Pirate Threads (2 Merged)

[soleil]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/no...omali-pirates/

[wanabedoc]

There is no point in arresting suspected pirates because you will never have the evidence to prosecute them unless you catch them in the act, in which case you have a window of a few minutes before they have hostages. You are very unlikely ever to catch them in this window. Maybe on a large container ship where the crew have locked themselves somewhere inside the ship, but you would have to be very lucky.
Let us say you do catch some in the act, then you have to find somewhere to prosecute them. Currently Kenya is the place of choice, due to concerns (as mentioned in the article) that if we bring them here they might claim assylum! Unfortunately Kenya's justice system is being questioned so the future of this arrangement is in jeapordy.

What we need to do is establish a safe corridor which you are not allowed to enter without announcing to the patrolling taskforce who you are, where you are going and why. Ships could take on armed security for the transit. Any boats coming within a certain sensible distance of ships in this area would be fired upon with little more than a brief warning shot. Pirates would soon learn.

Come to think, wouldn't the javelin missile be handy against pirates in small boats? I know they're expensive, but it must be pennies in comparison to ransom for 20+ crew and putting a container ship out of action for many weeks whilst it is anchored off Somalia in the hands of pirates.

[ctfairway]

There is no point in arresting suspected pirates because you will never have the evidence to prosecute them unless you catch them in the act, in which case you have a window of a few minutes before they have hostages. You are very unlikely ever to catch them in this window. Maybe on a large container ship where the crew have locked themselves somewhere inside the ship, but you would have to be very lucky.
Let us say you do catch some in the act, then you have to find somewhere to prosecute them. Currently Kenya is the place of choice, due to concerns (as mentioned in the article) that if we bring them here they might claim assylum! Unfortunately Kenya's justice system is being questioned so the future of this arrangement is in jeapordy.

What we need to do is establish a safe corridor which you are not allowed to enter without announcing to the patrolling taskforce who you are, where you are going and why. Ships could take on armed security for the transit. Any boats coming within a certain sensible distance of ships in this area would be fired upon with little more than a brief warning shot. Pirates would soon learn.

Come to think, wouldn't the javelin missile be handy against pirates in small boats? I know they're expensive, but it must be pennies in comparison to ransom for 20+ crew and putting a container ship out of action for many weeks whilst it is anchored off Somalia in the hands of pirates.

Every time the need to protect merchant shipping arises (WW2 etc) people think that " protected corridors" are the answer. This has been proved wrong time and again. The only way to guarantee safe passage is to use convoys. That means waiting for convoys to form up and making passage at the speed of the slowest ship - all of which costs shipping companies money and is therefore unpopular.

[Oil_Slick]

"Why is New Labour so reluctant to arrest Somali pirates?"


Simple, as soon as we nick them they;ll claim asylum.

[Naval_Gazer]

wanabedoc - A protected corridor would need to be 2,000 nm long and that's just for the east African coastal route, irrespective of traffic bound elsewhere. This would require an unrealistic number of warships to provide any effective security, i.e. be within a few minutes dash of any threatened vessel to exploit the brief window of opportunity you mention.

Until the pirates' nest is eradicated at source, a convoy system is the only reasonable alternative but, as ctfairway has indicated, the costs and delays involved in participating in such a scheme still outweigh the risk of being hijacked.

[MaceyThe]

The "asylum" thing does come in to it...
As far as I know, pirates have been caught in the act (with weapons and even hostages on board,) only to be sent on their way with life-jackets and hot drinks inside them. On board human-rights lawyers are wary of advising to detain hostages, because the reality of the situation is, once they come here for prosecution, they'll be here for life! Hence France in negotiations with Kenya, etc.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3736239.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...an-rights.html

[wanabedoc]

wanabedoc - A protected corridor would need to be 2,000 nm long and that's just for the east African coastal route, irrespective of traffic bound elsewhere. This would require an unrealistic number of warships to provide any effective security, i.e. be within a few minutes dash of any threatened vessel to exploit the brief window of opportunity you mention.

Until the pirates' nest is eradicated at source, a convoy system is the only reasonable alternative but, as ctfairway has indicated, the costs and delays involved in participating in such a scheme still outweigh the risk of being hijacked.

Forgive me for failing to make myself clear. I am not suggesting physical protection, but rather a change in law & philosophy to afford commercial ships legal protection. The idea was not that warships should patrol the whole corridor, I am suggesting that it should be legal to unleash the fury of whatever arsenal the commercial ships fancy carrying onto anybody who approaches them within this corridor. Everybody would have to know the rules and once they did they would know that if they toyed around they would get shot at. In a small arms fight between a massive container ship and a shitty wooden dhow, you wouldn't even have to be well trained to see the pirates off.

The advantage would be that you wouldn't have to wait until you were fired upon before firing back, because merely coming within, say, 2 miles of a commercial ship could be seen as a hostile act.

[AngryMonkey]

Until the pirates' nest is eradicated at source, a convoy system is the only reasonable alternative but, as ctfairway has indicated, the costs and delays involved in participating in such a scheme still outweigh the risk of being hijacked.

Destroying the pirates base ports would indeed the only way to guarantee an end to piracy unfortunately this would either involve landing and securing the coastline and getting sucked into the quagmire that is Somalia, or air/naval bombardments that would no doubt kill a fair few civilians as the pirates live amongst them. In my unqualified opinion the international community either need to substantly increase the naval forces in the region (which will cost more money than most are willing to spend) or go for the bombing option which may well not work and will probably kill a lot of innocent people. All in all the situations pretty much fcuked and it'll take smarter men/women than me to sort it out.

[NotmeChief]

..... and will probably kill a lot of innocent people

Are there any innocent people?

[Jack_McHammocklashing]

wanabedoc - A protected corridor would need to be 2,000 nm long and that's just for the east African coastal route, irrespective of traffic bound elsewhere. This would require an unrealistic number of warships to provide any effective security, i.e. be within a few minutes dash of any threatened vessel to exploit the brief window of opportunity you mention.

Until the pirates' nest is eradicated at source, a convoy system is the only reasonable alternative but, as ctfairway has indicated, the costs and delays involved in participating in such a scheme still outweigh the risk of being hijacked.

Forgive me for failing to make myself clear. I am not suggesting physical protection, but rather a change in law & philosophy to afford commercial ships legal protection. The idea was not that warships should patrol the whole corridor, I am suggesting that it should be legal to unleash the fury of whatever arsenal the commercial ships fancy carrying onto anybody who approaches them within this corridor. Everybody would have to know the rules and once they did they would know that if they toyed around they would get shot at. In a small arms fight between a massive container ship and a shitty wooden dhow, you wouldn't even have to be well trained to see the pirates off.

The advantage would be that you wouldn't have to wait until you were fired upon before firing back, because merely coming within, say, 2 miles of a commercial ship could be seen as a hostile act.

I have just completed a civvy cruise along a shipping lane
I did notice that mechant ships and yachts were of different sizes and sailing at different speeds, thus approaching and overtaking other vessels,
Are you suggesting that they may be shot at?

The sensible answer would be that Merchant ships are of course armed and respond to any obvious threat accordingly
Though what if the Pirates use an already high jacked container ship to pirate you

Initially a good idea to suggest maritime law IF you are a small boat DO NOT APPROACH a merchant ship within two miles in AREA X Y and Z

Jack McH