Japan's most famous tuna buyer says he turned Somali pirates into fishermen
japaninsides.com> Kimura has told the story in Japanese interviews, and the details come from those.
It'd be nice if the article linked to the sources. There's very little substance in this article.
The actual interview might not say much more. https://gendai.media/articles/-/48307
Somali pirates WERE fishermen before being pirates... They turned to piracy to combat other countries fishing their waters.
That’s a great story, with very little attachment to reality.
>> Foreign fishing has increased more than twenty-fold since 1981
>> Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by foreign fishing vessels in Somali waters has been problematic for decades .
>> The central government collapsed in 1991, and the ensuing increase in foreign fishing became a justification for piracy against fishing vessels.
(https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles...)
Other areas of the world have had similar responses to foreign commercial fishing:
>> In Southeast Asia, as competition for fish and other maritime resources intensified following the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997-1998, increases in industrial fish catch volumes by foreign fleets led to sharp increases in South China Sea pirate attacks organized by residents of villages reliant on small-scale fisheries
(https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...)
>> Piracy is a growing concern in Sierra Leone, particularly in the northern maritime areas. Foreign trawlers have been attacked and robbed of both their catch and personal effects. Most of the pirates are reported to be from Guinea.
(https://wikileaks.jcvignoli.com/cable_09FREETOWN258)
However, there is evidence that piracy is more likely to exist in places where illegal fishing has declined. (With the disclaimer that "this research does not refute the earlier-held notion that foreign trawlers produce dissatisfied local fishers who turn towards piracy as a defense against foreign intruders."
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096262982...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_off_the_coast_of_Somali...
Maybe read the first paragraph
My Somali friend calls them the coastguard (half jokingly)
Honestly if Somali pirates legitimately only attacked foreign fishing vessels breaching their sovereign borders - good for them! (I mean, it's quite brutal, but don't fish in someone else's water).
However, Somali pirates attack pretty much anyone, even those not disrespecting their sovereignty, which is less cool.
That's why they pirated so many Chinese ships right?
No, the pirates are organized crime syndicates. They are not the same people who were fishing the waters 35 years ago
Perhaps they’re pirates because there are no other ways to maintain a living. Like fishing?
No, it's literally different people
What’s stopping them from fishing?
Foreign trawlers stealing the fish.
And then they turn to piracy for its own sake because they realized how lucrative it was
Besides being obviously AI editorialized, the idea that a few fishing boats were the reason Somali piracy stopped and not because of an international coalition of navies is... quite a stretch.
> Both things can be true.
Ughhh I hear this like 5x a day now. It's the new emdashery.
Damn shame how often people need to be reminded of this, I agree
It's actually pretty rare people need to be reminded of this because it's self-evident and platitudinous.
Much more commonly, the statement is used by writers who want to wax poetic without actually having to commit to any meaningful position on the topic at hand... which is exactly how the AI-written article in question uses it.
We must not read the same internets
Unless someone is a structural engineer or something, I never want to hear the term "load-bearing" again.
Aha...gold star =)...10 points to Gryffindor....well played, Sir.
Por qué no...
Fighting piracy with a supply chain is the most sushi-chef approach imaginable.
555
Based on my research, he did not actually go to Somalia, but rather to the neighboring Republic of Djibouti.
At the time, Somalia was extremely dangerous and under strict travel restrictions.
Therefore, he established a base in Djibouti, which was relatively safe and hosted a Japan Self-Defense Forces base.
He then invited former pirates and fishermen from the surrounding areas to that location.
In reality, his approach was to provide indirect support through fishing equipment and technical training.
The reason President Kimura helped the Somali pirates is that he himself is a “man who has overcome adversity”—having lost his father at a young age and struggled financially, and having hit rock bottom during the collapse of the economic bubble.
He came to deeply empathize with them after learning that the pirates were not vicious criminals, but “former fishermen who, due to civil war and poverty, had no choice but to risk their lives as pirates just to survive.”
Driven by his innate “profound kindness that won’t let him ignore people in distress” and his “overwhelming drive to take action—even donning a bulletproof vest himself to enter dangerous areas”—he engaged in direct dialogue with the pirate leaders and provided them with tuna fishing techniques and boats as a means of survival.
It was not just his own self-interest, but a down-to-earth love for humanity—a desire for “everyone involved to be happy”—and an incredibly positive outlook that led him to believe “the problem can be solved by changing the system,” even in situations where anyone else would have given up.
These qualities gave rise to this miraculous initiative.
AI slop article from ai slop site.