Transcript

This is "On The Line," and I’m Eric Felten.

Somali pirates recently seized a Spanish fishing boat and held its twenty-six-member crew hostage. The pirates released the crewmen after being paid a ransom reported at over one million dollars. With the prospects of such handsome payoffs, pirates have attacked everything from oil tankers to luxury yachts in the Gulf of Aden. Using speedboats and armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, the pirates’ attacks have become bolder and more frequent. According to the International Maritime Bureau, there have been thirty-one ships hijacked off the coast of Somalia last year, up from just two hijackings in 2004.

The African coast isn’t the only problem spot. This week, a Thai oil tanker was attacked in Malaysian waters near the Singapore Strait. The United States and France presented a draft resolution at the United Nations that would provide U.N. blessing to an aggressive campaign against pirates. The resolution would encourage countries to use "all necessary means to identify, prevent, and repress actions of piracy and armed robbery."

How grave is the threat of high-seas piracy, and what can be done to stop it? I’ll ask my guests: Charles Dragonette, a senior merchant shipping analyst in the office of Naval Intelligence at the U.S. Navy; and director of the Intelligence Center at Trinity Washington University: James Robbins. And joining us from our London studio, Pottengal Mukundan, Director of the International Maritime Bureau for the ICC Commercial Crime Services. Welcome. Thanks for joining us.

Charles Dragonette, it seems as though this is a profitable endeavor. Not only were there reports that the Spanish fishing boat, that there was $1.2 million paid, but according to "El País," the Spanish newspaper, the money was brought in cash, in large bags, and there on the deck of the ship, the pirate chiefs divvied up the money and handed wads of cash to the junior pirates, and they all pocketed their money and took off on their boats. How representative is this of how remunerative piracy is these days?

Dragonette: I think it’s disturbingly representative of a new trend. It had been the case that, particularly in Somalia hijackings, ransom demands were met, negotiations dragged on over months, frequently over months, and were negotiated down to perhaps ten percent of what had been asked for, passed through middlemen in the Middle East or in Africa. The pirates themselves actually got very little. Ready cash being paid promptly is a new wrinkle. The first time we saw it was with Le Ponant a couple of weeks ago.

Host: It’s a French luxury yacht that had been seized.

Dragonette: The French yacht. And the fact that people are willing to turn the money over, in cash, quickly, certainly goes to the heart of protecting the lives of the people aboard the ship, which is the interest of every ship owner. But it does make it much more lucrative for the pirates if there are no consequences to having done it. As long as they stay inside waters of an ungoverned state, those consequences are fairly slight right now.

Host: Jim Robbins, consequences pretty slight?

Robbins: Consequences can be slight. In the case of the French luxury yacht, the French Special Forces took action after the ransom was paid because they had been watching where the ship was, who was taking the money, and so forth. So in certain circumstances, when governments choose to act, they can take pretty robust action against pirates. The problem, of course, is finding them, knowing who they are, operating in these ungoverned spaces, which are really the thing that’s spawning the whole piracy phenomenon, the fact that governments such as Somalia, which really has three or four governments, depending on how you count them, can’t control their coastlines. And so these pirates, who are very well-financed and well-outfitted, and well-armed, can operate fairly freely. So, unless the international community steps up and starts to take action against this, the pirates will be pretty much free to do what they want.

Host: Pottengal Mukundan, are you there in our London studio?

Mukundan: Yes.

Host: What’s your sense? Is piracy on the rise? Are the incentives for the pirates gaining at this point?

Mukundan: Certainly in Somalia that is the case because the level of the ransoms paid have increased quite significantly. And there is concern as to what this money is doing in a country like Somalia, what it is being used for. So there is concern that the incentives are rising, and we think that the actions by the French are wonderful because, for the first time, the pirates have been held to account for what they have done. Until now, they were operating with impunity in Somalia because there is no national law-enforcement infrastructure there to take action.

Host: Charles Dragonette, on this question of taking action against the pirates, one of the ships that was captured recently was a ship called the Svitzer Korsakov, which was a tugboat that was taken. And the captain of that ship, who was an Englishman, Colin Darch. He said after they were ransomed that he was actually hoping there would be military action. They were ready for it, the crew was ready to barricade themselves in a part of the ship. They even got word to a U.S. frigate that was nearby to come and take military action. The U.S. ship chose not to because they didn’t feel they had, necessarily, permission to act in those waters. How complicated is it for military operations to be undertaken that are seen to be appropriate and have the permission of those who govern the waters that you’re acting in?

Dragonette: As Captain Mukundan pointed out, first of all, the issue of who’s governing the waters of Somalia is a non-issue. Although, in northern Somalia, the nominal government of Puntland has been doing a fairly good job of trying to control its own territory. However, no Somali government has given permission of another government to come in and enforce laws it can’t enforce for itself. The law of the ship -- in this case Svitzer Korsakov, was a Ukrainian flagship -- and it’s Ukrainian interests which rules, not necessarily the nationality of the citizens on board. The protection of the crew would typically rule. If the crew wants action, then the person sitting there capable of carrying out the action would have to ask, well, do they know what they’re talking about? It sounds as if this crew was fairly well-prepared.

On the other hand, one has to ask, if they were well-prepared, how did they allow themselves to be captured in the first place? The pirates off Somalia are not terribly good. They’re not as skillful as the pirates in the Straits of Malacca. They have done their attacks in broad daylight, they have attacked, generally, ships with low freeboard, moving slowly, gotten them to stop by intimidation. Every ship can’t outrun them, but their weapons aren’t terribly effective. A rocket-propelled grenade from a Boston whaler is wildly inaccurate. There is one case several years ago where, apparently, a pirate put the rocket-propelled grenade through the bottom of his own boat because it was bouncing around. Nonetheless, the crew can be easily intimidated. Once they’ve been taken, the problem of retaking the ship gets very, very hard, and I would think everyone around the world would say concerted action to prevent them from being taken in the first place is the first order of business. How we do that with naval forces spread thin is more important than whether any individual country can act in an individual case.

Host: Pottengal Mukundan, how do these large ships get taken by people who are zipping around in either Zodiac boats or Boston whalers?

Mukundan: Quite easily, really. They operate from a mother ship, and the mother ship waits until the target vessel is within range, and then it launches two or more small craft with armed people on board. As they approach -- as the small craft approach the target vessel, they fire on the bridge windows of the ship and on the accommodation block in an attempt to intimidate the crew to a slowdown or stop. And if the crew slows down, then the vessel will be boarded and hijacked. The ships that have got away are the ones which have increased their speed and navigated further away from the mother ship. And when they do that, after about thirty to forty minutes, as the pirates see their mother ship a distant speck on the horizon, they give up the chase and return. And these vessels are the ones which have managed to escape from these pirates.

Host: Jim Robbins, how hard is it then for ships to, sort of understanding the tactics that pirates use, be prepared and be ready to respond in a way that counteracts their sort of looking for weak vessels?

Robbins: I suppose in theory it wouldn’t be that difficult if the ship’s owners invested in the training for the crew to understand the threat and invested perhaps in some weapons to let the crew fire back, although that can be very dangerous, as well. In theory, these things could be dealt with, but it’s also important to have patrols from various countries that are interested in this. In the Malacca Straits, for example, Indonesia and Singapore have had a great deal of success in deterring pirates through aggressive patrolling, so that can help, too. But again, it comes into question of, will you invest the resources to do this, have the expertise to do it, and so forth. I think the piracy phenomenon is controllable through various means, but it requires focusing on it and having both deterrents and also dissuasion and then consequences for those pirates who actually take out ships or hold people hostage and so forth.

Host: Now, on the consequences standpoint, there does seem to have been a very different set of approaches. You talked about how the French look to send commandos in to capture pirates after the ransom had been paid on the Le Ponant, this luxury yacht, and yet it’s been reported that Britain, which was once a country that did the most to stamp out olden piracy, has now sent word from the Foreign Office that pirates are not to be captured because captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain or, if they’re turned over to authorities in Somalia, might be denied their human rights if they’re punished with the death penalty in Somalia. Have countries figured out how they’re going to go after the pirates?

Robbins: I think it’s done on an ad hoc basis, as you indicate. I know that Germany is now looking at what they want to do about this. They’re concerned about getting involved and being kind of a world police force, but at the same time, they want to do their bit. The U.N., as you mentioned, is looking at a resolution -- a draft resolution’s being circulated -- that will allow countries the legal framework within which they can take action. But there will be peculiarities, like you noted, of individual laws of states. And, yes, piracy -- recently Somalia did sentence some pirates to death for their activities. So all of these things come into play.

Host: Charles Dragonette, how big a difference would this U.N. resolution make in making it clear what countries can and cannot do to stop pirates, in the first instance, or pursue pirates after the fact?

Dragonette: I think it’d be very important because, it would for the first time, provide a transnational standard, in terms of reference. Everyone then would have to still enact their own legislation, saying, "Pay attention to this and do it." But right now, there is no agreed international standard to which individual countries will hold their own forces accountable. But I think what James said is equally important. We’re talking now about – a little bit about prevention but mostly about retaking a ship after it’s been captured. The point is, if individual countries had the will to force their owners and flagships to provide minimum standards for prevention, which could increase the size of the crews -- I would never argue for arming the crews. Most captains I know would not want their crews any more armed than they already are. But they would want everyone to have a job to do, know what that job was, and be drilled in responding. And, unfortunately, that’s left to individual companies right now, and many companies are operating on very, very thin margins where they just don’t have the opportunity to do this with crews that are overworked, already very tired. It is always a case where we have to have the crews as the first line of defense. Frankly, most of them are out there very, very alone in the world right now.

Host: Pottengal Mukundan, what’s your sense of the room for crews to be better trained or better prepared?

Mukundan: I think there are some things which can be done. For example, in the aviation industry, the crew are trained to deal with stressful situations, one of which is when people get violent on an aircraft. Now, there is very little training given to shipmasters and officers on board ships on how to deal with a piracy incident. If one looks at the cases of injury to crew and death to crew, it’s often the case that the crew have reacted naturally because their living space has been invaded by outsiders who are aggressive, and that improper, ill-advised action has resulted in a reaction from the pirates. And I think training to the crew on how to calm things down and how to focus on the safety of the crew and the navigation of the vessel would go a long way in trying to prevent losses -- sorry, injury to the crew.

Host: Pottengal Mukundan, what’s your sense on the U.N. resolution that is being circulated at the U.N.? Will that make a difference in the ability of nations to respond to the piracy threat?

Mukundan: I think it will and particularly in a situation like Somalia where you have a law-enforcement vacuum, something like this would be extremely useful. It is still one of many steps which needs to be taken, of course, because in any naval vessel trying to intervene in these situations, the greatest -- the concern really is to ensure that nothing is done which will endanger the crew on board. So, subject to that, it will certainly help.

Host: And Jim Robbins, if the question is not doing anything to risk the crew, if ship owners make it clear that they will do whatever it takes to protect the crew, doesn’t that necessarily then lead to the kind of situation we’ve seen recently where that means paying huge ransoms in cash right away and then, thus, encouraging more piracy?

Robbins: It could mean that if the ship owners think it’s worth their investment to rescue their ship. They might want to slow down the process a little bit and not respond immediately because the more you do that, the more you encourage it. I think it would be incumbent in the circumstances for countries to behave more like the French have. One thing about pirates is they’re relatively easier to locate than, say, your generic terrorists, who can kind of go inland and disappear, and pirates are going to be along the coast somewhere. So you can keep them under surveillance during this whole process and then, after the fact, kind of go in and give them consequences. Now, the money will be gone, no doubt -- it’ll be gone immediately -- but if you can sort of impose consequences on the people who are engaged in this activity, then I don’t see how it could continue to expand because the people -- they’re opportunists. They want to take easy targets out, and they don’t want to have any consequences come back to them. So even a little bit of investment in that, I think, would reap a good reward.

Host: Charles Dragonette, what’s your sense of what the impact of the increase in piracy is having on shipping, as a general matter? After we saw this last week an attack on a Japanese oil tanker, oil markets responded to that. Oil markets have been having no trouble going higher as it is, but they managed a little extra spike on that news. Is this, at this point, a marginal cost and a nuisance or is it rising to the level where it could actually have effects on significant markets, whether oil or other things that are shipped?

Dragonette: I don’t believe it can have any significant or lasting effect on the markets. The markets are simply too large, and, as you point out, they’re already being pressured upward that they don’t need another excuse. We’ve never seen a trade stopped or an insurance cost become unbearable because of piracy. We have seen local perturbations. Certainly world food program, food deliveries to Somalia were severely disrupted and had to go overland out of Kenya, which increases the chances of theft and loss and transit loss en route, but I don’t see a macro effect on trade. Most of the trade that’s going past Somalia has nothing to do with Somalia. Most of it is impelled by world market forces that simply aren’t going to notice the loss of a million dollars in ransom here or $1.2 million there. What will happen, however, is -- We would expect what would happen, and what we’re not seeing yet, is the robust response of the French, the response of the Spanish ought to be discouraging the pirates who do go after the easiest targets and the ones that cost them the least. So far, that effect has not been apparent, and the pirates seem more motivated by what others have gotten away with rather than the consequences with the ones that have gotten caught, and that’s a market force that has yet to come into play.

Host: Pottengal Mukundan, what’s your sense of how much risk there is that this increase in piracy will affect world commerce?

Mukundan: As Charles has pointed out, it hasn’t had any impact on commerce so far, and because the number of vessels which are attacked are still a very small proportion of the ships which are transiting these points. But the consequences for the vessel itself and the crew are severe. We have seen a very large tanker being attacked recently, and it is those kind of very vulnerable vessels, if they are attacked, [that] may begin to have an effect on insurance rates and others. So it is really very important, in our view, that the steps should be taken by the authorities to bring these attacks down as far as possible.

Host: Jim Robbins, about twenty seconds left. Will the steps be taken that are needed?

Robbins: I think the pressure is out there now, particularly the United States and France are leading the way in the U.N., and hopefully once the resolution is passed by the Security Council, other countries will rally to this and start to take the appropriate steps.

Host: I’m afraid that’s going to have to be the last word. We’re out of time for today, but I’d like to thank my guests: Charles Dragonette, a senior merchant shipping analyst in the office of Naval Intelligence at the U.S. Navy; the Director of the Intelligence Center at Trinity Washington University: James Robbins; and joining us from our London studio, Pottengal Mukundan, Director of the International Maritime Bureau. Before we go, I’d like to invite you to send your questions or comments. You can reach us through our website at www.voanews.com/ontheline. For "On The Line," I’m Eric Felten.