MondayMorning
Monday, January 25, 2010
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On December 10, the European Union Naval Force combatting sea bandits from Somalia gathered its commanders to cut a cake celebrating the mission’s first anniversary and trumpet a “year of success”.Meanwhile, the pirates were cutting their own cake in the Indian Ocean, defying warships with their nimble skiffs to hijack more vessels and rake in record ransoms.
“Lots of militiamen are joining our piratehood every day and this is one of the reasons for the increased number of attacks”, Abdi Yare said from Somalia’s “piracy capital” of Harardhere. Days after he spoke to journalists, his fellow pirates released the VLCC Maran Centaurus -- a supertanker the size of three football pitches carrying two million barrels of crude oil -- in exchange for an estimated nine million dollars.
Somali pirates still held at least 11 other vessels -- with trophies ranging from a British chemical tanker to a ship carrying 2,300 Korean cars -- and around 270 seamen.
Ransoms for the most valuable ships they seize can often fetch three million dollars and more. Even the small share a rank-and-file pirate is left with after the bounty is divided constitutes a powerful magnet for young Somalis.
With no effective central authority since 1991 to provide security and a state of perpetual civil conflict making regular business almost impossible, a career in buccaneering is seen by many jobless young men as a rare opportunity.
In 2007, the pirates had it easy. Armed with kalashnikovs and grapnels, all they had to do was stray a few miles off the coast of Puntland to pick one of the 20,000 vessels that bottleneck into the Gulf of Aden each year.
The threat to one of the world’s busiest and most crucial maritime routes spurred naval powers into moving warships to the region and the pirates now face an armada of more than 15 countries.
But as navies perfected their act, so did the pirates, who ventured hundreds of miles into the Indian Ocean, where naval forces are stretched too thin to create an effective net.
One pirate freshman said business was brisk and explained he also enjoyed a spirit of camaraderie he did not find elsewhere. The commander of marine forces in Somalia’s embattled transitional federal government admitted that pirate numbers were soaring.
Many are occasional pirates who sign up for a one-off expedition and return to civilian life when the first ransom is paid, making it difficult to accurately estimate the number of pirates in Somalia.
Elders in Harardhere said that what was once a tiny and sleepy fishing village is becoming a modern-day Klondike bursting at the seams with a pirate class of nouveaux riches and new arrivals hoping to be like them.
“I predict that 2010 will be the worst yet for people sailing the Indian Ocean”.