The media have been abuzz last week over a seeming outbreak in pirate activity. First the American supply ship, the Maersk Alabama, was hijacked and later rescued dramatically in which three of the attackers were killed and the fourth – reportedly 16 years old – remains in U.S. custody. Then on Wednesday, the French navy  detained 11 suspected pirates off the coast of Kenya. Other pirates who had previously seized a Greek vessel a month ago released it. And also last week, pirates seized an Italian tugboat with 16 crew members.

Yet mainstream media have largely ignored reporting on who these pirates are and why they do what they do. In the Maersk Alabama incident, the pirates were all teenagers between the ages of 16 to 19, with some accounts estimating the arrested pirate to be as young as 14 – yet little attention is given to how these teenagers came to patrolling the ocean, armed with weapons.

Some are sophisticated in technology, posting videos taken on the ships they capture before leaving after the ransom is paid. According to Wired magazine, which first made the Ya/Sa hijacking video public, this is a common practice among pirates. But some may have other motives besides greed behind why they resort to so-called piracy.

According to British journalist Johann Hari,  some of these pirates consider themselves protectors of their villages and hometowns, combating illegal acts committed by foreign ships such as dumping waste and overfishing. He writes:

“This is the context in which the ‘pirates’ have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a ‘tax’ on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent ‘strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence.’”

Somalia has a national coastline of about 2,000 miles and according to Hari’s article, as well as estimates by the United Nations, about $300,000 million in seafood is stolen from the country’s shores every year.

“No, this doesn’t make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: ‘We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas.’”

Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates