Somali Piracy: Looking for Solutions
shiv wrote:RajeshA wrote:
Even if Indian navy challenges just some boats/ships containing Somalis, who may have arms on board, and India sinks the boat, it is possible that the boat/ship may still have had the time to contact their mother ship or some other instance detailing the upcoming encounter, and as such others would know when an Indian ship sinks a Somali boat/ship. The news would still leak out.
Questions would be asked.
They can be denied of course. This policy is as feasible, and in my view safer than cultivating good pirates to do our job. Few nations would mourn the quiet sinking of troublesome pirates.
shiv saar,
just doing some beta testing of all the ideas here, and I also appreciate your help in it!
Published on Jun 25, 2011
By Sabir Shah
Each Somali pirate earns around US$79,000 per annum: The News Pakistan
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http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=54432&Cat=2&dt=6/25/2011
The ruthless Somali pirates earn up to US$79,000 each year or an amount approximately equivalent to Pakistani Rs 6.8 million per annum.
Quoting a study undertaken by an eminent political and economic intelligence consultancy company Geopolicity, a prestigious British daily “The Independent” had reported in its April 17, 2011 edition that the $79,000 per annum earning of Somali pirates was more than 150 times their country’s national average wage of $500.
The newspaper had reported: “Somali piracy was worth $238 million last year and is set to rise to $ 400 million by 2015. The costs of piracy could virtually double in that time -- from $83 billion in 2010 to more than $ 15 billion (£9.1 billion) by 2015. The continued growth of piracy, fuelled by organised and armed gangs using mother ships to enable them to attack further afield, could see the numbers of pirates, estimated to be at least 1,500, rise by up to 400 a year.”
The Independent added: “Somali pirates, typically armed with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, have become increasingly violent in recent months, killing and injuring dozens of hostages. Piracy has soared in the past five years, from 276 incidents in 2005 to 445 in 2010.”
The newspaper further viewed: “Attacks for the last quarter were at an all-time high, according to statistics from the International Maritime Bureau. There were 142 attacks between January and March 97 off the coast of Somalia up from 35 in the same period last year. Pirates seized 18 vessels worldwide, capturing more than 340 hostages in attacks in which seven crew members died and 34 were injured.”
Somali piracy is increasing every year. It has become extremely lucrative. It is costing the world a lot. So there would not be many tears shed by those who fell victim. You're correct with that.
The problem occurs when we however fail to make a statement about an encounter. If it comes out, and it most surely would from some source or the other, then we stand there naked, unable to answer why we did not tell the truth earlier. Why did we hide the fact, that we had an encounter. Usually it is considered normal for a government to put out a press release if there was some encounter. Of course, a government can present the details of the encounter in a manner which shows them in good light, but they still report an encounter. Failure to do so, would feed speculation that there was some "dal men kaala" and so we did not report. If it happens a couple of time, people would start speculating that we are a navy which kills Somalis indiscriminately. Now this goes against the UN Resolution, which talks about the use of proportionate force, which would lead some human rights organizations to criticize us, while still others, possibly in the Ummah, would take that criticism and make it into an Indian war on Muslims and what not.
So the weakness I see is in not reporting an incident. We can paint it the way we like, that is different.
Secondly the Somali pirates would know of our policy of simply sinking their ships and killing their fellow pirates. This is going to have a devastating effect on Indian sailors working as crewmen on various ships sailing through the Gulf of Aden. If they get caught, they too will be killed. How long can we then carry on with such a policy.
Please see Shri B. Raman's paper on this:
Somali Pirates say they are at War with India.
shiv wrote:In any case, if we were to follow a good pirate/bad pirate policy we would be sinking bad pirates and not making media admissions that we are cultivating the good and sinking the bad. After all when the good pirates do their job we would hardly cheer and admit that we are in cahoots although news would certainly leak out about India's involvement in piracy as a few good pirates are captured and tortured, or bad pirates get in touch with their sponsors as their boat sinks.
I mention the "cultivate good pirates" idea only to say that I see it as a bad idea whose negatives have not even been mentioned while expounding the positives. I see that as a biased assessment.
Actually in the Good Pirate/Bad Pirate policy, India would be releasing a statement after every incident, whether real or staged.
We want to show the world, that we are doing something about Somali piracy, so we want to put out a statement about every hijacking-foiling, every capture, every death, every sinking.
Often Good Pirates would allow themselves to be captured by the Indian Navy in order to show the audience on the targeted ship that India came to their rescue, which is then spotlighted in the media. We turn over the Good Pirates to the Puntland Government and we collect our laurels. The pirates then come out through the revolving door. The word spreads among the Pirates, that allowing capture by Indian Navy is a good thing - the pirate gets back his freedom, his ship and often even his weapons. If that information reaches the Coalition, then it is a case of some incompetence and corruption of the Puntland government and not Indian Navy.
When India has an encounter with the Bad Pirates, all efforts would be to catch them alive and to confiscate their ships and weapons. The only difference in their treatment would be in the jails of the Puntland authorities. No Biryani for them and they will be locked up for a long long time. Again this would be publicized just like the cases with the Good Pirates. Again we collect our laurels.
In the seldom case, where there is exchange of fire, and India is forced to sink the boat with the pirates, in this case too we would be publicizing it, with the add-on that we regret the loss of life. That is for the international community. If there are witnesses they too would confirm that we were left with no choice, but to fight. To the Bad Pirates, we are sending the message that if they don't become Good Pirates, there is a price to pay.
I have mentioned earlier, that we can expect some rumors flying around that India is sympathetic to the pirates, etc. but there will be no proof. Indian Navy will not be dealing with Good Pirates directly. We will having middle men who will be telling the Good Pirates, that they have a few connections in the Indian Navy. So the Good Pirates too would only be knowing that there are a few "bad" apples in the Indian Navy, and not that it is Indian Navy policy. We will be having a couple of layers of proxies to mask our involvement.
The issue is that we make "full" disclosures on every incident that takes place on the open seas and show the international community that we have nothing to hide.
We will be hiding our duplicity in the full public glare.
