“The maritime domain is a curious animal,” said International Maritime Bureau (IMB) deputy director Michael Howlett. “It just works. Twenty-four-seven. And is a key supply chain in world trade.”
But it is also a target for organised crime, ranging from piracy and armed robbery to drugs and people smuggling.
Howlett, who is also a director of ICC Commercial Crime Services, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)’s anti-crime unit, notes that maritime crime has different faces, from opportunistic “muggers” who try to board ships and make off with whatever they can to organised gangs targeting a ship’s cargo.
As in the Malacca Straits a few years ago, groups are now operating elsewhere in Southeast Asia, in addition to East and West Africa.
Even in low-level crime, Howlett says “it isn’t nice to be confronted by such individuals particularly if they are armed”.
Given the impact it can have, especially on people involved in shipping, Howlett emphasises that commerce faces disruption if piracy is ignored. Issues must be addressed swiftly, with a clear signal sent to the perpetrators.
This worked in Somalia, he says. Even when the risk of attack and hijacking was statistically low, even during the height of the problems in 2010, the ships that were hit or taken starkly illustrated the human and economic costs involved.
Although there were some hijackings prior to 2007, activity from that year showed 31 vessels were targeted, with 12 hijacked.For every five ships targeted, two were taken. Most were attacked in the Somali Basin.
This encouraged the pirates, with a surge of attacks in 2008 and a movement up to the Gulf of Aden. Again, almost every two in five ships were taken but the prizes and ransoms started to get larger.
Towards the end of 2008 and start of 2009, Howlett said naval operations in the Gulf of Aden “had incredible effect, like all good policing”.
But what it did was to push the problem into the wider Indian Ocean — “a much bigger geographical area and very difficult to control”. This gave Somali pirates a much bigger “fishing ground”, with, in 2010, vessels being taken at almost 72° east, hundreds of miles from shore.
At this point, Howlett said the pirates were “acting with almost total impunity, literally getting away with murder”, with around 50 vessels per year being hijacked and ransomed.
There was a tactical change in 2011, particularly actions in the first quarter of that year by the Indian navy, which neutralised at least five big pirate groups.
“This robust response is key to fighting piracy also in other areas,” Howlett said, noting that 2011 saw the same number of attempted attacks but only 28 vessels taken as the Somali “business model” began to crack.
Attacks fell markedly in 2013, with only 14 ships hijacked. Only two small fishing vessels were taken in 2013, with no oceangoing merchant ships, while 2014 was also “very quiet”, as was 2015 and this year.
“Navies were key to success in Somalia because only they can deter and disrupt,” Howlett said, fracturing the cycle of hijacking, ransom and release.
Best management practice (BMP) on the part of industry also helped. Howlett notes that “ships used to stop in the beginning when fired on before they realised speed was one of their greatest assets”. Such measures continue to be developed in the BMP.
‘Seeds of governance’
Private armed-security personnel onboard ships and “some seeds of governance in Somalia itself in around 2012” also helped.
But Howlett sounds a note of caution.
“Looking at the stats alone, you’d think Somali piracy is finished,” he said. “[But] we don’t believe it’s completely the end and we urge that the line be held.”
He cites a report from May this year as an example: a containership was approached by five skiffs in the Gulf of Aden, with ladders sighted in some of them.
“This is not fishing equipment,” Howlett said.
“It shows pirates are still there. They still have the intent. Maybe not the capability but it would only take one hijacking off Somalia for the business model to be rekindled.”
The Somali totals show more than 900 vessels have been attacked since 2007, almost 200 hijacked and around 3,600 crew taken hostage.
Howlett stresses the human cost, with at least 29 crew members still unaccounted for.
“No one knows what has happened to them,” he said.
As to the way forward generally, he says maritime crime is “fluid and needs unique solutions”.
“What works in Southeast Asia may not necessarily work in the Gulf of Guinea (see sidebar), and certainly not off the coast of Somalia,” Howlett said.
Comparing actual attacks, when bandits either hijacked or managed to board the vessels, against attempted attacks, Howlett added: “In almost all years since 2003, the number of times they’ve actually boarded has been higher than [the] number of times they’ve failed. So ships also need to do something to ensure they are not taken.”
He says there is “very good practical advice available on how to prevent and deter piracy”.
Reporting is essential — “so we know where ships are” — but so is response. But Howlett stresses the need to detach reporting from response, with the latter more like an emergency service.
Industry also has to have confidence in reporting. He suggests a “hub and spoke” global reporting system with regional centres and perhaps one central body. There is also work underway on a universal classification of incidents.
“Any system has to be sustainable,” he said.
“It has to be able to deal with the hotspots of today and hotspots of tomorrow. And to be free of political influence.”
Of the total of 129 incidents reported so far this year, six vessels were hijacked — three in the Gulf of Guinea and three in Southeast Asia.
“We [also] have an eye on North Africa,” Howlett said. “We really don’t know what’s going on down there but it is the perfect environment for piracy.”
He says a big part of the IMB’s role is raising awareness of piracy “because it does occasionally go off the radar”.
“Even though Somali piracy is not there, there are still problems in other parts of the world,” he concluded.
