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| Attacks began to increase in 2005, with high-profile raids including one on A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S’s MV Maersk Alabama, the first U.S.-flagged cargo ship hijacked in 200 years, according to publicity for a film on the incident starring Tom Hanks on general release next month. Photographer: Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images |
The deadly assault this week in Nairobi by a militant
group from Somalia serves as a reminder of the threats emanating from the
war-torn East African country that remains a hotbed for pirate attacks on key
shipping routes.
The four-day battle in Kenya’s Westgate shopping mall
with the Somalia-based Islamist group Al-Shabaab left at least 67 civilians and
security personnel dead before Kenyan forces ended the siege. While Somali
piracy has also been curbed by military intervention and enhanced ship
defenses, there’s no evidence that the supply of would-be raiders has waned in
a state ranked the world’s second-poorest by Central Intelligence Agency.
“We’re in a dangerous phase,” said Philip Holihead, head
of anti-piracy measures at the International Maritime Organization. “When there
are no attacks people get complacent because it costs money to secure the
ships. But take away any one part and you hand the power back to pirates.”
Attacks off the Horn of Africa in seas vital to ships
using the Suez Canal and Cape of Good Hope peaked in 2011 before falling 70
percent last year to 62, including 20 successful hijackings, Oceans Beyond
Piracy said in its latest annual report. The decline, which has continued this
year with only two Somali hijackings, is the result of $3 billion in annual
spending on shipboard security and navy patrols, a commitment that’s in doubt
amid pressure on company and state budgets.
Shortest Route
About 20 percent of world trade goes through the Gulf of
Aden between Yemen and Somalia bound to and from Suez, the shortest route
between the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud said this month
at the Countering Maritime Piracy congress in Dubai that the causes of piracy
have yet to be removed, with poverty and instability continuing to breed
extremism. Speaking prior to the Nairobi attack, he said investment equal to
just a fraction of the cost of piracy would help make a major difference.
Attacks began to increase in 2005, with high-profile
raids including one on A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S (MAERSKB)’s MV Maersk Alabama,
the first U.S.-flagged cargo ship hijacked in 200 years, according to publicity
for a film on the incident starring Tom Hanks on general release next month.
The actor plays a captain freed after his captors were shot by Navy SEAL
marksmen.
Successful hijackings peaked in 2010, with 44 ransoms
paid, totaling $238 million, according to Colorado-based OBP. The international
community responded with a show of naval power so effective that patrols are
now able to intercept pirates and destroy their equipment “almost at the
beach,” according to Jan Fritz Hansen, who chairs the piracy task force at the
European Community Shipowners’ Association.
Barbed Wire
At the same time, shipping lines have adopted measures
that include faster speeds to prevent boarding and the deployment of barbed
wire, water hoses, lights and lookouts to protect their vessels and nets that
entangle the propellers of pursuing boats.
“We have fought very hard and the situation is currently
under control at sea,” said Hansen. “But on land there are still poor people
and criminals that are tempted by what they see as golden opportunities sailing
by.”
The prosecution of captured pirates has benefited from international
funding, with European Union aid helping to fund an overhaul of Somalia’s
judicial system and prisons.
The net effect has been to impair the ability of pirates
to seize oil, bulk and container craft, reducing them to attacks on ships such
as fishing boats, where rewards are lower, said Cyrus Mody, assistant director
at the International Maritime Bureau, the International Chamber of Commerce’s
marine crimes division.
Smaller Decline
The cost of dealing with Somali piracy was about $6
billion in 2012, including $1.1 billion for military operations such as
reconnaissance planes and drones, detachments to guard ships and the
administrative budgets of naval operations. The cost of private security
measures rose to $2.1 billion as more shipping lines deployed armed personnel.
The price of faster steaming was $1.5 billion, even with
reduced observance of guidelines, while re-routing cost almost $300 million,
danger money paid to seafarers about $500 million and insurance $550 million,
OBP calculates. Ransom payments fell 80 percent to $31.75 million, with the
mean amount handed over about $4 million and hostages held for an average 316
days.
While the cost of Somali piracy declined 13 percent
overall versus 2011, that was a far smaller decline than in the number of
attacks, with the cost per incident jumping almost threefold to $83 million,
prompting OBP to suggest short-term solutions may no longer be economically
efficient
Atlantic Distraction
With European nations in particular imposing tough
austerity measures to bring down deficits, declining defense spending will
inevitably hurt the anti-piracy patrols, said Andrew Linington, spokesman for
the Nautilus International trade union which represents about 23,000 maritime
workers.
While naval operations have been effective, there’s also
concern that attacks may pick up with the close of the monsoon season at the
end of this month, when conditions will be better for pirates to take to the
water, Linington said by telephone.
“Somalia still has intense problems,” he said. “It’s
fragile. The problems certainly have potential to reappear.”
Simon Bennett, a director at the International Chamber of
Shipping trade body, which represents companies controlling more than 80
percent of the world’s merchant tonnage, said a shift of attention to a growing
pirate threat in the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa risks diverting resources
from the Indian Ocean.
“All of the resources to fuel a resurgence of piracy off
Somalia remain in place,” Bennett said by e-mail, adding that the group is
lobbying politicians to retain military safeguards and aid efforts ashore while
encouraging shipping lines to keep security measures in place despite the
decline in attacks.
Clan Chiefs
Adjoa Anyimadu, an Africa specialist at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs in London, said that funding mechanisms
which support piracy and process its gains also remain intact.
“People who finance, people who process the ransom and so
on, all these structures are still in place” she said.
Still, Emma Gordon, East Africa analyst at IHS Country
Risk, said a federalization program underway in Somalia has had more of an
impact on piracy than commonly understood, with clan leaders in the key
province of Galmudug successfully coopted.
“What we’ve seen is that the leaders of the pirates are
more interested in becoming leaders of these federal states,” Gordon said, with
this process gradually removing vital funding for attacks and safe havens in
which to hold captured craft.
Mohamad Osman, executive director of the Somaliland
Counter Piracy Coordination Office, isn’t so sure.
“As long as there are Somali males with access to arms
and the existence of unemployment there will always be the threat of piracy,”
he said in an interview at the Dubai conference.
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To contact the reporters on this story: Deena Kamel Yousef in Dubai at dhussein1@bloomberg.net; Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net; Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net
Source: Bloomberg
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