Piracy situation risk assessment, January 2013, Issue 9 What happened in 2012? The number of pirates’ attacks and attempts to vessels in Indian Ocean has fallen sharply, actually some 60 per cent. Meanwhile the piracy and armed robbery has notably increased on West-African coast. Also, the robberies in Indonesian waters have grown. Instead of going into numbers, that will come from respective organizations soon anyway, let’s try to analyze what are the wider reasons on the changes we have seen last year. Somali pirates have decreased their operations drastically. There are officially three reasons for that: effective naval operations to deter pirates, AMISOM forces activities in Southern Somalia and extensive use of private armed security guards on vessels. It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of all the three mentioned factors separately. All of them deserve some credit but if we look a bit closer the major contributor to the decreasing trend seems to be the private entity from the vessels. Navies still are forced to play the catch and release games as there is a lack of jurisdiction and willingness of other countries to feed the Somali prisoners. There are stories where lost and desperate pirates seek for the arrest to get warm meal and free ride to home. Ground operations are advancing slowly and are not mainly aimed to cut the piracy. The major fight goes against the terrorist organization Al Shabaab. Latter one is somehow connected to the major pirate groups but not necessarily so strongly that their weakening could diminish the piracy desire of the coastal clans. Solution to the piracy is on land, no doubt in that. But it will not be rooted out by brutal force (it could with the carpet bombing but this is immoral and illegal in modern world). The problem is similar to many conflicts we all have seen last decades – the locals have no vision of the better future but the families need to be fed. So despite the threats they need to go out and catch a vessel that will bring the food to the table. Of course they have crossed the line on reasonability and now the shiny SUVs, alcohol and hookers have been taking the toll and grown the hunger. That’s the human nature again, there is never enough. Now what seems to really been working are the hired men with guns on vessels. There have been interviews with the pirates on land that admit the fact that the armed teams on ships are the most worrisome for them. There are concerns like some 30% of pirates going to hunt vessels do not come back from the sea because they have attacked the protected vessel. It does not take much on open sea. One bullet to the engine that stops it and the pirate crew will likely never see their home again. A skiff in open sea with limited food and drinking water will not leave many chances to survive. They will be lost forever. The fear of death is the most powerful one. That is why the pirate operations have likely dropped last half a year so drastically. But the bad boys are not gone and there is no news that the previous pirates have turned to decent farmers. There is still no better present and future in their eyes. Most likely they just wait the time when most of the vessel owners will let the security lose to save the costs and we see it happening already. Illusion that the threat is over is a sweet one, but not real. The hundreds of young men in Somalia are oiling their rifles, drilling on coast and trees how to board even faster and just wait for the good news for them that there is a lot less security guards on vessels than recently. They are there, frustrated, hungry and ready. 1/5
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