D6
Sunday, March 6, 2011
BusinessPoliticsEnvironment
Peninsula Daily News
What can be done about today’s pirates? Peninsula Daily News news services
Fear: Shipping, not sailing
MOGADISHU, Somalia — For years now, Somali pirates with fiberglass or four yachts a year through the Continued from D1 boats to the region in September skiffs and salt-rusted Indian Ocean to deliver to owners and are now working at full capacKalashnikovs have been Over the past six months, Peters ity, said chief of operations Thomas who would meet them in the Medicommandeering ships along & May Ltd., a company that speterranean. Jakobsson. one of the most congested cializes in shipping boats and But since Christmas, the comOn Wednesday, six Naval shipping routes in the world yachts, has seen a roughly 300 per- Guards employees fought off six pany has suspended sailing — the Gulf of Aden, a vital cent increase in inquiries from cap- pirates who had attacked and between India and the Suez Canal conduit for Middle East oil tains interested in shipping their because of pirates. boarded the Capricorn, a yacht to Europe and the United vessels rather than risking going “The attacks had spread north crewed by a Dutch couple, JakoStates. through pirate-infested waters, to the Omani coast. They had basibsson said. More than 50 vessels are said Managing Director Angus cally blocked off the route we were But some yacht owners can’t or now held captive, from Thai Bruce Jones. won’t pay for expensive shipping or taking,” he said, adding that many fishing trawlers to EuroAnother option is to use a comin the yachting community don’t guards. pean supertankers, with pany like Naval Guards, a private take pirates seriously enough. Instead, they might hire a crew more than 800 hostages. security outfit based in Britain “The feeling is that it is a big to take the risk for them, said Mat Those numbers grow whose guards escort vessels on wide ocean and no one can touch Sandys-Winsch of Direct Yacht each year. speedboats. you,” Sandys-Winsch said. Deliveries. But the international “That’s not true.” His company used to sail three They sent their first of three response has been limited, partly because the most promising remedies are intensely complicated and robi, Kenya, who trades feckless and corrupt. risky. he international response to the growth in ideas on anti-piracy strateIslamist rebels control much of the country. gies with other diplomats piracy incidents and the accompanying Warships dispatched Few Somalis think the and was instructed not to violence has been limited, partly because nation will stop being a war Western powers, includ- speak publicly about the zone any time soon. the most promising remedies are intensely ing the United States, have issues. The shipping industry “I could see the Ameri- complicated and risky. sent warships to cruise seems to know this. Somalia and the rest of the cans going after the pirate “Until things change on East African coast and dis- bosses, the organizers, maybe even blockade some The pirates used to stick allied to al-Qaida — and land, you have to come courage attacks. When a vessel is of the ports that they use,” relatively close to Somalia’s malnutrition, suffering and down very hard on them at death on a scale unseen just sea,” said Cyrus Mody, manshores. hijacked, ship owners cough he speculated. ager of the International “I don’t think the Ameriup a ransom, nowadays in But now, using “mother about anywhere else. Maritime Bureau in LonThe United States and the neighborhood of $5 mil- cans are going to invade ships” — hijacked vessels lion, and most of that cost Somalia, because of Iraq that serve as floating bases other Western powers are don. gets passed to the end user and Afghanistan, but they — they attack ships more pouring millions of dollars into Somalia’s transitional Frustrated shippers — consumers. can use local allies.” than 1,000 miles away. Until recently, most hosSometimes that puts government, an appointed Shipping companies are tages would emerge Special forces them closer to India than to body with little legitimacy frustrated, he said, because on the ground, in the hope, unharmed, albeit skinny home. The red zone now Another obvious possi- covers more than 1 million perhaps vain, that it can while many pirates are and pale from being locked apprehended at sea by forin a filthy room. The aver- bility would be U.S. military square miles of water, an rebuild the world’s most age time in captivity is special forces, who have area naval officers say is failed state and create an eign navies, the vast majoreconomy based on some- ity are typically released killed terrorism suspects in impossible to control. around six months. thing like fishing or live- unless they are caught in But recently the pirates Somalia. the act of a hijacking a ship stock. have been getting more The U.S. government Land operations Young men then might — which is a very narrow vicious; reports have isn’t revealing its plans but Piracy Inc. is a sprawl- be able to earn a living window because once emerged of beatings, of officials suggest — as long doing something other than pirates control a vessel, it’s being hung upside down, as they are not quoted by ing operation on land, too. extremely dangerous to even of being forced at gun- name — that the killings of It offers work to tens of sticking up ships. intervene. But the transitional govpoint to join in raids. the four Americans could be thousands of Somalis — “The laws have to be And last month the a game-changer. middle-managers, transla- ernment has been divided, pirates gunned down four “We get it,” said one tors, bookkeepers, mechanAmerican on a sailing State Department official. ics, gunsmiths, guards, boat yacht, including a couple “We get the need to reca- builders, women who sell from Seattle. tea to pirates, others who librate.” Any course of action, sell them goats. Retaliation coming? Somalia’s central govhowever, will confront two “I think there’s going to huge obstacles — the ernment collapsed more be some type of retaliation immensity of the sea and than 20 years ago, and now [to the four deaths],” said a the depth of chaos in Soma- its landscape includes droughts, warlords, fighters European diplomat in Nai- lia.
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amended,” Mody said. “Why would a skiff be 800 miles off Somalia with a rocket-propelled grenade, a ladder and extra barrels of fuel? “What are they doing? Fishing? These people need to be arrested and prosecuted.”
Why not attack? Many people ask: Why not storm ashore and attack the pirate bases? These dens are well known. One pirate boss has been using millions of dollars in ransoms to build a landbased army that at first glance looks more disciplined and better equipped than Somalia’s national army. But the military option would not be pretty. The 800 or so captured seamen could be used as human shields.
Troop option risky And no Western country has shown an appetite to send troops to Somalia, not after the Black Hawk Down fiasco of 1993, when ragtag Somali militiamen downed two American helicopters and killed 18 elite American troops. And a military attack could easily backfire. “They might kill a few pirates, but more would certainly spring up to replace them,” said Bronwyn Bruton, who wrote a widely discussed essay on Somalia. “The replacements would probably be even angrier and more violent.” In her essay, she advised the international community to essentially pull out and let Somalis sort out their problems on their own.
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