Man, this is not a very good report card about the effectiveness of the current strategy. It also shows to me that the pirates are getting better at what they are doing, and they are also increasing their reach.
Not to mention the scalability of the whole thing. If an operation costs $ 30,000, and a pirate has fetched millions of dollars in ransom in the past, then with each ransom, they can dramatically scale up the amount of operations. This increases the odds of success. The numbers below speak for themselves.
Now on to the solutions. There are two things that have to happen that the world community just does not have the will to do, or the spine to promote, in order to stop this. They have to effectively deal with the problems in Somalia on land, and shipping must have a viable means to protect itself on the high seas. In my book, ‘viable means’ is defined as armed security on every boat.
Along with those armed security professionals, must also come the legal mechanism necessary to allow this force to do what it needs to do. Here on the blog I continue to promote how countries could provide such a legal mechanism through the granting of the Letter of Marque (LoM). I have also posted numerous legal treatments on the subject here on the blog with the hopes that folks will start thinking about the concept.
The other area of interest for me is that as pirates become more asset rich, the possibilities of seizing their assets on the high seas or somehow taking what they stole, increases. With a LoM system right now, there is nothing of value that the pirates have because they have such low operating costs. So the LoM would only serve as a legal framework for PSC’s to protect vessels.
But as ship owners continue to pay ransoms and pirates begin to upgrade to more valuable ships and hardware, I could see a day where a privateer might benefit from the seizure of a prize like this.
A privateer might also be able to benefit by retrieving that ransom money somehow. Either on the high seas right after the exchange, or if they were able to get on land and take it from the pirate. My thoughts on the matter is that if there is any mechanism at all for allowing companies to legally take from the pirates, then now you would have a competitive strategy to counter the current piracy business model. Pirates profit by taking from the weak, and privateers would profit by taking from the pirates.
I estimate that a system such as this would eradicate piracy pretty effectively. Just think of the size and scope of such a thing? The entire world and all of it’s private naval industries, armed with licenses to take from pirates, versus a few hundred Somali pirates off the coast of Africa or where ever they want to exist. Out of that process we would see some really innovative and effective pirate hunters, and that is the kind of thing that would put the fear of god into these thugs. I would imagine that some of the best pirate hunters, would be former Somali pirates themselves. Or who knows who would rise to the top in such an environment?
And if a value was assigned to Somali pirates in the form of bounties, then that would really create the profit motive needed to fuel such an anti-pirate industry. Call it a clash of industries or privateers versus pirates. And get this, today’s shipping companies are creating an asset rich pirate by continuing to pay these ransoms. Until then though, an LoM would probably be most effective as a legal mechanism used to help defend private shipping. –Matt
Somalia Pirates’ Success Rate Rises, Stunting East Africa Economies
By Bill Varner
Nov 2, 2010
The international naval presence off the coast of Somalia is failing to reduce the success rate of pirates whose attacks on commercial ships are stunting the economies of East Africa, the United Nations said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported to the Security Council that 37 of 164 attacks on ships operating off the coast of Somalia succeeded in the first nine months of this year. That 22.6 percent rate of successful hijackings compares with 17.1 percent, of 193 attempts, for the same period in 2009.
“Piracy in the region has had an immense impact on the economies of East Africa and also the wider world,” Ban said in his report. “International trade routes are threatened and goods in the region as well as Somalia are becoming more expensive. This is made worst by the bleak state of the global economy.”
The pirates concentrate on the Gulf of Aden, a chokepoint leading to the Suez Canal that is used by 30,000 ships a year carrying about one-tenth of world trade. Attacks have spread to the Indian Ocean, as much as 1,000 miles from shore.
The rate of successful hijackings increased even with the presence of warships from the European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization and 25 other nations including the U.S., China, India, Iran and Japan. Commercial ships are using defensive measures such as netting, wire, electric fences and fire hoses to prevent boarding.
More Sophisticated Weapons
Ban said the pirates have countered with more sophisticated weaponry and use of “action groups” consisting of a large command boat towing attack skiffs.
“I am afraid that the problem will not only be with us for a long time to come, but also has the potential to become worse unless both Somalis and the international community address its root causes,” Ban said. “There is an urgent need to combine vital sea-based and judicial counter-piracy initiatives.”
Somalia hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Most of southern and central Somalia is under the control of insurgents led by the Islamic terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda.
The Transitional Federal Government, which controls only portions of Mogadishu and whose mandate expires in August 2011, is emerging from a political crisis following the resignation of Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke. Mohamed Abdullahi was approved as prime minister by Somalia’s parliament on Oct. 31 after his taking of the office was delayed by a dispute over whether the vote would be secret.
Story here.