War on Piracy

Know your enemy and Know yourself and in 100 battles you shall never be in peril_
Sun Tzu {when a incident like kaniska, or kandhar happens the National media wakes up to a furor over the lives innocent
passengers at peril. Today about 800 seafarers mostly Indians are in the captivity of vagabonds of the sea, and their lives are hanging by the wire and there is not even a murmur over this issue. Is it because we seafarers dont form a vote bank and due to our professional requirement we are detached from the society and Hence we dont pledge our allegiance to any political party and are mostly bipartisan in our outlook? whatever be the reason the silence over this issue cannot be tolerated? The threat is far greater than it is visible. About 2000 pirates are holding the world shipping to ransom, and lives of innocent seafarer on gun point. Threat is much larger than it appears, only tip of the iceberg is visible. Global mafia syndicates like the triads, Russian Mafia, Italian Mafia, Columbian drug lords and Gun runners and Illegal arms traders in South America and terrorists organizations like Al-queda, Al-Sahbab, Abu Sayab are joining hands together to form a criminal network with the Pirates of unprecedented dimensions which is threatening the economic and geopolitical stability of major states and unfortunately our country happens to be in the top of the Hitlist. A more sinister angle is that piracy are severe and crippling effect on the economy of the state, hence it has been time and again used by major powers in history to destabilize enemy states. In fact todays defenders were yesterdays pirates. Powers like UK, USA, France, Netherlands all have tainted pasts in this regards. Our country is surrounded by hostile and failed states, decades for cross boarded terrorism should have given our leaders the wakeup call needed, It is a real probability that before long They will get involved getting their hands dirty in this menace in not so distant future. Are we prepared? And who knows that they are not already involved in some of these heinous acts. What is the solution? And who is the elusive enemy?} Piracy is a war-like act committed by non-state actors (private parties not affiliated with any government) ( at least officially) against parties of a different nationality, or against vessels of their own nationality at sea, and especially acts of robbery and/or criminal violence at sea. People who engage in these acts are called pirates. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator (e.g. one passenger stealing from others on the same vessel). The term has been used to refer to raids across land borders by non-state agents. Acts of piracy threaten maritime security by endangering, in particular, the welfare of seafarers and the security of navigation and commerce. These criminal acts may result in the loss of life, physical harm or hostage-taking of seafarers, significant disruptions to commerce and navigation, financial losses to shipowners, increased insurance premiums and security costs, increased costs to consumers and producers, and damage to the marine environment.

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Pirate attacks can have widespread ramifications, including preventing humanitarian assistance and increasing the costs of future shipments to the affected areas. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides the framework for the repression of piracy under international law, in particular in its articles 100 to 107 and 110. The Security Council has repeatedly reaffirmed that international law, as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (The Convention), sets out the legal framework applicable to combating piracy and armed robbery at sea, as well as other ocean activities (Security Council resolution 1897 (2009), adopted on 30 November 2009). Article 100 of UNCLOS provides that [a]ll States shall cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State. The General Assembly has also repeatedly encouraged States to cooperate to address piracy and armed robbery at sea in its resolutions on oceans and the law of the sea. For example, in its resolution 64/71 of 4 December 2009, the General Assembly recognized the crucial role of international cooperation at the global, regional, subregional and bilateral levels in combating, in accordance with international law, threats to maritime security, including piracy

''Piracy consists of any of the following acts: (a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed: (i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft; (ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;

(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;

(c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph (a) or (b).''
UNCLOS provides that all States have an obligation to cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy (art. 100) and have universal jurisdiction on the high seas to seize pirate ships and aircraft, or a ship or aircraft taken by piracy and under the control of pirates, and arrest the persons and seize the property on board (art. 105). Article 110, inter alia, also allows States to exercise a right of visit vis--vis ships suspected of being engaged in piracy. These provisions should be read together with article 58(2) of UNCLOS, which makes it clear that the abovementioned articles and other pertinent rules of international law apply to the exclusive economic zone in so far as they are not incompatible with the provision of UNCLOS relating to the exclusive economic zone. It is also important to distinguish the crime of piracy from armed robbery against ships, which can occur within the internal waters and territorial sea of a coastal State. In accordance with Part II of UNCLOS, in cases of armed robbery against ships, primary responsibility for enforcement normally falls on the coastal State. Armed robbery against ships also constitutes an offence under the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful

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Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA Convention) and, in some cases, the 2000 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. As per SUA convention i.e. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation in Rome (Rome, 10 March 1988) 1. Any person commits an offence(piracy or maritime terrorism) if that person unlawfully and intentionally: (a) seizes or exercises control over a ship by force or threat thereof or any other form of intimidation; or (b) performs an act of violence against a person on board a ship if that act is likely to endanger the safe navigation of that ship; or (c) destroys a ship or causes damage to a ship or to its cargo which is likely to endanger the safe navigation of that ship; or (d) places or causes to be placed on a ship, by any means whatsoever, a device or substance which is likely to destroy that ship, or cause damage to that ship or its cargo which endangers or is likely to endanger the safe navigation of that ship; or (e) destroys or seriously damages maritime navigational facilities or seriously interferes with their operation, if any such act is likely to endanger the safe navigation of a ship; or (f) communicates information which he knows to be false, thereby endangering the safe navigation of a ship; or (g) injures or kills any person, in connection with the commission or the attempted commission of any of the offences set forth in subparagraphs (a) to (f). 2. Any person also commits an offence if that person: (a) attempts to commit any of the offences set forth in paragraph 1; or (b) abets the commission of any of the offences set forth in paragraph 1 perpetrated by any person or is otherwise an accomplice of a person who commits such an offence; or (c) threatens, with or without a condition, as is provided for under national law, aimed at compelling a physical or juridical person to do or refrain from doing any act, to commit any of the offences set forth in paragraph 1, subparagraphs (b), (c) and (e), if that threat is likely to endanger the safe navigation of the ship in question. Piracy is an old problem which is now again attracting attention, mainly because of the surge of pirate attacks off the coasts of Somalia. Closer analysis shows the problem to be of quite modest proportions. The international naval protection of merchant shipping holds out some prospects of containing the problem, but it is most likely to solve itself. If international shipping opts for the route south of Africa, piracy will die out for a lack of target Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue (with estimated worldwide losses of US$13 to [53][54] $16 billion per year), particularly in the waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast, and [55] also in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore, which are used by over 50,000 commercial ships a year. A recent surge in piracy off the Somali coast spurred a multi-national effort led by the United States to patrol the waters near the Horn of Africa. Modern pirates favor small boats and taking advantage of the small number of crew members on modern cargo vessels. They also use large vessels to supply the smaller attack/boarding vessels. Modern pirates can be successful because a large amount of international commerce occurs via shipping. Major shipping routes take cargo ships through narrow

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bodies of water (such as the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca) making them vulnerable to be overtaken and [56][57] boarded by small motorboats. Other active areas include the South China Sea and the Niger Delta. As usage increases, many of these ships have to lower cruising speeds to allow for navigation and traffic control, making them prime targets for piracy. Also, pirates often operate in regions of developing or struggling countries with smaller navies and large trade routes. Pirates sometimes evade capture by sailing into waters controlled by their pursuer's enemies. With the end of the Cold War, navies have decreased size and patrol, and trade has increased, making organized piracy far easier. Modern pirates are sometimes linked with organized-crime syndicates, but often are parts of small individual groups. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) maintains statistics regarding pirate attacks dating back to 1995. Their records indicate hostage-taking overwhelmingly dominates the types of violence against seafarers. For example in 2006, there were 239 attacks, 77 crew members were kidnapped and 188 taken hostage but only 15 of the pirate attacks resulted in murder. In 2007 the attacks rose by 10% to 263 attacks. There was a 35% increase on reported attacks involving guns. Crew members that were injured numbered 64 compared to just 17 in 2006. That number does not include hostages/kidnapping where they were not injured. The number of attacks within the first nine months of 2009 already surpassed the previous year's due to the increased pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia. Between January and September the number of attacks rose to 306 from 293. The pirates boarded the vessels in 114 cases and hijacked 34 of them so far in 2009. Gun use in pirate attacks has gone up to 176 cases from 76 last year. In some cases, modern pirates are not interested in the cargo but instead in taking the personal belongings of the crew and the contents of the ship's safe, which might contain large amounts of cash needed for payroll and port fees. In other cases, the pirates force the crew off the ship and then sail it to a port to be repainted and given a new identity through false papers often purchased from corrupt or complicit officials. The official reports mention only a fraction of the problem. The problem is under-reporting. Ship owners are reluctant to either report or directly address piracy for several reasons. The result is that only 10% are reported. Ship owners are well aware that authorities are unlikely to solve a particular crime. Indeed, there is often fear that the authorities themselves are involved. There is so very much money to be made that pirate gangs have penetrated shipping companies, port authorities and even customs services. Under-reporting by the vessel interests can also be explained in terms of wanting to avoid unfavorable media or increased insurance premiums. This said, ship owners mainly discourage their Masters from filing piracy reports because it is a pocketbook issue. With daily vessel operating costs ranging from US$10,000 to US$50,000 or more; spending a week in Port while untrained local police bumble through an investigation will usually cost a lot more in lost time than the pirate attack itself. So unless there is a murder or a vessel seizure the act of piracy may go unreported. No one really knows just how big a problem piracy really is; only that it is huge and growing. With some 90% going unreported, we are talking about thousands of unreported attacks. Modern piracy can also take place in conditions of political unrest. For example, following the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, Thai piracy was aimed at the many Vietnamese who took to boats to escape. Further, following the disintegration of the government of Somalia, warlords in the region have attacked ships delivering UN food aid. Many nations forbid ships to enter their territorial waters or ports if the crew of the ships are armed in an effort to restrict possible piracy. Shipping companies sometimes hire private armed security guards. Modern definitions of piracy include the following acts: Boarding Extortion Hostage taking

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Kidnapping of people for ransom Murder Robbery Sabotage resulting in the ship subsequently sinking Seizure of items or the ship Shipwrecking done intentionally to a ship

In modern times, ships and airplanes are hijacked for political reasons as well. The perpetrators of these acts could be described as pirates (for instance, the French for plane hijacker is pirate de l'air, literally air pirate), but in English are usually termed hijackers. An example is the hijacking of the Italian civilian passenger ship Achille Lauro in 1985, which is generally regarded as an act of piracy. Modern pirates also use a great deal of technology. It has been reported that crimes of piracy have involved the use of mobile phones, satellite phones,GPS, Sonar systems, modern speedboats, assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, mounted machine guns, and even RPGs and grenade launchers

History of Piracy :It may be reasonable to assume that piracy has existed for as long as the oceans were plied for commerce. Piracy is a basic and fundamental concern for all navies.1 From almost the beginning of state-sponsored navies, piracy suppression has been one of their major responsibilitieswhen Julius Caesar was captured by pirates in 76 BCE, the first thing he did after paying the pirates ransom and being released was to fit out a squadron of ships to take his revenge.2 Despite piracys importance and the continued frequency of piratical attacks, however, relatively few scholarly works have been written analyzing cases of modern piracy and piracy suppression in terms of varying strategic, policy, and operational decisions. This edited collection of case studies attempts to fill this gap. There have been a number of important historical studies that have dealt with the subjects of piracy and piracy suppression. Books written from the point of view of those wishing to end piracy have tended to focus on legal issues, including the rights of victims, the procedures and decisions of Admiralty courts in punishing pirates, and the capture of piracy ships as prizes. Others have looked at the existence of piracy in terms of one particular place or time period, with the Barbary Coast and the Caribbean Sea claiming disproportionate shares of attention. During the 1st century BC, there were pirate states along the Anatolian coast, threatening the commerce of the Roman [8] Empire in the eastern Mediterranean. On one voyage across the Aegean Sea in 75 BC, Julius Caesar was kidnapped [9] by Cilician pirates and held prisoner in the Dodecaneseislet of Pharmacusa. He maintained an attitude of superiority and good cheer throughout his captivity. When the pirates decided to demand a ransom of twenty talents of gold, Caesar is said to have insisted that he was worth at least fifty, and the pirates indeed raised the ransom to fifty talents. After the ransom was paid and Caesar was released, he raised a fleet, pursued and captured the pirates, and had them put to death. The earliest documented instances of piracy are the exploits of the Sea Peoples who threatened [6] the Aegean and Mediterranean in the 13th century BC. These pirates were known to wieldcutlasses, a type of sword common in that era. In Classical Antiquity, the Illyrians and Tyrrhenians were known as pirates, as well as Greeks andRomans. During their voyages the Phoenicians seem to have sometimes resorted to piracy, and [7] specialized in kidnapping boys and girls to be sold asslaves. In the 3rd century BC, pirate attacks on Olympos (city in Anatolia) brought impoverishment. Among some of the most famous ancient pirateering peoples were the Illyrians, populating the western Balkan peninsula. Constantly raiding the Adriatic Sea, the Illyrians caused many conflicts with theRoman Republic. It was not until 168 BC when the Romans finally conquered Illyria, making it a province that ended their threat.

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The Senate finally invested with powers to deal with piracy in 67 BC (the Lex Gabinia), and Pompey after three months of naval warfare managed to suppress the threat. As early as 258 AD, the Gothic-Herulic fleet ravaged towns on the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara. The Aegean coast suffered similar attacks a few years later. In 264, the Goths reachedGalatia and Cappadocia, and Gothic pirates landed on Cyprus and Crete. In the process, the Goths seized enormous booty and took thousands into captivity. In 286 AD, Carausius, a Roman military commander of Gaulish origins, was appointed to command the Classis Britannica, and given the responsibility of eliminating Frankish and Saxon pirates who had been raiding the coasts of Armorica and Belgic Gaul. In the Roman province of Britannia, Saint Patrick was captured and enslaved by Irish pirates. Early Polynesian warriors attacked seaside and riverside villages. They used the sea for their hit-and-run tactics a safe place to retreat to if the battle turned against them.

Middle Ages to 19th century

The most widely known and far reaching pirates in medieval Europe were the Vikings, warriors and looters from Scandinavia who raided from about 783 to 1066, during the Viking Age in the Early Middle Ages. They raided the coasts, rivers and inland cities of all Western Europe as far as Seville, attacked by the Norse in 844. Vikings even attacked coasts of North Africa and Italy. They also plundered all the coasts of the Baltic Sea, ascending the rivers of Eastern Europe as far as the Black Sea and Persia. The lack of centralized powers all over Europe during the Middle Ages favoured pirates all over the continent. Meanwhile, Muslim pirates were common in the Mediterranean Sea. Toward the end of the 9th century, Muslim pirate [10] havens were established along the coast of southern France and northern Italy. In 846 Muslim raiders sacked Rome and damaged the Vatican. In 911, the bishop of Narbonne was unable to return to France from Rome because the Muslims from Fraxinet controlled all the passes in the Alps. Muslim pirates operated out of the Balearic Islands in the 10th century. From 824 to 961 Arab pirates in Emirate of Crete raided the entire Mediterranean. In the 14th century, [11] raids by Muslim pirates forced the Venetian Duke of Crete to ask Venice to keep its fleet on constant guard. After the Slavic invasions of the Balkan peninsula in the 5th and 6th centuries, a Slavic tribe settled the land of Pagania between Dalmatia and Zachlumia in the first half of the 7th century. These Slavs revived the old Illyrian piratical habits and often raided the Adriatic Sea. By 642 they invaded southern Italy and assaulted Siponto. Their raids in the Adriatic increased rapidly, until the whole Sea was no longer safe for travel. The Narentines, as they were called, took more liberties in their raiding quests while the Venetian Navy was abroad, as when it was campaigning in Sicilian waters in 827882. As soon as the Venetian fleet would return to the Adriatic, the Narentines temporarily abandoned their habits again, even signing a Treaty in Venice and baptising their Slavic pagan leader into Christianity. In 834 or 835 they broke the treaty and again the Neretva pirates raided Venetian traders returning from Benevento, and all of Venice's military attempts to punish the Marians in 839 and 840 utterly failed. Later, they raided the Venetians more often, together with the Arabs. In 846, the Narentines broke through to Venice itself and raided its lagoon city of Caorle. In the middle of March of 870 they kidnapped the Roman Bishop's emissaries that were returning from the Ecclesiastical Council in Constantinople. This caused a Byzantine military action against them that finally brought Christianity to them. After the Arab raids on the Adriatic coast c. 872 and the retreat of the Imperial Navy, the Narentines continued their raids of Venetian waters, causing new conflicts with the Italians in 887888. The Venetians futilely continued to fight them throughout the 10th and 11th centuries.

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Captain William Bainbridgepaying the U.S. tribute to theDey of Algiers, circa 1800.

In 937, Irish pirates sided with the Scots, Vikings, Picts, and Welsh in their invasion of England. Athelstan drove them back. The Slavic piracy in the Baltic Sea ended with the Danish conquest of the Rani stronghold of Arkona in 1168. In the 12th century the coasts of western Scandinavia were plundered by Curonians and Oeselians from the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. In the 13th and 14th century pirates threatened the Hanseatic routes and nearly brought sea trade to the brink of extinction. The Victual Brothers of Gotland were a companionship of privateers who later turned to piracy. Until about 1440, maritime trade in both the North Sea and the Baltic Sea was seriously in danger of attack by the pirates. H. Thomas Milhorn mentions a certain Englishman named William Maurice, convicted of piracy in 1241, as the first [12] person known to have been hanged, drawn and quartered, which would indicate that the then-ruling King Henry III took an especially severe view of this crime. The ushkuiniks were Novgorodian pirates who looted the cities on the Volga and Kama Rivers in the 14th century. As early as Byzantine times, the Maniots (one of Greece's toughest populations) were known as pirates. The Maniots considered piracy as a legitimate response to the fact that their land was poor and it became their main source of income. The main victims of Maniot pirates were the Ottomans but the Maniots also targeted ships of European countries. The Haida and Tlingit tribes, who lived along the coast of southern Alaska and on islands in northwest British Columbia, [13] were traditionally known as fierce warriors, pirates and slave-traders, raiding as far as California.

In India Instances of Piracy in India are recorded on Vedas. However the most interesting one is when the issue of war due to piracy. Invasion of Sindh, In the 7th century the new kingdom of Hajjaz launched trade ships to India especially Sindh. But, a ship enroute from Sri Lanka to Baghdad was carrying valuables and some slave girls which were looted off Debal. One of the slave girls sent a letter challenging the Caliph saying that he cannot rescue them. The Caliph sent a portion of his army to save the slaves. But, the people of Sindh became wary and thought of this army as a threat. This became an excuse for war between Arabs and Sindh.[14] Since the 14th century the Deccan (Southern Peninsular region of India) was divided into two entities: on the one side stood the Muslim-ruledBahmani Sultanate, and on the other stood the Hindu kings rallied around the Vijayanagara Empire. Continuous wars demanded frequent resupplies of fresh horses, which were imported through sea routes from Persia and Africa. This trade was subjected to frequent raids by thriving bands of pirates based in the coastal cities of Western India. One of such was Timoji, who operated off Anjadip Island both as a privateer (by seizing horse traders, that he rendered to the raja of Honavar) and as a pirate who attacked the Kerala merchant fleets that traded pepper with Gujarat.

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The cemetery of past pirates at le Ste-Marie (St. Mary's Island).

During the 16th and 17th centuries there was frequent European piracy against Mughal Indian vessels, especially those en route to Mecca for Hajj. The situation came to a head, when Portuguese attacked and captured the vessel Rahimi which belonged to Mariam Zamani the Mughal queen, which led to the Mughal seizure of the Portuguese [15] town Daman. In the 18th century, the famous Maratha privateer Kanhoji Angre ruled the seas between Mumbai and [16] Goa. The Marathas attacked British shipping and insisted that East India Company ships pay taxes if sailing through [17] their waters. At one stage, the pirate population of Madagascar numbered close to 1000. le Sainte-Marie became a popular base for pirates throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The most famous pirate utopia is that of Captain Misson and his pirate crew, who allegedly founded the free colony of Libertatia in northern Madagascar in the late 17th century. In [19] 1694, it was destroyed in a surprise attack by the island natives. The southern coast of the Persian Gulf became known as the Pirate Coast as raiders based there harassed foreign shipping. Early British expeditions to protect the Indian Ocean trade from raiders at Ras al-Khaimah led to campaigns [20] against that headquarters and other harbours along the coast in 1819.
[18]

In East Asia

Sixteenth century Japanese pirate raids.

From the 13th century, Wokou based in Japan made their debut in East Asia, initiating invasions that would persist for 300 years.

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Piracy in South East Asia began with the retreating Mongol Yuan fleet after the betrayal by their Javanese allies (who, incidentally, would found the empire ofMajapahit after the Mongols left). They preferred the junk, a ship using a more robust sail layout. Marooned navy officers, consisting mostly of Cantonese andHokkien tribesmen, set up their small gangs near river estuaries, mainly to protect themselves. They recruited locals as common foot-soldiers known as 'lang' (lanun) to set up their fortresses. They survived by utilizing their well trained pugilists, as well as marine and navigation skills, mostly along Sumatranand Javanese estuaries. Their strength and ferocity coincided with the impending trade growth of the maritime silk and spice routes. However, the most powerful pirate fleets of East Asia were those of Chinese pirates during the mid-Qing dynasty. Pirate fleets grew increasingly powerful throughout the early 19th century. The effects large-scale piracy had on the Chinese economy were immense. They preyed voraciously on China's junk trade, which flourished in Fujian and Guangdong and was a vital artery of Chinese commerce. Pirate fleets exercised hegemony over villages on the coast, collecting revenue by exacting tribute and running extortion rackets. In 1802, the menacing Zheng Yi inherited the fleet of his cousin, captain Zheng Qi, whose death provided Zheng Yi with considerably more influence in the world of piracy. Zheng Yi and his wife, Zheng Yi Sao (who would eventually inherit the leadership of his pirate confederacy) then formed a pirate coalition that, by 1804, consisted of over ten thousand men. Their military might alone was sufficient to combat the Qing navy. However, a combination of famine, Qing naval opposition, and internal rifts crippled piracy in China around the 1820s, and it has never again reached the same status. The Buginese sailors of South Sulawesi were infamous as pirates who used to range as far west as Singapore and as [21] far north as the Philippines in search of targets for piracy. The Orang laut pirates controlled shipping in the Straits of [22] Malacca and the waters around Singapore, and the Malay and Sea Dayak pirates preyed on maritime shipping in the [23] waters between Singapore and Hong Kong from their haven in Borneo.

Grigory Gagarin. Cossaks of Azov fighting a Turk ship

In the 1840s and 1850s, United States Navy and Royal Navy forces campaigned together against Chinese pirates. Several notable battles were fought though pirate junks continued operating off China for years more. During the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion, piratical junks were again destroyed in large numbers by British naval forces but ultimately it wasn't until the 1860s and 1870s that fleets of pirate junks ceased to exist.

In Eastern Europe
One example of a pirate republic in Europe from the 16th through the 18th century was Zaporizhian Sich. Situated in the remote Steppe, it was populated with Ukrainian peasants that had run away from their feudal masters, outlaws of every sort, destitute gentry, run-away slaves from Turkish galleys, etc. The remoteness of the place and the rapids at the Dnepr river effectively guarded the place from invasions of vengeful powers. The main target of the inhabitants ofZaporizhian Sich who called themselves "Cossacks" were rich settlements at the Black Sea shores of Ottoman [24] Empire and Crimean Khanate. By 1615 and 1625, Zaporozhian Cossacks had even managed to raze townships on

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the outskirts of Istanbul, forcing the Ottoman Sultan to flee his palace. [26] ravaged the Persian coasts.

[25]

Don Cossacks under Stenka Razin even

In North Africa

Barbarossa Hayreddin Pashadefeats the Holy League of Charles Vunder the command of Andrea Doria at the Battle of Preveza in 1538.

"Exposicin Piratas, los ladrones del mar", Estacin Martima, Vigo

The Barbary pirates were pirates and privateers that operated from North African (the "Barbary coast") ports of Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Sal and ports in Morocco, preying on shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea from the time of the Crusades as well as on ships on their way to Asia around Africa until the early 19th century. The coastal villages and towns of Italy, Spain and Mediterranean islands were frequently attacked by them and long stretches of the Italian and Spanish coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants; after 1600 Barbary pirates [27][28] occasionally entered the Atlantic and struck as far north as Iceland. According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. The most famous corsairs were the Ottoman Hayreddin and his older brother Oru Reis (Redbeard), Turgut Reis(known as Dragut in the West), Kurtolu (known as Curtogoli in the West), Kemal Reis, Salih Reis and Koca Murat Reis. A few Barbary pirates, such as the Dutch Jan Janszoon and the English John Ward [Yusuf Reis], were renegade European privateers who had converted to Islam. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the United States treated captured Barbary corsairs as prisoners of war, indicating that they were considered as legitimate privateers by at least some of their opponents, as well as by their home countries.

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In the Caribbean

Franois l'Olonnais was nicknamed Flail of the Spaniards and had a reputation for brutality offering no quarter to Spanish prisoners

Roche Braziliano

In 1523, Jean Fleury seized two Spanish treasure ships carrying Aztec treasures from Mexico to Spain. The great or classic era of piracy in the Caribbeanextends from around 1560 up until the mid 1720s. The period during which pirates were most successful was from 1700 until the 1730s. Many pirates came to the Caribbean after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, they stayed in the Caribbean and became pirates shortly after that. Others, the buccaneers, arrived in the mid-to-late 17th century and made attempts at earning a living by farming and hunting on Hispaniola and nearby islands; pressed by Spanish raids and possibly failure of their means of making a living, they turned to a more lucrative occupation. Caribbean piracy arose out of, and mirrored on a smaller scale, the conflicts over trade and colonization among the rival European powers of the time, including the empires of Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal andFrance. Most of these pirates were of English, Dutch and French origin. Because Spain controlled most of the Caribbean, many of the attacked cities and ships belonged to the Spanish Empire and along the East coast of America and the West coast of Africa. Dutch ships captured about 500 Spanish and Portuguese ships [6] between 1623 and 1638. Some of the best-known pirate bases were New Providence, in the Bahamas from 1715 to [30] 1725, Tortuga established in the 1640s and Port Royal after 1655. Among the most famous Caribbean pirates are Edward Teach or Blackbeard, Calico Jack Rackham, Henry Morgan and the most successful Bartholomew Roberts.

[29]

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Most were hunted down by the Royal Navy and killed or captured, several battles were fought between the brigands and the colonial powers on both land and sea. Piracy in the Caribbean declined for the next several decades after 1730 but by the 1810s many pirates roamed American waters though they were not as bold or successful as the predecessors. Throughout the first quarter of the 19th century, the United States Navy repeatedly engaged pirates in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and in the Mediterranean. Several warships were designed specifically for the task. The most successful pirates of the era were Jean Lafitte and Roberto Cofresi. Lafitte's ships primarily operated in the Gulf of Mexico but Cofresi's base was in Puerto Rico where he was considered a type of Robin Hood by many Puerto Ricans. Eventually he was defeated by the schooner USS Grampus and captured in 1825. The United States landed shore parties on several islands in the Caribbean in pursuit of pirates, Cuba was a major haven but the 1830s piracy had died out again and the navies of the region focused on the slave trade. In 1827, Britain declared that participation in the slave trade was piracy, a crime punishable by death. The power of the Royal Navy was subsequently used to suppress the slave trade, and while some illegal trade, mostly with Brazil and Cuba, continued, the Atlantic slave trade would be eradicated by the middle of the 19th century. Boysie Singh was a Caribbean pirate who operated off northern South America. He and his pirate gang killed several [31] people and plundered their ships from 1947 to 1956.

American Ocean Piracy

Piracy off the coasts of North America continued as late as the 1870s. Pirates who operated in the Caribbean often sailed north to attack targets off the present day eastern seaboard of the United States. Possibly the most famous of these was Blackbeard, who operated in the American south, attacking ships and at one point even blockading Charleston, South Carolina. Later in the 19th century, after the Golden Age of Piracy, Jean Lafitte became what is considered by many to be the last buccaneer due to his army of pirates and fleet of pirate ships which held bases in and around the Gulf of Mexico. Lafitte and his men participated in the War of 1812 battle of New Orleans and later his ships fought the United States Navy and the United States Revenue Cutter Service. Eventually Lafitte was evicted from the area by United States forces after several battles and raids. Between 1822 and 1825 the American West Indies Squadron fought against pirates in the Caribbean. By 1830, piracy in the Gulf of Mexico became rare with the exception of slave traders, who were considered pirates. In 1860 during the Reform War, the United States Navy fought the Battle of Anton Lizardo against rebels which were declared pirates by the Mexican government. In 1870, the United States again fought pirates off Mexico during the Battle of Boca Teacapan. The pirates had attacked and captured Guaymas, Mexico, looted the foreign residents of their belongings and forced the United States consulate in Guaymas to provide their steamer with coal, after which they sailed for Boca Teacapan, Sinaloa. A United States Navy expedition under Willard H. Brownson was launched, resulting in the destruction of the pirate ship. The invention of steam powered vessels eventually put an end to piracy off North America though some isolated incidents continued to occur into the 1920s

Privateering or state sponsored piracy:Since on an average about 90% of the world trade depends on the maritime transport and piracy has a devastating effect on this. This has; however, encourage rulers and commanders to use the act of piracy as an INSTRUMENT OF WAR. There was a resurgence of this state sponsored act of piracy in the medieval or renaissance period. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers. They were of great benefit to a smaller naval power or one facing an enemy dependent on trade: they disrupted commerce and pressured the enemy to deploy warships to protect merchant trade against commerce raiders. They were, essentially, a Renaissance-era equivalent to the corporate and independent "military contractors" of today.

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The cost was borne by investors hoping to profit from prize money earned from captured cargo and vessels. The proceeds would be distributed among the privateer's investors, officers and crew. It has been argued that privateering was a less destructive and wasteful form of warfare, because the goal was to capture ships rather than to sink them. Privateers were part of naval warfare from the 16th to the 19th century. Some privateers have been particularly influential in the annals of history. Sometimes, the vessels would be commissioned into regular service as warships. The crew of a privateer might be treated as prisoners of war by the enemy country if captured. England, and later the United Kingdom, used privateers to great effect and suffered much from other nations' privateering. In the late 16th century, English ships cruised in the Caribbean and off the coast of Spain, trying to intercept treasure fleets from the Spanish Main. At this early stage the idea of a regular navy (the Royal Navy, as distinct from the Merchant Navy) was not present, so there is little to distinguish the activity of English privateers from regular naval warfare. Attacking Spanish ships, even during peace time, was part of a policy of military and economic competition with Spain- who had been monopolizing the maritime trade routes by enforcing a mare clausum policy along with the Portuguese - and helped provoke the first Anglo-Spanish War. Capturing a Spanish treasure ship would enrich the Crown as well as strike a practical blow against Spanish domination of America. A privateer or corsair used similar methods to a pirate, but acted while in possession of a commission or letter of marque from a government or monarch authorizing the capture of merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation. For example, the United States Constitution of 1787 specifically authorizedCongress to issue letters of marque and reprisal. The letter of marque was recognized by international convention and meant that a privateer could not technically be charged with piracy while attacking the targets named in his commission. This nicety of law did not always save the individuals concerned, however, as whether one was considered a pirate or a legally operating privateer often depended on whose custody the individual found himself inthat of the country that had issued the commission, or that of the object of attack. Spanish authorities were known to execute foreign privateers with their letters of marque hung around their necks to emphasize Spain's rejection of such defenses. Furthermore, many privateers exceeded the bounds of their letters of marque by attacking nations with which their sovereign was at peace (Thomas Tew and William Kidd are notable examples), and thus made themselves liable to conviction for piracy. However, a letter of marque did provide some cover for such pirates, as plunder seized from neutral or friendly shipping could be passed off later as taken from enemy merchants. The famous Barbary Corsairs (authorized by the Ottoman Empire) of the Mediterranean were privateers, as were the Maltese Corsairs, who were authorized by the Knights of St. John, and the Dunkirkers in the service of the Spanish [43] Empire. In the years 16261634 alone, the Dunkirk privateers captured 1,499 ships, and sank another 336. From 1609 to 1616, England lost 466 merchant ships to Barbary pirates, and 160 British ships were captured by Algerians [44] between 1677 and 1680. One famous privateer was Sir Francis Drake. His patron was Queen Elizabeth I, and their [45] relationship ultimately proved to be quite profitable for England. Privateers were a large proportion of the total military force at sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. During the Nine Years War, the French adopted a policy of strongly encouraging privateers, including the famous Jean Bart, to attack [46] English and Dutch shipping. England lost roughly 4,000 merchant ships during the war. In the following War of [47] Spanish Succession, privateer attacks continued, Britain losing 3,250 merchant ships. During the War of Austrian [46] Succession, Britain lost 3,238 merchant ships and France lost 3,434 merchant ships to the British. During King George's War, approximately 36,000 Americans served aboard privateers at one time or another. During [48] the American Revolution, about 55,000 American seamen served aboard the privateers. The American privateers [49] had almost 1,700 ships, and they captured 2,283 enemy ships. Between the end of the Revolutionary War and 1812, less than 30 years, Britain, France, Naples, the Barbary States, Spain, and the Netherlands seized approximately 2,500 [50] American ships. Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to 20% of United States [51] government annual revenues in 1800. Throughout the American Civil War, Confederate privateers successfully [52] harassed Union merchant ships.
[46]

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Privateering lost international sanction under the Declaration of Paris in 1856. A privateer was not a pirate. The problem is, of course, that the Spaniards call all other Europeans in American waters 'pirates'. But leaving that aside, a privateer is someone with a licence from his crown to collect damages that are due from another crown that is dragging its feet about making payment or indeed judging a case. Given the legendary slowness of Spanish bureaucracy, that was an easy situation to find. Privateering is a business. Anyone who indulges in it who doesn't want to make money is a lunatic. Drake is out to make money it's a business like any other. He is also, of course, trying to get personal satisfaction it's a shameand-honour society. He is also a Protestant and an Englishman and a loyal subject of the queen. All of these motives come together. Nobody has pure and simple motives for this kind of thing. It necessarily involved a willingness to kill people, but then western Europe is run by a warrior lite whose business it is to kill people. It's not necessarily a very bloody business. Most sailors aren't paid enough to die defending somebody else's property. Most privateers' catches involved surprisingly little violence and often very little bloodshed . A startling example of this being used with lethal efficiency was by queen Elizabeth of England against Spain. Elizabeth I became queen, aged 25, on 17 November 1558, following the death of her half-sister Mary I. 'Bloody Mary', who reigned only briefly from 1553 to 1558, died an unpopular queen due to her restoration of Catholicism and vicious persecution of Protestants. By contrast, Elizabeth's coronation in 1559 was marked by widespread expressions of popular support. Her first acts as monarch included returning England to the Protestant faith and reimposing the use of English instead of Latin in church services, editions of the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer. State finances were a continuing problem under Elizabeth. Philip's revenues, for example, were ten times greater than those of the English monarch. The Spanish Armada that set sail for war with England in 1588 cost four million ducats, 100 times the cost of Elizabeth's defences. Spain, drawing on huge revenues from its plunder of the Aztec and Inca empires of central and south America, was the European superpower of its day. Elizabethan England, in contrast, was something of a rogue state. Without colonies or overseas interests of its own to exploit, it had to look elsewhere for sources of revenue. She encouraged Prince William of Netherland, the leader of the revolt against Spain and started to fund Protestant privateers licensed pirates. English ports provided safe harbours for the privateers, and English captains and crew soon began to join them. At home, the privateers brought a double bonus to Elizabethan England. As well as the booty from their raids, they also helped to turn England and London in particular into a centre of trade and commerce. The capital's population increased fourfold during the 16th century, reaching almost 200,000 by Elizabeth's death in 1603. The population of England increased from three to four million. The wealth showed itself in the lifestyle of the rich and influential. The Elizabethan 'prodigy houses', such as Longleat, Wollaton and Hardwick, are among the most sumptuous palaces ever built in England. The 'Elizabethan Renaissance' also saw a great flowering in the arts, most famously through the likes of Marlowe, Jonson and Shakespeare. Among the first English privateers was Francis Drake. In 1567, he and his cousin John Hawkins had tried to break the Spanish monopoly of the African slave trade to the Americas. When they arrived off the coast of New Spain (Mexico) the following year, the Spanish opened fire and they were driven away. Drake turned his hand instead to licensed piracy. For Elizabeth, who pretended to the Spanish that she could do nothing to stop it, this piracy provided a ready source of revenue. By licensing the privateers to rob Spanish ships, she was able to cream off huge sums for her exchequer. When Drake set sail for the Strait of Magellan in 1577, eventually raiding Peru and the west American coast before circumnavigating the world and returning to England, the booty was sufficient to enable Elizabeth to pay off the entire national debt. Drake was given 10,000 an enormous sum in those days for himself. His crew got nothing. Meanwhile, Walter Ralegh, a generation younger than Drake, was establishing himself as a major backer of privateering expeditions. He earned Elizabeth's favour with his personal charm, and confirmed it with his ruthless suppression of Catholic rebellion in the first English colony, Ireland. Most notoriously, in 1580 he butchered 600 people, including

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women and children, on a site that is still known as the 'field of skulls' in Ireland today. Ralegh built up an immense fortune through the monopoly on wine sales and cloth granted to him by the queen, together with his privateering licences. Elizabeth benefited from her share of the profits. Philip's patience with Elizabeth's excuses about piracy eventually wore thin, and by the mid-1580s, he had begun to prepare for war. In 1587, Elizabeth's execution of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, her cousin, provoked outrage among Catholics. And Drake's surprise attack on the Spanish fleet at Cadiz in the same year not only yielded half a million stolen ducats for the English treasury; it also made certain once the 24 ships that had been put out of action had been repaired or replaced that the Spanish Armada would set sail for England in 1588. The licensed piracy of Drake, Ralegh and others and Spain's defeat in the war that it had triggered heralded a dramatic change in the European balance of power.Spain, which had previously been able to exploit the treasures of the New World almost as it pleased, was losing its dominant position. Within a few years of Elizabeth's death, the Netherlanders were able to assert their independence from Spain and would soon develop an empire of their own. By the 1560s skirmishes, between Spanish forces and English interloping fleets, was already a large part of the countries commercial relationship with each other. However the Spanish, who had become quite sick of English infidelity, dealt them such a blow at San Juan de Ulua, that the English stopped their illegal trade. The defeat further inflamed already well established Protestant, English hatred of the Catholic Spain and Portugal and the investors that had taken losses wanted reparations. The monarchy was no longer granting expeditions in slave smuggling or trading because Elizabeth feared that war would be declared and, at the time, England was in no shape to fight an enemy as

powerful as Spain or Portugal. However, despite the fact that England in the age of Elizabeth I was not a powerful nation-state of the modern variety, and at this point had relatively modest international ambitions (Lane, Kris E., 1998, 51), investors where determined in seeking reprisal and outfitted several expeditions of unmitigated piracy. These privately financed expeditionary fleets where outfitted with no attempt at disguising the fact that piracy was their unequivocal purpose (Lane, Kris E., 1998, 40), yet they where only marginally endorsed by the crown. During the years leading up to the start of the Anglo-Spanish war in 1585 they preyed on Spanish possessions all over the Atlantic and into the Pacific. Expeditions lead by men such as Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, and Thomas Cavendish wreaked havoc all over New Spain. However, the expeditions, were deemed by the investors as unsuccessful from the point of view of captured goods and damage done to the Spanish. Although the immediate losses to the Spanish where relatively small, it created a false perception of Englands potential maritime threat that, combined with the French impact, further scared Spain into intensifying protection over their colonial and maritime interests. Drake returned to England with a decimated and disappointed crew Still, as Andrews and other historians of the period have noted, the effect of this ultimately unsuccessful voyage was to encourage and even force Spain to acknowledge the new scale of the 15 | P a g e

English threat in its colonial waters (Lane, Kris E., 1998, 52). The impact, although not warranted, from the sight of an enemy fleet of that size *which+ could have captured a treasure fleet, sacked Panama or Havana, or even established a permanent base of operations in the Caribbean (Lane, Kris E., 1998, 52), was enormous. The actual English presence in Spanish waters would increase dramatically with the outbreak of the AngloSpanish War in 1585.

Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1603): Piracy turns to Privateering

Relations between Spain and England had deteriorated rapidly resulting in the declaration of war. Because of the fear of the enormous Spanish armada at the time, Drake and other fleet captains were kept in English waters to defend England itself. Thus, expeditionary fleet piracy fell off somewhat. However, it was at that point that the unmitigated English piracy of the previous two decades evolved almost immediately into the full-fledged sanction of privateering by the Queen. Expeditions against Spain, during the years between 1585 and 1603, rose to unheard of levels. Some seventy-six English expeditions made their way to the Caribbean during the eighteen-year period of hostilities ending with Elizabeth Is death in 1603 (Lane, Kris E., 1998, 49). Although smaller in size, the sheer number of privateering expeditions lead against Spain did incredible damage and made Englands presence felt worldwide. The Queens death along with the defeat of the once invincible Spanish Armada by the lesser English navy and privateers in the English Channel lead to the agreement of peace in 1604. The signing of the treaty effectively ended the level of privateering that was present during the war, and for a time English piracy as well, but they where back at it soon. This left the Dutch to plunder and privateer against Spain, in much the same way, as they pleased until a treaty of peace was signed in 1648 ending lowlands war of independence.

Virtually in tandem with the English, the Dutch began their long history of pillaging the Spanish empire. Motivated partly by their hatred of Catholic Spain and Portugal, Militantly Protestant Hollanders were actively harassing the Spanish and others in the early 1570s (Lane, Kris E., 1998, 62). In 1568 an uprising, by the Low Countries against Phillip II and Iberian sovereignty, broke into the Eighty Year War that would drain the Spanish until 1648. These Dutch Pirates, termed Sea Beggars, attacked and pillaged Luso-Hispanic shipping and settlements for almost a century. Although they where called pirates by the Spanish, they where merely fighting an unbalanced conflict on their terms. Essentially, like all of these pirates and privateers, they were fighting a gurrilla conflict on the high seas. A method of fighting 16 | P a g e

beyond the line by means of privately financed ventures aimed at trade, plunder, or settlement, loosely approved by a financially weak central government (Lane, Kris E., 1998, 63). By 1648, the Eighty Year War would be over and, although Spain still remained strong, these series of conflicts, both declared and undeclared war, weakened the Spanish monopoly greatly. Even though peace had been declared between these nations and Spain, and sanctioned piracy, in the form of privateering, had been stopped, this method of fighting beyond the lines would go on for much longer. The approval of governments would get looser and looser, but piracy and privateering would continue into the next centuries.
The era of piracy in the Caribbean Sea began in the 16th century and died out in the 1830s after the navies of the nations of Western Europe and North America with colonies in the Caribbean began combating pirates. The period during which pirates were most successful was from the 1690s until the 1720s. Piracy flourished in the Caribbean because of the existence of relatively lawless British seaports such as Port Royal in Jamaica and the French settlement at Tortuga In the early 19th century, piracy along the East and Gulf Coasts of North America as well as in the Caribbean increased again. Jean Lafitte was probably the greatest pirate/privateer of the time, operating in the Caribbean and in American waters from his havens in Texas and Louisiana during the 1810s. But the records of the US Navy indicate that hundreds of pirate attacks occurred in American and Caribbean waters between the years of 1820 and 1835. The Latin American Wars of Independence led to widespread use of privateers both by Spain and by the revolutionary governments of Mexico, Colombia, and other new Latin American countries. These privateers were rarely scrupulous about adhering to the terms of their letters of marque even during the Wars of Independence, and continued to plague the Caribbean as outright pirates long after the wars ended. About the time of the Mexican-American War in 1846, the United States Navy had grown strong and numerous enough to eliminate the pirate threat in the West Indies. By the 1830s, ships had begun to convert to steam propulsion, so the Golden Age of Sail and the classical idea of pirates in the Caribbean ended. Privateering, similar to piracy, continued as an asset in war for a few more decades and proved to be of some importance during the naval campaigns of the American Civil War. Privateering would remain a tool of European states, and even of the newborn United States, until the mid-19th century's Declaration of Paris. But letters of marque were given out much more sparingly by governments and were terminated as soon as conflicts ended. The idea of "no peace beyond the Line" was a relic that had no meaning by the more settled late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Quasi-War
The Quasi-War was an undeclared war fought mostly at sea between the United States and French Republic from 1798 to 1800. In the United States, the conflict was sometimes also referred to as the Franco-American War, the Undeclared War with France, the Undeclared Naval War, the Pirate Wars, or the Half-War. The Kingdom of France had been a critical ally of the United States in the American Revolutionary War, and had signed in 1778 a Treaty of Alliance with the United States. But in 1794, after the French Revolution toppled that country's monarchy, the American government came to an agreement with the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Jay Treaty, that resolved several points of contention between the United States and Great Britain that had lingered since the end of the Revolutionary War. It also contained economic clauses. The fact that the United States had already declared neutrality in the conflict between Great Britain and (now revolutionary) France, and that American legislation was being passed for a trade deal with their British enemy, led to French outrage. The French government was also furious over the U.S. refusal to continue repaying its debt to France on the grounds that the debt had been owed to the French Crown, not to Republican France.

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The French navy began seizing American ships trading with Britain and refused to receive a new United States minister when he arrived in Paris in December 1796. In his annual message to Congress at the close of 1797, President John Adams reported on Frances refusal to negotiate and spoke of the need "to place our country in a suitable posture of [2] defense." In April 1798, President Adams informed Congress of the "XYZ Affair", in which French agents demanded a large bribe for the restoration of diplomatic relations with the United States. The French navy inflicted substantial losses on American shipping. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering reported to Congress on June 21, 1797 that the French had seized 316 American merchant ships in the previous eleven months. [citation needed] The hostilities caused insurance rates on American shipping to increase at least 500 percent, since French marauders cruised the length of the U.S. Atlantic seaboard virtually unopposed. The administration had no warships to combat them; the last had been sold in 1785. The United States possessed only a flotilla of small revenue cutters and [3] some neglected coastal forts. Increased depredations by privateers from Revolutionary France required the rebirth of the United States Navy to protect the expanding American merchant shipping. Congress authorized the president to acquire, arm, and man not more than 12 vessels, of up to 22 guns each. Several vessels were immediately purchased and converted into ships of [citation needed] war. July 7, 1798, the date that Congress rescinded treaties with France, is considered the beginning of the Quasi-War. This was followed two days later with the passage of the Congressional authorization to attack French warships. As over 300 American merchantmen had been captured by the French in the previous two years, the US Navy protected convoys and searched for the French. Over the next two years, American vessels posted an incredible record against enemy privateers and warships. During the conflict USS Enterprise captured eight privateers and liberated eleven American merchant ships, while USS Experiment had similar success. On May 11, 1800, Commodore Silas Talbot, aboard USS Constitution, ordered his men to cut out a privateer from Puerto Plata. Led by Lt. Isaac Hull, the sailors took the ship and spiked the guns in the fort. The two most noteworthy battles of the conflict involved the 38-gun frigate USS Constellation. Commanded by Thomas Truxtun, Constellation sighted the 36-gun French frigate L'Insurgente on February 9, 1799. The French ship closed to board, but Truxtun used Constellation's superior speed to maneuver away, raking L'Insurgente with fire. After a brief fight, Capt. M. Barreaut surrendered his ship to Truxtun. Almost a year later, on February 2, 1800, Constellation encountered the 52-gun frigate La Vengeance. Fighting a fivehour battle at night, the French ship was pummeled, but was able to escape in the darkness. The U.S. Navy operated with a battle fleet of about 25 vessels. These patrolled the southern coast of the United States and throughout the Caribbean, seeking French privateers. Captain Thomas Truxtun's insistence on the highest standards of crew training paid dividends as the frigate USS Constellation captured the L'Insurgente and severely damaged La Vengeance. French privateers usually resisted, as did La Croyable, which was captured on July 7, 1798, by the USS Delaware outside of Egg Harbor, New Jersey. The USS Enterprise captured eight privateers and freed 11 American merchant ships from captivity. The USS Experiment captured the French privateers Deux Amis and Diane. Numerous American merchantmen were recaptured by the Experiment. The USS Boston forced Le Berceau into submission. Silas Talbot engineered an expedition to Puerto Plata harbor in the Colony of Santo Domingo, a possession of France's ally Spain, on May 11, 1800; sailors and marines from the USS Constitution under Lieutenant Isaac Hull captured the French privateer Sandwich in the harbor and spiked the guns in the Spanish fort.

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United States Marine escorting French prisoners. Only one U.S Navy vessel was captured by and later recaptured from French forces, the USS Retaliation. She was the captured privateer La Croyable, recently purchased by the U.S. Navy. Retaliation departed Norfolk on October 28, 1798, with Montezuma and Norfolk, and cruised in the West Indies protecting American commerce. On November 20, 1798, the French frigates LInsurgente and Volontaire overtook Retaliation while her consorts were away and forced commanding officer Lieutenant William Bainbridge to surrender the out-gunned schooner. Montezuma and Norfolk escaped after Bainbridge convinced the senior French commander that those American warships were too powerful for his frigates and persuaded him to abandon the chase. Renamed Magicienne by the French, the schooner again came into American hands on June 28, when a broadside from USS Merrimack forced her to haul down her colors. Revenue cutters in the service of the Revenue-Marine, the predecessor to the Coast Guard, also took part in the conflict. The cutter USRC Pickering, commanded by Edward Preble, made two cruises to the West Indies and captured several prizes. Preble turned command of the Pickering over to Benjamin Hillar, and she captured the much larger and more heavily armed French privateer lEgypte Conquise after a nine-hour battle. In September 1800, Hillar, the Pickering, and her entire crew were lost at sea in a storm. Preble commanded the frigate Essex, which he sailed around Cape Horn into the Pacific to protect American merchantmen in the East Indies; he recaptured several ships that had [4][5][6] been seized by French privateers. American naval losses for the war were light, with only one armed U.S. Navy vessel lost to enemy action. However, one source contends that by the war's end in 1800, the French had seized over two thousand American merchant [8] ships. Although they were fighting the same enemy, the Royal Navy and the United States Navy did not cooperate operationally, nor did they share operational plans or come to mutual understandings about deployment of their forces. The British did sell the American government naval stores and munitions. In addition, the two navies shared a system of signals by which each could recognize the others warships at sea and allowed merchantmen of their respective nations to join each other's convoys. The United States Constitution authorized the U.S. Congress to grant letters of marque and reprisal. Between the end of the Revolutionary War and 1812, less than 30 years, Britain, France, Naples, the Barbary States, Spain, and the [12] Netherlands seized approximately 2,500 American ships. Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states [13] amounted to 20% of United States government annual revenues in 1800, and would lead the United States to crush the Barbary states in the Barbary Wars. During the War of 1812, the British attacked Essex, Connecticut, and burned the ships in the harbor, due to the construction of a number of privateers. This was the greatest financial loss of the entire War of 1812 suffered by the Americans. The US was not one of the initial signatories of 1856 Declaration of Paris, which outlawed privateering, and the Confederate Constitution authorized use of privateers. However, the USA did offer to adopt the terms of the Declaration during the American Civil War, when the Confederates sent several privateers to sea before putting their main effort in the more effective commissioned raiders. No letter of marque has been legitimately issued by the United States since the nineteenth century. The status of submarine hunting Goodyear airships in the early days of the second world war has created significant confusion. According to one story, the United States Navy issued a Letter of Marque to the Airship Resolute on the West Coast of the United States at the beginning of World War II, making it the first time the US Navy commissioned a privateer since [14] the War of 1812. This story, along with various other accounts referring to the airships Resolute and Volunteer as operating under a "privateer status", is highly dubious. Since neither the Congress nor did the President appear to have [15] authorized a privateer during the war, the Navy would not have had the authority to do so by itself.
[7]

A Modern History of the International Legal Definition of Piracy

PENNY CAMPBELL

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The definition of piracy is discussed at length. . . . It suffices here to give advance warning of the great variety of opinions as to the scope of the term and to emphasize the important difference between piracy in the sense of the law of nations and piracy under municipal law.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

This cautious introduction to the Harvard Draft Convention on Piracy, written in 1932 by some of Americas most eminent jurists, shows just how important they thought varying definitions of piracy could be.1 This warning holds as true today as it did then. For example, the International Maritime Bureaus (IMB) Piracy Reporting Center reported a total of 263 acts or attempted acts against shipping in 2007, an overall increase of approximately 10 percent over the previous year.2 Over the same reporting period, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) received 282 reports of attacks or attempted attacks, which was a 17 percent increase over the previous year.3 Meanwhile, the more Asiafocused group Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) reported that the piracy and armed robbery situation in Asia had improved significantly in the last year with a reduction in the total number of reported incidents from 135 in 2006 to 100 in 2007. Which report is correct? Could they all be correct? Given piracys obvious importance, it is surprising that there remains little or no agreement on how many attacks occur every year. Different definitions also produce different estimates of losses due to piracy. While many contemporary sources would appear to agree that piracy costs the international shipping community many billions of dollars per year, it has been extremely difficult to identify or capture all costs associated with this illegal activity; for example, the International Chamber of Commerce loosely estimates the cost of piracy to world trade at US$16 billion annually, of which four billion is attributable solely to attacks in the Malacca Strait.5 There are many reasons for these wide discrepancies in numbers of attacks and total losses, not the least of them that many piratical acts are simply never reported to authorities. However, another key reason, and the focus of this chapter, is that arriving at a common definition of piracy under international law can sometimes present just as much a challenge as combating it in the first place. As a result, acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea can be reported very differently, depending on the legal definitions applied. Piracy as a Universal Crime Sui Generis Pirates are peculiarly obnoxious because they maraud upon the open seas, the great highway of all maritime nations. So heinous is the offence considered, so difficult are such offenders to apprehend, and so universal is the interest in their prompt arrest and punishment, they have long been regarded as outlaws and the enemies of all mankind. Because of this link between a violent act committed on the great highway of all maritime nations and the view that the seas are beyond the jurisdiction of any one state, piracy has long been regarded as a universal crimethat is, as sui generis. In the Lotus decision in 1927, the Permanent Court of International Justice recognized that piracy was a crime against the law of nations. The Permanent Court had been asked to adjudicate on whether Turkey could exercise criminal jurisdiction over the Lotuss French officer of the watch for a collision with a Turkish steamer on the high seas. In seeking to deny Turkey jurisdiction over the matter, France argued that the flag state of the vessel had exclusive jurisdiction over the incident.7 The Permanent Court rejected this argument but reaffirmed the elemental principle that all nationsand hence their flagged vesselshave equal rights to the uninterrupted use of the unappropriated parts of the ocean for their navigation, a view harking back to the seventeenth-century Grotian dictum of the freedom of the high seas. The only exception to this freedom in peacetime was in the case of piracy or extraordinary cases of selfdefense: Piracy by law of nations, noted the court, in its jurisdictional aspects, is sui generis.8 While some aspects of the courts decision were controversial at the time, no eminent jurist challenged its characterization of piracy as sui generisan offense against the law of all nations. The reasoning behind this characterization dates back to 1608, when the Dutch lawyer Hugo Grotius published Mare Liberum [Freedom of the Seas]. In it he argued that as the seas are vast and fluid, they cannot be controlled or defended by any state against another in the same way that land territory can be. As a state generally has the means to defend its immediate coastal waters, it thus has the ability to exercise jurisdiction over a narrow coastal belt of sea. But beyond that limited range, Grotius 20 THE NEWPORT PAPERS argued, all states should enjoy free access to the high seas and be denied exclusive jurisdiction over them. Accordingly, any illegal acts such as piracy committed on the high seas must likewise be beyond the jurisdiction of one state. Instead, jurisdiction over a piratical act is vested in all states. This notion of universal jurisdiction is a unique concept in international law. International law usually allows states to exercise jurisdiction over their own territories or over crimes committed by their own nationals wherever committed. In all other cases, a states ability to exercise jurisdiction over another states territory or nationals is extremely limited. Piracy, however, is an exception by which the jurisdiction of a states municipal law is permitted to extend over the high seas and over any national, because by engaging in an act of piracy the pirate has placed himself beyond the protection of any state. As the perpetrator of an act contrary to international law, a pirate will find himself treated as an outlaw, an enemy of all mankind, hostis humani generis. Thus, for both practical and theoretical reasons, any state may, in the interest of all,

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take appropriate action against that perpetrator. However, defining exactly what constitutes a piratical act has never been easy, and it was centuries before a single definition was accepted. Moving Toward a Single Definition of Piracy In the early years of the twentieth century, when the international community was moving toward codifying aspects of international law, piracy was just one of a number of subjects that seemed worthy of international regulation. In 1927, the same year as the Lotus case, a subcommittee report of the League of Nations found that the unsettled state of the concept of piracy was due to failure to distinguish between piracy in its international legal sense and piracy as proscribed under the municipal laws and statutes of individual states. Agreeing to an international definition of piracy meant limiting each and every states jurisdiction over piracy, as a universal crime, to that conduct reflecting alland onlythose elements. The problem with maritime crimes on the high seas as defined by international law is that international law has no means of trying or punishing them. That body of law merely provides a generally accepted definition under which one state may act to suppress or punish piracy without condemnation from another state for acting out of turn. Of course, there is nothing to prevent states from incorporating the international-law definition into their municipal criminal codes, including any variations they might desire from that internationally agreed definition, provided they do not then exercise that municipal jurisdiction within an international setting. In 1927, the League of Nations subcommittee reported that piracy consists in sailing the seas for private ends without authorization from the Government of any State with the object of committing depredations upon property or acts of violence against persons. Nevertheless, despite this fairly concise view, the report concluded that it would be preferable for the Committee to adopt a clear definition of piracy applicable to all States in virtue of international law in general. Though it had now been established in an international tribunal that piracy constitutes a crime against the law of all nations, it was usually under municipal law that a piratical act would be prosecuted. Sometimes a domestic court was asked to consider the international, rather than the domestic, legal position on piracy. This was the case when in 1934, following a superiorand ultimateHong Kong Supreme Court decision, the United Kingdoms Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was asked whether actual robbery formed an essential element of the offense of piracy in international law. The Hong Kong Court had concluded it did. In arriving at the opposite conclusion, the Privy Council conceded that in embarking upon international law it had been to a great extent in the realm of opinion and permitted itself to select what appear to be the better views upon the question.12 Their lordships canvassed earlier judgments, including the sheet anchor decision of Dawson, for those that considered sea robbery as piracy. Equating sea robbery with piracy, however, results in a definition both too wide and too narrow. Too wide, because it would be ludicrous to contemplate a situation where, the court suggested, one cruiseline passenger committing a petty theft against another could be guilty of a crime carrying the death penalty; such an act would not be considered piracy under the modern definition in any event, as the act was committed within the one ship, and not by one vessel against another. Too narrow, because many a heinous crime could be committed on the high seas, and it would be an anathema to the law of nations if such an act were considered piracy only if the perpetrator stole, say, an article worth sixpence. The Privy Council ultimately concluded that the definition of piracy had gradually widened over the centuries, in part because international law is a living and expanding code. At about the same time that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council determined that actual robbery is not an essential element of piracy, the Supreme Court of the Philippines arrived at a contrary view. In People v. Lol-Lo and Saraw, the Court found that piracy was robbery and that because piracy had no jurisdictional limits, it could be committed within the jurisdictional three-mile limit of a coastal state. Such a conclusion was based more on an interpretation of the Spanish penal code than on a proper examination of international law.14 In any event, the Court referred to the opinion of Grotius that piracy by the law of nations is the same thing as piracy by the civil law, and he [Grotius] has never been disputed. Obviously, a states domestic law would seek to extend the principle of territorial jurisdiction over its nationals, and this has often had the effect of broadening the international law definition of piracy. For example, in English common law until the mid-fourteenth century, piracy was punishable as a petit treason if committed by a subject and as a felony if committed by a foreigner. Likewise, the Slave Trade Act of 1825 provided that British subjects who carried or conveyed a person on board a ship for the purpose of bringing him or her as a slave to any place would be guilty of piracy. It is entirely appropriate for the municipal interpretation of piracy in its international sense to incorporate these other elements, but those laws would only be valid as against the states own nationals or against foreigners committing the wider category of piratical acts within that states territory. It would not enable a state to seek to exercise the universal jurisdiction of piracy sui generis on the high seas against a foreigner. From the early twentieth century onward, there was no common understanding among nations on the basic definition of piracy at the domestic level. The only thing that virtually all nations agreed on was that piracy was an international crime granting them universal jurisdiction. In 1932, a committee put together by Harvard University tried to resolve these fundamental differences in definition. The Harvard Draft

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In 1932, the Harvard Research Group, a group of American academics headed by Professor Joseph Bingham of Stanford University, met to address these weighty piracy questions. In a voluntary undertaking, they produced a draft convention, widely referred to as simply the Harvard Draft, that contained nineteen articles on piracy, with associated commentary.17 The Harvard Draft is noteworthy for two main reasons. First, it was an impressive undertaking, analyzing the contemporary views of piracy as espoused by numerous municipal courts and eminent jurists. It thus provides an excellent snapshot of the concept of piracy at that time. Second, and perhaps more important, the Harvard Draft became a foundational text for the piracy provisions ultimately agreed to in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. For these reasons, it is illuminating to consider it carefully. The first article of the Harvard Draft deals with jurisdiction. Article 1 sets the framework for the draft convention, affirming that in this context jurisdiction is that granted to states by international law, not by states to themselves in a domestic sphere. Article 1 also defines the high seas as any part of the sea not included in the territorial waters of any state. Article 3 of the draft is as follows: Piracy is any of the following acts, committed in a place not within the territorial jurisdiction of any state: 1. Any act of violence or of depredation committed with intent to rob, rape, wound, enslave, imprison, or kill a person or with intent to steal or destroy property, for private ends without bona fide purposes of asserting a claim of right, provided that the act is connected with an attack on or from the sea or in or from the air. If the act is connected with an attack which starts from on board ship, either that ship or another ship which is involved must be a pirate ship or a ship without national character. 2. Any act or voluntary participation in the operation of a ship with knowledge of facts which make it a pirate ship. 3. Any act of instigation or of intentional facilitation of an act described in paragraph 1 or paragraph 2 of this article.18 There are some important elements in this definition of piracy. First, it should be noted that the Harvard Group agreed with the Privy Council that an intention to rob (animus furandi) is not an essential element of the offense. However, if an act at sea is to constitute piracy, it must involve some element of violence or depredation. Second, an act of violence at sea can only be considered to be piracy if it is committed for private ends. This requirement has caused much debate and continues to have repercussions for states seeking to exercise universal jurisdiction over particular acts at sea. The term private ends is not defined, but it seems in this context that the Harvard Research Group intended to draw a distinction between acts committed by unrecognized insurgents against a foreign government who have pretended to exercise belligerent rights on the sea against neutral commerce or privateers whose commissions violated the announced policy of the captor and those by offenders acting for private ends only.19 In the modern context, the phrase for private ends is usually interpreted to distinguish piracy from state-sponsored violence or from terrorism, which is considered to have ideological, not private, ends. Third, piracy occurs only when the act is committed on or from the sea or in or from the air against a ship. Thus, an uprising by a crew against its own ship and master cannot be considered piracy, as it is not directed from one ship against another. This would be classified as the crime of mutiny, which would not qualify as a crime against mankind, punishable by all states. The label of piracy, however, would attach if the successful mutineers then set out to devote the ship to accomplishment of further acts of violence or depredation.20 The requirement thatmore than one ship be involved is due to the insistence on some international factual element in the definition of piracy in order to exclude from the definition those offenses that involve only ships and territory under the ordinary jurisdiction of a single state. The inclusion of an implied reference to aircraft in the Harvard Draft is curious, especially noting the long association of piracy as a maritime crime. Often, international law is criticized for not keeping up with the changing needs of states or reflecting developments in technology. Conscious of the requirement to look to the future, the Harvard Research Group noted that with rapid advance in the arts of flying and airsailing, it may not be long before bands of malefactors, who now confine their efforts to land, will find it profitable to engage in depredations in or from the air beyond territorial jurisdiction. Thus, attacks from the air were included for reasons of foresight; the Harvard Draft was not necessarily to reflect only cases raised by present conditions of business, the arts, and criminal operations. However, perhaps because blimps and zeppelins never caught on, the article has been condemned as a virtually useless provision; when applied to fixed-wing aviation, the practicalities involved in committing an act of violence from one aircraft against another make it something which defies the imagination unless one of the aircraft is totally destroyed.23 In the modern context, violent acts by one aircraft against anotheraircraft would probably be dealt with under relevant aviation conventions and not treated under the rubric of piracy. Finally, and perhaps most important in the current geopolitical environment, under this legal definition piracy can only occur on the high seas. The importance of the reference to high seas has particular relevance in article 101 of the

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1982 UN convention,because areas that were deemed high seas in 1932 had ceased to be characterized as such some fifty years later. A casual read of any IMO piracy or armed-robbery report will reveal that many more violent acts against shipping are committed in internal or territorial waters than on the high seas. The legal definition of piracy, therefore, can determine which nation has the relevant jurisdiction or obligation to act to prevent and punish those acts. Modern Definition under Law of the Sea Conventions During the early 1950s, the International Law Commission was tasked by the UN General Assembly to review the customary international law of the sea with a view to proposing conventions to the international community. In preparing the articles on piracy, the commission was greatly assisted by the work of the Harvard Research Group and was generally able to endorse the findings of that research.24 The International Law Commission drafted four conventions on various aspects of the law of the sea. These and the piracy articles ultimately agreed to in the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas introduced some new elements into the definition of the term.25 For example, article 15 of the 1958 convention stated: Piracy consists of any of the following acts: (1) Any illegal acts of violence, detention or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed: (a) On the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft; (b) Against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State; (2) Any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft; (3) Any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph (1) or subparagraph (2) of this article. The first part of the definition of piracy was slightly more simple than the Harvard Draft, requiring only that the act constitute any acts of violence, detention or any act of depredation. These acts were not further defined. Subparagraph (1) introduced two new concepts. The first was that piracy could only be committed by the crew or passengers of a private ship or private aircraftexcluding, therefore, acts committed by a government ship or warship or government aircraft or warplanes. The International Law Commission was firmly of the view that piracy could be committed only by private vessels and that to assimilate unlawful acts committed by warships to acts of piracy would be prejudicial to the interests of the international community.26 Indeed, article 16 of the 1958 convention stresses the point that acts of piracy as previously defined, if committed by a warship, government ship or government aircraft whose crew has mutinied and taken control of the ship or aircraft[,] are assimilated to acts committed by a private ship. By removing piratical mutineers from the main definition of piracy and placing the definition in article 16, the convention strengthened the two-shipor two-aircraftrequirement. Piracy will only occur when the relevant violent act originates in one vessel and is directed at another. An act of mutiny in itself would not qualify as piracy, unless those mutineers go on to take action, for private ends, against another ship. The second new concept in subparagraph (1) was the introduction of the illegal. The word, which necessarily could be taken to imply that there existed acts of legalized violence on the high seas, was highly controversial. It is difficult to envisage legal forms of violence committed by private ships. Of course, the laws of armed conflict permit warships to exercise belligerent rights in times of conflict, but stricter limits on the methods and means of warfare could render some belligerent acts illegal. The commentary in the report of the International Law ommission noted the existence of the 1937 Nyon Arrangement, which condemned the sinking of a merchant vessel by submarines as a piratical act, but the commission denied that this indicated a change to the legal position that piracy could be committed only by private ships. The commission noted the complexity of dealing with violent acts committed by warships or rival governments in a civil war, suggesting that there was no need to go beyond granting all states a general right to repress piracy perpetrated by private ships. Nevertheless, it seems clear that the introduction of the word illegal was intended to preserve the illegality of some naval acts of violence characterized as such under different treaties, such as the Nyon Arrangement. Attempts to have the word illegal removed in the negotiating conferences for the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea were defeated.29 The term illegal remains to this day. There are few duties imposed in the 1958 convention. Notably, article 14 of the convention calls on all states to co-operate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State. Note, however, that the duty on states is to co-operate, not to act, in the prosecution or prevention of piratical acts. Such a duty would be too onerous and would run the risk that another state might seek to initiate proceedings if the first failed to act in a positive manner.

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The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 Although the International Law Commission contended that it had to consider certain controversial points, the definition of piracy it ultimately drafted was adopted, virtually word for word, in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS). UNCLOS was opened for signature in 1982 and came into force on 16 November 1994. While the contemporary legal definition of piracy as expounded in article 101 of UNCLOS is arguably representative of the position in international law, it is not without its difficulties. It has been argued that some of the limiting features of UNCLOS have been derived from bias or errors contained in the Harvard Draft.30 For example, the definition in article 101 mirrors article 15 in the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas, which relied in turn mainly on the Harvard Draft.While that definition was the result of much compromise and debate in the negotiating conferences of the 1958 convention, it seems to have received little attention during the Third Conference on the Law of the Sea, which produced the draft text of UNCLOS. Indeed, of the sixty declarations or reservations made by states parties to UNCLOS, none dealt with piracy. However, other important law of the sea concepts debated during the three conferences did influence the effect of the piracy definition. As noted above, piracy can be considered as such only if it occurs on the high seas. Confusingly, UNCLOS has two definitions of high seas.One refers to those waters beyond the seaward limits of a coastal states territorial seathat is, typically beyond twelve nautical miles from a coastal states baselines. The other, supported by article 86 of the convention, is that high seas refers to all parts of the sea that are not included in the exclusive economic zone, in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State, or in the archipelagic waters of an archipelagic State. This ambiguity arises because certain so-called high-seas freedoms are enjoyed by all states in other states exclusive economic zones (EEZs)such as to exercise freedom of navigation and to lay submarine cables. This potential legal vacuum covering piratical acts on certain parts of the high seas is resolved by article 58(2), which states that articles 88 to 115, which cover piracy, and other pertinent rules of international law apply to the exclusive economic zone insofar as they are not incompatible with Part V of UNCLOS, which deals with the exploration and exploitation of resources. Thus, piracy is a relevant act committed on the high seas as measured from the seaward limit of a states territorial sea, now generally recognized as twelve nautical miles from shore. The importance of the definition of high seas lies in the historical and legal lessening of the high-seas area. The increasing demands of coastal states over their adjacent waters led UNCLOS to recognize exclusive economic zones extending up to two hundred nautical miles from a coastline. The area of high seas available for the freedom of all was vastly shrinking. Arguably, the stage on which pirates could act was likewise diminishing. The jurisdiction of coastal states over violent acts committed against shipping near their coastlines was extending to a degree directly proportional to the decreasing sphere of international jurisdiction over those sui generis acts. The import of this definition is that certain acts against shipping that had previously been in the jurisdiction of all states now became mere criminal or civil offenses under the coastal states municipal laws. The obligation on other states to cooperate in the repression of piracy would not lead automatically to an obligation to assist in maritime law enforcement tasks within territorial waters.32 As of 1 January 2008, 155 countries were parties to the 1982 convention, giving it near universal ratification. Notably, the United States is not a party;33 recent government announcements (in the previous and current administrations) suggest that this may soon change. Nevertheless, the sheer weight of numbers now provides strong support to the view that the conventions provisions are representative of the customary international law of the sea and definition of piracy. However, it is not the only definition in common use in the international shipping community. Other International Legal Definitions There is no organization under UNCLOS that is dedicated to monitoring or preventing piracy. In some UNCLOS provisions, though not in those relating to piracy, there is mention of a competent international organization.35 It is widely accepted that this is a reference to the IMO, a UN specialized agency that predates UNCLOS. In its regulatory role of shipping, maritime security, and safety, the IMO has also taken an interest in piracy. The IMO refers to both piracy and sea robbery in its reports. It uses the UNCLOS definition of piracy, but it defines armed robbery against ships as any unlawful act of violence or detention or any act of depredation, or threat thereof, other than an act of piracy, directed against a ship or against persons or property on board such ship, within a States jurisdiction over such offences.36 The IMO has urged governments to cooperate with each other and the IMB with a view to combating maritime fraud in a coordinated manner.37 The International Maritime Bureau, in turn, is a specialized division of the International Chamber of Commerce. It thus has a very commercial focus, and as maritime crime can have a huge financial impact on the worlds shipping community, in 1992 it created a dedicated Piracy Reporting Center. For statistical purposes the IMB chooses not to use the relatively narrow UNCLOS definition of piracy. Instead, it speaks collectively of Piracy and Armed Robbery, which it defines as an act of boarding or attempting to board any ship with the apparent intent to commit theft or any other crime and with the apparent intent or capability to use force in the furtherance of that

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act.38 It is clear that this definition will cover any act of violence against a ship, whether that vessel is berthed in internal waters or under way on the high seas. The definition thus crosses the jurisdictional boundary of international and domestic law. Commercial interests affect the definition of piracy in yet another way. Various court decisions seem to indicate that the international and relevant municipal legal definitions of piracy are not applicable to cases involving the interpretation of marine insurance provisions. In a United Kingdom decision in 1909, for example, the court held that an attack on a government vessel transiting up the Amazon River was not piracy. From a strictly international-law position, one would have to agree. But in finding that the particular marine insurance policy did not cover this attack, the court held that the word pirates . . . must be construed in the popular sense and in a way businessmen would generally understand it. The cumulative effect of the various legal definitions of piracyboth in international treaties and domestic legislationand of the working definitions adopted by international agencies and marine insurers has been the broadening of both the geographical and jurisdictional standing of certain violent acts against shipping. There are a large number of commercial and political reasons for this broadening, including to pressure certain nations to improve their law enforcement efforts, especially in harbors and ports. However, the plethora of competing definitions of piracy has also obfuscated the true extent of the problem, often making piracy look worse than it really is. Legal Conclusions of the anti piracy law development The accepted international legal definition of piracy has changed little from the Harvard Draft of 1932. Even recent Security Council Resolutions dealing with piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia have not changed the accepted legal definition of piracy as it is understood in UNCLOS. But as the maritime commercial environment and the modus operandi of sea bandits, however defined, have changed, the international community has responded by adopting various working definitions of these threats against shipping, the better to combat them. Changing a definition in an international document like UNCLOS is an onerous and protracted business. From a legal perspective, an international convention codifying the international law of piracy is not to unify throughout the various municipal laws of piracy, nor to provide uniform measures for punishing pirates, but to define this extraordinary basis of state jurisdiction over offences committed by foreigners against foreign interests outside the territorial and other ordinary jurisdiction of the prosecuting state.40 Nevertheless, the maritime community seems destined to have to balance several definitions of piracy. Choice of a definition can mean the difference between the ability to obtain marine insurance coverage, successful prosecution in a domestic court, or international cooperation in such things as piracy patrols through the Malacca Strait. As the following case studies show, context will determine whether the courts (either domestic or international), the boardroom, the Security Council, or the popular media will ultimately prevail in this ongoing process

Sections of the Reports of the IMO Secretary-General Addressing Piracy

Year Document Title 2010 Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to Security Council resolution 1897 (2009) 2010 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea Symbol S/2010/556 A/65/69/Add.2 Relevant Paragraph Pages Full report 97-122 Full report Full report 24-29 Full report

2010 Report of the Secretary-General on possible options to further the aim S/2010/394 of prosecuting and imprisoning persons responsible for acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea off the coast of Somalia, including, in particular, options for creating special domestic chambers possibly with international components, a regional tribunal or an international tribunal and corresponding imprisonment arrangements, taking into account the work of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, the existing practice in establishing international and mixed tribunals, and the time and resources necessary to achieve and sustain substantive results 2010 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea 2009 Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to Security Council resolution 1846 (2008) 2009 Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to Security Council resolution 1846 (2008) A/65/69 S/2009/590 S/2009/146

128-134 Full report Full report

38-40 Full report Full report

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2009 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea (Addendum) 2009 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea 2008 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea (Addendum) 2008 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea 2007 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea (Addendum) 2007 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea 2006 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea (Addendum) 2006 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea 2005 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea (Addendum) 2005 Report of the Secretary-General on Oceans and the law of the sea 2004 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea (Addendum) 2004 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea 2003 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea (Addendum) 2003 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea 2002 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea 2001 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea (Addendum) 2001 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea 2000 Report of the Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea

A/64/66/Add.1 A/64/66 A/63/63/Add.1 A/63/63 A/62/66/Add.1 A/62/66 A/61/63/Add.1 A/61/63 A/60/63/Add.2 A/60/63 A/59/62/Add.1 A/59/62 A/58/65/Add.1 A/58/65 A/57/57 A/56/58/Add.1 A/56/58 A/55/61

119-129 128-134 95-101 54-62, 114-160 103-105 86-89 71-76 102-105 52-53 94-98 88-91 163-166 53-56 108 142-155 63-66 174-223 96-102

31-36 38-40 28-29 18-20, 33-44 27-28 29-30 24-25 30-31 17-18 27-28 26-27 41-42 17-18 35 27-30 11 35-43 20-21

Reports of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea focusing, inter alia, on piracy
Year Document Title 2008 Report on the work of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea at its ninth meeting 2001 Report on the work of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea at its second meeting Symbol A/63/174 Topic(s) of Focus of the Meeting

and Corr.1. ''Maritime Security and

Safety'' (a) Marine science and the development and transfer of marine technology as mutually agreed, including capacity-building in this regard; (b) Coordination and cooperation in combating piracy and armed robbery at sea;

A/56/121

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Earlier Punishment

A flyer describing the public execution of 16th century pirate Klein Henszlein and his crew.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, once pirates were caught, justice was meted out in a summary fashion, and many ended their lives by "dancing the hempen jig", or hanging at the end of a rope. Public execution was a form of entertainment at the time, and people came out to watch them as they would to a sporting event today. Newspapers were glad to report every detail, such as recording the condemned men's last words, the prayers said by the priests for their immortal souls, and their final agonizing moments on the gallows. In England most of these executions took place at Execution Dock on the River Thames in London. In the cases of more famous prisoners, usually captains their punishments extended beyond death. Their bodies were enclosed in iron cages (for which they were measured before their execution) and left to swing in the air until the flesh rotted off them- a process that could take as long as two years. The bodies of captains [42] such as William Kidd, Charles Vane, William Fly, and Jack Rackham were all treated this way.

Pirate Economics
A 2011 report published by Geopolicity Inc, investigated the causes and consequences of international piracy, with a particular focus on piracy emanating from Somalia. The report asserts that piracy is an emerging market in its own right, valued at between US$4.98.3 billion in 2010 alone, and it establishes, for the first time, an economic model for assessing the costs and benefits of international piracy. This model provides a comprehensive, independent framework of trend analysis, whilst also highlighting where the greatest rates of return on international counter pirate investment and policy are to be found across what Geopolicity term the Pirate Value Chain. The report states that the number of pirates could double by 2016, increasing by 400 each year. This is being fuelled by attractive financial incentives with Somali pirates earning up to US$79,000/year; equating to almost 150 times their countrys national average wage. The pirate economics is characterized by extremely efficient cash flow and utilization and very low entry fees it needs funds not in excess of USD 20,000 ~ 30,000 to start a pirate operation and the rewards within 2 ~3 months is about in excess of 2 ~ 3 million dollars. Pirates operate in groups of 25 ~ 30 people quite a few being family members or close friends. The lowest member of the gang makes about 12000.00 ~ 16000.00 in earning where in a country ravaged by war and famine there is very little alternative and thus a motivation for the pirate of abandon their manhunt.

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Arguments against taking by piracy as profitable venture.

The Orions are the last people to claim that robbing space vessels is a profitable operation. In fact, it is one of the most uncertain and unprofitable of all occupations. Misjudging a ship's defenses can kill a crew and getting caught by an armed warship is almost certain death. Occasional pirates are not as skilled as those who dedicate all their time to the work, but traders and military forces soon come to recognize professionals on sight. Piracy is a peculiar kind of marginal work. Profit is only half the draw; the other half is the fun and notoriety. The higher proportion of cargoes lost to pirates are ultimately resold in Orion or neutral markets for credits, gold-pressed latinum, dilithium, radioactives, or other small valuable commodities that may be transported from planet to planet without leaving a telltale trail or taking up a lot of cargo space. Pirates rarely take cargoes at random, and organized bands out of a single base have 'shopping lists' of particular ships and cargoes for plundering. Such cargoes may have been ordered from a particular buyer who does not wish to pay full price or deal through normal, legitimate channels. A speculating pirate may be anticipating a demand or stockpiling against an expected dry spell. The pirates are expected to et the requested swag and bring it back to base, where they are paid according to prearranged percentage. Pirates do not get the full value of the cargoes they take. The people who resell them have to take a percentage, and the buyers would not handle stolen goods unless it was substantially cheaper than market price. The ultimate market value of a stolen cargo is about 50 percent of the price that a similar, unstolen cargo would fetch on the open market, and of that amount, the pirates would get about a third. Small wonder that quite a few pirates work on their own, in spite of the uncertainty of repair and shifts in the market (not to mention the chance of encountering a warship). Freelancers might get to keep up to 35 percent of the cost of the goods taken. Of course, the drawback is that this amount must pay for crew replacements, repairs, the other normal costs of starship operation, and operating reserve to get them through the lean and bad times. Every act of piracy puts crew, ship, and captain on the line. Rarely does everything work out right, but the vessel that cannot rise above minor equipment failures and occasional disputes with the crew (not to mention unplanned suprises

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on board their victim) is just not going to make it in piracy. Every one who tries to rob another vessel in space had better expect the unexpected and prepare for the unanticipated. Managing a criminal enterprise that depends on high technology and violence is tricky. There can be no room for those who forget their orders when weapons come out and they start blasting. Operating costs are high and unpredictable, and they may exceed the value of any cargo. Every operation is a potential total loss-which is why the single most important factor to success is the ability of the captain. The captain has the arduous task of simultaneously guiding a raid and calculating its costs in men and equipment. Where the cargo is known and the value calculable, this is easy, but for many pirates, the nature of the cargo may be known only generally. Based on expenses a strike can or needs to be completed. Experience is often the captain's only guide. If his guess is wrong, he must retreat, knowing (as the crew knows) that a cost has been paid that will not be recovered. Independents worry about failed attacks more than contractors do. This sometimes makes them cautious, sometimes makes them reckless, but always interferes with judgment and threatens the success of an operation. Small wonder that successful independents are a much sought after commodity-or that unsuccessful ones have a high mortality rate.

Ancient pirate traditions

Pirates had a system of hierarchy on board their ships determining how captured money was distributed. However, pirates were more "egalitarian" than any other area of employment at the time. In fact pirate quartermasters were a counterbalance to the captain and had the power to veto his orders. The majority of plunder was in the form of cargo and ship's equipment with medicines the most highly prized. A vessel's doctor's chest would be worth anywhere from 300 to 400, or around $470,000 in today's values. Jewels were common plunder but not popular as they were hard to sell, and pirates, unlike the public of today, had little concept of their value. There is one case recorded where a pirate was given a large diamond worth a great deal more than the value of the handful of small diamonds given his 34 crewmates as a share. He felt cheated and had it broken up to match what they received. Spanish pieces of eight minted in Mexico or Seville were the standard trade currency in the American colonies. However, every colony still used the monetary units of pounds, shillings and pence for bookkeeping while Spanish, German, French and Portuguese money were all standard mediums of exchange as British law prohibited the export of British silver coinage. Until the exchange rates were standardised in the late 18th century each colony legislated its own different exchange rates. In England, 1 piece of eight was worth 4s 3d while it was worth 8s in New York, 7s 6d in Pennsylvania and 6s 8d in Virginia. One 18th century English shilling was worth around $58 in modern currency so a piece of eight could be worth anywhere from $246 to $465. As such, the value of pirate plunder could vary considerably depending on who recorded it and where Ordinary seamen received a part of the plunder at the captain's discretion but usually a single share. On average, a pirate could expect the equivalent of a year's wages as his share from each ship captured while the crew of the most successful pirates would often each receive a share valued at around 1,000 ($1.17 million) at least once in their 34 career. One of the larger amounts taken from a single ship was that by captain Thomas Tew from an Indian merchantman in 1692. Each ordinary seaman on his ship received a share worth 3,000 ($3.5 million) with officers receiving proportionally larger amounts as per the agreed shares with Tew himself receiving 2 shares. It is known there were actions with multiple ships captured where a single share was worth almost double this By contrast, an ordinary seamen in the Royal Navy received 19s per month to be paid in a lump sum at the end of a tour of duty which was around half the rate paid in the Merchant Navy. However, corrupt officers would often "tax" their crews' wage to supplement their own and the Royal Navy of the day was infamous for its reluctance to pay. From this wage, 6d per month was deducted for the maintenance of Greenwich Hospital with similar amounts deducted for the Chatham Chest, the chaplain and surgeon. Six months' pay was withheld to discourage desertion. That this was insufficient incentive is revealed in a report on proposed changes to the RN Admiral Nelson wrote in 1803; he noted that since 1793 more than 42,000 sailors had deserted. Roughly half of all RN crews were pressganged and these not only

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received lower wages than volunteers but were shackled while the vessel was docked and were never permitted to go ashore until released from service. Pirates are often romanticized; Forbes magazine has recently listed historys top-earning pirates, including Samuel Black Sam Bellamy at US$120 million (2008 dollars), Sir Francis Drake at US$115 million, and Thomas Tew at US$103 million.More famous pirates, like Edward Teach (Blackbeard), came in far down the list, at tenth place, with only US$12.5 million

Modern day reality:- Somali pirates are carefree, they drive in expensive SUVs and international forces
warn you to steer clear their waters. Libaan Jaama ( pirate) feels sorry for his friends, five men who died when their boat capsized off Somalia. Jaama, who seizes boats in the Gulf of Aden, undoubtedly feels sorry about the 3.5 million dollar ransom which his pirate group received for the Sirius Star tanker. The ransom was lost when the unfortunate group`s boat turned over.Jaama told CNN reporter how they lost the money and how he lost his friends.The ransom for the Libyan Sirius Star tanker was dropped from a plane, and Somali pirates left the tanker upon receiving the money, - Other pirates on the shore wanted a tip from the pirates on the Sirius Star, so they started to fire in the air as our people approached the land. When our pirates heard the shots, they thought they would be robbed, so they tried to return to the tanker. In that quick turn the boat capsized Jaama told CNN. Super tanker Sirius Star was seized nearly two months ago, while the first ransom the pirates demanded amounted to 25 million dollars. Jaama probably met a Croat, Polls, Britons and Filipinos who were included in the 23-manned crew of the tanker, through the kidnapper-hostage relationship. We drive in white SUVs - We have the best way of life Jaama continued. - We drive in white SUVs, we enjoy driving them and there is absolutely no difficulty in our life the clearly satisfied pirate said in an interview which might serve as criticism to all who try to restrain pirates` threats. It seems nobody wants to bite off the snake`s head, whose tail are pirates. Modern-day pirates are becoming a global issue when it comes to security and economy because losses brought on directly by pirate attacks on a global scale, are estimated to 13 to 16 billion dollars each year. Seeing how a large, if not the biggest part of international transport occurs at sea and oceans, the problem of modern-day pirates worries nearly all world big (economy) powers.
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Modern piracy, just like a parasite, goes hand in hand with Third World poor countries, where it bases its success on the fact that these countries do not have a well-developed legal system or, which is what suits the pirates most, they are ruled by anarchy. Anarchy in Somalia fruitful soil for the modern-day piracy virus This is the case with Somalia, a country without a central governing body (apart from the Transitional Federal government, which does not govern the entire territory of Somalia or the capital), located at an exceptionally favourable location, as far as piracy goes. Somalia stretches along the entire Horn of Africa in the North, situated in the Gulf of Aden, a part of the Indian Ocean which connects with the Red Sea. The Red Sea connects with the Suez in the North and the Mediterranean. Cleary, this is a route with plenty of transport, packing with overseas transporters and a highly profitable destination of the Somali pirates. Seeing how the Federal government shares power with the Alliance of Islam courts, anarchy rules in Somalia and its capital Mogadishu, aided by local leaders with their private, well-armed armies which implement laws, regardless of the governing authority. Such army leaders are mostly financed by piracy and finance the pirates most. Fishermen fish men, but not in the Biblical sense Pirates in Somalia were primarily anglers, but since the start of the 90s and the Ethiopian invasion, which is when anarchy was introduced, they began to protect their waters and gradually, seeing how piracy pays off (international trans-ocean transport companies pay ransom for their ships and crew in most cases), they focused of piracy exclusively. Such pirates do their job using fast and small speedboats with a crew of some ten pirates, because seizing automatic and poorly protected big cargo ships does not require more man power. A higher rate of Somali pirate attacks happened just before the Ethiopian invasion in 2006, with the first big seizure occurring in January, when the pirates abducted a ship with 16 Indians aboard, but the attempt fell through because American naval forces intervened, intercepted and liberated the ship. In 2007, the pirates took over the Danish MV Danica White cargo ship. After a failed attempt to take back the ship, the crew and both the ship spent 83 days in captivity, but were released as the ship-owner paid the ransom of 1.5 million dollars. In February 2008, pirates seized another Danish ship, together with her crew, but freed them after a month and paid ransom of 700,000 dollars. The same year, the MY Le Ponant was taken, sailing through the Gulf of Aden with 30 crewmembers. After the ransom was paid, the crew was released and French forces apprehended and arrested the pirates.
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Not long ago, on July 20 this year, the MC Stella Maris was seized, a Japanese tugboat which carried construction material. The pirates demanded ransom of 3.5 million dollars. At the end of August, four ships in only 48 hours were taken: Japanese tanker Irene, a Malaysian tugboat transporting palm oil, an Iranian cargo ship and a German tanker. The Japanese Irene tanker, which was transporting chemicals, includes two Croats and until now, the pirates did not ask for the amount of money they want. Still, sources state that the Croats are safe and further developments are expected.

Piracy and terrorism: two sides of same coin

Acts of piracy and terrorism at sea are on the rise, but there is little evidence to support concerns from some governments and international organizations that pirates and terrorists are beginning to collude with one another, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today. Initially the common perception was that the objectives of the two crimes remain different -- piracy is aimed at financial gain while the goal of terrorism is political. The boundaries and borderlines are fading and both the enemies of all mankind are merging into one another and new much more sinister picture is emerging. The maritime environment will likely remain a favorable theater for armed violence, crime and terrorism given its expanse, lack of regulation and general importance as a critical conduit for international trade, said Peter Chalk, author of the study and a senior political scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. While there is no quick fix for eliminating all of this, we can rationally manage the threats within acceptable boundaries. The number of piracy incidents worldwide increased 68 percent from 2000 to 2006, compared to the previous six year period, according to the study. Meanwhile, the period saw only a modest spike in terrorist attacks and plots at sea, including the 2004 bombing of the Philippine ship SuperFerry 14 that killed 116 people. Maritime terrorism -attacks against vessels, sea platforms, ports or other coastal facilities -- has also experienced a modest increase, particularly over the past six years when several attacks and plots have been attributed to al-Qaeda and affiliated jihadist networks. These incidents have raised concerns in the West, especially in the United States, that terrorists are now actively seeking to extend their operational reach beyond land-based attacks, Chalk said. Acts of piracy -- boarding a ship to commit theft or another crime -- totaled 2,463 actual or attempted incidents between 2000 and 2006, according to the report. The overall problem is almost certainly even greater than the figures suggest as researchers suspect nearly half of all piracy attacks are not reported, usually because of fears about subsequent investigation costs and increases to insurance premiums. Piracy remains greatest in Southeast Asia, especially around the Indonesian archipelago, the report said. The region accounted for nearly a quarter of all piracy incidents recorded during 2006. Other high-risk areas include the waters off Bangladesh, Somalia, the Gulf of Aden/Red Sea, Nigeria, Tanzania and Peru, which collectively accounted for the bulk of remaining incidents that year. Chalk said that a number of factors have contributed to the recent growth of piracy, including: lax port security and ineffective coastal surveillance; massive growth in commercial maritime traffic; heavy use of narrow and congested chokepoints, such as the Strait of Malacca; and competing resource requirements stemming from heightened national and international pressure to enact expensive, land-based homeland security systems following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

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Pirates and maritime terrorists attack with uncanny ability at two biggest maritime choke points in the world that are the straits of Mallacca and the Gulf Aden at Horn of Africa. These are narrow natural ocean waterways with intense traffic where even the larger vessels show down to safe navigational speeds to avoid grounding or collision; thus becoming vulnerable. These sea lanes are characterized by the several states that border those waterways indicating a clear absence of any one National jurisdiction in those water ways. These areas are not open seas and pirates evade the universal jurisdiction by moving into one or the other Nations waterways. A factor relevant to Southeast Asia, has been the lingering effects of the Asian financial crisis. Not only did this event exert a stronger pull factor on piracywith more people (including members of the security forces) drawn to maritime and other crime it also deprived many littoral states of the necessary revenue to fund effective monitoring regimes over their coastlines. Additionally, the general difficulties associated with maritime surveillance have been significantly heightened as a result of the events of September 11, 2001, and the concomitant pressure that has been exerted on many governments to invest in expensive, land-based homeland security initiatives. lax coastal and port-side security have played an important role in enabling low-level piratical activity, especially harbor thefts of goods from ships at anchor. Corruption and emergent voids of judicial prerogative have encouraged official complicity in high-level pirate rings, which has impacted directly on the phantom ship phenomenon. The phantom ship phenomenon involves the outright hijacking of oceangoing vessels and their re-registration under flags of convenience for the purposes of illicit trade. Lastly, the global proliferation of small arms has provided pirates (as well as terrorists and other criminal elements) with an enhanced means to operate on a more destructive and sophisticated level. The dangers associated with contemporary piracy are complex and multifaceted. At the most basic level, attacks constitute a direct threat to the lives and welfare of the citizens of a variety of flag states. Piracy also has a direct economic impact in terms of fraud, stolen cargos, and delayed trips, and could potentially undermine a maritime states trading ability. Politically, piracy can play a pivotal role in undermining and weakening regime legitimacy by encouraging corruption among elected government officials. Finally, attacks have the potential to trigger a major environmental disaster, particularly if they take place in crowded sea-lanes traversed by heavily laden oil tankers. Terrorists, especially militants connected with the international jihadist network, are moving to decisively extend operational mandates beyond purely territorially bounded theaters. The growth of commercial enterprises specializing in maritime sports and equipment has arguably provided terrorists with a readily accessible conduit through which to gain the necessary training and resources for operating at sea. Maritime attacks offer terrorists an alternate means of causing mass economic destabilization. Disrupting the mechanics of the contemporary just enough, just in time cargo freight trading system could potentially trigger vast and cascading fiscal effects, especially if the operations of a major commercial port were curtailed. Sea-based terrorism constitutes a further means of inflicting mass coercive punishment on enemy audiences. Cruise ships and passenger ferries are especially relevant in this regard because they cater to large numbers of people who are confined in a single physical space. Finally, the expansive global container-shipping complex offers terrorists a viable logistical conduit for facilitating the covert movement of weapons and personnel in two critical respects. First, because much of the maritime trading system is designed to be as accessible and flexible as possible (to keep costs low and turnover high), there is no strong incentive to enact a stringent (and disruptive) regime of security measures. Second, the highly complex nature of the containerized supply chain, combined with the ineffectiveness of point-of-origin inspections, creates a plethora of openings for terrorist infiltration by providing extremists with numerous opportunities to stuff or otherwise tamper with boxed crates. Complicating the maritime threat picture is growing speculation that a tactical nexus could emerge between piracy and terrorism. One of the main concerns is that extremist groups will seek to overcome existing operational constraints in sea-based capabilities by working in conjunction with or subcontracting out missions to maritime crime gangs and syndicates. That said, the possibility of a possible conflation between piracy and terrorism has informed the perceptions of governments, international organizations, and major shipping interests around the world. There have been persistent reports of political extremists boarding vessels in Southeast Asia in an apparent effort to learn how to pilot them for a rerun of 9/11 at sea. Indeed, such a specter was a principal factor in driving the Lloyds Joint War Council to briefly designate the Malacca Straits as an area of enhanced risk in 2005. On July 1, 2006, a Web-posted message purportedly written by Osama bin Laden urged Somalis to build an Islamic state in the country and warned western governments that the al-Qaeda network would fight against them if they intervened there. Somalia has been considered a "failed state" because its official central government was weak, dominated by warlords and unable to exert effective control over the country. Beginning in mid-2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an Islamist faction campaigning on a restoration of "law and order" through Sharia law, had rapidly taken control of much of southern Somalia. On December 14, 2006, the US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi

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Frazer claimed al-Qaeda cell operatives were controlling the Islamic Courts Union, a claim denied by the ICU. By late 2006, the UN-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia had seen its power effectively limited to Baidoa, while the Islamic Courts Union controlled the majority of southern Somalia, including the capital of Mogadishu. On December 20, 2006, the Islamic Courts Union launched an offensive on the government stronghold of Baidoa, and saw early gains before Ethiopia intervened in favor of the government. By December 26, the Islamic Courts Union retreated towards Mogadishu, before again retreating as TFG/Ethiopian troops neared, leaving them to take Mogadishu with no resistance. The ICU then fled to Kismayo, where they fought Ethiopian/TFG forces in the Battle of Jilib. The Prime Minister of Somalia claimed that three "terror suspects" from the 1998 United States embassy [44] bombings are being sheltered in Kismayo. On December 30, 2006, al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called upon Muslims worldwide to fight against Ethiopia and the TFG in Somalia. On January 8, 2007, the US launched the Battle of Ras Kamboni by bombing Ras Kamboni using AC-130 gunships. On September 14, 2009, US Special Forces killed two men and wounded and captured two others near the Somali village of Baarawe. Witnesses claim that helicopters used for the operation launched from French-flagged warships, but that could not be confirmed. A Somali based al-Qaida affiliated group, the Al-Shabaab, has confirmed the death of "sheik commander" Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan along with an unspecified number of militants. Nabhan, a Kenyan, was wanted in connection with the 2002 Mombasa attacks. What started with efforts to extract taxes from foreigners found poaching in Somalias tuna-rich waters has turned into an industry, as more and more gunmen enlist in the pirate ranks, encouraged by the payment of $30m in ransom money this year alone. This years 60 pirate attacks are more than twice the total for 2007. A dozen vessels and 259 crew are being held in and around the port of Eil. France has twice launched successful commando raids against pirates this year to rescue its nationals, once when 30 crew members of a luxury cruise ship were taken hostage and again when a couple were released from their yacht by armed frogmen. Ransom money was recovered and several pirates were captured and sent to France to await trial. This has done nothing to put off their comrades-in-arms. After the capture of the M.V. Fiana We couldnt believe our eyes, said Sugule Ali, commander of the so-called Voluntary Marines for Somalia, speaking to The Sunday Times over a satellite phone from the MV Faina. We were horrified that people were bringing these weapons through Somali waters. We are prepared for any assault by commandos, Ali ( a pirate) insisted. We have 60 people ready to defend the boat. We can protect ourselves. Im not going to tell you what weapons we have, but lets just say we have enough. There are tanks, rocket-propelled grenades and Russian-made antiaircraft guns stored in the hold. The thought of the Fainas vast arsenal finding its way into lawless Somalia, where Islamists are threatening to overrun a weak government, has horrified Washington. Half a dozen American warships have encircled the Faina to stop any of the 33 Soviet-era tanks and other weaponry being taken ashore. Russia dispatched a frigate to the region, ostensibly to protect its nationals among the crew of the commandeered vessel. At the same time, Moscow was eager to seize an opportunity to reassert its influence in the region, a former battleground of the cold war. Hostages speak of wild mood swings among the gunmen: many are addicted to khat, the mild narcotic, and can get jumpy when suffering withdrawal symptoms. Another source of anxiety for the pirates is the refusal of many Somali money changers to accept any more of their $100 bills. The French and Germans are alleged to have included false money in the latest ransom payments. President Nicolas Sarkozy, enjoying his role at the head of the European Unions rotating six-month presidency, has been pressing EU members for an international naval mission to ward off pirates who have turned the shipping lanes around Somalia into one big shooting alley. This has provoked scepticism in some quarters. Theres already a combined taskforce looking at terrorism, looking at piracy, said Jason Alderwick, a defence analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. How is another body going to help? Military vessels from various countries have been escorting shipments of food aid into famine-prone Somalia, but pirates have been known to pilfer cargoes under the noses of naval commanders. Ali said that negotiations with the Fainas owners were continuing. We have not yet decided what we will do with her if the fine isnt paid, he added. We have no plans to unload the weapons, but we have a time frame and time is running out.

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Piracy on such a scale would not be possible if Somalia had a strong government. It does not. Instead, the warlords have carved it into fiefdoms where only guns make the law. It did not take the fishermen long to discover there was more money to be made from holding crew members hostage if they were westerners or, if they were not, demanding a ransom for the return of the vessels. Ali ( pirate leader) in an interview insisted that his men had no links to Somalias resurgent Islamist groups, but many analysts believe the Islamic militias have abandoned their ideological opposition to piracy as they continue to wage war against a weak government and its Ethiopian backers. We have no link with any political group, Ali said in the interview. Were independent. Rashid Abdi Sheikh, of the International Crisis Group, said the Shabaab, an Islamist youth movement, had used piracy to help to bring in weapons and attract foreign fighters. Its particularly interesting to see that the pirates are using the same rhetoric as Islamists like the Shabaab in saying that they are standing up for Somalia, protecting Somali interests, and thats a message that resonates with many people. Its all hogwash of course, Sheikh said. The Faina was anchored about five miles off the coast, near the town of Hobyo, 400 miles north of Mogadishu, the capital. Six US warships are within 10 miles of the Faina and officers have warned that they will launch an assault if an attempt is made to unload any of the T-72 tanks or other weapons. Last May, pirates chased a U.S. Navy warship and fired small arms fire at it. The ship, which had recently served as a prison for captured pirates, increased speed and evaded the attack. French and Dutch naval ships also have been attacked by pirates, said Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the British think tank Chatham House. Thursday's attack came just shy of a year since pirates attacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama and took American Richard Phillips hostage. Phillips was rescued five days later when Navy SEAL snipers shot three pirates in a lifeboat. Suspected Somali pirates fired on a U.S. Navy warship off East Africa early Thursday in what appeared to be a ransomseeking attack on an American guided missile frigate, officials said. The USS Nicholas returned fire on the pirate skiff, sinking it and confiscating a nearby mothership. The Navy took five pirates, suspected to be from Somalia, into custody, said Navy Lt. Patrick Foughty, a spokesman. The initial euphoria evoked by the end of the Cold War has been systematically replaced by a growing sense that global stability has not been achieved, and has in fact been decisively undermined by transnational security challenges, or gray-area phenomena. These threats, which cannot be readily defeated by the traditional defenses that states have erected to protect both their territories and populaces, reflect the remarkable fluidity that currently characterizes international politicsa setting in which it is no longer exactly apparent who can do what to whom with what means. Moreover, it has become increasingly apparent in the contemporary era that violence and the readiness to kill are being used by the weak to create identity, rather than simply express it. Stated more directly, the geopolitical landscape that presently confronts the global community lacks the relative stability of the linear Cold War division between East and West. Indeed, many of todays dangers are qualitatively different from classical security threats of overt military aggression stemming from a clearly defined sovereign source. Rather, security, conflict, and general threat definition have become far more opaque, diffuse, and amorphous

In Italy, a former Mafia boss turned government witness outlined how the Camorra, at times working in cooperation with Chinese and Taiwanese triads, generated millions of dollars from counterfeiting, including film piracy. In Malaysia, the Ang Bin Hoey triad has engaged in turf battles to maintain control over lucrative piracy markets, battles that resulted in knife and spear fights; robberies of bystanders, including families at bus stops; and assassinations of rival gang leaders. In Britain, 21 illegal Chinese immigrants drowned in the rising tide of Morecambe Bay while harvesting shellfish at night in treacherouswaters. The victims had been forced into servitude by a slavemaster whose accomplice was found to have 4,000 counterfeit DVDs, copiers,and other equipment used for film piracy. The tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay has emerged as the most important financing center for Islamic terrorism outside the Middle East, channeling $20 million annually to Hezbollah. At least one transfer of

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$3.5 million was donated by known DVD pirate Assad Ahmad Barakat, who received a thank-you note from the Hezbollah leader. Barakat was labeled a specially designated global terrorist by the U.S. government in 2004. In Russia, pirate syndicates are routinely tipped off by corrupt police officials prior to raids and have been permitted to run their businesses on government property and even from prison. Organized-crime figures involved in piracy have been known to resort to violence against rivals. Alleged pirates Ayrat Sharipov and Yevgeny Ladik and antipiracy investigators were murdered, and an attempt was made on the life of the head of the Russian Anti-Piracy Organization.

At the policy level, there are at least four major contributions to better safeguard the global oceanic environment, including the following: (1) Expand the nascent regime of post-9/11 maritime security; (2) Enhance and understand the parameters of bilateral and multilateral maritime security collaboration by conducting regular and rigorous threat assessments; (3) Redefining mandates of existing multilateral security and defense arrangements to allow them to play a more effective and inclusive role in countering maritime (and other transnational) threats; and (4) Encouraging the commercial maritime industry to make greater use of enabling communication and defensive technologies and accept a greater degree of transparency in its corporate structures. (5) Boosting the coastal monitoring and interdiction capabilities of states in areas of strategic maritime importance; (6) Actively supporting the International Maritime Bureaus piracy reporting center in Malaysia; (7) Augmenting port security management; and (8) Sponsoring research into cost-effective initiatives for better securing ships and oceanic freight.

There are generally three categories of pirates. The first type of pirate is your standard issue low-life criminal. These are scum who find it more expedient to just steal your finger, instead of taking the time to remove your ring. The second pirate type is a more sophisticated organized crime group such as the five gangs thought to control a significant percentage of piracy in Southeast Asia or one of the several triads believed to control this crime in China. The third and perhaps the most troubling type is the "Semi-Official Military Pirate," examples of which have been seen in China, Indonesia & Somalia and elsewhere. When you're all alone at sea, it is particularly scary not to know whether that approaching Chinese Coastguard Patrol Boat is: (a) The Chinese Coastguard on official government business, or (b) A real Chinese Coastguard Patrol Boat, but freelancing as a pirate ship to earn some extra cash for the holidays, or (c) Actual pirates who have merely painted their vessel to look like one of the real Chinese Coastguards. Either way, not much can be done except to hold your breath knowing that an hour later you will either be dead or alive. Even if the patrol boat is on official business, that's no guarantee of safety. 36 | P a g e

While the practice seems in decline now that China continues its march toward ascension to the World Trade Organization, recent years have seen Chinese patrol boats foray deep into international waters in search of "customers." When a suitable vessel is located, it is ordered to heave to and follow the patrol boat back into Chinese territorial waters. Once inside a local Chinese port, the vessel would be impounded for "suspicion of smuggling," with both cargo & crew held for ransom.

Photos of terrorists and their weapons

And

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Photos of Somali pirates and their weapons

These can be pretty sophisticated thugs, using radar and global positioning systems to track their prey. Modern pirates have even been known to carry computer generated cargo manifests which have been obtained in advance for later use during machine gun enforced "shopping sprees." But with profits from stolen cargo ranging well into the millions of dollars per vessel, pirates can well afford the luxuries of both new technology and proper planning. One favorite scheme is for pirates to literally interview their intended victims at port and then radio ahead to the pirate ship at sea when the time for attack approaches. A reverse of this scheme is the "Pre-Planned Stowaway Trick." It was showcased by the motor tanker M/T Pulau Mas which acted as a mother ship for at least recent 21 recent pirate highjackings in Indonesian Seas. These pirates perfected the technique of planting a phoney crew member aboard the victim vessel who would then telephone to relay his ship's position and route. The rendezvous would be deadly. Another trick is a new twist on what I call the "Little Mermaid" concept. Pirates using prostitutes for luring crews into what I would call "submission" so that their vessel might be more easily attacked and taken. The facts of each attack may be different, and increasingly more innovative, but escape is always easy -- because help for the merchant vessel is not "just around the corner." Frequently the pirates even monitor communications so that further punishment can be meted out to victims who might make a "May Day" or distress call.

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Can you spot the difference because I cant?

Pirate and Maritime Terrorist weaponry:The maritime pirates of today have access to a sizable variety of compact and effective weapons. They may not be lobbing 18-pound balls from carronades like the old days, but they have found some very effective tools like the RPG-7 to persuade mariners to heave-to on the high seas. We'll take a look at how these weapons are employed and find out why they are so effective. Quite a few of these weapons are coming from the illicit arm and drugs trade in South America. Over the past year,

fitful but intense coverage of the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles to civilian aircraft has awakened the industrialized nations to a security threat that the rest of the world was already painfully aware of-- the global scourge of illicit small arms and light weapons. Numbering in the hundreds of millions, these weapons take the lives of an estimated 500,000 lives per year, stunt economic growth, and perpetuate the lawlessness upon which terrorists and other criminals thrive.Nowhere are the ill-effects of this scourge more apparent than in Latin America. Weak export controls, porous borders and an overabundance of small arms and light weapons have transformed Central and parts of South America into a giant arms bazaar that fuels instability and criminality. The four-decade civil war in Colombia, for example, is sustained by the thousands of illicit weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition that seep into the country through its porous borders. Equally pernicious are the thousands of tons of Colombian narcotics that flood the United States each year. These drugs sap the US economy of hundreds of billions of dollars and wreak havoc in the lives of the nation's 4.7 million cocaine and heroin users. Transoceanic shipment of these weapons is another security threat that deserves more attention. While the terrorists and insurgents that stock their arsenals with loose weapons from Latin America are primarily homegrown, there is anecdotal evidence that arms traffickers from other continents, including some with ties to Islamic terrorist organizations, procure weapons from Latin America. The most unnerving of these cases is also the one that best

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illustrates the transcontinental nature of the trade in illicit weapons. Like many of today's most pressing security threats, the small arms and light weapons problem defies quick and easy solutions. The durability, ease of use and versatility of these weapons ensure that the market for them will remain large and lucrative. As they are relatively small and nonperishable, they are easy to smuggle across national borders. Finally, they are ubiquitous. According to the Genevabased Small Arms Survey, there are 600 million small arms and light weapons in existence today. Regardless of whether the weapons were ever shipped to Africa, the attempt itself is significant. The fact that an arms dealer operating out of West Africa - which is awash in small arms and light weapons - chose to shop in Central America attests to the region's potential as a source of weaponry for brutal dictators, blood-thirsty insurgent groups and global terrorist organizations.
The Somali pirates are attacking ships from land based firing positions by using Russian made 82mm mortars that can reach as far as 5 kilometers from shore. They have also mounted 60mm mortars on some of their attack boats. While our files are being fully updated, let's take a look at the pirate's favorite: The RPG-7 Light Weapons

AK-47

Heavy Weapons

DsHK 12.7mm Heavy Machinegun SPG-9 Recoilless Gun 82mm Recoilless Gun ZU-1 ZSU-23 Mortars Rockets Weapon:AK-47 Country of Origin:Russia, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, China (Type 56), others Original Designed Use:Anti-personnel Terrorist Use:Anti-personnel Max Effective Range:300 meters (point), 600 meters (area) Destructive Power:Armor piercing ammo penetrate 14mm mild steel at 25 meters. Standard ammo can penetrate 8mm of mild steel at 50 meters. Caliber:7.62mm x 39mm Length:870mm with fixed wooden stock Weight:4.3 kg with empty magazine Construction Materials:Steel w/ wood or plastic stock Sighting System:Iron sights Operating System:Gas operated, selective fire Rate of Fire:600 rounds per minute, standard 30 round magazine Muzzle Velocity:715 meters per second / 2346 feet per second

The AK-47 has become synonymous as the symbol of terrorism. It is the de facto logo of a terrorist group. Osama bi Laden won't be photographed without one by his side. In actuality it is widely used by more professional armies than it is by terrorists...nevertheless, thanks to its criminal popularity, and with the help of international cable news, it has become the most recognized weapon in the world and a symbol of terror.

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It is beyond the scope of this webpage to discuss all of the many different variants of the AK-47, so therefore we will leave that discussion for another time and focus on the good old "AK" in its original version.

Simply put, the AK-47 is one of the best assault weapons ever built. Not the most accurate by far, but the best because it will work when others won't...mud, sand, water and grime have little effect on it. I can personally attest to its combat attributes as I carried one and fired one in combat when I served several tours in Afghanistan as a member of the U.S. Special Forces. An AK-47 was dug up that had been buried during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and fired two 30-round magazines that were buried with it on full auto with no malfunction. The weapon was protected only by a plastic tarp for 20+ years...it had not been preserved in oil or grease. I kept the same gun and carried it as a backup for 8 months. Proof enough for me that it is one of the all time best battle weapons ever made. The state-of-the-art U.S. issued M4 could not have done the same under those conditions, the magazines alone would have ceased to work after 20 years of being stored loaded.

"AK" stands for Avtomat Kalashnikov: Automatic Kalashnikov rifle, after Mikhail Kalashnikov. He is the Russian who designed it in 1944 after copying much of the German MP-44 assault rifle's design. The model "47" denotes the date that the Soviets adopted the weapon, but the majority of Soviet soldiers didn't get their hands on it until 1949.

The AK-47 was one of the first true assault rifles and, due to its durability, low production cost and ease of use, the weapon and its numerous variants remain the most widely used assault rifles in the world.

Weapon:RPG-7 (variants: RPG-7V, CHICOM Type-69) Country of Origin:Russia, China, others Original Designed Use:Anti-armor, anti-personnel, bunker buster Terrorist Use:Anti-armor, anti-vehicle, anti-ship, anti-personnel, anti-aircraft, building and bunker buster Max Effective Range:500 m (PG-7V warhead), up to 1400 m as improvised indirect-fire; varies by warhead Destructive Power:230mm armor, 1.5 m brick wall (PG-7V warhead); others up to 700mm armor, varies by warhead Launcher Bore Size:40mm (tube) Launcher Length:953mm (w/o projectile), 1340mm (w/projectile) Launcher Weight:6.3 kg unloaded w/ optical sight Launcher Materials:Steel w/ wood or plastic handgrips and heat shield Projectile Diameter:85mm (PG-7V warhead); up to 105mm, varies by warhead Projectile Weight:2.25 kg (PG-7V warhead); varies by warhead Sighting System:Optic scope (primary), Iron sights (secondary)

The RPG-7 is the ubiquitous "terrorist weapon" and it is a favored and standard weapon of maritime pirates. Lets take a look at why... The RPG-7 is a reloadable, muzzle loaded, shoulder-fired, smoothbore recoilless rocket propelled grenade launcher that fires an unguided rocket/grenade. The "grenade launcher" definition throws some people off because the RPG-7 is seen as a "rocket launcher" more than a "grenade launcher". It is essentially both. The projectile (rocket and warhead) is classified as a grenade, hence the designation of "rocket propelled grenade launcher".

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Introduced in 1961, the weapon was designed and originally made in the former USSR and then produced in a number of the Warsaw Pact countries. Like many Russian weapons, it was copied by China and other nations. The RPG-7 was preceded by the less powerful RPG-3/RPG-2, and has seen service in every area of conflict since the Vietnam War. It is still produced by several nations, including Russia and China. Imminently flexible. A selection of anti-armor, anti-materiel, and anti-personnel warheads make the RPG-7 weapon system suitable for a wide variety of missions while providing more firepower through more ammunition for a given weight/space. The closest U.S. equivalent is the LAW and AT-4 anti-armor weapons, but these are "one shot" disposable weapons; the launchers are discarded after each shot, and each launcher/warhead assembly takes up as much space as two RPG -7 warheads. Easily mastered and easy to employ. The RPG-7 was originally designed as a crew-served weapon, meaning at least two people are needed to load and fire it, but with training, a gunner can handle it alone and achieve a good shot every 15 or 20 seconds; carrying extra ammo and reloading it without taking it off your shoulder is where the second person (or "crew") comes in. The second person would also act as security for the RPG-7 gunner. Pirates usually employ the RPG-7 as an individual weapon, much like a rifle would be used. It is hard to beat the RPG-7 as a versatile and easy to use and effective multi-purpose weapon. They are affordable and available just about anywhere there is conflict, and ammunition is plentiful and cheap. An RPG-7 launcher can be purchased in certain areas for less than $300.00 (USD); with ammunition costing anywhere from $25.00 to $50.00 (USD) for each round. Terrorists have used this weapon to take out Abrams main battle tanks; they have shot down Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters with it; and they have successfully engaged any number of vehicles, convoys, and troop formations killing and injuring a great number of U.S. and coalition military personnel. Ships have been fired upon as well. Simply put, the RPG-7 works and it is adaptable to the conventional and unconventional mission specific needs of both pirates and terrorists. Improvise and adapt. When the Russians designed the RPG they intended it as a horizontal direct-fire weapon; meaning it fires the projectile directly at a ground-based target with no elevation other than a small amount to account for range. Give a foot soldier (or terrorist) enough time and he will come up with more and better uses for any given weapon, and the RPG is a perfect example of this. It has been used as an expedient indirect-fire weapon against troop formations, firebases, airfields, buildings, and other targets. Although it isn't highly accurate when used in this manner, it is very effective against targets spread over an area; it becomes the terrorist's improvised short range artillery piece. The RPG-7 has also been adapted to serve as expedient anti-aircraft artillery against low-flying helicopters. The first generation of RPG-7 rounds had no self-destruct mechanism and only detonated on impact. These older rounds can be lobbed out to approximately 1400 meters by super elevating the launcher; newer generation RPG-7 rounds self-detonate after a time of flight equivalent to roughly 900 meters, which limits their range as improvised indirectfire weapons, but increases their effectiveness as anti-helicopter weapons because they burst in mid-air. As a "recoilless" rocket launcher, it has very little recoil when fired because the propellant charge blast is vented through the rear of the launcher, but the launcher will jerk or jump slightly on firing as the rocket overcomes being held in place by a friction fit. The rocket is shot out of the tube by an explosive booster which gets it moving towards the target for about ten meters while the internal rocket motor is simultaneously igniting. The firing sequence produces a sizable back-blast with report, and the rocket leaves a smoke trail while traveling to the target

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giving it a very visible launch signature. It is difficult to hide when firing the RPG-7; the shooter must move out of his firing position quickly after firing if he (or she) hopes to survive. A simple "stand-off" barrier of common chain-link or cyclone fencing will serve as a good countermeasure against RPG rounds when emplaced at a standoff of at least 24 inches from the protected area (the further the better). It does so by detonating and/or disrupting the shaped charge of the warhead before it strikes the target surface. There is still a significant explosive and shrapnel effect but armor or hardened surface penetration can be effectively mitigated. Weapon:SPG-9 Country of Origin:Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt Original Designed Use:Anti-armor, bunker buster, anti-personnel Terrorist Use:Anti-armor, anti-vehicle, anti-ship, building and bunker buster, antipersonnel Max Effective Range:1000 meters (HEAT) Rate of Fire:3-6 rounds per minute Penetration Power:400mm armor, 2.0 meter brick wall (HEAT) Launcher Bore Size:73mm (smoothbore-no rifling) Launcher Length:2.11 meters Launcher Weight:47.5 kg Launcher Materials:Steel w/ plastic heat shield Projectile Length:1000mm (HEAT) Projectile Weight:3.5 kg (complete with booster charge) Sighting System:4x power optical scope (primary), Iron sights (secondary) Crew:3 by doctrine; 2 in most terrorist applications

The SPG-9 is a breech loaded smoothbore recoilless rocket launcher that fires an unguided rocket. The projectile is fin stabilized and travels at a very high rate of speed; 435 meters per second (fours times that of the RPG-7 rocket) which lends itself to remarkable accuracy and hitting power. The SPG-9 is widely available to terrorists and maritime pirates in the Horn of Africa region, as well as in other regions to a lesser degree. It is not as popular as the RPG-7 because it has to be mounted on a vehicle or boat and cannot be easily carried and shoulder fired. The SPG-9 requires much more to skill to fire accurately in comparison to the RPG-7. There have been reports of these mounted in skiffs and larger "mother ships". The SPG-9 can typically be found mounted on a wide variety of vehicles known as

"technicals" in Somalia. The SPG-9 is a significant weapon due to its excellent accuracy and destructive power out to 1000 meters. There are no known reports of these being fired upon ships. However it should be noted that the SPG-9 has a similar firing signature to that of the RPG-7 and only a trained observer could differentiate the two from a distance where the actual launcher was not observed. Victims and investigators should not blindly assume that any rocket propelled projectile fired at a ship came from an RPG-7. The 1000 meter range of the SPG-9 makes it a threat to rescue forces attempting to board anchored "hostage" ships where the anchorage is within 1000 meters from shore.

Our and seafarers authorized response to the Pirates arsenal :While pirates (actually maritime terrorist) are using lethal and effective weapons of war like mortar fire against the defenseless seafarers; the seafarer is obliged to use the elements of nature such as the light, fire, sound, water, rubber projectile, foams etc. in some strange manners and hope pirates will be deterred in the resolve to capture the ship, cargo and crew which many worth millions to them. Some of the measures also detail hiding like rats behind defensive measures like reason wires and Armor Plated Engine room citadel and wait for assistance to arrive. Going by the number of captured seafarers we can say that the help often never arrives. Besides all these there are no corrective action or mitigating strategy in the arsenal of the seafarer ONCE THE PIRATES BOARD

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THE VESSEL except give FULL COOPERATION to the pirates so that their months long torture and order can be effectively carried out by the vagabonds of the sea. Let us examine some of these measures:1)

Water jets from fire hoses:- The most common means of deterring pirates is with the use of firehoses. A ships
crew will line up on deck, activate the large firepumps in the engine room and use the pressurized sea water to knock pirates off of boarding ladders. While this is effective its of little use when the boarding craft approaches with its 50 caliber machine gun armed.

2)

Automated Fire Monitor:- The next step is a remote controlled fire

monitor which can be aimed from a remote location. The only pitfall here is knowing where to place the monitors. While Unifires Force 50 anti-pirate water cannon is impressive most shipboard fire monitors are manual and operate with less force. Non-Lethal Slippery Foam:- The Mobility Denial System is an oil-slickin-a-can, a combination of Drilling Mud Additive, Flocculent and water that renders surfaces as slippery as wet ice. Lots of tasty acronyms and buzzwords on the sell page, including Anti-Traction Material (ATM) and Non-Lethal Slippery Foam.Once applied, the material will degrade or impair the adversarys ability to move. For Interior applications it can be applied to flat, smooth, non-porous surfaces such as linoleum, tile, wood floors or staircases. Exterior applications include sloped, rough, porous surfaces such as concrete, asphalt, and grassy areas. Less Lethal Launcher:- The TBL-37, manufactured by Bates & Dittus LLC (www.BatesandDittus.com), provides a less than lethal ordnance platform that can fire smoke, flares and low impact explosive charges to deter, delay and defend against potential boarders. The launcher is chambered in 37mm and made to the highest standards of American workmanship. Constructed of 6061 aircraft grade aluminum and 4140 hardened steel, it is rugged while maintaining a reasonable weight. It comes with a standard finish of matte black and in the right hands, it appears as a very threatening piece of hardware.Best of all, it is not subject to licensing in the US and can be transported as ships stores and the price puts it at the low end of available options ($400-800 USD).

3)

4)

5) Dazzle Gun or dazzling light to be shinnied on pirates:- The laser light

used in the weapon temporarily impairs aggressors by illuminating or dazzling individuals, removing their ability to see the laser source. In the latest move

against piracy BAE Systems, a British firm, has developed a laser that can be deployed on commercial shipping and will act as a deterrent to pirates trying to board a vessel. Tests suggest it is effective at a distance of 1.5km.The aim of the laser is to dazzle pirates so that they are unable to aim their weapons, and to warn them that they have been seen, without permanently damaging their eyes. Standard sunglasses will not help because the laser produces green light, which is not filtered out by them. Indeed, such glasses would make the effect worse, as the laser would be contrasted against a darker background. According to Roy Evans, the project's leader, the effect is similar to a fighter pilot attacking from the direction of the sun. The glare

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from the laser is intense enough to make it impossible to aim the weapons typically used by pirates, such as AK47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Each laser has an integral radar to help it lock automatically on to the small, fast vessels usually used by Somali pirates. It can also be linked to the ships radar, for greater accuracy, though the fact that the laser does not cause permanent damage means that occasional mis-targeting will not matter too much. 6) Active Denial System:- Active Denial Technology is a breakthrough non-lethal technology that uses millimeter-wave electromagnetic energy to stop, deter and turn back an advancing adversary from relatively long range. It is expected to save countless lives by providing a way to stop individuals without causing injury, before a deadly confrontation develops. This has not been used on ships and ignition hazard on tankers should be considered. 7) Razor wire can be Extended around your ship borders and connect with high current voltage source from your vessel generators Price for 70mtr/coil -- 100.00USD/Coil. Razor-sharp barbed wire strung along the deck railings of vessels can be an effective, low-cost foil to pirates at sea, and shipowners should adopt it widely. Poor, young, Somalis usually approach vessels with speedboats, scrambling on board with hooks, ropes and ladders, often wearing thin T-shirts, shorts or light pants and sandals. They cant dare to climb over the barb and razor wire in those clothes. The wire can be put up and taken down by a few seamen in just a few hours, and it can be reattached the next time it is needed with simple household wire costing around $50. Above all, barbed wire can help delay attackers long enough for the navy to come to the rescue 8) Long Range Acoustic Device:- LRAD is a long-range
hailing and warning, directed acoustic device designed to communicate with authority and exceptionally high intelligibility in a 15-30 degree beam. LRAD can issue a verbal challenge with instructions in excess of 500 meters and has the capability of following up with a warning tone to influence behavior or determine intent Out of all the weapons mentioned above the only one to have sucessfully thwarted an organized attack by well armed pirates is the LRAD. LRADs ability to positively communicate with authority on land or at sea is proving highly effective in creating safe situations out of uncertain ones. On November 7, 2005 LRAD was first used to foil a pirate attack on a Seabourn Cruise Line luxury cruise. The system was installed as a part of the ships defense systems, and was activated when pirates attacked the ship with RPGs 160 kilometers off the Somali coast . The pirates failed to board the cruiser.

9) Use of armed gaurds:- This seems to be most effective deterrent for the Pirates to board the vessel. Vulnerable cargo ships off the coast of Somalia may be given armed guards by an EU task force being sent to combat the huge surge in piracy there. The British naval commander in charge of the operation, vice admiral Philip Jones, said the EUs warship flotilla would seek to place vesselprotection detachments on board some ships transporting food aid to Somalia. The EU mission includes four ships and two maritime reconnaissance aircraft and will replace the fourvessel NATO flotilla that has been conducting anti-piracy patrols off the Somali coast on December 15. The plan to provide vessel protection detachments may threaten Security Firm Blackwater USAs plans to provide armed security patrols in the region on a contract basis. Blackwater has offered the services

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of their own ship, the M/V Macarthur, for anti-piracy patrols as well as private maritime security guards to shipping companies, but has so far been unable at least publicly to find a client. Instead, Shipping firms have chosen to re-route around the Cape of Good Hope or attempted with little success to use less expensive, unarmed security guards. The legal implications of using armed private security onboard commercial ships, the increased insurance costs, and the cost of the contractors themselves (often as high as $1,000 per day USD) seem to make the less expensive alternative of simply routing commercial vessels away from known danger areas a more viable alternative. 10) Naval escort convoys:- Further to the ongoing piracy problems in the Gulf of Aden and Somali

Basin, naval forces from various countries are continuing to organise convoys in the Gulf of Aden in order to protect vessels from piracy attacks. The convoys are additional to the group transit system operating through the Internationally Recognised Transit Corridor (IRTC). Information regarding convoys including registration and reporting requirements, rendezvous locations and transit speeds are published regularly on the live advice section of the Maritime Security Centre Horn of Africa (MSCHOA) website. However, as previously advised, shipowners and their vessels will need to register with the MSCHOA in order to sign in and access the live advice content. Vessels joining a convoy should still report to the naval forces in the region in the normal manner. Pirate strategy:Swarm tactics the navies are also having to contend with new pirate tactics. "What we've seen in the last month in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, the Somali basin, is almost swarm tactics by some of the pirates who try to flood the area with action groups," said Adm Hudson. Somali pirates are employing a tactic now being called "the swarm" when attacking ships. This tactic employs the use of a Pirate Action Group consisting of a "mother ship" and several small attack skiffs. The mother ship tows the attack skiffs hundreds, and at times a thousand miles or more into shipping lanes adjacent to the Horn of Africa where they lay in wait for a victim. The PAG closes in on the victim vessel and at a certain distance the small attack skiffs separate and begin their runs on the victim vessel attacking it from several sides at one time. The ship's crew are overwhelmed by this tactic and usually cannot deter it unless they have a significant security force onboard. The attack skiffs then place pirates onboard the victim vessel and complete the hijacking. The attack skiffs are at times towed alongside the victim vessel, and at other times they return to the mother ship. The victim vessel is them taken to a Somali port where it is held pending payment of a ransom. But the admiral insisted that the international naval forces are able to make a difference. And the navies believe they are reducing the number of successful attacks. "By correctly positioning our aircraft, putting our ships in the right area, we've managed to break up, dismantle, disrupt over 20 of those groups," he said. Adm Hudson also said that the number of suspected pirates in jail facing prosecution in Kenya and the Seychelles had risen significantly. Kenya, however, has announced it will no longer take it any new pirate suspects, saying it has taken more than its fair share of the "burden". Still, there were nine hijackings in March.And Adm Hudson acknowledged that the level of activity showed there was still "a big appetite to go and see ships". He suggested there could be "a handful of thousands" of people involved in the different aspects of the area's piracy operations. Lloyd's List recently reported the new tactic and its technique of "swarming" a ship with multiple skiffs, 46 | P a g e

surrounding the vessel, and overwhelming the crew. It seems one attempt was quelled by Russian military personnel embarked on a ship to protect a sensitive cargo. This tactic is UNCANNILY SIMILAR to the wolf-pack unleashed by U-Boats in the battle for the Atlantic.
The Wolf Pack or Rudeltaktik as the Germans called it was made famous by Karl Donitz and was to have a devastating impact on allied shipping. Despite being implemented only after the fall of France, the origins of this idea first dated back to the First World War. During the First World War, the British had defeated the U-boats by introducing the convoy system. This called for the formation of a group of ships to sail together as a group and under the protection of escort warships. Under the convoy system, U-boats could no longer find isolated easy targets scattered all over. The few U-boats who managed to find a convoy had difficulty attacking as it was escorted by antisubmarine vessels. The wolf pack tactic was devised to defeat the convoy system. As the British had organized merchant shipping and a defense perimeter around the ships, but the U-boats were still operating singly and in an un-coordinated manner. The idea was to form a pack of U-boats, and to delay an attack until all boats were in position to conduct a massed organized attack. This would overwhelm the escorts as the sheer number and surprise of the attacking boats would throw the defense into disarray. The first boat to make contact was designated as the shadower whose job was to maintain contact and to report the convoys position back to BdU. The shadower would remain out of the visible range of the convoy, often submerging by day and traveling on the surface by night. When enough boats have converged with the convoy, BdU would give the signal to attack, usually after dusk where the U-boats small silhouette made detection difficult. Now that the signal to attack was given, each individual commander was free to use any tactics he chose. Some fired at long range, outside the perimeter of the escorts, usually with a spread of several torpedoes. Some, particularly Otto Krteschmer headed straight into the center of the convoy, and fired at point blank range, picking off ship by ship as they sailed passed. Whichever tactics employed, the general strategy was to attack by night, and withdraw by day, with continuous attacks lasting several days, as more boats arrived on the scene. This had devastating effects and attacking in groups easily overwhelmed the escorts. When an escort pursued one U-boat, another would attack at a different location, creating total confusion The EU protects ships carrying food aid to Somalia (l) and chaos. Kretschmer later wrote in his war diary describing the attack on a convoy, The destroyers are at their wits end. Shooting off star shells the whole time to comfort themselves and each other.

Risk management: An important tool against piracy

Classical risk management is based on the actual risk situation confronting a firm, its units, and the component parts of those units. For the purposes of risk management, vessels must be viewed as a shipping companys units. The principles of integrated risk management can then be applied to these operations. They comprise the identification and analysis of exposure to risk and the selection, implementation, and verification of measures to minimise risk. In the past, these classical risk management principles on board ships were quite simply described as good seamanship. They were not written down but were passed on by word of mouth from one generation to the next and taken for granted in every member of the crew. This basic trust functioned perfectly for centuries, but is increasingly coming up against its limits in our modern complex, highly networked, and extremely technical transport world. Risk management as a integrated solution Merchant shipping is an economic sector with a long tradition and also one which for a long time viewed such modern systems as risk management with scepticism. The innovative methods of risk minimisation have only gradually been taken up. For a long time, the immense pressure of costs and competition also prevented shipping companies from investing in these methods. In addition, shipping companies and their crews

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have been confronted with an avalanche of new international legislation in recent years, and the resultant additional time and financial input is still viewed with irritation. Attempts are not uncommonly made to minimise the effort required and even to evade responsibility entirely. Risk management experts therefore recommend that a risk-based approach using the aforementioned risk management principles be implemented in addition to the traditional seamanship, which still remains the basis of a smoothly functioning risk management. In shipping companies and on board their vessels, these should be implemented according to the following criteria: Concentrate on essentials Simplify complex processes Form a continuous process chain for effective risk analysis and risk minimisation Draw up a clear definition of responsibilities, preferably involving all members of the crew Set up review standards and provide the resources necessary to ensure continuous risk management The on-board risk management system Successful risk management means combining statutory regulations and supplementary measures to combat piracy in accordance with the above criteria in an on-board risk management system. Information on the supplementary measures can be obtained from shipping company associations and shipping organizations. Together with the statutory regulations, these measures and recommendations are building blocks in the development of an individual risk management system. A generally applicable standard cannot be defined, due to the large number of different factors to be taken into account when developing the system. These factors include the vessels size and design, its maximum speed, the flag it flies, its route, type of cargo, number and qualifications of the crew members, and the vessels technical equipment, to mention but a few. Contribution of shipping companies and crews In addition to lobbying by associations and organisations, action must also be taken by the shipping companies and crews themselves. In keeping with the concept of holistic risk management, they should analyse and evaluate as precisely as possible their individual risks for each sailing area and for every single vessel. The opportunities offered by international regulations to avert terrorist attacks and increase the security of vessels should be actively used to defend against attacks by pirates. The security systems available on the market should be employed appropriately. Every violent attack on a vessel should be reported without fail. Risk management by risk experts Insurers and reinsurers are similarly called upon to devote more attention to the subject of piracy. It is the part of the tasks of national and international insurance associations to draw public attention to this subject so that the statutory measures mentioned above can be enforced. When underwriting war covers, insurers and reinsurers can analyse the risk with great precision and should therefore use their know-how to support their clients, be it in marine cargo, hull, or P&I insurance. For underwriters, this means keeping themselves fully conversant with the subject of piracy and taking current developments into account when assessing risks and only granting piracy cover provided that the owners have taken technical security precautions, pursue a holistic risk management approach, and arrange for adequate crew training. Last but not least, the insurance industry should continue to use every means at their disposal to support all the government and non-governmental organisations which devote their attention to this problem

Consequences of our Indian Nation:Our nation has been in the Hit list of Jihadi networks along with United States of America and Israel. The war on piracy has migrated from Horn of Africa to deep inside the Indian Ocean and very Close to Indian territory. A piracy Map with the accident plotted will prove the contention. Due to abovementioned reasons the war on piracy in Indian Ocean is war our country cannot afford to loose. The pirates recently are making deep inroads into our water and coastal system. The corrupt somailn Government is unable to administer the total Somalia their power is concentrated near Mogadishu the capital. However, out of their reach of power the Somaliland has declared independence and about 1/3 of Somalia has declared itself into an autonomous body called the Puntland, which is actually the Pirates own land. The pirate capital in EYL.

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95% of our EXIM trade by volume depends on shipping with a major contribution from the foreign ship owners. If this region becomes in hospitable to shipping then it will spell doom and disaster for our national economy. This war is being funded by the evil forces of al-shabab in Somalia which as per the parent organization Al-Quaeda doesnt want to see India stand Integrated and Strong.

After a quiet period the during the northern summer months, piracy activity has started to significantly increase in the GOA and the Somali Basin / Indian Ocean areas. By 31 October 2009, according to the IMB data, there had been 340 attacks worldwide compared to 293 in all of 2008. The major increase has been in the GOA / Indian Ocean areas. A recent industry workshop held at the Maritime Security Centre (Horn of Africa) MSCHOA naval headquarters advised that: some ships are still not registering with the naval forces prior to transiting the GOA / International Recognised Transit Corridor (IRTC) and Somali Basin / Indian Ocean Areas some ships are not using the Best Management Practices for preparing ships some ships are still not preparing and training for the GOA / Indian Ocean transit. GOA / SOMALI BASIN / INDIAN OCEAN Until 31 October 2009, there had been 181 attacks reported in this area (compared to 111 attacks for the whole of 2008); 105 in the GOA (92 for 2008); 57 in the Somali Basin (19 in 2008); 15 in the Red Sea and four off the Omani coast (none in 2008). There had been 95 ships fired upon up to the end of October 2009, compared to 39 ships in 2008. This has led to 38 ships being hijacked as at 31 October 2009, as opposed to 42 ships for the whole of 2008 in these areas. 666 crew member hostages have been taken in 2009 (815 hostages in 2008). In 2008, it was estimated that one in every three attacks resulted in a potential hijacked ship; in 2009, this has been reduced to approximately one in every

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15 attacks in the GOA. This would indicate that the various methods used against the pirates are being more effective due to: introduction of the EU NAVFOR naval forces in the GOA introduction of the International Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC) at the beginning of 2009 use of group transit through the IRTC the positive steps taken by shipowners and crews to be more aware, to be better trained and prepared, and to defend their ships when navigating in these areas. Anti-piracy BA chart issued November 2009. Company CSOs and masters should plot the latest attacks and information on these charts. However, this also indicates that the pirates are being forced to go further offshore for easier targets because of: - the large sea area with no significant naval forces support - ships letting their guard down, thinking they are outside a piracy area Vigilance isrequired at least 600 miles off the Somali coast. It could be argued that with the increase in naval units being deployed in the Gulf of Aden, this may force the mother ships to operate further afield and that the whole of the Indian Ocean itself will become the hunting ground of pirates. This is now the case. The mother ships are operating further afield. Due to the concentrated and successful naval presence in the GOA, the pirates use of mother ships can be expected to increase and their reach will extend further into the Indian Ocean. The naval forces in the GOA and the use of the IRTC and the other measures mentioned above have been successful in the GOA, and the number of hijackings in this area has decreased; whereas the number of attacks in the Somali basin and Indian Ocean has increased. There has been a significant increase in the use of mother ships and the range of the pirates has been extended. The advice from the MSC (HOA) still is that ships should stay clear of the Somali coast by more than 600 n miles if possible in fact, sail east of 60 degrees East and south of 10 degrees South. However, a number of violent attacks have occurred north of the Seychelles at the edge of 600 miles limit or further out, which indicates that the advice of staying east of longitude 60 degrees East should be considered as a minimum. A bulk carrier was attacked and hijacked east of 60 degrees East, reportedly 500 n miles North East of the Seychelles. One ship was attacked reportedly 900 miles off the Somali coast. Because of the prevailing easterly currents between the Latitudes between 1 degree South and 5 degrees South, there is a possible increased risk of pirate attack between the latitudes due east of the Somali coast. In addition, there have reported attacks occurring just to the north of the Comoros Islands; this is the furthest south that pirate attacks have been reportedly carried out. Owners should consider that all shipping, whether heading into or out of the Red Sea or the Arabian Gulf, heading north, south, east or west in the Indian Ocean should be warning their masters to be on a heightened state of alert even in sea areas east of the 60 degrees East longitude. (It is unlikely at this moment that pirate attacks will be seen in sea areas close to the Indian subcontinent but vigilance still should be maintained.) When transiting the Indian Ocean, all ships should be on a heightened level of security, certainly until passing the Maldives and south of 15 degrees South. Just because the ship has transited east of 60 degrees East, the ships guard should not immediately be lowered. It is known that the powerful and more cash rich pirates and clan leaders sponsor and invest in the pirate mother ships, supply the necessary hardware, fuel and supplies. The pirates are sent out into the Somali Basin / Indian Ocean areas and are rumoured to be advised not to return until they have captured a ship. The increased naval activity in the GOA and the increased levels of training and preparedness on most ships is making the task of high-jacking more difficult for the pirates. This will increase their desperation, force them take more risks and seek victims in waters further afield.

Counter piracy tactics of immediate use by seafarers and owners:Companies and ships masters must work together to ensure that the ship is fully prepared before entering a piracy area. (Has the ship / company carried out a voyage piracy risk assessment?) There are software tools available that can assist in carrying out this risk assessment (Ref BIMCO). It is too late to consider these matters just before arrival to a high-riskarea (HRA). registered ships are more easily tracked and monitored by the naval units in the area. (Always register your ship with the appropriate authority). Use of GOA transit corridors and group transits is working. Using the ITRC is effective comply with the Best Management Practices (BMP). Consult with MSCHOA / United Kingdom Trade Operations (UKMTO). High speed and high freeboard do not exclude ships from being attacked. (Ships with high freeboards with high speed have been hi-jacked) low speed and low freeboard ships are more vulnerable ships transiting to/from East African ports should take particular precautions

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 inadequate planning puts your ship at risk inadequate information / advice / instruction puts your ship at risk inadequate training puts your ship at risk. Drills are effective. Has your ship an onboard piracy signal? An operational PA system? What signals will be sent in case of attack? Ship Security Alert System (SSAS), Digital Satellite Calling (DSC) & Ch 16 or Ch 8 if Ch 16 is jammed early warning of pirate activity or impending attack has been beneficial in successfully avoiding a pirate attack. Maintain vigilant and appropriate lookouts in all high-risk areas, including extra lookouts and radar watches. Most attacks are from the after quarter Experience has indicated that overtly showing that the ship is prepared and willing to take defensive measures is a deterrent. A number of pirate attacks have been thwarted by showing a robust and positive response. Additional advice: attacks more often occur in daylight usually at first light or at approaching dusk.Extra vigilance must be made at these times. Extra lookouts should be considered strong winds and higher sea states are a deterrent and can provide protection. Therefore calmer seas are more dangerous has your ship carried out evasive manoeuvring practice before entering into a high risk area? How does the ship create the most and effective propeller wash versus how is the ships speed affected by altering course at high speed? What is the maximum speed available to the master? Are the ships engines fully operational prior to entering a high-risk area? operate at maximum speed in a high-risk area. Do not stop if fired upon. Be prepared to take evasive manoeuvring action. Have this eventuality drilled and trained for company and ship should have contingency plans in place if the ship is attacked and if the pirates board the ship. This should be a part of the training process and the advice given to the ship by the company keep informed where attacks have taken place. Have the Company Security Officer monitor and plot these attacks and relay this information to ships trading to these high-risk areas. The CSO should advise ships to keep at least 100 n miles away from the locations of recent pirate attacks if possible. Use the latest anti-piracy chart from the Admiralty provide the ships with the materials to defend and prepare for entering into a high-risk area. Consider using: - stabilising binoculars (these are far better for spotting small vessels) - night vision binoculars (stabilised versions are commercially available) - sand bags and steel plate - barbed razor wire - flak jackets and helmets - additional walkie talkies - anti-pirate high-pressure water monitors. The use of foam can also be effective - materials such as drums/ sandbags/ steel to make, modify and prevent easy access - security personnel to train, prepare and advise the crew in transiting high risk areas. Security personnel The use of security personnel may be considered. Even though unarmed, they can provide: - increased training and alertness - added personnel for watch-keeping - increased confidence on board - operate equipment such as LRAD and provide training - useful intelligence - useful advice and support when under attack. The value of good and training and preparedness cannot be understated. Do not become an easy target. ISM Code It could be considered that you are not in compliance with the ISM Code if you are not: preparing advising supporting training your crews prior to entering a high-risk area. Is your ship seaworthy if you have not carried out necessary precautions? This has not been legally tested yet, but it does not take much imagination to suggest that it might. Adherence to industry codes and guidelines is a part of the codes requirement. The BMP is the accepted industry best practice advice for entering a high-risk area.

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Best Management Practice (BMP) :- BMP remains the best advice available. It is available on the P&I club website, from the MSC(HOA) website and from many industry bodies. A copy should be available on board all ships and form part of the anti-piracy contingency plans. Defend your ship when transiting a high-risk area. Consider: use of ballast overflows, water and fire monitors, and fire hoses. A water curtain makes boarding more difficult and shows that the ship is prepared. Have these rigged; it may require clamps to be made to allow the fire hoses to be directed overboard. Consider the use of deflection plates to direct the fire hoses. Have the ballast pumps and valves lined up and ready prior to entering a high-risk area. there are at least two commercially available systems for spraying water; one using hot water (90o Celsius) and one using cold water spayed at high pressure. Although these systems are new, they have been reported to have been already deployed to some ships use of barbed razor wire. Ships have used barbed razor wire and rigged this around the ships rails and at appropriate locations and access points. Proper Health & Safety precautions must be taken when deploying the wire, including special steel-palmed gloves, and the wire should be removed prior to arrival at the next port. use of defensive measures to prevent pirates gaining access by ladder can include out-rigging an electric fence. (This should not be used on any ships carrying dangerous cargoes / tankers). There are non-lethal electric fences commercially available, which have been reported to have been fixed to about 40 ships to date. However, even the use of out-rigging wires makes the access to the ship less easy. It also shows the ship is prepared use of defensive measures to prevent access from the main or poop decks into the accommodation, including the removal of the deck access ladders and the use of grills at the top of access ladders, and in ports and windows. Make your accommodation difficult to access as well as the deck. It may give you more time. It also shows that the ship is prepared, indicating to the pirates that this ship is not an easy target use of mannequins or models as dummy lookouts can show that the ship is alert and prepared the use of projectiles can deter pirates, but these should be only be used after careful consideration by the master. Such use can in fact make the situation worse if the pirates board the ship. Defend your ship: barbed razor wire Defend your ship: manoeuvring

Indian coastal defense preparedness:To build and operate an ocean going navy requires backward planning of a minimum fifty years. If New Delhi does not develop sufficient military surplus and the intentions of a hostile power change overnight, we will flounder in face of external aggression. In war there are no runners up. It is an indisputable fact that a country, which modernizes its military wherewithal ahead of time, deters the adversary from waging war, owing to the adverse cost-benefit-ratio. Therefore, we can ignore the modernization of the defence forces at our peril. The distinction between low intensity conflict and conventional wars is increasingly becoming blurred. Even, conventional wars with high technology component in deciding the outcome finally results in low intensity engagements, wherein the nature of operations, political and other constraints, negate the technological superiority that highly developed militaries of states enjoy. The emerging nature of warfare against non-state actors requires every effective response from small subunits and teams led by efficient junior leaders. It is time that the country begins to invest in recruiting, training and professional enhancement of the junior leaders. They also need to be invested with more prestige, authority and responsibility. Section commanders, platoon commanders and troop leaders have been rendered irrelevant over the years. The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) has passed through various stages. India missed out on each of these stages. India after 40 years has just been able to replace its 7.62mm self-loading rifles with the 5.56mm INSAS whose efficacy is being questioned in many quarters. There are a large number of skeptics with regard to the country-made Arjun tanks. Leave alone a fighter aircraft; we have not been able to produce a small passenger aircraft. This is primarily because we began to lag woefully ever since the first modern RMA took place in the 14th century. The modernization of defense infrastructure entails the modernization of naval bases, air bases,

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and military cantonments. Most of these were inherited from the British. Since warfare and India as such have both moved much beyond, there is a need to upgrade these to meet the needs of accommodating and maintaining modern military machine. Our training facilities also need to be modernized to make training more realistic and warlike. It is a geopolitical reality that India is ringed by failed/failing states that include Pakistan (land boundary with India 3310 kilometers) in the northwest, Nepal (land boundary with India 1751 kilometers) in the north, Bangladesh (land boundary with India 4095 kilometers) in the southeast, and Myanmar (land boundary with India 1463 kilometers) in the northeast. Indias internal security is inextricably linked with the prevailing attitude and environment in Islamabad. The Navy will be left with nine operational submarines by 2012 against the stated requirement of thirty. Keeping in view the precarious position, I wonder what stopped New Delhi from ordering in a single stroke twelve submarines from the French and simultaneously opening a second submarine manufacturing line with another vendor. The laborious and complicated process of vetting tenders and negotiations provided adequate data to replenish the dwindling submarine resources at one go. Once again, we start this time-consuming tedious process to appoint a second vendor. Indian military capabilities shrink rapidly while the threats multiply. Our Coastguard and Navy needs to upgraded synergized and capacity greatly augmented. Indian Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma confirmed that the Navy would include amphibious

elements to complement other Navy, Indian Navy inducted its first amphibious warship INS Jalashwa from US in 2007. The Indian Navy has an Amphibious transport dock of the Austin class, re-christened as INS Jalashwa in service. Besides, it also maintains a fleet of tank landing ships and other smaller vessels. It currently has no dedicated helicopter carrier in its possession which is a shortcoming as other navies in the world with aspiring blue water navy capabilities have them, the gap formed is hence filled by indian navy by operating the helicopters from its aircraft carrier to carry out amphibious operations along with anti submarine warfare roles. It was Admiral Alfred T. Mahan (1840-1914) of the United States Navy who is reported to have said that who ever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean would be a prominent player on the international scene. Admiral Mahan was a great Naval strategic thinker and historian who was in many ways the Naval equivalent of the Army's Clausewitz (General Karl Von Clausewitz of Germany). It was in 1890 that Mahan wrote the famous treatise on 'The influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783' that changed Naval thinking in the United States. The Indian Ocean is the third largest Ocean in the World with an area of 73,500,000 sq. km or 28,350,500 sq. miles. Its greatest depth is the Java Trench South of Java with a depth of 7725 m or 25,344 ft. It touches Asia in the North, Australia to the East, Antarctica to the South and Africa to the West. Its southern boundary is an arbitrary line drawn from Cape Agulhas on the southern tip of South Africa to South Tasmania in South-East Australia. Unlike the Atlantic and Pacific, most of the Indian Ocean lies south of the Equator. The Indian Ocean forms two large indentations in the Southern coast of Asia, the Arabian Sea in the West and the Bay of Bengal in the East.

Final solution:Present day tactics of dealing with the menace of piracy is akin to putting a weak an impoverished and untrained boxer ( the innocent seafarer) with both his hand tied behind the back into the ring against a reigning heavy weight boxing champion. Till date majority of the countries have put a restriction on
seafarers carrying weapons on board and such ships are not allowed in port. Pirates are gaining access to greater intelligence, sophisticated communication technology, both free flow of small and large arms and pseudo political backing from world large mafia, crime syndicate and terrorist organizations and officials of failed state to whom they provide 30 % of the ransom. Given the past history, the piracy can be used with devastating accuracy against the Indian state by rogue states like Pakistan, Myanmar, and Last but not least the Indias most formidable enemy China. Elsewhere in this paper it has been stated that the Chinese custom cutters are increasingly taking part in overt acts of Piracy and privateering and It may be conveniently assumed that the Indian Flag vessels will be in their RADAR.

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Battle of Piracy cannot be won with the active military support of the Indian state using the International jurisdiction and the UN security council authorization for the Hot Pursuit India should not wait for the others to act, but launch an all out attack against the pirate state of Puntland. EYL should be shelled and the mechanisms and headquarters of piracy should be destroyed. In a failed republic with no alternative income and no foreseeable future development and prospect of huge rewards and then the prospect of being set free even after capture { In the operation Atlanta carried out by the European states about 60% of the pirates were left scot free} there is very little that can deter the youth form joining the piracy INDUSTRY in Somalia or prevent the career pirates from carrying out wanton acts of terror against innocent Indian and international seafarers. Till we take the war to his country and make him count the costs. Navy has to be strengthened and the new type of crafts like the EKRANOPLAN as shown in the picture should be used for the rapid deployment to petrol the Indian shores. The Indian seafarer should be adequately trained in the defensive maneuvers, The Somalia and INDIAN OCEAN should be declared a WAR ZONE and seafarer should be adequately compensated for working there. Legal mechanisms should be integrated to include maritime piracy, maritime terrorism, and Maritime robbery to come in the same ambit and the Universal jurisdiction should extended to all piracy affected areas, to the coastal and territorial waters. Capital punishment for the pirates and Maritime terrorists should be re-instated in all over the world. An Fore most we should stop paying Pirates ransom and start using special forces for extraction of the captives. With a co-ordinated efforts of the navy, governments , shipowners, charters, seafarers, P&I clubs, Insurance companies, security agencies like IMB, and all other ship owners we can send maritime piracy to its watery grave.

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