending on whom you ask.In a 45-minute-long interview, Sugule expounded on everything from what the pirates want — “just money”. To why they were doing this — “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our water”. To what they eat — rice, meat, bread, spaghetti, “you know, normal human-being food”.He said in the eyes of the world, the pirates had been misunderstood. “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits,” he said. “We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.”The pirates who answered the phone call on Tuesday morning from The New York Times said they were speaking by satellite phone from the bridge of the Faina, the Ukrainian cargo ship that was hijacked about 200 miles off the coast of Somalia on Thursday. Several pirates talked, but they said that only Sugule was authorised to be quoted. Sugule acknowledged that they were now surrounded by American warships, but he did not sound afraid. He said that all was peaceful on the ship, despite unconfirmed reports from a maritime organisation in Kenya that three pirates had been killed in a shoot-out among themselves. He insisted that the pirates were not interested in the weapons and had no plans to sell them to Islamist insurgents battling Somalia’s weak transitional Government. “Somalia has suffered from many years of destruction because of all these weapons,” he said. “We just want the money.”He said they were asking for $20 million in cash. “We don’t use any other system than cash”. But he added that they were willing to bargain. Piracy in Somalia is a highly-organised, lucrative, ransom-driven business. This year, pirates have hijacked more than 25 ships, and in many cases, they were paid million dollar ransoms to release them. The piracy industry began 10 to 15 years ago as a response to illegal fishing. Somalia’s Government imploded in 1991, casting the country into chaos. With no patrols along the shoreline, Somalia’s tuna-rich waters were soon plundered by commercial fishing fleets from around the world. Somali fishermen armed themselves and turned into vigilantes by confronting illegal fishing boats, demanding tax. “From there, they got greedy” said Mohamed Osman Aden, Somali diplomat in Kenya. By the early 2000s, many fishermen had traded in their nets for machine guns and were hijacking any vessel they could catch. The US and several European countries have been talking about ways to patrol the waters. On Tuesday, several American warships had the hijacked freighter cornered along the Somali coastline. The American ships were allowing the pirates to bring food and water on board, but not to take any weapons off. Kenyan officials continued to maintain that the weapons aboard were part of a legitimate arms deal for the Kenyan military, even though several Western diplomats, Somali officials and the pirates themselves said the arms were part of a secret deal to funnel the weapons to southern Sudan.Somali officials are urging the Western navies to storm the ship and arrest the pirates. Western diplomats, however, say it would be a difficult commando operation as the ship is full of explosives and the pirates could use the 20 crew members as human shields.When asked why they needed $20 million to protect themselves from hunger, Sugule laughed and said: “Because we have a lot of men.”
