[290913.EN.SEA] IMB: Piracy Chased From Far East to Somalia, Now to West Africa

PIRACY, rather than pirates themselves, has been chased from Somalia to West Africa in recent years just it was chased from the South China Seas many years ago, says International Maritime Bureau (IMB) director Pottengal Mukundan.

"We see an improvement in Somalia," he said in a Skype interview with Piracy Daily. "They have had a central government since September last year and conditions are improving. When the conditions improve, pirates find it difficult to hold hostages.

"The local population is getting more and more unhappy with these criminals. There have been cases where villages have driven pirates out simply because they were upset with the way they were conducting themselves," he said.

Government corruption is a problem: "If you look at product tankers. These are kept [by pirates] for seven to 10 days. They do ship-to-ship operations, which take a couple of days. It should be possible with aerial surveillance to locate the transshipment, and for naval forces - Nigeria has the best naval assets in the area - to approach, wait until the hijacked vessel is free - then swoop. There is no reason why it has not been done," he said.

But Capt Mukundan was pleased with the recent signing of a Gulf of Guinea international anti-piracy agreement. "But we need to follow up with action as soon as possible on the water. That is the next step. There should be further initiatives for information sharing between these countries and between law enforcement agencies."

But he opposed suggestions that a new international anti-piracy agency be established.

"We must be careful. There is always a temptation to set up new institutions, but it is much more important to build on what we have. INTERPOL has a good system of sharing of information on various crimes. They do it with drugs, illegal weapons, illegal immigration and so forth."

The key differences between Somali and West African piracy are differing business models, one focusing on kidnap and ransom while the other specialised in cargo theft, mostly fuel oils sold on the domestic black market. There have been West African kidnappings for ransom too, he said, but this is a recent development.

What makes kidnapping less promising in West Africa is that however unevenly governed the region is, there are real police forces to pursue pirates ashore. Pirates must land somewhere, he said, and Somalia's lack of government provided them with a secure operational environment ashore.

Capt Mukundan was positive about the development of private maritime security contractors, and hoped that oil majors whose cargo is often the target of West African piracy, would contribute more to their development.

He also noted that the Advanfort firm had been given permission to set up in Benin, to conduct anti-piracy operations and offer security services to vessels.

Said Capt Mukundan: "I think what Advanfort is doing there is exactly what is required, particularly in trying to build capacity for countries like Benin to build up expertise and knowledge in response to piracy. Whether it is a private company, or whether it's the government, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that it needs to be done."

He said the legal and diplomatic aspects of piracy pose serious problems to law enforcement, too.

"You don't have easy access to witnesses, laws are different, attacks may have taken place in international waters. So building up the capacity of law enforcement, building up the capacity of the judiciary, is very important," he said.

Source : HKSG.