In the 15 years since armed Somali fishermen began forcing their
way onto commercial ships, pirates have turned East Africa’s seas into the
world’s most dangerous waters. In 2008 alone, Somalia’s lawless seamen captured
more than 40 large vessels in the Gulf of Aden, a shortcut between Asia and
Europe that’s vital to the global economy. Wiping out today’s pirates won’t be
easy; they’re smarter, better organized, and, frankly, better loved abroad than
the swashbucklers of yesteryear. In a special dispatch from Mombasa, Kenya,
mental_floss correspondent David Axe explains.
1. They Have a Robin Hood Complex
Many Somali pirates see themselves as good guys. And at one point,
they were. After the government in Mogadishu collapsed in 1991, neighboring
countries began illegally fishing in Somali waters. The first pirates were
simply angry fishermen who boarded these foreign vessels and demanded a “fee.”
But as the illegal fishing persisted, some early pirates banded together and
called themselves “coast guards.” They claimed to be looking after Somalia’s
territorial integrity until the government could pull itself back together.
These weren’t the only vigilantes on the scene, however. Other
pirates made their debut robbing U.N. ships that were carrying food to refugee
camps in Somalia. These bandits argued that if they hadn’t taken the food,
warlords would have seized it on land. And they had a good point. Warlords
gobbled down at lot of Somalia’s relief food during the 1990s.
But from these perhaps defensible beginnings, piracy spread farther
from Somalia’s shores and evolved into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. Today,
pirates are blunt about their motives. In late 2008, after a band of pirates
seized a Ukrainian freighter full of weapons and demanded $25 million for its
release, Sugule Ali, a member of the pirate crew, told a reporter, “We only want
the money.”
2. Nobody Brings Home the Bacon Like a Pirate
According to some estimates, pirates
in 2008 pulled in as much as $150 million, indicating that piracy is now
Somalia’s biggest industry. In fact, successful pirates are the country’s most
eligible bachelors. While small-time swashbucklers earn in the low five figures,
bosses can pull in $2 million a year—this, in a country where you can buy dinner
for less than $1. But as their wallets fatten, many pirates are heading for
greener pastures, and the real money is flowing out of the country with them.
Many are buying properties on the seashore of Mombasa, Kenya, where new condos
are being built every day. If a condo is selling for a few million dollars,
there’s a good chance the bosses will throw in an extra half-million, just to
make sure the Kenyans don’t ask too many questions.
3. Being a Pirate Is Easy!
Piracy is so simple that anyone can do it. All you need is a gun,
an aluminum ladder (for scaling other ships), and a motorboat. Then you just
have to wait for commercial ships to pass by. Best of all, you don’t have to
worry about your targets shooting back. By international agreement, civilian
vessels aren’t allowed to carry guns because governments don’t want armed ships
moving from port to port. “Once pirates are on board, they’ve got the upper
hand,” says Martin Murphy, a piracy expert with the Corbett Center for Maritime
Policy Studies. The best defense against piracy is speed, but because most
commercial ships aren’t designed to go fast, pirates don’t have any trouble
chasing them down. The most sophisticated marauders use machine guns and GPS
systems, but many pirates are still low-tech fisherman. After they board a ship,
all they have to do is steal or ransom the goods and prisoners. The cargo of a
typical commercial ship ransoms for about $1 million.
4. The Law Can’t Touch Them
Everybody knows piracy is wrong, but is it illegal? The truth is
that the places where pirates operate are actually lawless. In Somali territory,
there’s no functional government to make or enforce regulations. And because
nations don’t control much of the ocean, there are no laws on the high seas,
either. Throughout history, governments have patched together legal frameworks
to bring pirates to justice, but it’s never fast or easy. Pirates—even those
caught in the act by one navy or another—are often simply released on the
nearest Somali beach, without so much as a slap on the wrist.
With Somali piracy on the rise, the world is playing legal
catch-up. In November 2008, the United Kingdom signed an agreement to try
pirates captured by the Royal Navy in Kenya. And other countries are following
Britain’s lead, with nations including the United States, Singapore, and Turkey
signing similar agreements. But Kenya, despite having the most powerful
democracy in East Africa, doesn’t appear to have an effective court system.
When Britain’s first batch of eight captured pirates went on
trial in Mombasa in December, the defense argued that Kenya shouldn’t have
jurisdiction and succeeded in persuading the judge to defer the trial.
The long-term solution to piracy is a stable Somali government with a
functional judiciary, but that requires peace between the country’s warring
clans. Somalia’s new president, elected in February 2009, is just starting to
get groups to talk.
5. Pirates Rarely Kill People (Which is Why They’re So
Dangerous)
It’s difficult to tell pirates from fishermen, until they climb aboard
another ship and pull out their AK-47s. So, there’s not much the U.S. Navy and
other military forces can do as a deterrent except sail around and look
menacing. After pirates have seized a ship, navies rarely attempt to retake it,
because hostages could be hurt in the process. In the absence of an effective
defense, there were more than 100 documented pirate attacks in 2008 that
resulted in more than 40 ships being hijacked. But for all their aggression, the
body count is low. One ship’s captain died of natural causes while being held
hostage, and a few militia men have died in shoot-outs as they tried to rescue
prisoners, but in general, little blood has been spilled.
Pirates also prefer to keep their prisoners in good health. Not only are
civilians worth hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece in ransom, but the
pirates’ reputation for not harming their hostages has made governments
reluctant to strike back on behalf of shipping companies. While the pirates’
hands remain mostly blood-free, the navies patrolling East African waters have
taken lives. The Indian navy, for example, destroyed one pirate boat only to
discover that the pirates had Thai hostages on board. At least a dozen innocent
victims died.
6. Pirates Have Friends in High Places
Pirates prowl about 2 million square miles of the ocean. That’s a lot of
water, and even with thousands of ships on the high seas, it’s possible to sail
for days without seeing another vessel. So how do pirates know where to
look and which ships to attack? Spies. The biggest gangs have informants in
Mombasa, the major port in the region, where ships have to file paperwork
stating what they’re carrying and where they’re going. According to one
Mombasa business leader, spies inside the Kenyan maritime agencies pass along
this information to pirate bosses—for a price. Pirates are also in cahoots with
local big-wigs in northern Somalia. In exchange for a cut of pirates’ hauls,
officials in the Puntland region of Somalia turn a blind eye to the
international crime flourishing under their noses.
7. Sailors Are Fighting Back (And It’s Working)
Sailors know what they’re getting into when they steer toward East African
waters. And because their crews can’t carry guns, they’ve found other ways to
fight off pirates. Last year, one Chinese ship used tactics borrowed straight
from a medieval castle siege.
When pirates clambered up the side of the Zhenhua 4, the crew climbed onto a
higher deck and pulled up the ladder. Then they turned on high-pressure fire
hoses and knocked the pirates off their feet. But the crew didn’t stop there.
Once in better position, the Chinese sailors started hurling down Molotov
cocktails, made from beer bottles filled with gasoline.
Four hundred cocktails later, the pirates retreated. One pirate, who wasn’t
wearing any shoes, saw he was about to walk across a deck paved with shattered
glass to get back to his ship. He called up to the ship’s stalwart defenders and
begged for something to cover his feet.
8. Bigger Ships Mean Bigger Paychecks
Somali pirates are getting bolder. For years, they’ve chased small fry, such
as Kenyan fishermen, small coastal freighters, and U.N. food ships. Today, with
faster boats, better weapons, and more accurate information from their spies,
they’re going after massive cargo ships, super-tankers, and even passenger
liners. Nobody’s safe. In September, pirates grabbed a Ukrainian ship called the
Faina, which was carrying armored vehicles, rockets, and other weapons. They
followed up that dramatic heist by overtaking the Saudi oil tanker Sirius Star,
which had crude oil aboard valued at $100 million. (Both ships were released
earlier this year after ransoms were paid.) Recent attacks on cruise-liners have
been unsuccessful, but maritime officials are increasingly worried. Pirates
usually attack in groups of about 10 and capture ships with 20 or so passengers.
That ratio of captors to captives lets the pirates stay in control. But with
cruise ships carrying as many as 2,000 people, there’s no way pirates would be
able to conduct an orderly capture. Things might get out of hand; and that,
officials say, is when people get hurt.
9. Pirates Hurt Somalia the Most
The biggest victims of Somali piracy are the Somalis themselves. Nearly 4
million people there (half the population) depend on food donations to survive.
But pirate attacks on food ships have made it difficult for the United Nations
to keep sending provisions. In a desperate bid to keep the supplies flowing, the
U.N. issued a plea to the world’s navies in 2007. As of March 2009, no food ship
sets sail from Mombasa without a Dutch, Canadian, French, German, Italian, or
Greek warship riding shotgun. “If you don’t have an escort, you cannot move food
there,” says U.N. official Lemma Jembere. But naval deployments are expensive,
and warships might not be available forever. This could mean death by starvation
for millions, all due to a few thousand opportunistic pirates.
10. It May Be Time for Desperate Measures
Even with the world’s navies rushing to protect East African shipping, the
sheer size of the ocean and the huge numbers of ships involved mean warships are
rarely in the right place at the right time. The mood in Mombasa, where so many
ship owners and seafarers are based, is bleak. Karim Kudrati, a shipping
director whose four ships have all been hijacked at least once, says it’s time
for the world to mobilize an army and invade Somalia. “Everybody knows where
captured vessels are being taken, and on that aspect of things, nothing is being
done.”
The United Nations recently passed a resolution allowing an invasion, but the
United States military has put the brakes on participating in any operation.
Perhaps they’re hesitant because of their last experience sending troops to
Somalia. In 1993, 18 Americans were killed during a commando raid to capture a
few, low-ranking warlords. And yet, it’s becoming more and more clear that
without major, international intervention, piracy will continue to grow. With
the benefits far outweighing the risks, pirates have no incentive to stop
pillaging.
