Monday Ship Mysteries: Tamils and Tigers and Migrants, oh my

Maritime mysteries: They're not just for Halloween anymore, and hopefully you'll find somethings of interest here to start your week.

I begin with the case of the MV Ocean Lady, a freighter that arrived off Canada's west coast last October (the 17th, to be exact), with a group of Tamils aboard her. In the last month we've seen some incidents in which people fleeing Sri Lanka's troubles by sea, on vessels, have ended up trying to get into Canada and Australia, provoking some worry about the real identities of those aboard. Are they legitimate refugees or, more ominously, are there remnants of the infamous Tamil Tigers, the militant group seeking a separate homeland for their people?

When the Ocean Lady was apprehended by Canadian authorities, the vessel was found to have 76 men on board, all Tamil, who were seeking refugee status from the troubles in their island homeland. But how - and why - did these men come to decide on Canada as a place to seek out, having endured what must have been a horrible trip across the Pacific on a small ship?

According to some reports, the ship left India at the beginning of September, departing Mundra as the Princess Easwary around September 8. Mundra is in the northwest corner of India, on the Gulf of Kachchh, not far from the border with Pakistan. That's a long way from Sri Lanka, though it appears to be the last port of call reported for the vessel. Sometime thereafter - if reports are correct - the ship was renamed the Ocean Lady and headed t0 Canada.

Some believe that the Ocean Lady was part of the small fleet of merchant vessels controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the mostly Hindu population who have been fighting for a separate homeland from the Buddhist, Sinhalese majority on Sri Lanka for decades.

Canada has both a positive attitude towards refugees and a strong Tamil community, which would be the most obvious reasons for these individuals to come here. But some believe that Canada may be becoming the last redoubt of those seeking a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka.

Regarding the individuals who arrived on the Ocean Lady, it must be said that it seems odd that 76 able-bodied men would show up on Canada's shore, with no women or children accompanying them (as happened when Tamils arrived in Australian waters recently). Certainly they have legitimate issues about what is going on back in Sri Lanka, but their unexpected arrival off the West Coast does little to help their brethren, as it appears to many like a case of a few fleeing while the most deal with the worst. Which leads to the idea that these men are LTTE foot soldiers trying to get out of the country and help rebuild LTTE operations in Canada.

On the other hand why would the LTTE give up a valuable naval asset (the Ocean Lady) for just 76 guys? You could fly these individuals to Canada on a commercial flight for cheaper than the cost of shipping them. With the same end result. Kind of odd, eh?

So that's the first installment of Monday Maritime Mysteries.

Some Sunday night updates

I was busy handing out treats on Halloween and only saw a single kid dressed like a pirate, but the spirit of the evening is well represented in a great posting over at Eagle1's blog, in which he relates some great ghost ship tales. Check it out.

There's also a new link on the right to the US Coast Guard's site, with a lot of video, audio, images and other information. Great site, and well worth exploring for anyone interested in the workings of the force.

Somali pirates do a reality check, of sorts

It's being reported that the ransom demand for Rachel and Paul Chandler - the British couple seized by Somali pirates just over a week ago - has dropped considerably. The initial demand of something like US$7 million may have been reduced to £100,000 (about US$165,000), possibly reflecting a better understanding on the part the pirates for the of the financial resources available to the yachters. However, British media outlet The Independent is also reporting that the Chandlers' captors may want to see some of their brethren recently apprehended by European naval forces released as part of the deal.

As should be clear to anyone, the Chandlers are not wealthy and do not have the same sorts of financial backers to pay off the pirates holding them hostage as commercial shippers do. Indeed, holding the couple for an extensive period of time could prove costly for the gang that seized them. These criminal gangs operate on a strictly profit-based model in which a rich payout is expected for all the money and time that goes into taking a prize. A ransom of $165,000 is not high; one could almost call it a recessionary amount, more like what Somali pirates were getting five or six years ago. This may be one reason there appears to be some dissension amongst the pirates holding the couple: It's not hard to imagine someone higher up in the criminal organization asking "Why did you grab these two small fish when there are more valuable targets out there?".

At the same time, a spokesman for the pirates holding the couple expressed a somewhat surreal reasoning for why they kidnapped them in the first place. In a brief transcription posted on The Guardian's website, the conversation went like this:

Caller: "They have been captured by our brothers, who patrol the coast. We have been informed about their presence in the area, where bandits operate. If they do not harm us, we will not harm them, we only need a little amount of seven million dollars."

Recipient of call: "Seven million dollars is a lot of money, isn't it?"

Caller: "No, no, no, NATO operations have had a lot of negative impact here, they have destroyed a lot of equipment belonging to the poor local fishermen. They arrest fishermen and destroy their equipment, in defiance of our local administrations. They illegally transfer the fishermen to their own prisons, and prisons of other foreign countries, so when you consider the damage and all the people affected, we say the amount is not big."

If this weren't so distorted, I'm sure NATO officials would be happy to see how effective their naval operations off the Horn of Africa were having on the pirates themselves. But no mention was made of the European Union's (EU) armada in the region, the two Coalition Task Forces, or the various efforts by nations as diverse as China, Russia, South Korea, Japan, India and even Iran (among many others).

Point is, NATO's counter-piracy operations have not been the only naval operations in the region. And I'm somewhat surprised the pirate spokesman singled out the Treaty when it would have been easier - so to speak - to harangue the EU. (See also today's incident in which Norwegian navy sailors came under fire in the Gulf of Aden and killed two people - reportedly a Somali and Yemeni. Norway is member of NATO, but their warship was working in concert with the EU flotilla.)

But there is a political dimension to this situation that could drive the ransom up. The Independent piece also talks of how all the media attention focused on the Chandlers could have a detrimental effect on their safe release, which is true. Oddly, the less attention paid about them the more likely it is the pirates will give in to a lower ransom. But make no mistake, the couple will only be released if someone ponies up some money. Or someone tries a risky rescue operation - not done lightly after the French fiasco with the yacht Tanit last Spring.

Sitrep update: A French tuna boat is reported to have repelled an attack on Saturday while sailing in the Indian Ocean between Somalia and the Seychelles. It's said that soldiers aboard the French vessel fired off rounds from their weapons and fireworks of some sort.

Somali Marines and the threat to yachters of pirates

Being up to my eyeballs in work and ongoing research on some new projects, I've been unable to comment on recent piracy incidents. Thankfully, my colleague EagleSpeak has been more vigilant in reporting on things. He provided a good roundup of general items on Wednesday (see here) as well as a piece today (here) about the hijacking of the British yacht by Somali pirates last weekend.

That incident has caused a small flurry of media interest, mainly because there are two middle-aged civilians involved. For the umpteenth time, I reiterate that the kidnapping of yachters is another reason to NOT believe the pirate spokesmen's claims that these criminals are trying to defend the overfishing or illegal waste dumping going on off the Horn of Africa (HoA). These people, and the hundreds of other mariners currently be held hostage by pirate gangs, have absolutely nothing to do with those problems.

As an article referenced by Eagle1 says, the British couple is being held in Harardhere, likely by the maritime elements of local warlord Abdi Mohamed Afweyne. These are the seaborne forces known as the 'Somali Marines', who have been the most successful of all Somali pirates. As I found while doing research into piracy in East Africa, they sometimes style themselves the 'Defenders of Somali Territorial Waters', an honorific that belies their criminal behavior. This is the group that has targeted UN-chartered merchant vessels carrying humanitarian aid in the past. They have a highly organized structure, with Abdi Mohamed Afweyne overseeing a marine operation that itself includes a fleet admiral and vice-admiral (who is also head of marine operations and, a few years ago, was known, paradoxically, as 'General Gray ').

Now the question on a lot of people's minds is how serious is the threat of pirates off the HoA to pleasure boaters? In a nutshell: it's not great, unless you provoke things. There's currently no reason to go sailing through the waters of the eastern Indian Ocean; there are plenty of other pleasant seas to explore. You can safely transit the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in convoys. Be informed and aware. And the reality is that pirates are less interested in small pleasure craft than commercial vessels, owing to the potential ransoms involved. But there is always a risk. Always.

Maersk Alabama captain speaks of his experience at the hands of pirates

Associated Press did a video interview with Captain Richard Phillips that was posted yesterday and may be of interest to some. In it, Phillips talks of how important it is to keep pirates from boarding a vessel in the first place, and of how crews have to "put themselves in harm's way" in order to prevent a situation from escalating. "As soon as a pirate gets on the ship...it is over," the captain says in the interview, adding, "So we have to everything - and anything - to keep them from getting on the ship."

You can view it by clicking here. (By the way, the blurb below the video about him "contemplating calling it quits with the sea" is a little misleading.)

Global piracy at an all-time high

The International Maritime Bureau's piracy and armed robbery report for the third quarter of 2009 has been released and it's official: There have been more pirate incidents in the first nine months of this year than for all of 2008. From January 1 to September 30, the IMB reports 306 incidents, as compared with 293 for January 1 to December 31, 2008.

As quoted in Reuters, the IMB says there were 324 global attacks if you count incidents reported up to Tuesday (October 20). These include 37 hijackings and 639 people held hostage. In the same period last year there were 194 attacks, 36 hijackings and 631 hostages held by pirates.

There is some good news in the report, though: Attacks committed by Somali pirates over the summer months were down this year. The IMB says there that between June and October, there were 43 reported attacks in the waters off the Horn of Africa (HoA), only 6 of which resulted in a successful hijacking. Last year, there were 57 attacks in the same period, including 23 hijackings.

While some of the reduction in attacks off the HoA can be attributed to the summer monsoon weather, IMB director Pottengal Mukundan tells Reuters that he also believes the presence of naval assets in the region has also been a strong contributing factor. He also mentions the heightened defensive measures being taken by mariners who are, "[N]ot giving way easily," while singling out measures taken by authorities in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland as helping.

But while Somali piracy may be down a bit - and don't count any of them out, yet - Mukundan warns that the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa continues to be a dangerous region, with 21 attacks noted until last Tuesday. More ominously, though, the IMB director points out that these reported attacks probably represent only 35 percent of actual incidents, as many (most) go unreported. So double or triple the numbers when looking at the figures.

As for how to deal with the situation in Somalia, Mukundan has some thoughts expressed in a Voice of America article. Like myself and many others, he feels that the problem must addressed ashore, where pirates operate from. Which is why the IMB director expresses his support for how authorities in Puntland are trying to deal with the criminals, because piracy does not begin on the seas - it begins on land. As Mukundan tells VoA, "This is very important because it is the local community taking responsibility for the local criminals and punishing them under their own laws."

Effective naval security, enhanced civilian anti-piracy measures and more robust legal prosecutions are at least half the solution. Shutting down the money trail is another hefty element. But we're still left with the nagging problem of finding the means to build relationships with the nascent authorities ashore in Somalia, without whom piracy cannot be contained.

Somali pirates increasingly sophisticated: Interpol

AFP had an item the other day about Interpol's 78th general assembly, which wrapped up on Thursday in Singapore. In the piece, the organization's executive director of police services - Jean-Michel Louboutin - commented on Somali piracy, calling it "organised crime" that involves people outside Somalia. The AFP report also talks of how pirates are "being controlled by crime syndicates", and are using sophisticated weapons, as well as tracking devices that have allowed them to extend their reach far out to sea.

Mike Palmer, the Australian inspector of transport security, is also quoted in the item, stating that, "Their weaponry continues to get more sophisticated, their attacks are taking place farther and farther out to sea... as far as 1,200 nautical miles offshore. This dovetails well with an excellent analysis that EagleSpeak provided today, entitled "Somali Pirates: Breaking the 600 mile barrier". And the financial costs of all this is laid out by Palmer, who tells AFP that "Apart from any ransom paid, shipping companies also lost an average of seven million dollars for every hostage-taking, which typically lasts about 70 days."

In some respects, this isn't startling news: The operational capabilities of Somali pirates have become increasingly organized over the course of the last five or six years (though there was an interruption in piracy back in 2006 when the Islamic Courts Union briefly held power over much of the southern parts of the country). The ability to send pirate teams hundreds, or thousands, of miles from their home ports to undertake missions shows the capabilities these criminal outfits possess, plus a degree of seamanship that must be recognized. It's what make combating the problem even more difficult, for there's an awful lot of water to safeguard against the threat of piracy when you factor in the western Indian Ocean. Simply put, the international community does not have the resources to effectively patrol the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, and the pirates know this.

But as the AFP report mentions, there is a growing sense that another way to stem the tide of piracy off the Horn of Africa is to go after the money trail, to shut down the abilities of pirate gangs to move their finances around. This may be one of the most important means of suppressing piracy in that region of the world, for it's clear from my contacts that it's not like there are millions of dollars gleaned from ransoms lying about in Somali banks. Those at the top of the pirate leadership structure appear to be moving some of their money out of Somalia, possibly in order to create a nest-egg, of sorts, for their futures. If we can intercept the money-laundering and make naval patrols more effective, then the only other element missing in addressing piracy off the Horn of Africa is to find a way to bring security ashore.

As Jean-Michel Louboutin says, "It is very important to understand that this is not only a military problem. It's a civil problem and we have to help this country enhance its capacity and to provide technical support." Well said, for it should be remembered that piracy begins ashore. Meanwhile, hitting the pirates in their pockets is a definite asset in dealing with the problem.