 |
| Stowage plan, British Slav Ship of the early 1800s |
Hunt Is On For 33 Slave Ships Off Coast Of Papua New Guinea As Reported in The GUARDIAN American Admiralty Books Safety & Privacy Policies http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/01/slave-ships-papua-new-guinea-hunt-burmese-men-trawler Immigration officials seek trawler fleet crewed by 1,000 trafficked Burmese men that is thought likely to be supplying the UK with seafood.
ACCORDING TO AN ACCOUNT PUBLISHED IN THE GUARDIAN
"A fleet of at least 30 fishing trawlers crewed by slaves is being hunted off the coast of Papua New Guinea as the true extent becomes apparent of the trafficking of Burmese men by a massive Thai-run criminal syndicate operating throughout the East Indies.
Immigration officials have so far intercepted one of the fishing vessels, called the Blissful Reefer, and rescued its trafficked crew. Another 33 Thai trawlers thought to be crewed by slaves are being tracked in fishing grounds off the south coast of Papua New Guinea, known locally as the Dog Leg.
The trawlers are thought to be linked to a huge trafficking operation that was disrupted on the isolated Indonesian island of Benjina in March, liberating hundreds of enslaved fishermen – although a large number of boats loaded with slaves managed to escape."
Read More @ THE GUARDIAN
AND NOW A WORD FROM THE GREAT CATFISH ON SLAVERY AND PIRACY IN THE 21st CENTURY
NAMAZU GIANT JAPANESE CATFISH AND FORMER DEMIGOD, NOW MARITIME ANALYST
Greetings Bipeds:
Being 3,000 years old and living in the sea I have a long memory of the ills of piracy and the slave trade. American bipeds are very fixated on their own period of the "peculiar institution" which ended more than 150 years ago. Americans seem to think slavery was uniquely American, uniquely black, and that some how America was late abolishing the noxious trade. In fact slavery has touched every race on earth and every inhabited place except Iceland and Greenland. Slavery went on for thousands of years before it reached America and didn't disappear as a legal institution in the Americas all together until the 1880s.
In the United States it ended after a bloody civil war in the 1860s. It continued as a legal institution in parts of the world until banned by the UN charter in the middle of the 20th century. Romans enslaved other Europeans. North Africans also enslaved Europeans and later even Americans, that is why we fought the Barbary pirates. The Chinese enslaved captive peoples. When it first appeared slavery was considered a humane improvement in the treatment of prisoners of war. Warriors could surrender and become slaves vice being executed. This encouraged armies to surrender rather than endure total slaughter. Over time even laws providing some very minimal protections against violent brutal slave conditions were passed in many nations though rarely enforced. Today in Sub Saharan Africa, Africans hold nearly 27 million people in slavery. Most of the slave holders are Black or Arab and most of the slaves are black and Christian or follow native religions. Most of the slave holders are Muslim, Islam to this day condones slavery. During the American experience Africans and Arabs sold "slaves" claiming they were military captives but in fact Islamic slave traders simply made raids on weak villages whenever new "stock" was needed. The slave traders on the African shore simply kept up the subterfuge to ease European consciences which were determined to see the slaves as part of a more humane treatment of prisoners of war.
Europeans and Americans however were already coming to new terms in dealing with prisoners of war at about the same time that the American slave trade was starting. Surrendering soldiers could be "paroled" between "civilized nations". A paroled soldier could not legally reenter combat against the capturing nation and thus could be repatriated with the same effect as what we would now call a "mission kill". The individual soldier wasn't killed but his ability to fight against the capturing state was legally nullified. In more belligerent circumstances surrendering soldiers and sailors were held in prison camps until the end of hostilities or until traded for the capturing state's own prisoners. By the mid 1800s no one believed that slaves were descended from prisoners of war and a growing number of people of European descent in both Europe and the Americas were coming to believe that people should not be treated like livestock. Slavery disappeared from Europe first followed by the Americas. In the Americas most slaves were black and most slave holders white, with notable exceptions especially in Louisiana where one of the largest slave holders was actually a black woman Black Slave Owners In America.
It took until the ratification of the UN Charter in the mid 20th century for slavery to be prohibited by codified international law. And yet it has continued in many Islamic nations including those signatory to the UN Charter. It continues today. The ancient scourge of slavery, now usually referred to as "human trafficking", by the American news media so as not of offend the politically correct continues to this day. Considering the fact that slavery has such a long and universal history on this planet it is probable that if anyone's ancestry is traced back about 800 years hardly any of you bipeds regardless of race would not have a slave ancestor except Royals.
The second ancient scourge of the human race is piracy which in the popular mind ended in the late 1800s until revived off of Africa and in the Strait of Malacca . In fact like slavery it never fully disappeared not even in the 20th century but it was greatly suppressed. Piracy often included piracy against slave traders and the capture and subsequent sale of slaves. Some of this is reemerging in the 21st century. Why are the twin scourges reemerging? My 3,000 years of observation of maritime trade and events tells me there is a direct relationship between the shrinkage of the American and British navies in the second half of the 20th century and continuing at break neck speed today, and the growth in the boldness of the pirates and slave traders. The massive Chinese navy is busy attempting to wrest territory from its neighbors. The Russian navy is involved in rebuilding and asserting power in the Black Sea, Baltic, and Arctic Oceans. The world is simply no longer patrolled.
Piracy was rare in the first three quarters of the 20th century and is rampant today. As the article linked to above illustrates, the slave trade is flourishing once again , not just in ISIS sex slave markets and in the Coca trade in Sub Saharan Africa, but all over Asia and Africa. Of course today we call it "human trafficking". Slavery after all was declared internationally illegal by the UN Charter in the middle of the last century. But these twin evils will continue until somebody enforces international law against violating Islamic states and we find some substitute for the U.S. and British navies.
I'd like to made a modest suggestion to all those American liberals who advocate "reparations" for black Americans who have never personally been slaves, to be paid by millions of Americans of all races most of whom have a slave ancestor or two themselves, and 99% of whom have no slave owning ancestor; that instead we do something to end modern slavery and piracy. Why don't you put the "reparations" into the U.S. Navy?
No comments:
Post a Comment