West Africa pirate problem bubbles up

Two weeks ago I wrote this piece about the brewing pirate problem in West Africa (not to be confused with the oft-discussed pirate problem off the coast of Somalia in East Africa). Yesterday the military in Nigeria confirmed two separate attacks on ships in the Niger River delta.

In the bigger attack, Nigerian militants seized an oil tanker, the MV Spirit, with 15 foreigners aboard. A second cargo ship with perhaps five foreigners aboard was also captured.

All of this could be the foreshadowing of a civil war in the region. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (or MEND) has warned all foreign oil companies active in the oil-rich Niger River delta to evacuate their workers in the next 72 hours or risk being caught up in a "civil war". MEND claims to represent the indigenous people of the Niger Delta region - people they say haven't shared in the oil wealth being extracted from their part of Nigeria. Critics say that MEND is really just a collection of mercenaries using a liberation struggle as cover for their illegal activities (much the same critique leveled against the pirates in Somalia).

This week the Nigerian government offered an amnesty to MEND, which they rejected, saying the offer failed to provide for the welfare of the native people of the Niger Delta. Keep in mind that Nigeria, and the rest of Western Africa, currently supplies approximately 20% of the United States imported oil.