In Depth

Piracy Expert: Maersk Alabama One Slice of a Huge Pirate Problem

Roger Hawkes of Global Industries discusses why some of the debate around piracy this month is misplaced, and how piracy has been a problem for years

By Joan Goodchild, Senior Editor

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The other more pragmatic view is that the Tsunami (of 2004) wiped out most of the locations where the villages were and that is why we saw a huge downturn in piracy about the same time the governments started working together. And now we are starting to slowly see piracy come back. It is non-violent piracy by and large. But we are starting to see issues in that area come back.

What is your philosophy about what needs to be done to stop the piracy problem?
People that understand the piracy issue understand that, by and large, what happens on the water is a social indication of what is going on on shore. When you have a living environment on shore where people can't feed their families and can't make a living, you are going to have crime on shore. And if they have the means to go off shore, sooner or later they are going to realize that the fishing boats they are using can be used to go off shore and do the same things off shore that they can do on shore.

When you add that with a government, such as a failed government or a corrupt government, then you have real problems. That is what we see in places like Somalia and other areas of Southeast Asia and West Africa.

Piracy cannot be eradicated or solved any more then crime can be eradicated or solved. Piracy is an economic and social based crime and has been around since the days that the first sailing ships put to sea. However, addressing the problem of piracy, just as addressing any criminal act or criminal organization, requires that the stakeholders fully understand the issues of piracy from its social causes to the physical act of committing the crime. Only then can we in the maritime industry and the governments who have a stake in the problem attack the problem effectively.

In my view, such a strategy to address the problem of piracy, whether it be in Somalia or off of the coast of West Africa, must employ a multi-prong approach similar to how society addresses other criminal enterprises such as the illegal drug problem or inner city gangs. The military or law enforcement option is only part of the effort needed to impact the problem and until this is understood and accepted, anything less will be a band-aid approach. The elements of the strategy should include:
1. Dealing specifically with the social and economic conditions that have created the desire for individuals to turn to crime (piracy) to feed their families. This is a common element of any solution that the Civil Affairs units of our militaries address when dealing with insurgents, which is included in any aspect of addressing gang activity here in the US, and is widely accepted as one of the root causes of why the Afghan farmers produce poppies or the locals in Columbia turn to producing cocaine. The foot soldiers who comprise the actual pirates typically find this is the easiest way to support their families and make a living.
2. The maritime industry has to do a better job of implementing anti-piracy measures that include voyage risk assessments, the understanding and development of operational procedures that can limit their exposure to the threat of piracy such as use of speed and maneuverability of their vessels, and the implementation of a variety of physical security measures appropriate to mitigate the threat. The debate should not be focused on arming or not arming civilian vessels, it should be on whether or not vessels are implementing the appropriate security measures to deter or prevent an act of piracy. Weapons are only one part of a potential solution but we seem to want to go from no security to arming merchant mariners and ignore everything else that can and should be done.
3. There must be a credible deterrent in place to give the pirates reason to question the life they have chosen. This includes both a credible deterrence on the water that the pirates must contend with in order to successful conduct an attack (naval forces, private security, etc.,), as well as the ability for post incident investigations to be conducted that will allow governments to build criminal cases, arrest and prosecute the leaders of each of the pirate communities.