Marine Log - December 2008 - (Page 4) Nick Blenkey Senior Editorial Consultant Second Thoughts Piracy is terrorism here seems to be some division of opinion as to whether or not the Somali pirates have links to international terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda. Be that as it may, it is clear that if pirates can hijack a VLCC such as Sirius Star (inset) then so, certainly, could Al Qaeda, which would then be in possession of a potentially very deadly asset. With or without an Al Qaeda association, the fact is that piracy is of itself a terrorist activity—and always has been. The pirates of the Caribbean, now caricatured by Hollywood, were very nasty pieces of work. As this goes to press, the number of vessels held off Somalia by present day pirates was 15 and the number of seafarers hostage aboard them was 295. What this would seem to indicate is that the stepped up international naval presence in the region has, as yet, had no success in diminishing the number of pirate victims. All we can say is that without that presence the number of victim ships and seafarers might have been somewhat higher. Naval forces can point to a number of instances when they have foiled specific pirate attacks. But the numbers indicate that the “foiled” pirates have then gone away to capture other vessels. What, practically, can be done to improve matters? It has to be said that if shipowners did not pay ransoms, there would be no pirates. But if shipowners are prevented from paying ransoms, that is tantamount to asking them to sacrifice their T crews. What could be questioned, however, is a move by some maritime lawyers to see ransom payments covered by general average—in other words sticking cargo owners with the costs of the ransom. This could only lead towards ransom payments, which have been steadily escalating, getting bigger, which is not helpful. If shipowners are going to continue to pay ransoms, then how do we see fewer of them having to do so? Routing ships around the Cape is one solution. But BIMCO has pointed out that even this has its dangers. Routing ships through the Comoros Gap between Madagascar and the African mainland will put ships right about where the Sirius Star was seized. So, ships need to be routed east of Madagascar—an even longer and more fuel consumptive solution. With shipping rates softening, blotting up capacity in this way could actually be beneficial to quite a few shipowners. Another solution, urged by the Russian Ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, is coordinated attacks on pirate bases in Somalia. But to what extent pirates have anything resembling formalized “bases” is questionable. Going and killing a lot of Somali fishermen could only make matters worse in that wretched country. Send more warships to the region? The ocean would still be a big place. One thing that might help is to change the rules of engagement that govern antipiracy activity. We need to move from deterring pirates to putting them out of business, permanently. But there are big questions about whether the governments of, say, EU states would have the stomach to be tough enough. Though there have been a couple of recent incidents in which navies have fired upon pirates—and in one case inflicted fatalities—the authorities have been quick to say that naval personnel “acted in self-defense.” That needs to be changed to shoot first and shoot to kill, to be effective. One solution that shipowners, collectively, have been reluctant to endorse is putting armed security teams on board. In fact, if you’re not going to route around Madagascar, it’s probably the most effective answer. Pirate attacks can be all over in less than 20 minutes. That doesn’t give naval ships much time to respond— even with helicopters. If you’ve put armed security teams on board the merchant ship, then you’ve already distributed your counter-piracy solution to where it’s needed. nblenkey@sbpub.com ARMED& DANGEROUS What should you do? Join the discussion at: www.marinelog.com/DOCS/conf.html JAN. 27-28, 2009 Arlington, VA 4 MARINE LOG DECEMBER 2008 www.marinelog.com http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/Conf.html http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/Conf.html http://www.marinelog.com
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