Modern piracy

October 16, 2008

Piracy has shot into the headlines since this article was written, with the audacious capture of a Saudi-owned tanker and clashes between several navies and pirate vessels. Headline writers have leapt on the chance to write about pirate motherships and speedboats.

NATO will escort World Food Programme (WFP) shipments of humanitarian aid to Somali ports after the Royal Canadian Navy frigate Ville de Quebec is withdrawnfrom Thursday.

International navies are at last beginning to take action against an outbreak of piracy in the north-western Indian Ocean, where more than 30 merchant ships have been seized for ransom so far this year, and many more have been attacked.  Based in ports in the failed state of Somalia and using ‘mother ships’ to extend their range, the pirates are attacking ships off the Horn of Africa and in the Gulf of Aden.  Most hijackings have ended relatively peacefully with the payment via an intermediary of a ransom for the ship, cargo and crew, but the rise in attacks is sending up insurance premiums and could even force ships to avoid the area altogether andgo round the Cape of Good Hope, raising the costs of maritime transport.

The US Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, but it has taken little action so far, focusing instead on anti-terrorist operations, after the attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbour in October 2000.  Although there are fears that the pirates could throw in their lot with international terrorism, the available evidence suggests that, coming from a very poor country with few resources, they are only interested in the relatively easy money that piracy yields.  The sums demanded are increasing.

The fact that pirate attacks in the area have more than doubled this year despite international awareness for some time suggests something fundamental is preventing a solution.  Foreign navies have been increasing their presence in the area, but so far to little effect, for several reasons:

• Since November 2007, the French, Danish, Dutch and Canadian navies -- now followed by a NATO task force (until December) -- have escorted WFP shipments into Somali ports.  There have been no attacks and a large amount of aid has been delivered on which many Somalis depend.  However, this has done nothing to deterpiracy in general and theyseem instead to have directed their efforts against easier targets. 

• Ships that have been seized are often surrounded by foreign warships but there have been few attempts to retake them by force.  Six US warships are “doing absolutely nothing” (according to one observer)apart from surrounding the Ukrainian MV Faina, which was hijacked in late September.  This unusual attention from the US Navy is due to its cargo of T-72 main battle tanks.  Rules of engagement are thought generally to be ‘soft’, with the British allegedly afraid that captured pirates will demand admittance to the United Kingdom.

• The WFP experience once again teaches an old lesson, that the most efficient way of combating attacks on merchant ships is to organise them into convoys and to concentrate naval effort on providing escorts, so forcing the ‘bad guys’ to come to the warships.  Navies prefer patrolling -- it seems more aggressive -- but the chances of running across a pirate ship are much lower.  The Russians are sending the frigate Neustrashimy but propose to cooperate with other navies solely at the level of exchanging information, not acting in concert.  Neustrashimy means ‘Fearless’; its behaviour suggests other words.

The EU seems to have the best approach.  Its anti-piracy ‘cell’ is setting up informal convoys across the Gulf of Aden, informing shipowners of the courses being set by its small force of two French corvettes and a Spanish maritime reconnaissance aircraft, and leaving them to decide whether to tag along.