Idarat Maritime

By Veeresh Malik, in Delhi.

Over the last few weeks this writer has been fortunate enough to attend more than a few “events”, in India, related to the maritime piracy situation. By and large, the “official” events which involve Indian and foreign Government agencies, naval staff and intelligence services, are preceded by requests to maintain secrecy and media silence. The “unofficial” events are likewise accompanied by requests to maintain confidentiality’s, since these involve returned seafarers, families of currently captive seafarers and other private entities including people representing seafarer and shipowner interests.

In addition, there are the meetings which can only be described as “grey”, where elements from some of the unorganized sectors which lie in between are also in attendance. This includes the light grey – not unsubstantial country craft (dhow) and fishing vessel categories, as well as the absolutely dark grey – vessels engaged in trade of all sorts in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. And then there are those who claim to be local contacts for the pirates – from the sort found in skiffs and mother-ships off the coasts of some of the poorest countries in the world to the sorts found in bespoke suits striding the streets of the best cities of the developed world.

Diversion, but relevant, question:- will the real pirates please stand up and switch off their satellite phones, please?

From the here in India point of view, the latter, the “grey” sector, seldom, if at all, gets any publicity, because many from the middle-class which make up the increasingly vocal segment of the media as well as those who read and view the media in Indian don’t even know it exists. Nor do they, often, have access to the doors behind which lurk the powers that be. However, from the seafarer point of view, with shortage of berths on-board “normal” ships, youngsters being churned out of the maritime education “industry” in India and adjacent countries are increasingly also taking up jobs here in order to defray costs incurred on said maritime educations, so it has permeated into this segment of society. Which was otherwise content enough to work on mainline ships.

Anecdotal – seafarers can score jobs on a variety of motorised vessels of most sizes, where certification of crew or seafarer are not really the big question. This is, incidentally, not an Asian employment thing, there are enough people from the developed world in the business too, and for the right kind of no questions asked jobs, the salaries are at par with the best, too.

So when the question arises, pertaining to solutions to the whole piracy issue largely in the Arabian Sea but also now catching up in other parts of the world, and voices ask, what can be done, how should it be done, who will do it, who will pay for it, what are the typical answers one gets?

Here’s a sampler, by no means complete or exhaustive, and certainly as experienced and perceived by the writer – hopefully reproduced in an unbiased manner. (Some tongue in cheek observations are also appended where applicable.)

The non Indian Ocean economies and their Navies:- “We think the countries in the region should do more. Supermarket shelves in developed countries will not look good if empty due to disruption in trade and supply chain caused by piracy issues. Also, there is the question of who commands the joint forces.” (There is also the issue of cost of keeping these naval assets in these waters, in the face of economic issues and budgetary issues, plus everybody wants to be home for Christmas too)

The Navies in the Indian Ocean economies:- “This needs to be shared by everybody, especially since there is ample presence in Diego Garcia, Bahrein, Singapore, Gan Island. In addition, Also, there is the question of who commands the joint forces.” (There is also the issue that many of these vessels are not operating to/from our ports, don’t listen to us, and they come to close to our coasts endangering our environment and fisherfolk too.)

The Governments involved, mainly the NATO, EU and regional countries, would have to defer to national positions as well as existing international laws on this issue. As on date, the babel fish had an easier time, is the considered opinion. As a diversionary, everybody then points at the BMP-3 and the newer BMP-4 and suggests that another form should be filled and forwarded. (Of course, the justifiable view here is the developed countries from Europe should come to the table and also discuss provenance and new positions on Chagos, Antarctica, Economic zones, Indian Ocean fishing and more.)

The “Open Registry” or “Flags of Convenience” states, whose ships are largely at risk, will seldom if at all venture any sort of opinion or response, and that’s at the root of the problem. (This lot is already in problems globally on the larger issues of tax havens and would rather just keep quiet and take out more insurance which according to them the charterer should pay for.)

The ITF-Seafarers:- “We support BMP-4. We are for the international seafarer. However, any solution to the contentious Open Register/Flag of Convenience issue would impact the fees we collect which is what keeps the Maritime part of the ITF going. (ITF-Maritime shares a table with the NATO and EUNAVFOR forces and is therefore viewed as an extended arm of the developed countries.)

The unorganized serving seafarer, often a minority at such events, and usually ignored will every now and then talk about a global strike by all seafarers without in the least even knowing how to organise one. (It is important to point out a reality – for every one seafarer willing to go on strike, there will be dozens more from poorer countries willing to accept anything, including worse terms and conditions -.)

The pirates on the ground are, meanwhile, portrayed as hard looking men of African descent, with head-dress wrapped in a rakish style giving them a very Islamic appearance, and an automatic weapon carried in a rather theatrical stance. Which is also in line with the person a captive seafarer usually comes across on the African coast, and describes to those willing to listen to him, so that it gets perpetuated even more. (By contrast, the pirates from the Far East as well as from the waters around Europe and America are never really portrayed, also because in the first case they usually kill their victims which closes the circle to the satisfaction of all but the victims and in the second case are often to be found wearing uniforms which apparently legitimises their activities.)

The real heart of the matter is that piracy and as a result the subsequent criminalisation of the seafarer unless protected by his flag state is increasingly here to stay – and is also increasingly becoming acceptable in many circles as a cost of staying in business. Like many other commercial activities which are considered outright illegal in civil society the world over, but fact remains are simply existing and can not be eradicated (e.g.: narcotics, prostitution, modern cannibalisation of body parts, even cooking and eating human meat as a gourmet experience in some parts of the world.), piracy on the high seas or in territorial waters is here to stay.

What appears to be a game changer of late is the new tactic of releasing the vessel and cargo and hanging on to the seafarer. Whether it was the case of the COSCO BUSAN in Oakland, CA, or of the ASPHALT VENTURE in Somalia, seafarers are drawing parallels. Give the ship and cargo back to the big guys, and hold the small fry. Likewise, being boarded by the USCG in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, or being attacked by skiffs off Socotra, is also considered to be the same thing by seafarers at the wrong end of the automatic weapon – albeit in private conversations. This, again, is the reality with “illegal” activities all over the world.

As such, most of these meetings end with not much by way of cogent plans on what to do next, besides meeting up of cocktails and dinner in some cases. But if one scratches the surface, then some sort of evolution does seem to be taking place, and it is here that one looks for clarity and truth howsoever bitter as well as real life observational aspects, if not solutions.

1.  The present state of economies globally, with governments all over coming down strongly on financial secrecy jurisdictions, is bound to have a ricochet effect on ships registered and hidden behind flags of convenience. In any case, atleast here in India, seafarers of a certain calibre and above are increasingly getting choosy about what sort of owners and managers and also flags they sail for – especially if they are heading into areas where support from them is important. Whether this means the African coast ports or Paris MOU ports, the word is out – sail for an owner/manager/flag that will save your skin if something should happen.
2.  The business end of the piracy business, whether it is the initial spotting and selection or the subsequent financial transactions, are laying down the rules on how seafarers on-board ships should be treated. This author has been shown a list of do’s and don’ts ostensibly from the organisers for the pirates on guard duty on-board ships, with a tariff-card on penalties imposed on them in case the prisoners are mistreated. Physical beating, for example, sets a guard back by $2,000 and any punishment awarded to seafarers without referring back to the elders in charge, can cost even more. Despite this, the reports of treatment on board are often horrifying, and one can only assume that the channel of command is failing at times.
3.  There are age-old trading and social relationships between communities on the Indian coast and the Horn of Africa as well as beyond. In one case, the “liaison” person had worked in India and knew the local languages as well as customs too, however this also works against the captive as very often these channels contact the families back home directly and put the squeeze on them. Please remember – kidnapping and abducting occurs for other reasons too, the trade in young boys for the camel races and of young women for all sorts of purposes has been going on for a long time, and it seems that this “business” is simply being added on.
4.  Most importantly, it is the “business end”, which appears to operate from the same global centres where shipping is also strong, which appears to be falling into some sort of cadence – as far as the business end of the ship and cargo are concerned. In one specific case involving a particular European owned ship which has more than a few nationalities on-board, the owners and the pirates appeared to have made a deal for vessel and cargo, leaving the seafarers to their own fate and devices. It was, however, the management company in this case as well as some elders in Somalia who have refused to fall into this modus operandi – something which the owners and managers of the ASPHALT VENTURE (now trading again) could also have done instead of leaving their men to their fate.

Overall, it is clear to all that modern maritime piracy is here to stay, and it will be one more of the risks factored into a seafarer’s already crowded and difficult life. At the same time, people who have come to sea out of choice or necessity are aware of the risks this work entails, and they know that there will always be more people who will step in when others refuse. However, the larger picture is that all this will have a domino effect on costs across the board, and the results will be felt in the price of daily needs on supermarket shelves.

Specifically as pertains to the East African maritime piracy issue, the solutions lie as much in the backrooms of the banks and insurance companies which often do actually own the ships themselves, as they do with the governments of the major nations involved in shipping. As on date, that does not look like it is going to happen in a hurry, and the local sum of all factors points in one direction – that this will simply keep growing, as well as spread to other parts of the world.

On the other hand – and I have left this for the last for a specific reason – the placing of armed guards onboard, picked up by ships from around 18 degrees North in the Red Sea and carried till off the required port in the Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean, will only increase the capabilities of the kind of weapons used by the pirates. From AK47s and other automatic weapons to Rocket Propelled Grenades to guided missiles, which can be used by anybody who has played a video game, to limpet mines using mini-submarines – the options appear to be growing. The illicit participation of navies from some rogue countries in the area is also not discounted, and the side-effects of tension on the Iran-Israel issue adds to these complex equations.

The solution, at least on the ground, will involve a serious re-think in ship design and equipment as well as citadels onboard to provide higher safety from such attacks. Some of this will obviously be retro-fit, or for new launches, but either which way – it will be as inevitable as lifeboats were a few decades ago – and making security inspections mandatory. That, as well as a closer look at the banking channels used for this business, the people behind which are often viewed as the real pirates.

(c) Veeresh Malik 2011

Somali women displaced by severe drought conditions queue to get food handouts

Drought and famine have been a constant factor of Somali life, and the cycles of deprivation seem to worsen. When drought strikes, due to changes in the El Niño/La Niña cycles, or climate change, it affects a land with a rapidly growing population, creating Malthusian calamities, as the land cannot support its human population in such circumstances. The situation has been compounded by the fact that Al-Shabaab, an Islamist militant group, control much of southern Somalia and have banned most aid agencies since 2009.

The Somali population has grown extremely rapidly since independence in 1960. In the fifty year period from 1960 to 2010 the population has grown by 231%, from 2.82 million to 9.36 million (U.N. estimates).[1]

In the summer of 2011 the U.K. Disasters Emergency Committee launched an appeal for funds to aid people who are affected by the severe drought in East Africa. The BBC reported that British aid agencies were preparing to expand their activities in Somalia to help some of the 10 million people at risk of starvation in East Africa.[2]

This followed U.N. reports that in some parts of southern Somalia, 1 in 3 children are malnourished. In August 2010, the national level of acute malnutrition was 15.2% with 16.6% specifically in southern regions. OCHA stated that rapid assessments, conducted in April 2011 in the south, confirmed that a sustained crisis existed, “clearly illustrating the impact of the drought in the south, coupled with insufficient humanitarian assistance.” The OCHA report in June 2011 added that, “Somalia is sliding deeper into crisis due to the combination of drought, increasing food prices and conflict. The eastern Horn of Africa, including Somalia, has now experienced two consecutive seasons of significantly below average rainfall, resulting in failed crop production, significant livestock mortality and record food prices.”[3] The UNHCR warned in July 2011 that high levels of malnutrition, combined with ongoing violence in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation, are threatening, “a human tragedy of unimaginable proportions”.[4]

The U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) estimates that northeast Kenya, southeast Ethiopia and parts of Somalia — mainly in the centre and south — will be in an “emergency” phase of food insecurity, the stage before “catastrophe or famine”. This year’s drought is not isolated, and its recurrence may be due to the La Nina effect, an abnormal cooling of Pacific waters. The southern United States is also affected by drought.

Al Shabaab has opened the south of Somalia to aid agencies and in mid-July 2011 UNICEF airlifted five metric tons of emergency nutrition supplies and water-related equipment to Baidoa in southern Somalia, as part of its work to assist drought-affected children in the country. “It was successful and it was a good step towards airlifting supplies into Somalia. It is the first in two years,” said Iman Morooka, the UNICEF spokeswoman for Somalia. In 2009 Al Shabaab expelled foreign aid groups, accusing them of being Western spies and Christian crusaders.

People in several countries in East Africa – including Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia – are facing a desperate crisis caused by prolonged drought, soaring food prices and ongoing conflict in Somalia.

The Dabaab refugee camp across of the border in Kenya was described by Ben Brown in July 2011 as a “vision of hell”. He said that Dabaab is more like a city than a refugee camp, it sprawls for thirty miles and its population is nearly half a million, and hungry and exhausted people are flocking to it from hundreds of miles around.[5]

Famine declared by the United Nations

2oth July 2011, The United Nations  confirmed the existence of famine in two regions of southern Somalia: southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle, and made an urgent appeal for “exceptional efforts” to support Somalis in overcoming that humanitarian crisis, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, told correspondents today at a Headquarters press conference. he added that, nearly half of the Somali population, or 3.7 million people, were now in crisis, with some 2.8 million in the south. Malnutrition rates in Somalia are currently the highest in the world, peaking at 50 per cent in certain areas in the south. In southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle, acute malnutrition rates exceeded 30 per cent, with deaths among children under 5 years old topping 6 per 10,000 a day in some areas.  In the last few months, tens of thousands of Somalis have died — the majority of the dead being children — from malnutrition and related causes.

Mark Bowden also said that consecutive droughts had affected the country in the last few years, while the ongoing conflict had made it difficult for agencies to operate and access communities in the south of the country. He explained.  “If we don’t act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks,” he declared.  “We still do not have all the resources for food, clean water, shelter and health services to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis in desperate need.” He also estimated that $300 million would be needed in the next two months to deal with the famine, and said that, meanwhile, the lack of resources was alarming: “Every day of delay in assistance is literally a matter of life or death for children and their families in the famine-affected areas.” Bowden also said that although the United Nations humanitarian agencies welcomed the recent request by Al-Shabaab for international assistance in southern Somalia, the inability of food agencies to work in the region since early 2010 had prevented the United Nations from reaching those who needed food — particularly children – which had contributed to the current crisis. [6]

It was since become clear that Al-Shabaab is still seriously restricting the activities of aid agencies; on the 21st July their spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said that aid agencies the group had previously banned are still barred from operating in areas under its control. He called the UN’s declaration of famine in parts of Somalia this week politically motivated and “pure propaganda.” This will mean that only a few aid agencies will be able to respond to crisis in southern Somalia, and the UN World Food Programme, the biggest aid supplier is still banned.[7]

(c) Idarat Maritime Ltd. 2011

For more information: Karnon.org

Photo: Reuters/Feisal Omar – July 7, 2011 with the kind permission of Alert.Net

We wrote an earlier article on the use of heavy weapons by pirates and this has been updated and reissued in light of the recent rumours about the use of RPG29s.

The U.N. Somalia Monitoring Group in their reports noted that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were being used in Somalia and that the growing sophistication of these devices suggested that there had been “the importation of expertise and the transfer of skills through training”. They concluded that, “The conduct of five simultaneous, coordinated suicide bomb attacks in Hargeosa and Bossaso on 29 October 2008 represented a qualitative leap over previous improvised explosive device operations.”

Interesting, in light of the arguments over the cargo of the Almezaan, the Monitoring Group noted that there were “reports of a small number of more advanced anti-tank weapons”, but they said that they had at that time found no evidence of functional wire-guided anti-tank weapons, although there were “small numbers of man-portable surface-to-air missiles, and the growing use of night-vision equipment.” In the last year it is likely that things have moved on, but the existence of night-vision equipment, which is an invaluable aid to pirates making night attacks, and man-portable surface-to-air missiles, which could protect motherships from helicopter attacks, highlight the military assets that are potentially available to Somali pirates.

If, and it’s a big if, the the Panamanian-flagged cargo ship Almezaan was carrying missiles in 2010, as Lloyd’s List suggested, the most likely types were ex-Soviet short-range anti-tank wire-guided missiles like the 9K11 Malyutka, also known as the AT-3 Sagger, or the radio-guided 9K114 Shturm, also known as the AT-6 Spiral. There are also numbers of the Franco-German Milan missile, which is wire-guided, available, but the Soviet-era stockpiles were vast, the Ukraine alone holding huge stores of such equipment. The Soviet Union produced about 25,000 Saggers a year during the 1960s and 1970s.

Neither the Sagger, nor the Spiral is easy to use, and prolonged training is required to use these weapons effectively. They are also far more potent weapons than the RPG-7 having a warhead of 2.5 kilo+ (5.3 kg in the case of the Spiral). It is possible that there are some Saggers in Somalia and that they have been delivered to the TFG, or Al Shabaab. If this is the case they could theoretically be deployed on board pirate vessels, given the ease with which the TFG appears to lose weapons, but they are difficult, if not impossible, to fire from a small skiff, but could be fired from a mothership, or possibly from the Volva craft widely used in Somalia, and with a three kilometre range they could frighten the life out of any Master unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end. It’s not clear that they would seriously damage a large merchant ship, but they certainly a much bigger firework than the tried and trusted RPG-7, although not a close-in weapon (they have a relatively large minimum range of about 500 to 800 metres). It is to be hoped that the report in Lloyd’s List was wrong and that the findings of the U.N. Monitoring Group are still relevant, that there are no operational wired-guided missiles in Somalia.

There is another weapon which it has been rumoured  may be in the hands of Somali pirates, is the Soviet era RPG29 (but this is not proven). This was first introduced in 1989 and widely used against the IDF in the 2006 Lebanon War, and is a potent anti-tank weapon, and has a 500 metre range. The RPG29 fires two different types of projectiles; the PG-29V anti-tank/anti-bunker round and the TBG-29V thermobaric anti-personnel round. The PG-29V round has a tandem-charge high explosive anti-tank warhead (HEAT) warhead for defeating explosive reactive armour (ERA). It has been described as the most dangerous adversary of modern Russian Main Battle Tanks. In tests conducted against T-80 and T-90 tanks, it penetrated the tanks over their frontal arcs, despite their reactive armour and the already thick hulls.[1] The RPG29 is arguably too powerful for pirate use, as its use could destroy the ships being attacked. It has been suggested that the Liberia-flagged Suezmax tanker Brillante Virtuoso was hit by one of these weapons, 20 nautical miles off Aden on 6^th July 2011; which led to a fire in the accommodation block and evacuation of the vessel. The reports are confused and can not be relied on, and there was even a suggestion that the Yemeni coastguards may have fired the weapon at the tanker. [2]

(c) Idarat Maritime Ltd. 2011

LONDON-NAIROBI, 16 June 2011 (IRIN) – The growth of piracy off the coast of Somalia from an occasional nuisance to shipping into a multi-million-dollar criminal enterprise has another, often deliberately overlooked cost: the worsening violence meted out to thousands of captured crew members.

“There definitely has been a change, and we don’t know why,” Pottengal Mukundan, Director of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), told a June meeting on the subject in London.

“It may be to do with the fact that there is now a different kind of people looking after the captives. These are just gangs of thugs; they have never been to sea and they have no empathy with the seafarers,” said Mukundan.

Statistics from 2010 (taken from The Human Cost of Somali Piracy, unless otherwise indicated) illustrate the scale of piracy’s expansion in the western Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden:

4,000-plus seafarers attacked with firearms, including rocket propelled grenades

400 piracy attacks, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

1,016 crew members taken hostage (up from a worldwide 188 in 2006 – IMB)

Over 400 hostages were used as human shields

five months was the average duration of captivity

US$111m paid in ransoms (UNODC report: The illicit financial flows linked to piracy off the coast of Somalia)

Until recently, Somali pirates were known for treating their captives well. But now, according to The Human Cost of Somali Piracy, a report published this month by Oceans Beyond Piracy, hostages are severely beaten, dragged underwater, have had wires tightened round their genitals, and have undergone elaborate mock executions.

“Both successful and unsuccessful attacks expose seafarers to dangerous experiences, with the potential for long-term physical and psychological trauma,” said the report.

Crew members who seek refuge in a “citadel”, or safe room, might spend several terrifying days locked in a confined space while attackers fire heavy weapons at the door, light fires under the ventilators, or even use welding equipment to try to break through the walls.

After the initial distress of being chased and shot at during an attack, hostages endure beatings, confinement and torture at the hands of their captors.

“We have found strong evidence that over a third of the seafarers that were held in 2010 were abused, and the trend is looking more ominous this year,” said Kaija Hurlburt, who wrote the report.

Psychological pressure

The seafarers themselves are not the only ones to suffer. To put more pressure on shipping companies to pay up quickly, pirates sometimes called families and threatened to kill their loved ones if ransom was not delivered soon. “There have been cases where the hostage has been forced to call his family, and is beaten while his family listens on the phone,” said Hurlburt, who added that both hostages and families are kept in the dark during negotiations. “It is clear that seafarers and their families suffer stress at every point along the way, from the moment their ship enters pirate-infested waters,” she said.

“The risks encountered in the course of their work would be unacceptable in most industries,” the report said.

With more than 3,000 seafarers taken hostage by Somali pirates since 2008 and hundreds currently in captivity, the situation was a “humanitarian crisis”, according to International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) spokesman Simon Bennett. “The crisis really has spiralled out of control.”

The pirates are also using new tactics such as turning hijacked boats into “motherships” from which to launch more attacks in which captive crew members are forced to take part.

No longer restrained by the size of their boats or their sailing capabilities, these pirates are limited only by the amount of fuel they can get. Somali pirates are now carrying out attacks over 1,000 nautical miles away from Somalia.

Prosecuting captured pirates poses major jurisdictional issues

Shipping companies are often silent about what happens to hostage crews, said Andrew Palmer of Idarat Maritime, which advises shipowners and the burgeoning shipping insurance industry. Palmer told IRIN companies made their employees sign confidentiality agreements promising not to talk about their experiences at sea. Disclosure was not in the companies’ interests, he said, because of the risk of mutiny.

While some seafarers now refuse to sail in waters off Somalia, others feel they have no choice, “because their families, and in some cases entire villages, rely on their incomes,” Hurlburt said in her report.

The industry has been forced to respond to the crisis given what Bennett called “horrible frustration and despair” at the new developments in hostage treatment.

But the increasing tendency to employ armed security guards aboard ships has its drawbacks, according to Wing Commander Paddy O’Kennedy, spokesman for the European Union Naval Force Somalia.

“If someone who’s particularly good at a war game on the X-box decides he’d be good in a security company you’re going to get cowboys out there,” he said, noting that some security teams had fired on fishermen they had mistaken for pirates.

In 2009, several countries with coastlines on the pirate-infested waters adopted a code of conduct to tackle piracy which committed them to facilitate “proper care, treatment, and repatriation for seafarers, fishermen, other shipboard personnel and passengers subject to piracy or armed robbery against ships, particularly those who have been subjected to violence.”

“Wrong nationality”

But, according to UNODC spokesman Wayne Miller, signatories have not lived up to this obligation, on the grounds that the affected hostages came from non-signatory states.

“The majority of the seafarers have got the wrong nationality,” said ICS spokesman Bennett. “Most of the crews held hostage have been Filipino and Indian, not American and European. As a consequence, it doesn’t quite generate the same media interest,” or incentive for military intervention.

“At a time when both financial and military resources are extremely stretched, Western governments, at least, appear to have concluded that this unacceptable situation can somehow be tolerated,” wrote the ICS in its “Key Issues of 2011” statement.

Experts point to options for collective action. Navies could remotely disable hijacked vessels, said Bennett. Authorities could collect evidence following an attack for use in prosecuting pirates, according to the IMB. If enough evidence existed to support assault charges in addition to piracy, those charges could be made, said Miller.

And countries could pledge more resources towards taking pirates to court. Ninety percent of pirates captured by international navies were released because no jurisdiction was prepared to prosecute them, according to the UN Security Council. Kenya cancelled an agreement with the European Union to prosecute suspected pirates, worried about shouldering too much of the financial burden of detaining and trying them.

Others think legal action is only part of the answer. “Prosecution of pirates cannot solve the problem,” said Andrew Mwangura, director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme. “We need to address the root cause of piracy and to come up with land-based anti-piracy measures.”

“We need to keep pushing this,” said O’Kennedy. “We need to make sure that the welfare of these sailors is at the forefront of people’s minds.”

O’Kennedy said he thinks about the 412 people being held today, and what they’re being subjected to in captivity. He wonders how Naja Johansen of Denmark, just 13 years old, is coping as a pirate hostage. She has been held for more than three months.

“It’s heartbreaking stuff,” he said.

(c) IRIN 2011, reproduced with permission (http://www.irinnews.org/)

When you visit old fortifications, like the Crusader-built Beaufort Castle in Lebanon, and stand on the highest tower you often realize that one of the main reasons for their existence is the fact that they command a view of surrounding country over a great distance. In fact we talk of a “commanding view”, or of a castle “dominating the countryside”. The modern equivalent of the castle tower is the aerostat, or the tethered balloon. Typically aerostats fly about 600 metres high, are stable and able to remain aloft permanently, except for occasional maintenance, equipped with high performance cameras and radar they literally command the territory around them. In recent years, particularly during the Afghan War, there has been a resurgence in their use.

The first use of balloons by the military goes back to the Battle of Fleurus, which took place on June 26, 1794 in Flanders, between the France Revolutionary Army and the Coalition Army, the French used a balloon as an observation point. During the whole of the ten hours of the battle General Morlot and a colleague remained airborne. Messages were sent up and down via a bag tied to a cable. The entire battle was directed from this lofty vantage point and this played a large part in the French victory.

There are now around one hundred US aerostats deployed in Afghanistan, one is based at Bala Hissar, an ancient fortress on one of the hills that overlooks Kabul, and provides 24/7 surveillance of the city and another protects the city of Kandahar. Unlike helicopters and fixed wing aircraft aerostats can stay aloft indefinitely and the costs of operation are low. Modern systems like GNSS’s 300 Series have a radar dish integrated into their structure, while carrying cameras and other equipment in an under-slung container. These systems can typically cover, with their sophisticated multi-mode radars, an area with a diameter of 160 kilometres.

A number of countries are now planning to install similar systems for border security and for surveillance of their coastline. In West Africa there are also plans to protect valuable off-shore oil rigs and other assets from pirates and criminal gangs, who threaten these key sources of national wealth. Given that one E-3 Sentry AWACS AIRCRAFT cost the USAF about $270 million and has very high operating costs the attraction of this reliable and low-cost security system is obvious and we expect to see these craft deployed over most major cities in the next few years.

During the recent (May 2011) visit of President Obama to London, the sound of helicopters providing police surveillance was a constant dim, how much more effective would an aerostat have been, quietly doing its job, and from a far more stable platform. What is also not widely understood is just how effective modern surveillance equipment has become. Cameras like the FLIR SAFIRE® III have day and night capability in multiple wavebands, and can follow “targets” at long range, inbuilt IT systems also allow these systems to view and track ground locations and track moving targets.

Modern aerostats are also very flexible, the GNSS 100 Series can be deployed from its trailer in an hour and can be pulled by a Land Rover or similar vehicle, and even carried in a Chinook helicopter. Tighter national budgets, and the increasing costs of operating traditional airborne surveillance systems are now pointing to a major growth in the use of aerostats for security surveillance around the world. We expect to see them deployed in a growing number of areas, for border security, urban protection over mega-cities like Lagos and Cairo and as rapidly deployable systems to protect national leaders and major events. In addition we also expect to see them shipped into disaster areas, after earthquakes or major floods to provide real-time information and a communications platform for rescue teams.

So the next time there is a Royal Wedding in London, or perhaps the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, an earthquake in the Far East, or a flood of the Mississippi, look up in the sky and expect to see a white shape floating silently above you.

On the 6^th June 2011 The One Earth Future Foundation launches its report, “The Human Cost of Somali Piracy” at Chatham House in London.

The report concludes that:

1.         Thousands of seafarers are traumatized through violent crimes at sea. Transiting through pirated waters alone adds significant stress to their jobs. The risks encountered in the course of their work would be unacceptable in most industries.

2.         Trauma to seafarers is undervalued and misunderstood, but it can have lasting negative implications both for seafarers and their families.

3.         Families and others who depend on seafarers are faced with stress and fear from the time a seafarer enters high risk regions until the seafarer returns home. In the case of a hijacking, families may be subjected to psychological manipulation from pirates.

The One Earth Future Foundation also looks at the effectiveness of using customary law and universal jurisdiction to prosecute pirates. The report then compared the rights of seafarers to be protected under the law and their right to know the risks associated with the high crime rates endemic to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

They found that:

1.         Seafarers do not have adequate protection under the rule of law because piracy has been criminalized without creating effective enforcement institutions.

2.         Civil authority is fragmented in international waters; there is no lead agency designated to protect seafarers and coordinate rule of law efforts.

3.         Detailed reporting of crime would allow ship owners and seafarers to make more informed decisions regarding the risks of transiting through dangerous areas.

Whereas there can be no argument with their conclusions on the impact on seamen, I found their conclusions regarding the use of law to protect seamen far more controversial. The basic problem is that they compare states which have a legal system with two areas which basically are not subject to the rule of law – Somalia and the High Seas (refer our previous article on customary or xeer law in Somalia – (http://www.idaratmaritime.com/wordpress/?p=334).

Their report also states that, “Allegations against foreign vessels of illegal fishing and toxic waste dumping are still being made in Somalia and continue to provide justification, in the eyes of many Somalis, for the crime of piracy. These allegations have never been adequately addressed.” This is not the case, there have been detailed studies of this issue, which lead me to conclude that Somali elites have in the past been involved in foreign fishing and toxic dumping (President Siyad Barre’s government did a “deal” with the Italian Mafia allowing the Italians to dump toxic and nuclear waste in Somalia). Currently these issues are being used by criminal gangs in Somalia to justify their activities – not all the information coming out of Somalia can be believed).

The report also uses the case of the MV Beluga Nomination to conclude that citadels have serious problems, it seems that in this case the citadel was placed in a relatively vulnerable area. We believe that the positioning and establishment of citadels needs to be done professionally, not on an ad hoc basis and that an effective citadel is one of the most effective anti-piracy measures available to ship-owners. Idarat Maritime Ltd. has been undertaking work on effective citadels since last year, so we have a professional interest – I also remember the Captain of HMS Cornwall saying, “citadels give us options” – no citadel, no options.

I do believe that a comparison between a piece of American domestic legislature, the U.S. Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1989 as a model for “a comprehensive and transparent crime reporting system” is totally unrealistic. The failed state of Somalia (except for Somaliland) has not had a government for twenty years (I exclude the “shadow government” of the TFG and the pirate statelet of Puntland), and the wastes of the ocean are, by definition, the territory of no nation. Underlying this report there also appears to be an implied assumption that Somalis could take action against piracy if sufficient foreign support was given; I can see no supporting evidence for such views, which have been the basis for international support of the failed TFG. As Christopher Clapham has so forcefully pointed out, “the idea that viable states can be constructed throughout Africa on the basis of the territorial units established by colonial control has now reached the end of the road.” Clapham added that that in the case of Somalia the structures and values associated with ethnicity help undermine statehood, and that Somalis’ shared attitudes towards political authority and control have not supported the maintenance of an effective state (see Note 1).

The authors say, “A major obstacle that impedes full assessment of the human cost of piracy is the lack of consistent and transparent reporting on crimes that occur in international waters. This is only exacerbated by the treatment of piracy as a single crime that encompasses all acts that occur from hijack until release. This fails to fully account for the array of crimes committed against those individuals unlucky enough to be taken hostage.”

They then argue that. “It is only through this effective reporting on the actual nature of crimes that it will be possible to garner greater public support to counter piracy. This reporting might consider not using the term ‘piracy,’ which is in many ways outdated, and replace this with descriptions of crimes that will resonate with the public. These terms are: assault, murder, kidnapping, physical and psychological abuse and torture. Unfortunately, the information relating to these specifics is largely kept away from the public, making it difficult to bring more public pressure to bear on this topic.”

In my opinion these are worthy sentiments, but are entirely unrealistic. The chart that they put at the end of the report shows why, of the 1,090 people taken hostage by Somali pirates in 2010 only 6% (c. 65) were from OECD states, the rest were mainly from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the CIS states. These are the third class citizens of our modern world, people who Veeresh Malik calls “Giffen goods, replaceable”. Cousins of the men working for a pittance on the building sites of Asia, known as “TCNs” – third country nationals – in Saudi Arabia, with no government protection. We all know the stories; “car crash on city highway, two dead, local mother badly hurt, followed on the inside pages by “five hundred Chinese killed in earthquake.” Our view of the world is too often ethnic-centric. The plight of a thousand Asian seamen is not what focuses Western media attention – but a pair of yachtsmen from Europe or North America will get front-page billing, for a while and even then the story will die unless something new happens. At the time of writing 2 South Africans are held hostage, taken from their yacht and a Danish family with their three children and two friends were kidnapped in the same way in February 2011; there is a bizarre element as far as the Danish kidnapping is concerned, it has been reported that one Somali chief has offered to release the family if he can marry one of the children, 13-year-old Naja Johansen, but even this case has not received wide coverage outside of Denmark. The information is already there, it is not “kept away from the public”, the sad fact is that the Western public is not interested. It is also the case that even when seamen are released they are reluctant, for a number of reasons, to reveal the full extent of their experiences in Somalia (most sign confidentiality agreements on release).

By the same token, how many Westerners know about The Second Congo War (1998-2003), i.e. have even heard of it, and very few actually know that 5.4 million people died in it – although it’s obviously far more important than the “War on Terror” in terms of its human impact. People continue to die daily in Central Africa, but few reports ever reach the Western media (the BBC World Service being one of the few exceptions). In 2009, 1.8 million people died from AIDS (80% in Sub-Saharan Africa), how many stories did this generate on the evening TV news in London and New York?

The One Earth Future Foundation has produced an interesting study, well-researched, but it’s conclusions are, in my opinion, based on misapprehensions. Most of the world is not like America or Europe, and much of Africa is more dangerous and ungoverned than most can imagine – and that is the reality of Somalia today. Piracy can only be dealt with by solutions which are grounded in a practical understanding of this environment.

…………………………………………………………………..

Note: The paper is a product of the Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP) Working Group and the OBP Project, which is sponsored by One Earth Future Foundation (OEF), (http://www.oneearthfuture.org/) an American organization, based in Louisville, Colorado, USA, near the university town of Boulder, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Earlier this year it published an excellent report on the cost of piracy.

On it’s Website OEF says, “Oceans Beyond Piracy is One Earth Future’s flagship project. By identifying and developing effective, legal and peaceful solutions to maritime piracy, Oceans Beyond Piracy hopes to serve as a model to the worldwide community that there are nonviolent solutions to seemingly intractable problems. Our first mission is to work with the people and states most affected by piracy to shore up the international legal framework for prosecuting suspected pirates.” The Website for this project is http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/obp/

Note 1: Christopher Clapham – “Rethinking African States”, African Security Review 10 (3), 2001

(c) Idarat Maritime Ltd. 2011, we thank OEF for permission to quote from their report, “The Human Cost of Somali Piracy”, which is their copyright material (2011).

What is remarkable about Somalia today is that it has no functioning system of laws in the sense that westerners understand it, and therefore the consequences of actions do not need to be considered, providing clan obligations are observed. It was for this reason that the early promise of the Union of Islamic Courts was so important, and why its destruction was such a disaster for Somalia, because it was an attempt to reintroduce the rule of law into that country. Peter Eichstaedt quotes a Kenyan human rights worker, Frederick Okado, who said of Somalis being kept in Kenyan jails, “They’re not used to the fact that if you hit someone, there will be consequences. In Somalia, you can hit someone or even kill them, and no more steps will be taken.”[1] We use the term “lawless” without thinking, but that is the effective state of Somalia today. In such a situation the distinction between illicit and licit business is effectively non-existent, and so a businessman can just as easily invest in a mobile phone company, or in piracy, it is just an investment decision.

Strictly speaking Somalia is not without law, but it does lack a consistent system of criminal and civil legal redress in the sense understood in most of the world. Somali society, that is the clan-based system, relies on a combination of Islamic shari’a law and customary law, known as xeer. Xeer law is not the same as shari’a law, it is an oral system which has not been formally codified and is controlled by male clan elders, known as the xeer begti or isimadda. Xeer law is pre-Islamic in origin, and is not a version of shari’a law. According to Andre Le Sage the general principles of xeer law include:

1        collective payment of diya (or blood money, usually paid with camels and other livestock) for death, physical harm, theft, rape and defamation.

2        maintenance of inter-clan harmony.

3        family obligations.

4        resource-utilisation rules.[2]

Xeer can be divided into two broad categories, xeer guud and xeer gaar. Xeer guud, includes the general aspects of traditional clan law that regulate common, day-to-day social interactions, civil affairs, and means of dispute settlement within a clan and between different clans. Xeer gaar regulates economic issues between clans and sub-clans in such areas as pastoralism, fishing, and frankincense harvesting.[3]

What distinguishes xeer from most other systems of law is that it is based on the relationship between groups (of men) rather than between individuals. The whole diya (blood money) paying group is collectively responsible for a crime committed by one or more of its members. Ioan Lewis says that a Somali’s “most binding and most frequently mobilized loyalty is to his ‘diya-paying group.’”[4] As Lewis notes, a diya-paying group consists of “a few hundred to a few thousand fighting men” and he adds that, “An injury done by or to any member of the group implicates all those who are party to its treaty. Thus if a man of one group is killed by a man of another [group], the first group will collectively claim the damages due from the second. At the same time, within any group a high degree of co-operation and mutual collaboration traditionally prevails.”[5]

In dealing with pirate groups it is important to understand that they apply the principles of xeer law in their dealings with others. Thus if a pirate is killed by the marines of a particular country, say France or the United States, the Somali diya-paying group to which the pirate belonged will see it as their duty to seek the payment of diya from the country concerned, and if this is not forthcoming they will see it as their entitlement to revenge the dead pirate by killing a Frenchman or an American (who will be seen as a fellow clan-member of the man who killed the Somali pirate), even though the Somali pirate died when he was trying to kill other (innocent) people.

Somalis are not used to the idea that the individual may responsible for his actions, their system is collective. An example of this approach was the action of the Somali pirates in refusing to allow seven Indian seamen to leave Somalia in April 2011, even though their ship the MT Asphalt Venture was released after the payment of a ransom of $3.6 million. Reuters quoted a pirate called Ahmed, who said, “The ship has just sailed away but we have taken some of its Indian crew back because the Indian government is currently holding our men. We need the Indian government to free our men so that we can release their citizens.”[6]

Xeer is essential a warriors’ code, in practice women do not have direct access to the system unless a man brings a matter to the elders, so the rape of single women will not normally be dealt with (and women have to be carefully not to be found guilty of immoral behaviour, even where they are victims). Another important aspect of xeer is that because an act, such as the murder of another man, is dealt with by the payment of diya by the group the perpetrator will not normally be punished. As Gundel says, “In general, the collective responsibility imposed on mag-groups by the xeer is seen as removing responsibility from individual perpetrators of crimes.”[7] Thus a Somali rapist or murderer does not take direct responsibility for his crimes. This is a fundamental difference from the English common law system and virtually all other legal systems, which are based on the moral responsibility of the individual. This is not a “cultural” difference, but a gulf which distinguishes xeer from western legal systems. In our dealings with Somali pirates we always need to keep an understanding of xeer in mind, because the Somalis will not behave in the way that we would normally expect. We are dealing with a group, a gang, not individuals who feel responsible for their own actions. It is possible to compare the outlook of diya group members to traditional societies which value “honour”, or respect, and are prepared to kill their own family members who fail to comply with the local codes, but diya group members go much further.

If we are truly to learn from the problems of Somalia, we need to firstly examine our own preconceptions, to stand back from our own certainties.

At 8:30 am Arabian Standard Time (0730 GMT) on the 16th March 2011 the Indonesian owned and flagged general cargo ship, MV Sinar Kudus was sailing west towards the Gulf of Aden, with a cargo of 8,300 tonnes of ferronickel from Indonesia bound for Rotterdam. She was  approximately 320 nautical miles North East of the island of Socotra in the Somali Basin, and equidistant (ESE) from Salalah, in Oman, when she was attacked and boarded  by between 30 and 50 Somali pirates, who rapidly took control of the ship (Somali reports say that 52 pirates boarded the ship). The Sinar Kudus was registered with MSC(HOA) and was reporting to UKMTO, her actual position was 14 21 N 059 25E.

The pirates used the hijacked Iranian fishing vessel, the FV Morteza as a mothership from which to launch the attack on the Sinar Kudus.  The Morteza  had its original crew of 14 Iranians on board, having been itself hijacked about the 22^nd of January 2011; NATO spotted it at 15 03N and 06230E on the 22^nd March.On the 26th March the FV Morteza was sunk by the Indian warship INS Suvarna, operating with the Coast Guard ship Sangram, west of the Lakshadweep Islands; in that operation 16 crew members — 12 Iranians and four Pakistanis — were rescued after they abandoned ship and 16 pirates were also apprehended. The pirates had been threatening the MV Maersk Kensington.

FV Morteza

The Sinar Kudus is a modern ship, built in 1998/99 by Shin Kochijyuko Co. Ltd. of Japan and owned by PT. Samudera Indonesia, TBK of Jakarta.  She is a small vessel of 8,911 dwt, 106 metres in length, her IMO no. is 9162507, and her service speed is just over 12 knots.

Her relatively low speed, and low freeboard made her a natural target. Her bridge and accommodation decks form a single unit with the funnel stack, and external stairways run up the aft and port and starboard sides of the accommodation decks, giving easy access to the bridge. She also appears to lack an aft radar or CCTV, and therefore would have had difficulty in detecting attacking skiffs approaching from the stern.

The twenty Indonesian crew would have been unable to resist the large number of armed pirates and after initial reports to the authorities the crew quickly surrendered.

All of this was unremarkable and the Sinar Kudus and her crew appeared destined to join the over forty vessels and 600 hundred plus seamen, currently held off the Somali coast, nothing remarkable in that, and the private worries of the families in Indonesia would not be reported in the international media. The shipowner and the insurers would then start a well-rehearsed process of ransom negotiations with “Ali” or “Ahmed”.

However, the Sinar Kudus was destined to undertake one of the most remarkable cruises of any mothership, even though no other vessels were taken. Within twenty four hours of being taken, at 0612 GMT (0812 Arabian Std. Time) on the 17^th March, she was used to launch an unsuccessful attack on the MV Emperor at position 16 15 N 060 26 E, other 100 nm north of the position where she had been hijacked. A skiff with five pirates was launched and attacked the MV Emperor, but armed guards on the Emperor successfully protected their ship. The Sinar Kudus then proceeded north sailing along the coast of Oman. On the 18^th at 0608 GMT she was at 20 27 N 060 57E and by 1550 GMT on the same day she was at 22 32N 060 43E, when she then changed course NNW into the Gulf of Oman. By 0257 on the 19^th March she was at 24 10N 060 12E, in a position to control the shipping lines from the Strait of Hormuz. By 0630 GMT the Sinar Kudus was about fifty nautical miles NE of Muscat at 24 23N 060 02E well within the Gulf of Oman and much closer to the Persian Gulf than any pirate mothership had ever ventured before. At that point every ship entering and leaving the Persian Group was potentially within range of a potent pirate group. But having reached this position the pirates soon changed course, taking the Sinar Kudus south east, and by 1112 GMT on the 20^th March she was at 19 56N 063 22E, about 260 nm east of Masirah Island.

(c) Dryad Maritime Ltd. 2011

She then changed course again, heading south west towards Socotra Island, by 0746 GMT on the 21^st March she was at 17 17N 060 26E, and by 0550 GMT on the 21^st March she was at 14 20N 057E, near the position where she had been hijacked on the 16^th March. By 1938 GMT on the 22^nd March she was still steaming South West and was just east of Socotra Island at 12 35N 055 17E, and reports indicate that she finally anchored off Hobyo, where more pirates boarded and she then set off to sea again.

While other pirate groups have operated near the Gulf of Oman, including the group that hijacked the MV Samho Jewelry on the 15^th January 2011 at 22 00N 064 00E, about 350 nm south east of Muscat (the ship was retaken by South Korean commandos) and the group that hijacked the M/V Charelle in June 2009 south of Sur, Oman, this is the first time that any pirate vessel has sailed so close to the Straits of Hormuz and is a potential game-changer for the authorities in the area. The Gulf of Oman is a natural funnel and all the oil tankers and gas carriers leaving the Persian Gulf (carrying around 40% of the world’s traded oil and an important part of the UK gas supplies) have to transit it before entering the Arabian Sea.

If this voyage is a harbinger of future pirate activity the authorities in the area will need to consider establishing a conveying and protection system similar to that operating in the Gulf of Aden and this will put further pressure on shipowners to comply with best management practices (BMP3) and to undertake the protective measures that Idarat Maritime continues to urge on them (www.water-dragon.biz ). It is difficult to over-emphasize the importance of this short and dangerous pirate cruise, by over fifty Somali pirates virtually to the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz, if we do not respond the next thing tourists on the beaches of Fujairah, UAE, will be seeing will be pirate attacks, rather than people on jet skis.

I would like to thank Dryad Maritime Ltd. (www.dryadmaritime.com ) for the position reports of the MV Sinar Kudus.

©Idarat Maritime Ltd. 2011, not to be reproduced without permission.

by Veeresh Malik

As an ex-seafarer with a mosaic career ashore, spanning media, shipping, technology, politics, banking, as well as bouts of unemployment, every now and then – and now looking at going back to sea, if possible to write a book, it is difficult not to end up having an informed view and an opinion which is at variance with the views of many others, who have not had a similar variety of exposure. This is especially so when one sits down for longish evenings with shippie buddies, the sailing types as well as those ashore, variously. Some may call it arrogance. Others may refer to it as cynical. Those who know me will recognise the concept of battening down the hatches before sailing out of port. But yes, the fact remains, the big topic lately when old salts meet in India is more often than not, through the evening – piracy; and the criminalisation of seafarers. This has moved up, incidentally, ahead of last year’s favourite which used to be fatigue.

In other segments of society – and living in Delhi, there aren’t too many people with a grip on matters maritime beyond the random holiday on the coast or the once in a lifetime cruise – much of the perception of piracy is courtesy of a couple of very shrill television news (noise) channels with the usual bunch of sad crying elderly relatives and hysterical vapid young people with microphones in their hand. The reactions here are really not very relevant, either, which in a way also passes judgement on the Save our Seafarers movement which is aimed at trying to evoke public pressure. Face it – an average of 11 people die every day on Mumbai’s local train tracks – this is India’s premier city – and it has never made a difference to, or put any pressure on, the other 20 million there.

The point is this, and at the risk of sounding very cruel, there are a variety or realities at play here on the subject of piracy and risk to health; as well as other such terrible things to cargo and cargo owner interests, also the shipowners, in and around the Indian Ocean. This short article shall try and address them as well as try and place things in a way that may make sense to a largely European audience and readership. Without in any way being condescending, supercilious or patronising – or expecting others to be so too. However, all are requested to remember that when a ship went down anywhere in the world, a bell used to be rung at Lloyd’s – but today the calculators come out to figure out the bottom line in accounts – often before the hull touches the bottom of the ocean.

So, first off, right off the bat – and I have reconfirmed this from a friend who is the boss of a very large ship management company, and who has first-hand experience of his ships being held up off the Horn of Africa. When you increase wages, place higher insurance cover for the humans, underwrite suitable death and disability benefits, and cover the family for wages for the duration. And there will thenbe long lines of prospective applicants, certified or otherwise, outside recruitment offices from Mumbai to Marseilles, Shanghai to Salalah. Please accept and understand, that those who even imagine that piracy is causing a shortage of potential seafarers do not understand the economic realities in many parts of the world. Incidentally, this was not an original thought even when Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22.

Next, most real seafarers are still in “the sky is falling on our heads” position, when they are not surveying deckheads horizontally, they’ve been hit so often and so badly in the past that the reality of piracy does not strike them, it cannot happen to me. People coming back after being released from months under pirate control vanish off the radar rapidly – and many don’t get jobs at sea again for a variety of reasons. Yes, there are a few survivors hanging around the clubs and offices waiting to score a beer, or some money, while they relate and re-tell their tales, but they are simply not making the numbers and the right kind of waves. It is a bit like the family relative who has a sad story, is disfigured and ugly as well as full of woe, we all feel sorry for him, but we would rather not have him ride in our car to the family get together.

And thirdly, not just here in India, but in many other parts of the world, fatalism comes with the territory, as does tunnel vision. This, again, is something that the present generation of perception makers in the West with their quaint black and white notions on selective human rights (Libya Dictator bad man, Saudi Dictator good man) do not seem to get to grips with. Kismet plays a large part in our lives, and nothing seems to take this option further than being at sea on substandard ships sailing at reduced optimal manning levels, so what can a couple of pirates do that an FOC rust-bucket can’t. Be aware, there are jobs being offered on “LPSV” (Large Pirate Support Vessels) in some ports in Asia, and people apparently accept. Just like young men from this part of the world accepted jobs as cleaners and cooks in Afghanistan and Iraq – it didn’t matter to them which side they worked on as long as the money reached home.

Right and wrong, pirate and banker, these are shades of grey which do not cut much moral ice with many people. They would love to be what are called investment bankers, but failing that, they see no reason in not putting similar skillsets at work for what is called piracy, too. Listen to “Ride Across the River” by Dire Straits, who sang it very well, indeed.

Having got this off my chest, another truth is this – things are changing now. There are people who simply refuse to want to go back on deep-sea voyages ex-India anymore. One indication of this is that the lower-paying, fully-taxed, jobs on coastal ships are suddenly full. No more room, thank you – and ‘till a year ago, you couldn’t get healthy people with two or three working limbs and decent eyesight to go near some of these coastal ships in India. That’s a solid truth, too.

Which brings us to the Government, currently busy pretending they don’t know that others know, that they know who actually whacked and hid somewhere in Europe on a small island or similar, what sounds like the total of all national turnover revenues since the British left – and therefore expect everybody to continue believing that the British are still responsible. It is very difficult to explain to our Government in India that even the British don’t believe that Cameron or Major before him had the skills to be able to do so. But we digress; we need to get back to the pirate kind of pirates, not our friendly colonial versions and their cohorts back home.

I am therefore directed to inform you, in triplicate, that the Government of India is currently busy passing the buck. Frankly, that is how it has always been, committees are appointed, reports sought and distributed and modified and discussed and opined on, mostly ending with a sumptuous dinner for all including the drivers. The Shipping Ministry issues notifications and adds another day to the SSO course that shippies on board are supposed to wave at the pirates; the Defence guys have their ships out there, but distractions like Libya have them racing up and down Suez like Iranian butter, and the External Affairs Minister rattled off Portugal’s speech the last time he went to the United Nations, so we know what he’s got upstairs is probably better than the khat the pirates chew.

But yes, the Government will do something someday soon, we just don’t know what and how, since it is probably an important secret matter of State impacting security so as honest citizens we are supposed to drink our tulsi ka juice and go to sleep in the corner, Government has said it will all be OK, it is OK. Not for nothing was George Orwell born in Motihari, Bihar, India. Truly, Big Brother’s best hope has been to officially hope that the pirates will have a change of heart towards Indian citizens currently in their captivity. In any case, who told them to go to work on ships; couldn’t they have stayed back and voted? Or paid bribes. Or something.

And then there are the shipowners. Here’s how it goes – the silence from Indian shipowners has always been and is even now, resounding. They have an association; it is called INSA, short for Indian National Shipowner’s Association. Their charter has not changed since they were formed, and it had more to do with disagreeing with the Government from London those days, to try and benefit Indian shipping. The Brits have come and gone, we hope, but INSA is still disagreeing with Government. Anyways, they are a strange bunch, and so we really don’t expect to hear much from them on the subject of countering piracy. Other than the dinner after the meetings, of course, somebody has to pay the bills.

Which leaves – nobody, Nil, Nada. Nobody else cares about things.

Wait – one lot does. There is always the grapevine to take into account and usually they are also closest to the truth.

And the grapevine says that this is no longer piracy. Nor is it somebody’s idea on how to collect tolls and taxes.

The grapevine says that the larger money managing corporates of the world have got into the game. As of now the skillsets are being refined in and around the Horn of Africa – but once finessed, the next locations could be anywhere. South Med, Malacca, South China Sea, East Africa, West Africa, Bay of Bengal – even the North Sea, remember the amazing case of the “Arctic Sea”, anybody? After all, I did say I had a background in technology – and that was in the payment processing industry. Some of what I have uncovered is not in any way different from the way, for example, some types of legit businesses make and move money on the flesh and porn business. Or the way multiple small remittances are moved across borders for making payments in the narcotics business. In billions of dollars every year.

Piracy in the Indian Ocean is increasingly another form of business rapidly going legit by simply being there. And seafarers have always been Giffen goods, replaceable, that’s the truth too.

(c) Veeresh Malik 2011, the opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not Idarat Maritime’s.

Idarat Maritime’s Chairman, Major-General Julian Thompson, and five other distinguished officers have written to The Daily Telegraph regarding the UK Government’s plan to scrap the Nimrod MR4 maritime patrol aircraft.

SIR – Without any explanation, the Security and Defence Review announced that the Nimrod MR4 maritime patrol aircraft would not be brought into service. The decision was fiercely debated within the MoD, but the need for immediate savings and priority for current operations prevailed.

Destruction of the nine airframes has now begun. Machine tools have been destroyed; several million pounds have been saved, but a massive gap in British security has opened.

Britain is committed to the support of the UN, Nato and the EU. The vulnerability of sea lanes, unpredictable overseas crises and traditional surface and submarine opposition will continue to demand versatile, responsive aircraft.

Nimrod would have provided long-range maritime and overland reconnaissance, anti-submarine surveillance, air-sea rescue co-ordination and reconnaissance support to the Navy’s Trident submarines.

Some of Nimrod’s roles in home waters can be covered by frigates, short-range Merlin anti-submarine helicopters or even the C130 Hercules. They fall short, however, of replacing the strategic multi-role contribution of Nimrod. Other countries are actually seeking to reinforce their maritime patrol capacity, with the new Boeing 737 P8A a strong contender.

In a week when reports suggest that the Government is seeking to impose even more severe cuts on the defence budget, it is not perverse to suggest that the gap left by broken Nimrods should be readdressed.

Air Vice Marshal Tony Mason

Major-General Patrick Cordingley

Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig

Air Commodore Andrew Lambert

Major-Gen Julian Thompson

Admiral Sir John Woodward