Pirates seized record 1,181 hostages in 2010 - report

[Gerald]

Pirates took a record 1,181 hostages in 2010, despite increased patrolling of the seas, a maritime watchdog has said. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said 53 ships were hijacked worldwide - 49 of them off Somalia's coast - and eight sailors were killed.The IMB described as "alarming" the continued increase in hostage-taking incidents - the highest number since the centre began monitoring in 1991. Overall, there were 445 pirate attacks last year - a 10% rise from 2009.Last week, a separate study found maritime piracy costs the global economy between $7bn (£4.4bn) and $12bn (£7.6bn) a year.

Measures 'undermined'

"These figures for the number of hostages and vessels taken are the highest we have ever seen," said Pottengal Mukundan, the head of the IMB's Piracy Reporting Centre. In the seas off Somalia, the IMB said, heavily-armed pirates were often overpowering fishing or merchant vessels and then using them as bases for further attacks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12214905




Note: 18 January 2011 Last updated at 10:23 GMT

[Gerald]

The time has come for a long time ago, to take in the "tough", and control up to marine and air reconnaissance units

[Betonov]

Civilian ships should be allowed small arms on board. To be captured and held hostage like a sheep

[UnderseaLcpl]

I hate to say "I told you so", but well, I did tell you so. Also, I don't really hate saying it. I'm a bad person, I know.

The only way to get pirates to stop siezing merchant ships is to allow private companies to hire private security firms to protect their investments. Clearly, states cannot provide the required security, and their dogged insistence on being the only entities that should have the freedom to provide armed protection is both bass-ackwards and foolish.

Governments are to military power as they are to everything else they do; reckless, wasteful, and motivated by the wrong forces. Even without accounting for the record number of hostages taken, the staggering costs of deploying military fleets to the coast of Somalia are just sickening, no matter what your political views. More money goes towards the upkeep of warships to prevent piracy than goes to aiding the "nation" that has turned to piracy because its people are poorer than dirt. The same goes for that Indonesian business, as well.

What I really don't understand is why people fight so hard against permitting PMC's to assume shipboard security roles, or any security roles for that matter. Actually, I take that back, I do understand, but the reason is still idiotic. Time and again, PMCs have proven their ability to get more done with less, even to the extent that the world's most powerful military couldn't function without them, and yet governments treat them as if they were a cancer; isolating them and limiting their operations. And all this because they are so arrogant as to believe that they should control all the force.

I think it's time that we let the PMCs go ahead and do business. Certainly, their morality is no more in question than that of any government; one way or the other, they must provide a service to the satisfaction of a customer or they don't get paid. I might also add that most customers are also human beings who actually have a sense of what is right and wrong, and a clientele composed of the same, as opposed to governments which have time and again proven more than willing to do despicable things, brainwash people with propaganda, and sacrifice their own citizenries by the millions for absolutely nothing. Gordon Gecko is a goddamn saint compared to the government, and that's with Hollywood demonization included.

Private security firms hired by concerned companies would provide cost-effective professional protection to every single vessel sailing pirated waters, and would do so without direct cost to taxpayers who may or may not have anything to do with the trade. This one is a real no-brainer, impeded only by those who think governments are moved by the hands of saints and that the term "mercenary" applies to bands of 13th-century brigands who robbed people; at least when they weren't under the active employ of governments that did the same thing. Actually they robbed people even then, so forget that. What I meant to say in lieu of "those" was "blind, trusting fools".

[Betonov]

I agree with you UnderseaLcpl, but it would be cheaper for companies if the crew were trained and armed. But that's not going to happen is it, it would require politicians to change laws and since no politician would serve on a freighter or their son would ever become a hostage, nothing will change.

PMC's would be a solution yes, but if you think big oil has too much power, imagine theese guys

[TLAM Strike]

But what of the fishing crews? Do you think that the owners of ships like the Golden Wave, Vega 5, or Shiuh Fu No.1 could afford merc detachments to defend their ships?

Even if armed crews prevent pirate attacks does anyone think they will just go home and forget the whole thing? Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (or just al-Shabaab for short) is very active in Southern Somalia, putting these pirates out of business might be what al-Shabaab needs to recruit them.

There was already a suicide attack on a French supertanker off the coast of Yemen in 2002 (pictured) and a Japanese tanker was attacked in the STOH last year. Heavier weapons like MRLs may come in to play very quick, like during the Tanker War:

^Stills from a video of one such attack...

Improvised sea mines have been used in Iraq...

(Image from USN EOD Document)

Right now we are mostly negotiating with them for release of crews, arming merchant crews would be like declaring war on them. Worst thing that could happen is that we end up with another Tamil Sea Tigers like force. Imagine Narco Smugglers taking their boat building skills to war...

Suicide Boats...

Midget Submarines...





As long as Somalia is unstable there will be a threat against the sea lanes near there.

[Gerald]

The cost to protect their vessels, it is charged to owners and consumers may pay more in the end, but it is a cheap price compared to what is happening at a hijacking of the boat, no damage physically, but a great psychological burden on the crew can not be avoided , so invest in their infrastructure and help if possible on the spot, but because many countries lack a parliamentary government as it is to go back to square one