Mari-time Piracy An Emerging Threat

Piracy continues to be a serious risk for shipping companies, sailors, cargo owners, and insurers. According to the weekly report of the International Maritime Bureau(IMB) in London, pirate attacks occur on the world's oceans almost daily.

Modern day pirates are armed with state-of the -art weapons and have been given good training. Experts suspect that they are also supported and trained by terrorist organisations. They comb coastal waters in high-speed boats. Surprise is the most important element in their raids.

They operate both in ports and on the open sea. In many cases, they come abroad disguised as coastguards or harbour police. The dividing line between piracy and terrorism is becoming blurred and the danger of terror at sea is growing too.

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of cases in which a ship is hijacked and ransom demanded for the vessel and/or the crew. The Somali coast is considered a particularly dangerous area in this respect. Pirates also attack private yachts off the usual commercial shipping routes.

The recent downturn in the global economy and the increase of Third World poverty have contributed to the rise in piracy, according to John Burnett, author of the recently published “Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas.”

Political terror also plays a role in hot spots like Somalia and Sri Lanka. What ever the motivation, pirates prowl waters all around the world.

“Ships are sitting ducks at sea. It’s very difficult to stop pirates these days. Ships and their crews are not equipped to defend themselves,” says an Indian Navy pilot who participated in action, in that area.

The International Maritime Bureau runs the piracy Reporting Center, worldwide monitoring agency in Kula Lampur, Malaysia, and issues an annual report “Piracy and Armed Robber Against Ships.” Its web site tracks piracy week by week throughout the year at weekly Piracy Report.

Munich Re the international re-insurer has been observing the development of this risk on the world's oceans for a long time and has now published a report on the subject(www.munich-re.com). This report analyses the dangers emanating from piracy and marine terrorism and explains the legal position at national and international levels. It highlights underwriting aspect and describes ways of minimising the risk.

The hijacking of the supertanker Sirius Star off the coast of Somalia had triggered a veritable media frenzy. The frequency and the scale of recent acts if piracy are a real cause of concern says Dieter Berg, head of Munich Re's Marine Division.

Munich Re views current events with growing concern. Even if piracy only accounts for a very small portion of marine insurance business, the potential perils are enormous. When a ship is attacked, the hijackers frequently just lock the crew in the hold and leave them to their fate. If the "rudderless" ship then collids with a tanker, losses could be of enormous proportions.

The safe transportation of goods across water is a vital economic factor in these days of increasing globalisation , with 90% of all goods worldwide transported by ship.

Piracy usually occurs in areas without effective government control or where corruption is rife. There are estimated to be over a thousand pirates operating off the Somali coast.

While private yachts and boats can travel in convoys to avoid notorious pirate areas, commercial shipping has no simple safeguards against pirates. Tight time schedules, unchanging shipping routes and the scale of some vessels—like tge skyscraper-long oil tankers that are hard to guard against intruders—make it tough to maintain security on the high seas.

About 48,000 vessels pass through these waters each year. The terrorists who lie in wait, picking off yachts, freighters and fully laden tankers, are very different from the old pirate image. Armed with missiles and rockets, they have established a heaven in northern Somalia, and send out speedboats to seize ships and crews for ransom. The attacks are often coordinated from a captured vessel disguised to look harmless.

Keeping statistical records of piracy is very difficult. Shipping companies report only a fraction of the actual cases for fear of their ships being impounded for a long periods or because they simply do not want to pay the resultant higher insurance premium. Reliable figures on the economic losses involved are therefore very hard to come by. The IBM, puts losses from piracy in 2008 alone at some 13 bn Euro.

Piracy off the cost of Somalia has led to a “shocking” hike in shipping insurance premium of at least 30 per cent.

Preventive measures and effective pursuit of the pirates by governments and authorities will only be possible once a clear legal basis is in place. There is clearly an urgent need for action in this respect. The success in combating piracy in the Malacca Straits is testimony to the effectiveness of close cooperation between the coastal states, their police forces and the armed services.

Merchant ships plying the waters off Somalia should increase their vigilance in the light of an increase in pirate attacks according to West Asia based media reports quoting US Navy officials.

As Somalia, a country without a functioning government for the past 17 years, sinks ever deeper into poverty, violence and lawlessness, the attacks have grown in number and daring, becoming a main source of income for the gangs terrorizing the country.

The UN Security Council has authorized warships to enter Somali water to combat piracy, and recently, European Ministers, in response to calls by France and Spain, agreed to set up a unit to coordinate the fight against this terrorism at sea.

IMB reported an “unprecedented rise” in maritime hijacking in 2009, when figures surpassed all previous records. The IMB Piracy Reporting Centre started tracking piracy data in 1992.

So far, 294 attacks, including close to 34 successful hijackings of vessels, were reported in 2009 according to web site information of Piracy Reporting Center. The total number of incidents reported so far has surpassed the total number reported in 2008. A total of 559 hostages have been taken in these hijackings. The lion’s share of hijackings have taken place off the coast of Somalia, either in the Gulf of Aden or off the country’s east coast in the Indian Ocean.

IMB Director Potengal Mukundan is quoted as saying: ”The fact that last year’s figures have been surpassed three quarters of the way through 2009 shows that pirates, particularly off Somalia, still pose a significant threat to shipping.”

London news paper, Independent, recently, reported that Gulf banks are being used by organized pirate syndicates to launder millions of dollars taken as ransom from vessels hijacked off in the Gulf of Aden. Investigators hired by the shipping industry told the newspaper, around $ 80 million was paid out by shippers in 2008, much of which find its way to piracy ‘godfathers’ based in the Gulf and African countries such as Kenya.