The Arctic Sea Incident and the Media: Getting it Wrong

It's been a few days since the saga of the Maltese freighter MV Arctic Sea came to a conclusion, of sorts, with the freeing of her crew by Russian naval forces, who also apparently apprehended the suspected pirates who'd seized the vessel. But all the unanswered questions that linger, as well as the way things played, out raise some serious questions about the media's role in the incident. Not just in the way things were reported, but also in the way it appears the media was deliberately misinformed. None of this does much to much to better the public's awareness of global piracy and the threats mariners face on a daily basis. If anything, it may have muddied the proverbial waters by stoking more skepticism and the reality of things and fueling those conspiracy theorists who feel there are all sorts of grand geo-political machinations going on.

As piracy expert EagleSpeak has alluded to on his site, sometimes it's better to keep things simple (and you, too, can look up the definition of Occam's razor he mentions). Instead, what we've seen since the Arctic Sea disappeared in the Baltic was ever increasing misreporting, misinformation and mistakes.

In my opinion there are two culpable players whose actions should be looked at: the media itself and several governments and NGOs.

The Media: Filling a Void

I'm a professional journalist, so am implicitly aware that headlines garner attention and sensational stories - like a freighter going missing in European waters - captivate audiences. But I'm also aware that one shouldn't fill a vacuum of information with mere speculation or, worse, self-serving innuendo. Too many journalists and would-be experts (and some real ones, too), threw their hats haphazardly into the ring on this one. And in many cases they should not have.

For the record, I received a number of requests for interviews about this incident over the last few weeks. Most wanted to know if terrorists had taken the ship or if piracy off Europe was about to rival that of the Horn of Africa. I disagreed, saying to all who contacted me that we just didn't have enough information to come to any firm conclusions.

That's not very sexy, but there were enough others willing to postulate on the potentials of something dramatic to fill the airtime. Yet it seemed as though most ignored the obvious while spinning ever more complex ideas. Drug smuggling, nuclear weapons, even a strange idea that the whole thing was some bizarre Russian naval exercise (see CNN's report here). And, more problematic, is that many media outlets simply got things wrong when a little research - a Google search, in fact - would have corrected things.

For instance, the Arctic Sea is not a Russian vessel. Russian-built, yes, and crewed at present by Russian nationals, but she's registered in Malta so flies the Maltese cross off her transom. And managed by a Finnish company, to make things more complex - welcome to the world of modern shipping. Small details, but nevertheless important if you're a journalist looking at current events.

Also, this was not the first time we've seen an act of piracy in European waters in centuries, as some have said. I've myself written about an incident a decade ago that mirrored, in some ways, the Arctic Sea event (see here), and then there's the Achille Lauro hijacking back in 1985. Yes, the liner was seized by Palestinian terrorists, but they still committed an act of piracy in so doing.

By the definitions of piracy used by the United Nations, the International Maritime Bureau and a number of sovereign states, what happened to the Arctic Sea most definitely constituted an act of piracy. So I take exception when experts or pundits played this down (see The Telegraph, for instance, which insisted on putting the word pirates in quotation marks).

This was a pirate incident, pure and simple. What the intentions of those who controlled the Arctic Sea the last few weeks was remains to be seen. If it was terrorists who had hijacked the vessel, they had still committed an act of piracy. If it was criminal gangs who'd sent a team to seize her, those boarders were still pirates. If the crew had gone rogue, they would be considered pirates.

So, the media didn't exactly do a bang-up job in reporting on this one. Some blame may be "summer journalism", something outsiders are not much aware of. It's what happens when the more experienced staffers take their vacations and leave juniors to deal with things. But juniors become senior and need to learn the game and how they're manipulated. Which leads me to the second element in this story...

The Official Story

Without a doubt, one of the most troubling aspects of the Arctic Sea incident is the dearth of information that has been provided by the Russian government and what seems to be a number of other offical bodies. I find it very hard to believe that the Russians - and others - knew what was going on all along, and spun a web of deceit to the media in order to safeguard the lives of the freighter's crew. It sounds too much like a case in which parties were initially unaware of the true danger and, effectively, caught with their pants down. Then, after scrambling to deal with the situation, the mantra became "We were always in control of things."

In the days since the vessel was freed, we have yet to receive a full public accountability that can fill in the gaps. This is odd, to say the least, and makes one wonder if the reality of what transpired isn't more confusing. I, for one, would have expected to Russian official to have by now stood up in a press conference and said something like:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the lack of information that's been provided but rest assured we've been on top of this situation from day one. On July XX at YY hours, we learned of the fate of the vessel and mobilized our assets. In communication with the authorities in ZZ we set out to track the ship, knowing it had been hijacked. At no point was anyone in Western Europe or any other mariner at risk by this incident. Our decision to allow it to transit the busy Kattegat and English Channel at no point was something to be concerned about..."

Was the Arctic Sea ever at risk to other vessels? Why was it allowed to exit the Baltic Sea, where Russia maintains a strong naval presence, to say nothing of the other littoral states there? And why was it deemed necessary to dupe the media - and the public - about what was going on in this particular case?

When a vessel is commandeered by Somali pirates, there is never a news blackout to ensure the safety of the captives, though this is sometimes because the pirates themselves make the news available. I, for one, cannot help but wonder if the Russians succumbed to American envy after the Maersk Alabama incident. The US Navy resolved that situation successfully in order to resuce their own citizens. Was the Arctic Sea incident supposed to be a Russian variation that showed their own resolve?

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Hiding details, misinforming the public or filling columns and airspace with innuendos are not the way to deal with the threats that incidents like this one reveal. Piracy, maritime crime and seaborne terrorism are grave problems for the global community. And they should not be hidden away or glossed over.

Terrorism and piracy in Somalia

The US Naval Institute blog has a piece from last week pondering the connections between pirates operating in the seas off Somalia and the potential that it is funding extremist groups, something I've talked about before here. The author, Galrahn, talks about recent comments attributed to an al-Qaeda supporter, Sa’id Ali Jabir Al Khathim Al Shihri (aka Abu Sufian al-Azdi), calling upon Somali 'jihadists' to attack foreigners - he calls them crusaders - in the seas off East Africa. (Shihri was incarcerated in Guantanamo for six years before being sent back to Saudi Arabia last year, only to reappear spouting these purported comments.)

Galrahn wonders if the rise in pirate incidents off Somalia last autumn could be tied to the efforts of Somali Islamists - namely al-Shabaab - to hook up with al-Qaeda, efforts which began at about the same time. It's an interesting perspective, though I would offer that most of the pirates who may allied with al-Shabaab operate in the southern part of the country, not within the Gulf of Aden (GoA) region. Most of the folks in Somaliland and Puntland, the two areas in the north that abut the GoA, appear to have little desire to see Islamist rule imposed along the lines of that al-Shabaab espouses. And the upsurge of pirate incidents that came in August and September may also be attributed to the end of the summer monsoon season, a period over the the summer months in which those seas become somewhat rough and see many pirates take a breather from attacking in their small craft.

EagleSpeak has commented a number of times about the influence of weather patterns in the seas of the Horn of Africa on pirate attacks in those waters. And it's certainly true that we see patterns where attacks go down when the weather turns rough. This is one reason we're seeing so much activity off Somalia right now, because the pirates are trying to 'harvest' as much as they can before the monsoon winds begins to blow in a couple of months.

Nevertheless, I still think that we need to be vigilant about the threat of piracy funding extremist groups. Somalia has the potential to become the Afghanistan of Africa, something that few desire to see occur.

How to Beat the Somali Pirates

EagleSpeak yesterday presented an exceedingly lucid perspective on measures that could be emplaced to deter further attacks by pirates off the Horn of Africa, promulgating the idea of increased use of convoys to protect commercial ships in the region. Some shippers are already doing so, but a greater use of this time-tested process could definitely help alleviate future attacks.

There are many ideas being put forth about how to address the situation in the waters off the Horn of Africa, and before I add my own thoughts to EagleSpeak's opinions, I'd like to comment on a piece posted on the Foreign Affairs website by blogger Elizabeth Dickinson. Entitled "Pirates on a spree", it sums up what a number of people are feeling, especially in light of the hijacking of at least five vessels in the last two days. However, in my estimation she only gets things about half right.

Dickinson wonders,"How are a bunch of former fisherman (sic) defeating the world's navies?", which is wholly incorrect. Somali pirates are by no means defeating navies, for they go out of their way to avoid encounters with warships patrolling the region's seas. Indeed, pirates there are not 'defeating' anyone - they are threatening and attacking mariners in a manner intended to maintain the inflow of money to the various gangs and warlords who control these criminal ventures. Unlike, for instance, terrorist groups, pirates do not wish to defeat or vanquish an enemy; they wish to exploit a resource - ships and seafarers - on an ongoing basis.

Dickinson also brings up what she calls the "grievance theory", the idea that Somalis are "pissed" about over-fishing and the illegal dumping of toxic waste in the Indian Ocean, though she sums this up with the odd sentence, "Don't dump your waste on Somali soil if you don't want to get wasted at sea, apparently." I'm not sure what she means by that, but, regardless, the issue of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (known as IUU), and the dumping of toxic waste, is nothing new to the seas off Somalia. These activities go back well over a decade and have, at times, been done with the complicity of Somali warlords. You simply can't extract bribes, or "permits", on the one hand and then decry the despoiling that comes from allowing such activities on the other. If Somalis were out patroling their maritime economic zone and protecting fishing vessels - their own and foreign - or detering waste dumpers by reporting their activitiesto the international community, that would be an entirely different matter. But the cloak of environmental protectors sometimes put forth just doesn't fly with me.

However, Dickinson is spot on when she says that Somali pirates are venturing further offshore to avoid naval patrols and are continuing to pirate because there's no other viable, economic option available. But, most importantly, she offers a view I've already taken about the confusion arising from so many nations sending so many vessels into the foray.

To add to EagleSpeak's views, I would suggest that we need a more comprehensive and organized international response to piracy off the Horn of Africa. This is the only situation in current times in which such disparate elements as NATO, the EU, Russia, China and India have shown a willingness to work together to combat a low-level conflict, which is what piracy is. But the command and control structures are overlapping, reducing overall capabilities. It is vital that this be addressed.

And as to the big issue - dealing with the land-based commanders who send pirates out - it is clear that no one wants to send troops into Somalia itself. So, instead, I offer the suggestion that the international community work with the younger generation of Somalis, many of whom live in the West and hold little fondness for their elders, the members of the TFG and other groups that have done little to provide leadership in Somalia.

Two opportunities exist to augment convoys and patrolling warships: A more effective, coordinated multinational leadership and support for the younger generation of Somalis willing to put aside the sins of their fathers. Somalia today is a litmus test of how the international community can address age old problems in a completely modern, 21st century manner. To be sure, commercial shipping is being affected by the plight of piracy, but there are currently no other strategic imperatives there which might diffuse political objectives, such as oil, gas or terrorists. But there is the potential to suppress piracy in the seas off the Horn and support East African security without adding Somalia to the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan. Unaddressed, though, Somalia's criminal elements will prove far more costly to us than any ransom ever paid.