索马里良民为什么会变成海盗？

郑风田 江今启 中国人民大学

索马里海盗实是部分发达国家的恶行下的一个恶蛋，目前却让全世界来吞咽。

索马里海盗目前已成为全世界最危险的群体了，其实他们之所以落草为寇，也是被逼的。尤其是早期看到索马里政府软弱无力，外国渔船要么在索马里海域随意捕捞，要么把索马里干脆当成拉圾场，把危机物任意地乱排乱放，把索马里渔民逼上了绝境。在这种状态下，索马里良民就只好揭竿而起了，拿起武器开始了“保家卫海”的战斗。搞着搞着，就搞成现在这个样子了。这是最新《时代》周刊的调查结论，其可信度究竟有多大，还真不知道。但最少我们也了解到，目前极为凶残的索马里海盗们其实也是苦大仇深，被逼良为娼的。这也印证了我们打小就听到的真理：“哪里有压迫，哪里就有反抗”。不过，目前的反抗也的确有点太过了。

 

索马里海盗，听了就让人毛骨悚然的名字。

索马里自1991年以来一直战乱不断，沿海地区海盗活动猖獗，被国际海事局列为世界索马里海盗活跃区域图上最危险的海域之一。2008年以来，索马里沿海累计发生80多起海盗袭击事件，平均每4天就有一艘船遭劫，海盗已猖獗到无以复加的地步。这些袭击事件大都发生在亚丁湾，一个世界航运的咽喉之处，从而给世界航运秩序造成了极大的危胁，引起了世界各国的极大担忧。索马里海盗，听了就让人毛骨悚然的名字。为了保证本国的船只，世界上很多国家都向该处派出了舰艇进行海上商船护航。这其中就包括咱们国家的军舰。而为什么这些曾经的索马里良民会落草为寇？他们是如何从一群老实本份的渔民变成让世界人民都憎恨的海盗呢？接下来咱们就看看美国《时代》杂志对问题给出答案。

政府因内战而虚化，致使无力保卫本国海域，导致外国渔船侵入压缩本国渔民生存空间；

自1991年因内战导致政府名存实亡后，这个国家3330千米长的海岸线已被外国渔船掠夺性捕捞。联合国2006年的一个报告就曾指出，由于索国政府一度不能进行有效的海岸警卫，其水域已成为一个对所有国家渔船都免费开放的地方。世界各地的商业性捕鱼船可以随意出入索国海域进行非法捕捞。每年有大约3亿美元海产品被这些外国渔船所捞走。面对这些高科技外来者，那些装备落后的索马里渔民根本无法与之竞争，导致无鱼可捕，其生存境况急剧恶化。

落草为寇，早期实属是索马里渔民进行家园保卫战的无奈之举。

为了保卫生存的资源，那些生活赤贫的索马里渔民不得不从那些今天都成了海盗们重要巢穴的港口，如Eyl、Kismayo和Haradhere等，出海进行海上自卫。但因装备落后，他们在自卫战争中根本无力对抗那些先进设备武装起来的非法闯入者。在多次对抗中，他们还经常被侵入者用水炮和火器所伤。其结果是索马里渔民败下阵来，生计日渐艰难，而走上了海盗之路。很多原先的渔民自卫组织也就成了今天很多海盗团伙的雏形。正如Peter Lehr（一个在苏格兰的圣.安德鲁斯大学进行恐怖主义问题研究的学者，同时他还担任《全球恐怖时代》杂志的海盗问题专栏的编辑）所说，“首个海盗组织就出现于上个世纪90年代与外国拖网渔船的对抗活动中。现有一些海盗组织的名字，如索马里国民海岸自卫队，就可以证明这些海盗的初始动机。但他们想要保卫的水域，对很多国家的捕鱼船队来说，那就如传说中的金山El Dorado，其诱惑力太大了”。

欧洲等外国船随意倾倒有毒垃圾和核废料煽起了索马里渔民的仇恨怒火；

除了非法捕鱼外，外国船只还经常因在索马里海域随意倾倒有毒垃圾和核废料而备受当地渔民指责。一个联合国环境项目报告在2005年就曾指出：放射性铀及其它危险堆积物导致呼吸系统疾病和皮肤病在索马里海边农村的爆发和蔓延。报告还指出，那些欧洲公司只需以每吨2.5美元的成本就可以将这些有毒废料倾倒在索马里。但如果在欧洲本土进行无害处理的话，则每吨需要花费250美元。

非法捕捞的外国渔船面对海盗们要挟时的软弱，助长了海盗们的有恃无恐；

2006年在《科学》杂志上发表的一篇研究报告预测：按着现有的商业化捕捞速度，现有的全球海洋鱼类资源储量到2050年将枯竭。然而，索马里海域现在除了仍然盛产金枪鱼、沙丁鱼和鲭鱼外，还盛产其它名贵海产品，如龙虾和鲨鱼。面对这些“准公共资源”，各国的渔船都想分怀羹，导致如UN所说的，“各国的公海拖网渔船，甚至来自远东的韩国和日本及西班牙等遥远国度，都在索马里的海域进行非法捕捞和无证作业”。

而正是这些国外非法拖网渔船在索马里海域的行为，成就了该水域成为海盗们的温床。正如位于内罗毕的东非海员协助委员会（一个监控索马里海盗袭并联络人质挟持者和人质的组织）的Tsuma Charo所说的，“这些非法拖网渔船对索马里海盗组织的发展壮大起到了推波助澜的作用。” 在早期，那些非法拖船的船主及其所在公司为了不想让他们违反国际海洋公约的行为引起关注，一旦他们的船被索马里海盗挟持，就会迅速支付赎金来拿回他们的渔船。依赖这些赎金，海盗团伙们得以建立他们的袭击网络，并膨胀了他们获取更多战利品的欲望。

腐败的政府官员，同时充当外国非法渔船和企业及海盗的帮凶和保护伞

而监视和打击这些国外企业和海盗的无良行为则根本不可能，因为现在的索马里政府在2006年美国所支持的埃塞俄比亚入侵后，其功能基本瓦解。很多索马里居民，和国际观察员一样，都怀疑摩加迪沙和半自治的邦特兰省的政府官员接受了外国渔民和海盗头目的贿赂，从而为双方的非法行为提供情报和充当保护伞。联合国观察员在2005和2006年都曾建议对从索马里水域进行非法捕捞的鱼产品实行禁运，但他们提议都被安理会成员否决。

问题反思：索马里海盗实是发达国家的恶行下的一个恶蛋，目前却让全世界来吞咽。

目前，索马里海盗已成为该国唯一蓬勃发展的产业。现在很多海盗已不再是那些以前的渔民了，寻找生活希望的穷人也已成为一个海盗的重要构成群体。而且他们的行径也不像早期那样值得世人同情了。因为现在很多海盗团伙的运作非常老练且组织非常严密。他们至今还挟持着18艘货轮和大约300名船员作为人质。他们如今的目的已不再像某些报道所说的，仅仅是拿回他们被“偷”的东西（如伦敦泰晤士报星期四的头条报道——“他们偷了我们的龙虾：一个索马里海盗成长史”）。

翻开索马里海盗的发展史，我们到处可以看到发达国家在其中所犯下的罪恶。如果没有美国政府支持的入侵所导致的索国政府垮台，如果没有外国渔船的非法捕捞，如果没有欧洲企业的有毒物质倾倒行为，索马里海域鱼类资源就不会肆意被侵占，渔民也不会为生计而发愁，他们也不会像现在那样恨外国人，海盗们也很难在那儿发展壮大，今天各国也不用为索马里的海盗袭击而头疼。但历史已经发生，一切都不可更改了，我们只愿索马里式的悲剧不要世界的其它地方上演！

（编译者郑风田为中国人民大学教授；江今启为中国人民大学博士生）

阅读材料：

How Somalia's Fishermen Became Pirates

By ISHAAN THAROOR Saturday, Apr. 18, 2009  TIME

Amid the current media frenzy about Somali pirates, it's hard not to imagine them as characters in some dystopian Horn of Africa version of Waterworld. We see wily corsairs in ragged clothing swarming out of their elusive mother ships, chewing narcotic khat while thumbing GPS phones and grappling hooks. They are not desperate bandits, experts say, rather savvy opportunists in the most lawless corner of the planet. But the pirates have never been the only ones exploiting the vulnerabilities of this troubled failed state — and are, in part, a product of the rest of the world's neglect. (Read "No Surrender to Thugs.")

Ever since a civil war brought down Somalia's last functional government in 1991, the country's 3,330 km (2,000 miles) of coastline — the longest in continental Africa — has been pillaged by foreign vessels. A United Nations report in 2006 said that, in the absence of the country's at one time serviceable coastguard, Somali waters have become the site of an international "free for all," with fishing fleets from around the world illegally plundering Somali stocks and freezing out the country's own rudimentarily-equipped fishermen. According to another U.N. report, an estimated $300 million worth of seafood is stolen from the country's coastline each year. "In any context," says Gustavo Carvalho, a London-based researcher with Global Witness, an environmental NGO, "that is a staggering sum."

In the face of this, impoverished Somalis living by the sea have been forced over the years to defend their own fishing expeditions out of ports such as Eyl, Kismayo and Harardhere — all now considered to be pirate dens. Somali fishermen, whose industry was always small-scale, lacked the advanced boats and technologies of their interloping competitors, and also complained of being shot at by foreign fishermen with water cannons and firearms. "The first pirate gangs emerged in the '90s to protect against foreign trawlers," says Peter Lehr, lecturer in terrorism studies at Scotland's University of St. Andrews and editor of Violence at Sea: Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism. The names of existing pirate fleets, such as the National Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia or Somali Marines, are testament to the pirates' initial motivations.

The waters they sought to protect, says Lehr, were "an El Dorado for fishing fleets of many nations." A 2006 study published in the journal Science predicted that the current rate of commercial fishing would virtually empty the world's oceanic stocks by 2050. Yet, Somalia's seas still offer a particularly fertile patch for tuna, sardines and mackerel, and other lucrative species of seafood, including lobsters and sharks. In other parts of the Indian Ocean region, such as the Persian Gulf, fishermen resort to dynamite and other extreme measures to pull in the kinds of catches that are still in abundance off the Horn of Africa.

High-seas trawlers from countries as far flung as South Korea, Japan and Spain have operated down the Somali coast, often illegally and without licenses, for the better part of two decades, the U.N. says. They often fly flags of convenience from sea-faring friendly nations like Belize and Bahrain, which further helps the ships skirt international regulations and evade censure from their home countries. Tsuma Charo of the Nairobi-based East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, which monitors Somali pirate attacks and liaises with the hostage takers and the captured crews, says "illegal trawling has fed the piracy problem." In the early days of Somali piracy, those who seized trawlers without licenses could count on a quick ransom payment, since the boat owners and companies backing those vessels didn't want to draw attention to their violation of international maritime law. This, Charo reckons, allowed the pirates to build up their tactical networks and whetted their appetite for bigger spoils.

Beyond illegal fishing, foreign ships have also long been accused by local fishermen of dumping toxic and nuclear waste off Somalia's shores. A 2005 United Nations Environmental Program report cited uranium radioactive and other hazardous deposits leading to a rash of respiratory ailments and skin diseases breaking out in villages along the Somali coast. According to the U.N., at the time of the report, it cost $2.50 per ton for a European company to dump these types of materials off the Horn of Africa, as opposed to $250 per ton to dispose of them cleanly in Europe.

Monitoring and combating any of these misdeeds is next to impossible — Somalia's current government can barely find its feet in the wake of the 2006 U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion. And many Somalis, along with outside observers, suspect local officials in Mogadishu and in ports in semi-autonomous Puntland further north of accepting bribes from foreign fishermen as well as from pirate elders. U.N. monitors in 2005 and 2006 suggested an embargo on fish taken from Somali waters, but their proposals were shot down by members of the Security Council.

In the meantime, Somali piracy has metastasized into the country's only boom industry. Most of the pirates, observers say, are not former fishermen, but just poor folk seeking their fortune. Right now, they hold 18 cargo ships and some 300 sailors hostage — the work of a sophisticated and well-funded operation. A few pirates have offered testimony to the international press — a headline in Thursday's Times of London read, "They stole our lobsters: A Somali pirate tells his side of the story" — but Lehr and other Somali experts express their doubts. "Nowadays," Lehr says, "this sort of thing is just a cheap excuse." The legacy of nearly twenty years of inaction and abuse, though, is far more costly.