Monday, April 09, 2012
Dubai conference in June another chance for global response to quell maritime piracy at source
Officials privy to the talks took pains not to call it a ransom, but used the more favourable ‘expenses’ to avoid further getting into murky waters with the crew’s captors.
The agreement was stuck in Dubai after months of tortuous negotiations. An initial demand of $4million was whittled down to less than 3 million and negotiators bought time until April 20 for the cash to be paid.
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Hopes were raised for the ship’s release late last year, but were soon dashed. It is now feared that the ransom has gone to the wrong group of buccaneers.
In the first three months of this year there have been 36 attacks by Somali pirates and 7 vessels were hijacked. According to International Maritime Bureau figures, a total of 197 hostages on 13 ships are at the mercy of the buccaneers as their families hope and pray for their release.
Maritime piracy is now a $7billion industry, with sea criminals, navies, politicians, negotiators, governments and private security firms having a stake in it. Blame it on poverty-stricken Somalia, a failed state on the Horn of Africa where no country wants to play a role to bring stability because there is little to gain from the exercise. Steeped in political and sectarian strife, it has been ruled by warlords and extremist elements for two decades after the fall of the regime led by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
Back on centrestage
The UAE has brought the issue centre-stage by announcing it would host the second summit against piracy on June 27 and 28 in a bid to get to the root of the problem.
Ahmed Abdul Rahman Al Jarman, Permanent Representative of the UAE to the United Nations made the announcement at the 11th Plenary Meeting of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia in New York.
Coalition navies from Nato, the EU, the Combined Maritime Forces as well as individual navies like China, Russia, India and South Korea have contained pirate operations to a large extent, but the phenomenon has spread to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. This has again raised fears at a time when tensions with Iran and the Eurozone economic crisis refuses to go away.
Al Jarman said the UAE is ‘‘still deeply concerned’’ about the attacks on shipping vessels and the losses borne by the industry.
It is geo-strategic worry and the International Maritime Bureau, which tracks pirate incidents 24/7 said pirate operations could affect energy and cargo routes in the region. ‘‘This year there have been four attacks in the Gulf of Oman and its approaches which affects the energy and other cargo routes into and out of the Arabian Gulf. There are no attacks inside the Arabian Gulf close to the UAE coast there,’’ said Captain P. Mukundan of the Bureau when asked if the Arabian Gulf is at risk.
Lieutenant Isabella Marriot of the Royal Navy which is part of the Combined Maritime Forces based in Bahrain, also said the Arabian Gulf is safe from the pirates because of effective patrolling by navies. ‘‘There has never been a piracy attack in the Arabian Gulf,’’ she confirmed to Khaleej Times
The operating area of the force, which includes the UAE Navy, encompasses the Gulf of Aden, Somali Basin and the Indian Ocean.
Long reach
Somali pirates now have a longer range, said Anna Bowden, a researcher with Oceans Beyond Piracy, a US-based think tank. They possess automatic weapons, fast boats called skiffs which they launch from captured mother ships; their tactics have improved, so have their negotiation skills. They seem to be getting what they want with ransoms averaging $3million per ship — a small price to pay with bigger economic, political and strategicthreats staring at the world.
“It is true that pirate operations are moving to the Northeast of Somalia, towards the Gulf countries and Strait of Hormuz. I think there are a number of reasons for this – one of the most important being that the navies have now contained piracy in the Gulf of Aden – so pirates have been forced to move away from that area. Therefore, pirates have moved further into the Indian Ocean, and Northeast towards Hormuz. Of course, the concentration of shipping and oil tankers in that region does make it a lucrative target for pirates too.’’
Piracy has evolved as an industry. Everybody’s involved, but nobody has a solution. In 2011, the success rate of hijackings decreased. ‘‘There are certainly new industries looking at reducing piracy (such as private armed security), and these industries have (so far) been successful at reducing the number of hijackings.’’
She agreed that the resources, time and capacity to deal with piracy is very limited given concerns like the economic crises, and the impact of the downturn on the shipping industry.
Final countdown
Analysts like Bowden rule out a Tehran-terror-pirate link, but the stalemate over Iran’s nuclear programme has meant taking the eyes off the ball on piracy.
The solution lies in international multi-stakeholder efforts which brings together industry, government, and civil society which the UAE hopes to achieve with the conference in June.
Piracy requires a robust response. This would mean taking the fight to the backyard of the buccaneers, something which Europe is actively considering but delaying because of its fiscal woes.
Two decades of letting Somalia go its own way has opened the waters to piracy from its shores. The time has come to plot the end game against the sea brigands.