Somalia, The Gulf Of Aden, And Piracy: An Overview, And Recent Developments

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Somalia, The Gulf Of Aden, And Piracy: An Overview, And Recent Developments

This article, which is an updated and enlarged version of

latest developments, looks at the shift in piracy at sea from

south-east Asia to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden; the

recent history of conflict within Somalia; the conditions in which

its people are currently living; humanitarian concerns and the

efforts of aid agencies; the role of the United Nations;

international naval action being taken against piracy; legal and

policy difficulties in prosecuting captured pirates; the United

Kingdom's Government's attitude towards piracy; the cost of

hijackings in financial and human terms; and the wider consequences

of piracy at sea.

Attention focuses on piracy

Two things are well known about Somalia from recent newspaper

reports, magazine articles, Internet pages, and radio and

television broadcasts. First, it is a virtually lawless country

which has been without proper government since 1991. Secondly, a

small number of its people have so disrupted merchant shipping off

its coasts that warships from twenty or more nations have been

mobilised at vast expense to try to prevent vessels in the Gulf of

Aden and the Indian Ocean from being hijacked.

In contrast, the Singapore and Malacca Straits, which were once

considered to be among the most dangerous places in the world

because of piracy, are now much safer for merchant vessels as a

result of cooperation between nations in south-east Asia. The main

sources for statistics about piracy at sea are the Singapore-based

Information Sharing Centre of the members of the Regional

Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery Against

Ships in Asia ("ReCAAP"), and the Piracy Reporting Centre

of the International Maritime Bureau ("IMB") in Kuala

Lumpur. Figures differ slightly between these sources, partly

because the two organisations use different definitions of piracy,

and ReCAAP's records relate only to Asia, whereas the IMB gives

global coverage. But while the number of reported piracy incidents

in Asia overall, and in south-east Asia in particular, has declined

in recent years, the number of attacks worldwide increased during

2008, largely owing to unprecedented activity by pirates in the

waters off Somalia. And while the majority of successful attacks by

pirates in south-east Asia involve the boarding of ships and the

stealing of money and various articles, the Somali pirates

consistently try to capture vessels and hold them and their crews

for ransom.

ReCAAP reported a drop in piracy incidents in Asia in successive

years from 200 actual and attempted incidents in 2004, through 148,

135, 100, and down to 96 during 2008. Meanwhile, the IMB reported a

total of 293 incidents worldwide during 2008—an increase

of more than 11 per cent from 2007, and the highest annual figure

since the Bureau star...

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