Safety on the High Seas

M2d1: Pirates

Pirates off the coasts of Africa and Southeast Asia have put forth the argument that they are merely defending their coastlines from international shipping polluting their coastlines and violating their fishing rights. What do you think of this argument?

Piracy has a negative effect, not simply for the persons suffering from the attack, but also for the residents living in the areas from which the piracy springs. Piracy causes substantial economic losses for the populations in regions where piracy is a way of life. For example, "unlike pirates along Somalia's coast, who are often only after ransom, pirates in West Africa also steal goods, particularly oil. Many attacks end up with crew members injured or killed. But pirate attacks do not only result in killings and injuries, tragic as those are; they also damage the economy. In some cases, affected countries in West Africa have become less concerned with direct losses from piracy than with the ways in which these losses affect international insurance rates and other trade-related costs" (Ari 2013). Regardless of what one thinks about the alleged 'justice' of piracy, the act has a clear, material impact upon the economy of the nation and also causes the world community to hesitate to engage in normal economic relations with the 'home' nation. Even if not all acts of alleged piracy as unjustified, enough have caused violence to cause the states from where they originate to be called 'rogue states,' resulting in the similar national ostracism as is caused by states which are associated with terrorism.

Although piracy is going down overall in Southeast Asia, some nations such as Indonesia continue to struggle with containing it. "On the lighter end of the spectrum are the sea-faring hooligans who conduct sloppy attacks on heavily trafficked coastal waters...On the other end of the spectrum, there is the more sophisticated and more troubling brand of piracy perpetrated by large-scale, well-coordinated global crime organizations. In these kinds of attacks, cargo worth millions of dollars is routinely stolen, as in the case of the Petro Ranger, an oil tanker that was robbed of $3 million worth of fuel en route from Singapore to Vietnam" (DeHart 2013). As these nations strive to gain legitimacy in the world community as sources of economic power, the constant threat of piracy will inevitably curtail their aspirations if left unchecked. This must be accomplished by law enforcement authorities, as crews have little recourse to defend themselves: "While official response may be helping, there is still little that the men on the ships can do in the event of an attack. In fact, crew members are expressly trained to simply meet pirates' demands without a fight. Many captains forbid their crew from keeping weapons on board, as they have found that the pirates usually have them outgunned" (De Hart 2013).