Sea Transportation: Piracy Moves Away From Somalia
June 27, 2014: While a decade long international effort to suppress Somali
piracy has succeeded, there has been a huge increase in piracy elsewhere. In
the Straits of Malacca there has been a sevenfold increase since 2009 and
off Nigeria there has been a similar increase. The big difference is that
only off Somalia could ships and crews be taken and held for ransom for long
periods. Everywhere else the pirates were usually only interested in robbing
the crew and stealing anything portable that they could get into their small
boats. But a different type of piracy has developed off the Nigerian coast
where pirates increasingly kidnap some ship officers to hold for ransom.
Other Nigerian pirates have taken to forcing the crew to move small tankers
to remote locations where most of the cargo (of oil) can be transferred to
another ship and sold on the black market. The seized ship and the crew are
then abandoned as the pirates make off with much of the cargo and anything
else they can carry off the plundered ship.
The Nigerian pirates have no safe havens like the Somali pirates did but
make up with it in other ways. The Nigerian pirates are actually more
violent than their Somali counterparts and will often overcome an armed
guard on the ship. In part that's because the armed guards are often local
hires and not as skilled and steadfast as the armed guards hired for ships
moving past Somalia. Moreover, the ship guards have to depend on the
Nigerian security forces for backup and the Nigerian Navy is not as
responsive or effective as the international anti-piracy force off Somalia.
These differences are leading more land-based Nigerian criminal gangs to try
piracy and the international shipping companies are finding themselves more
vulnerable than they were off Somalia.
Pirates usually function on the margins of society, trying to get a cut of
the good life in situations where there aren't many options. This is usually
in areas where state control is weakest or absent, in failing and "flailed"
states. A flailing state is something like Nigeria, Indonesia, or the
Philippines, where the government is managing to keep things together but is
faced with serious problems with areas that are sometimes out of control. In
a failed state like Somalia where there isn't a government at all, pirates
can do whatever they want.
The solution to piracy is essentially on land; go into uncontrolled areas
and institute governance. This has been the best approach since the Romans
eliminated piracy in the Mediterranean over 2,000 years ago. Trying to
tackle piracy on the maritime end can reduce the incidence of piracy, but
can't eliminate it completely because the pirates still have a safe base on
land. In the modern world the "land" solution often can't be implemented.
Who wants to put enough troops into Somalia to eliminate piracy? And
flailing states are likely to be very sensitive about their sovereignty if
you offer to help them control marginal areas.
The two areas where pirates now thrive do so because of weak local law
enforcement and the lack (so far) of an international military response.
Thus piracy in the vital (most of the world's oil exports pass through here)
Straits of Malacca was largely an Indonesian phenomenon. It bothered the
Singaporeans a lot, the Malaysians a little, and the Indonesians not much.
But as Indonesia began stabilizing itself over the past decade (the 2004
Aceh Peace settlement, the institution of a more democratic government,
defeating Islamic terrorism and so on), the rate of piracy declined. This
decline was facilitated by the combined police effort of Singapore,
Malaysia, and Indonesia itself, which didn't come about until a lot of
issues among the three states were resolved. Neither Indonesia nor Malaysia
were all that upset about smuggling, which bothered Singapore. Indonesia and
Singapore still have some problems, as Singapore more or less encourages
enormous volumes sand stealing off isolated stretches of Indonesia's
coastline. Since 2010 there has been an increase in piracy off Indonesia,
largely because the Indonesians reduced their anti-piracy patrols without
warning or explanation. There are lots of targets, with over 50,000 large
ships moving through the Straits of Malacca each year. That's 120-150 a day.
Lots of targets. The shallow and tricky waters in the strait forces the big
ships to go slow enough (under 30 kilometers an hour) for speed boats to
catch them.
In contrast to the Strait of Malacca situation, the U.S. approach to piracy
has been largely a police mission, without trying to deal with the
land-side. Again, that would mean occupying Somalia. But there are some
regional constraints on piracy. There seems to be little or no piracy in the
Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb. Apparently this was because the smugglers decided
the pirates interfered with their business (by bringing in coalition naval
forces), and so shut down any pirate operations themselves.
It should be no surprise that the Gulf of Guinea has become another hot spot
for modern (non shipnapping) piracy. Nigeria is badly run and most of the
oil revenue is stolen by corrupt officials, leaving people living in the oil
producing areas near the coast very angry. More piracy has been one result
of all that anger.