Piracy has been
making a comeback in the last decade, mainly because of a surge in
attacks off the Somali coast. In the last few years a massive
international response to the Somali piracy problem has all but shut
down the pirate gangs operating there. Yet worldwide piracy activity is
up, mainly because of resurgence in small scale piracy against fishing
boats, offshore oil field support craft and attacks on larger ships for
the purpose of robbing or kidnapping some of the crew, not stealing the
entire ship.
The increased attacks on smaller fishing boats is largely
because of the growing prosperity among these “artisanal fishermen”
caused by the rapidly increasing prices for fish, especially the popular
fish taken off the coasts of some countries (like Ecuador). The
artisanal fishing boats are no longer powered by oars and sails, with
navigation via a cheap compass. These days there’s an outboard motor,
GPS and cell phones or radio for keeping in touch with other boats and
the family ashore. All these items are sought by the pirates, who can
usually find buyers a few villages away down the coast. When there is
enough pirate activity there were develop a network of brokers
(“fences”) who will take the stolen engines and electronics and get them
sold far enough away so the victim does not see his own stuff again and
call the police. These small scale pirates usually do not kill their
victims, as police tend to be more energetic about solving murders than
robbery at sea.
The big time piracy is largely out of business because warship
patrols and better security aboard large ships passing Somalia has made
it nearly impossible to seize these vessels. Holding ships for ransom
only worked initially because Somalia, a state without a government sine
1991, provided small ports on the coast of East Africa where pirates
could bring the merchant ships they had captured, and keep them there,
safe from rescue attempts, until a ransom could be negotiated.
Off West Africa, pirates have come up with another angle.
These pirates, believed to be only a few well-organized gangs, target
small oil tankers operating in the Gulf of Guinea (where Nigeria and its
neighbors have oil fields). The pirates quickly board and seize control
of a tanker at night. The crew is locked up in an internal space and
the tracking devices are disabled. Then the tanker is taken to
rendezvous with another tanker, which takes the oil from the hijacked
tanker, along with the pirates and their other loot and makes for a port
where oil brokers willing to buy stolen oil (at a steep discount) take
the pirated cargo, pay the pirates, and perhaps tip the pirates off on
another small tanker that could be hit.
The hijacked tankers, stripped of portable items of value and
then set adrift, are soon found and the crew released. Normally, pirates
attack merchant ships anchored near the coast grab all the valuable
portables and quickly leave. This is considered armed robbery, although
some pirates will kidnap a few of the ships officers and hold them for
ransom. But this requires a good hideout and more resources. The pirates
who steal oil cargoes require even more technical organization and
connections. But because the payoff is so high (millions of dollars for a
stolen oil tanker cargo), a growing number of skilled gangsters are
being attracted to the business.
All this has produced something of a piracy revival. Piracy
hit a trough from the late nineteenth century into the later twentieth.
That was because the Great Powers had pretty much divided up the whole
planet and then policed it. Piracy began to revive in a modest way
beginning in the 1970s, with the collapse of many post-colonial regimes.
Note that what constitutes an act of piracy is not clearly
defined. It essentially comes down to non-state sanctioned use of force
at sea or from the sea. This could include intercepting a speedboat to
rob the passengers, but that's usually just thought of as armed robbery.
And something like the seizure of the Achille Lauro in 1985 is
considered terrorism, rather than piracy. In the past some marginal
states have sanctioned piratical operations, like the North African
Barbary States, but that is rare any more. The trend, however, is
definitely up.
Pirates usually function on the margins of society, trying to
get a cut of the good life in situations where there aren't many
options. This is usually in areas where state control is weakest or
absent, in failing and "flailed" states (a flailing state is something
like Nigeria, Indonesia, or the Philippines, where the government is
managing to just barely keep things together, unlike a failed state such
as Somalia, where there isn't any government at all).
The solution to piracy is essentially on land, where you go
into uncontrolled areas and institute some law and order and remove the
pirate safe havens. This has been the best approach since the Romans
eliminated piracy in the Mediterranean over 2,000 years ago. Trying to
tackle piracy just on the maritime end can reduce the incidence of
piracy but can't eliminate it. In the modern world the "land" solution
often can't be implemented. Who wants to put enough troops into Somalia
to eliminate piracy? And flailing states are likely to be very sensitive
about their sovereignty if you offer to help them control marginal
areas.
A new industry has developed that attempts to "pirate proof"
ships operating off Somalia. The most successful (and most expensive)
technique is to put a small number of armed guards on each ship. That,
and warship patrols, has greatly reduced piracy off East Africa
(Somalia). But off West Africa (especially the Gulf of Guinea) the
piracy threat is growing because pirates have found ways to get more
valuables off ships before security forces (police, coast guard, or
navy) can show up.
