Somali piracy 'may get worse'
2008-11-25 09:49
Washington - A rapid surge in piracy off of Somalia is unlikely to ease for the foreseeable future and may rise further, US analysts said on Monday.
Somalia's ineffective government is too weak and geographically limited to curtail the pirates, and the United
States is too politically invested in the government, they told
a seminar at the Heritage Foundation think tank.
Other obstacles to reducing piracy include a reluctance by
shippers to put armed security on their vessels, restrictions
on the use of force by navies, and the likelihood that shippers
will keep paying ransom for hijacked ships, they said.
"There are solutions, but they are farther down the road,
so in the short-intermediate term ... the situation is likely
to get worse before it gets better," said Peter Pham, a James
Madison University specialist on African affairs.
Somali pirates have caused havoc this year in the Gulf of
Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. The hijacked
ships included a Saudi Arabian supertanker loaded with $100m worth of oil, the biggest hijacking in history.
Shipping officials at a conference in Malaysia on Monday
called for a military blockade along the coast of Somalia to
stop the surge.
At least 14 foreign warships are in the Gulf of Aden and near Somalia to try to foil pirate attacks, but they have not been effective, said chief analyst Dominick Donald of Aegis
Defense Services, a security contractor.
Rules of engagement give the navies a tight window of about
15 minutes for using lethal force on suspected pirates -
rarely enough time to stop a Somali attack, he said.
He discouraged looser rules of engagement, which would make navies "liable to kill the wrong people, whether its local
fishermen or commercial seamen".
Shippers are also reluctant to use armed escorts or place armed security on their ships, said Charles Dragonette of the
U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence. "Until the liability problem
is solved, owners will opt to take the familiar course they
know which is to self-insure, overinsure, or to go around
(southern Africa)," he said.
The analysts said it would be better to attack pirates on the ground, by denying them the port sanctuaries they use to hold vessels for ransom. This may require working with local
elders, administrators and nongovernmental groups, they said.
"The fight is not on the water. The fight will be ashore,"
Dragonette said.