MUMBAI - In a startling throwback to 17th century days of Spanish galleons,
Barbary pirates and avenging royal navies, pirates attacked a record 17 ships
in the Gulf of Aden in the first two weeks of September compared to just 10 in
the entire year of 2007, according to the Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting
Center.
"This is the highest number of piracy attacks we have seen in the past five
years," said Cyrus Mody, manager of the London-based International Maritime
Bureau (IMB) which runs the Piracy Reporting Center, the word's nodal
anti-pirate organization.
Mody estimates that around 1,000 active pirates in the region have increased
attacks on shipping after shifting base from the
east coast of Africa to the Gulf of Aden, which yachties call "pirates' alley".
The concern reached crisis level on September 18, with leading international
shipping associations such as BIMCO, Intercargo and the International Transport
Workers' Federation calling for urgent United Nations action, saying the
situation is "in danger of spiralling completely and irretrievably out of
control".
Shockingly for governments, pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia
and Yemen are currently holding 11 ships and nearly 250 crew members hostage.
Pirates are demanding and often getting ransoms from US$2 million to $9
million.
Replacing the Malacca Strait as the world's deadliest waters, the Gulf of Aden
is spinning its own 21st century pirate story: multi-billion-dollar oil
tankers, pirates defying navy patrols to capture ships and crews for fabulous
ransoms and even two flourishing pirate towns.
An Indian sailor, Maria Vijayan, who was held captive by Somalian pirates for
174 days, told Asia Times Online of the existence of a pirate town called
Harardheere, 400 kilometers north of the capital Mogadishu.
Harardheere is a stronghold for hundreds of pirates and their families, and
Cyrus Mody of the International Maritime Bureau confirmed its existence.
The other more well known modern pirate town is the port of Eyl in the Somalian
region of Puntland, a modern day version of Tortuga, the 18th century Haitian
island pirate town made more famous in the movie trilogy Pirates of the
Caribbean .
Eyl is an infamous nest for Somali pirate-captured ships as well as a
supporting industry feeding off an estimated $30 million in ransom booty that
Gulf of Aden pirates bagged in 2007, a staggering indication of the extent of
piracy in the Gulf of Aden.
Vijayan was chief officer of one of two South Korean ships Mavuno I and Mavuno
II that Somali pirates captured off Mogadishu at around 2.30 am on May 15,
2007. The pirates were heavily armed, on a high speed white vessel and began
firing before boarding the ships.
"We came to know of this pirate town because three South Korean crew members
were taken there and imprisoned for 17 days," says Vijayan while narrating
details of his harrowing nearly six-month captivity.
"The pirates extracted $2 million dollars over a period of time from my
company," says Vijayan, now rebuilding his life from his residence in
Kanyakumari, in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
The United States Navy finally rescued Vijayan and his badly traumatized crew
on November 4 2007, after keeping continuous surveillance on the
pirate-captured ships. The Indian government, Vijayan said, did nothing.
The Somali pirates doing the actual daily dirty work are simple, poorly paid
unemployed youth recruited from the interiors of civil war-torn Somalia,
according to Vijayan. "I think they must be barely paid $20 or $30 for a piracy
operation," he laughed, compared to the $2 million or more ransoms the pirate
chief masterminds extort.
"The pirates are well-organized in groups of 15 to 20," says Vijayan, who did
not rule out involvement of sections of the Somali army or warlords now tearing
the country apart.
How strongly the Gulf of Aden pirates have entrenched themselves became clear
when, despite an American navy presence and successful French commando assault
on September 15, Aden pirates the next day brazenly seized a Hong Kong and a
South Korean flag-bearing ship.
"The world cannot accept this ... today, these are no longer isolated cases but
a genuine industry of crime," French President Nicolas Sarkozy had said a day
earlier on September 15, after the French navy parachuted commandos to rescue
an elderly French-Polynesian couple, Jean-Yves and Bernadette Delanne from
Somali pirates.
The world pays a high price to pirates terrorizing the Gulf of Aden. "3.3
million barrels of crude oil - nearly 4% of daily global demand - daily pass
through the Gulf of Aden waters that is also a crucial access route for cargo
ships from Asia to Europe and the US, " said Manoj Joy of the Chennai-based
Sailors Helpline. "So going by these figures, the Gulf of Aden is becoming a
gold mine for the pirates."
A gold mine it is. Aden pirates freed a Spanish fishing boat after receiving a
$1.2 million ransom this April. A German piracy victim Niels Stolberg told the
weekly Der Spiegel that pirates had seized his ship 'BBC Trinidad' and its crew
for three weeks, threatened to blow up the $23 million ship, demanded a ransom
of $8 million and finally settled for $2 million.
"The governments have to act very fast to save hostages," says Vijayan of the
estimated 250 sailors of many countries now suffering hostage trauma. "Having
experienced what it is to be held captive by pirates, I know what the victims
must be going through." He says the Indian government and navy must get
involved as thousands of Indian workers sail the Gulf waters.
Indian seafarers are particularly aggrieved, complaining of government inaction
even though Indian seamen are among the worst-hit piracy victims.
While Vijayan gratefully acknowledges American and South Korean governments for
rescuing him and his crew, he says that no Indian government official has met
him, and more astonishingly, no one from the Indian Navy has interviewed him.
Yet the Indian Navy, sans homework, has sought government permission to
intervene after 18 Indian sailors were among the crew of 22 of the MT Stolt
Valor, a chemical tanker carrying a Hong Kong flag that Aden pirates hijacked
on September 16. Unconfirmed reports say the pirates are demanding a $9 million
ransom.
The Indian Navy finally announced plans on September 20 to patrol the Gulf of
Aden, along with navy forces from other countries.
"India is one of the largest suppliers of manpower to the global shipping
industry and it is of paramount importance for the government to make sure
their lives are safe," said Manoj Joy, of the Chennai-based Sailor's Helpline.
"The seafarers are contributing in a big way to the Indian economy." Other
Indian sailor associations are threatening to strike if the government does not
effectively act soon.
War-torn Somalia has allowed foreign warships to enter its territorial waters
to tackle piracy, while the UN Security Council has passed a resolution letting
naval vessels enter Somalia's territorial waters and repress piracy "by all
necessary means".
Successful multi-million dollar ransom demands are multiplying "copycat" pirate
attacks, say International Maritime Bureau officials, with pirates running
amuck in Somalia, which has had no functioning central government since former
dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was booted out in 1991.
Since trigger-happy, heavily-armed Gulf of Aden pirates also fire
rocket-propelled grenades, fears increase of an oil tanker being blown up and
throwing the crucial global trade waterway into a oil-spill nightmare. An IMB
official said it's a "miracle" that no oil tanker has been hit with rocket
fire.
The IMB website has published two photographs of three white-painted pirate
"mother ships", said to be Russian-made trawlers and a tugboat that pirate
gangs use as base to launch fast, inflatable boats for attacking victim ships.
Seafarer associations globally also say that ship owners are not doing enough
to protect their vessels and crew, and must invest in better security, a few
thousand dollars to protect lives and avoid paying million dollar ransoms.
The IMB recommends that ship owners use latest security systems such
"Secure-Ship", a non-lethal, electrical fence to repel uninvited guests
visiting with rocket launchers.
Other Inmarsat and other satellite systems-based anti-piracy gizmos include the
ShipLoc, which lets shipping companies easily track their vessels, as well as
enabling an attacked crew to send a SOS.
Though some governments are waking up to the Gulf of Aden piracy threat, there
is little coordinated, sustained global action. Yemen and Oman, two Gulf of
Aden countries, are discussing establishing a regional center to combat piracy.
European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels this month created a
crisis group to deal with future hijackings. Spain announced that it is sending
a P-3 Orion military aircraft to patrol the waters off the coast of Somalia,
while the US Navy and France have made clear they will not be handling pirates
with kid gloves.
Cyrus Mody of the IMB says some governments unfortunately try to hide the
piracy problem, partly to avoid fears of safety about their ports, fears that
could affect trade interests, aid, grants or concessions they get.
"Either governments may accept piracy as a problem and deal with it," says
Mody, "or they may try to suppress reports." In which case 21st century pirates
have not to much to worry about, while the rest of the world increasingly does.
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