Piracy, Secrecy & Money

There’s a lengthy article in GQ magazine about the   pirates in Somalia and as is the case with all these pirate stories, Kenya is always mentioned, both as a base for many of the middle men who are organizing these groups and as a conduit transfer hub for the  ransom money.

As as I was reading this article from GQ, I came across this interesting paragraph about the ship that the Somali’s had captured that was full of weapons and that the Kenyan government claimed was meant for them.  The quote from the article follows:

“Once on board, the pirates did a fast inventory of the cargo and discovered they’d hit the jackpot, Somali-style, with $30 million in arms now in their possession. They went through the paperwork on the bridge and learned that the T-72 tanks and grenade launchers were not destined for Kenya, as the Kenyan government claimed, but were actually headed to a former rebel army that now runs Southern Sudan, and that the port of Mombasa was simply the transit point. It was yet another shady African arms deal, which likely involved million-dollar kickbacks for the Kenyan officials who helped facilitate it, and the pirates had broken it wide open”.

There’s a lot of money in the military procurement business. That’s how a few Kalenjins in the army got rich under Moi and how a new set of Kikuyu’s will get rich under Kibaki.

This is why it’s so hard to give up power or even to share it.

It’s not about constitutional reforms.  It’s about the money.

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