Landing the Big One

Landing the Big One

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Somali Piracy Going International?

A senior U.S. diplomat says here:
Piracy in the Red Sea may be becoming a "multinational" business with Yemenis joining Somalis in the lucrative crime, a senior U.S. official said on Monday.

"We are also seeing ... perhaps a new business model occurring in the Red Sea and things that we have traditionally labelled exclusively Somali piracy may in fact be multinational piracy," the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, said.

Pirates involved in last month's killing of four American hostages on a yacht seized near Somalia were both Somalis and Yemenis, while Yemenis were on board a pirate ship recently captured by a Danish warship, he said.

"We may be seeing a situation, as yet unconfirmed, where we have individuals from several nations on the periphery, from states that are not governed well ... being involved in piracy," Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Carson told reporters in London.
***
But Carson said the problem of Somali piracy would not be resolved on the high seas. "We recognize that the area of the Red Sea is enormous and that you can put hundreds of boats out there," he said.

The problem could only be resolved "by ending the impunity that exists on land. It will only be resolved when Somalia has a government with a security force, a police apparatus, a court system and laws that allow it to prevent and prosecute pirates who seek to carry out activities offshore," he said.
Well, it might have helped to have jumped firmly on this problem several years ago, before it exploded into something that has a "business model" tied to it.

Since that didn't happen, now the problem requires "a little less talk and a lot more action."

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:06 AM

    Hope for change in mainland Somalia to end piracy?

    Humph!

    A country has to HAVE a government in order to effect regime change.
    ...Besides predation on the infidel is a moral and cultural imperative, and what sharia court is going to send a brother up the river by ruling against that?

    You got it. Not one.

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  2. We are quickly headed to a situation of mass arming of cargo ships. You can see the shift. First it was 'no arms on vessels' then they warmed up to 'military only on vessels'. The shipping community then quickly (relatively) accepted the option of armed private guards onboard.

    The next step will be training crews. It is better to have armed guards onboard but with them there is a starting and end point to their protection. As piracy spreads, the guards will have to be embarked ever earlier and needed longer. This will probably create a shortage and increasing expenses will have owners and operators looking at training crews to defend their ships.

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  3. May be becoming a "multinational" business? Perhaps a new business model occurring? Individuals from several nations...being involved with piracy?

    My word, when will this all come to fruition? Sounds serious enough that someone should really look into this problem and see if it is, in fact, a multinational, multimillion-dollar, organized criminal endeavor as Carson says.

    Oh, wait: I think a bunch of maritime and security analysts, informed seafaring observers and even a few journalists may have already done so. Or so I've heard...

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  4. Yes, it is shocking.

    Apparently to some people.

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  5. A friend of mine ships out this week and I was hoping to link him to some good news. Good news is the Enterprise is still in the pirate AOR, bad new the USMC is either ashore in the stan or holding off Libya, and no one seems to have the berries to relocate the USMC to the new barbary coast.
    Close held blockade might be the best idea in the last few months though. Let's figure it out and stop this piracy, please

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