modern piracy

three years ago in my old job, realizing that piracy was on the rise off west africa, i had a course commissioned for the crews in our large fleet. it was a course on what to do in the event of a piracy attack. we created a combination of classroom and eLearning. senior officers would attend the classroom portion of the course, which was taught by psychologists and security specialists and then everyone onboard the vessels could do the eLearning. we felt it was important for people placed in such an extreme situation to be equipped to handle it. the stress and adrenalin and fear of such a situation are enormous. originally, the course was aimed at crews on offshore support vessels that take supplies out to offshore oil rigs, but was later expanded to the liner vessels on the west african trades.

even as recently as three years ago, inside and outside the industry, you didn't hear much about the piracy incidents that occurred off nigeria and in and around lagos and port harcourt. mostly because the oil companies kept them quiet so as not to encourage even more pirates from flocking there and increasing the frequency of attacks.  you still don't hear much about piracy in west africa, but we are certainly hearing about east african piracy these days.

pirates these days aren't romantic swashbuckling figures like captain jack sparrow. they're poor, desperate and increasingly organized africans from countries without functional governments--e.g. somalia. they're armed to the teeth both with weapons and desperation, which makes for a frightening combination. when people have nothing to lose, they can become quite daring, as we've seen in recent months...with a saudi supertanker and a ukrainian bulker loaded with guns and ammunition being taken and the attempt in the past week to take the maersk alabama, which was loaded with UN aid bound for mombasa.

but now that an american flagged ship with an american crew onboard has been involved in a piracy attack, a situation that's been escalating for months is suddenly in the spotlight. the situation was worsening prior to this, with attacks getting more and more daring and pirates ranging farther and farther out to sea, but it took americans being involved for anyone to seriously discuss doing something about it. why is that?

here in denmark, noises have been made about doing something about the situation and the danish naval vessel absalon only just returned this week to danish waters after leading an 8-month international mission to combat piracy in the region off east africa. the problem was that when absalon caught pirates in the act, there wasn't any way to prosecute them, so they generally took them ashore and let them go. no doubt they turned around, hopped in another boat and headed out after their prey once again. when ransoms as high as $25 million US are being paid by shipping companies for supertankers laden with 2 million barrels of crude oil, it's worth it to the pirates.

some shipping companies have rerouted their vessels around the cape horn rather than through suez, to reduce risk of attacks. they have assessed that the longer route is worth it in terms of the safety of crews and cargoes. with suez passages costing in the range of $150,000-200,000/per ship, this means decreased revenues for egypt and the possibility of further increasing poverty and desperation in the region. piracy has more knock-on effects than one at first realizes.

but, what can be done? and will something be done now that america's attention is focused on the issue? or will the undoubtedly heroic and brave capt. phillips just make the rounds of the talk shows and then there the issue will die.  it would seem to be a real opportunity for the international community to step up and unite to do something that's in everyone's interest, including the pirates. so far, they haven't actually harmed any crews in their piracy efforts, but it's surely only a matter of time...and all of the course preparation in the world isn't going to have been enough.