By Ian Johnston
Sunday, October 12, 2008
In the seas off Somalia, it seems as though the so-called heyday of piracy at the turn of the 18th century has returned, with an estimated 1 000 pirates organised into five main fleets stalking a latter-day Barbary Coast. High-speed skiffs, AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades have replaced the sailing boats, flintlocks and cannons of old, and their targets are no longer galleons full of Spanish gold but oil tankers and human hostages to be ransomed for millions of dollars.
But the deadly intent is the same and the threat to shipping is becoming as serious, with merchant marine organisations warning that vessels might be forced to stop using the Suez Canal and make the long detour round the Cape of Good Hope.
It seems almost unthinkable, but a route taken by tankers carrying one-third of the world's oil could be closed because of piracy, a crime many people will associate only with semi-legendary tales of Blackbeard and Johnny Depp's comic turn as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.
In recent years once-notorious areas, such as the Malacca Straits between Indonesia and Malaysia, have been relatively quiet. But a surge in attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somalian coast, coupled to a dramatic rise in the ransoms, has led to fears that newly adopted, lucrative tactics will be copied elsewhere.
Somalian pirates have invested in "mother ships" to carry the small speedboats used in their attacks further out to sea, extending the danger zone from 50 to 200 nautical miles off the coast. And they are seemingly unafraid to take on the most formidable of targets, as shown by the continuing stand-off between the captors of a Ukrainian ship, carrying Russian tanks, and six United States warships.
With a frigate on the way from Russia and clearance from the Somalian government to attack, the pirates might be expected to flee. Instead, they are calmly demanding nothing less than their stated ransom of $20-million (about R160-million) and promising to fight if attacked. Excluding this sum, Somalian pirates are expected to take $50-million this year.
In 2004, there were just five attacks and attempts on ships in the seas off Somalia, but so far this year there have been more than 60, accounting for nearly one-third of the 198 incidents globally. Insurance premiums for cargo ships passing through the area have gone from $900 to $9 000 in a year.
Asked whether the world was seeing the beginnings of a new age of piracy, Giles Noakes, the chief maritime security officer at Bimco - the largest of the international shipping associations - says: "That's not a question I'd like to answer. It's not a question I like to hear. People start thinking about Pirates of the Caribbean and all that rubbish. This is 21st-century criminal activity using violent means."
Noakes rates the threat to Suez as very serious, warning that shipping companies are considering avoiding the area, and says such dangers could spread elsewhere in the world.
"It would be naive to think this isn't being watched by other people carrying out acts of piracy at the moment. It is not an isolated thing," he says.
"The armed robberies in the coastal waters of Nigeria are getting almost as extreme. The violence being displayed is as extreme and the number of attacks is almost as numerous, but it is little publicised."
Some in the industry resort to what Noakes describes as "unfair and unreasonable navy-bashing", but he says the lack of an effective deterrent stems from a lack of political will.
"That's the fault of governments whose strategic commercial interests are being threatened. I don't think they have sat up and smelt the coffee on that yet," he says.
The payment of ransoms is a delicate issue, but Noakes says that, in reality, companies often have little option if they want to save the lives of the crew. "We never think a ransom should be paid, but we have no choice other than to advise our owners to do that," he says. "A lot of them are trying to negotiate the price down and a lot of them do so quite successfully."
Despite these efforts, there has been rapid inflation in the price of ransom and this, according to Roger Middleton, a Chatham House researcher specialising in the Horn of Africa, is one of the main reasons for the rising number of attacks.
"A few years ago they might have been as little as $10 000," he says. "We are now seeing ransom payments regularly topping $1-million."
A more organised approach is being taken, with the use of mother ships, GPS devices and even the adoption of an employees' code of conduct.
"It is a serious business going on here. People are making a lot of money and they are investing in equipment, in boats, in men and in weapons," says Middleton.
"They live in the poorest part of the poorest country in Africa and it is easy to understand why they would resort to crime, but that makes them no less scary for people who are captured and threatened."
Captain Colin Darch, 71, of Devon in the United Kingdom, knows this all too well. Earlier this year, he was 70 nautical miles off Somalia in a tugboat en route to Singapore when armed pirates attacked. Shouting and firing into the air, the pirates came on board and so began 47 days of captivity for Captain Darch, Fred Parle, his Irish chief engineer, and Russian crew of four. They tried to escape but were forced to give themselves up.
Captain Darch recalls: "I really was a bit worried they [the pirates] might punish us for giving them so much trouble. The young guns were shouting abuse at us and shooting their guns. Then Omar, their leader, appeared. He grinned and held out his hand. It was like we'd just had a good game of squash and I'd lost."
They were freed after the ransom was paid and the pirates transferred to another boat. He says they were generally well treated.
Other Somalian pirates have spoken of a written manual, laying down rules on the treatment of hostages, including a ban on sexually abusing female hostages and shouting loudly at captives.
But Giles Noakes says this is not a sign that the pirates have a genuine concern for their hostages.
"These guys who say they have a pirates' code - it's a bit of a euphemism for: 'We are acutely aware the money is in the hostages, not the ship'. They are not stupid." - Foreign Service
Source: The Independent, Oct 12, 2008