The New Anti-piracy: High-stakes Hijacking on the Open Sea
What do you do with a captured pirate? In the murky world of pirate hunting, it's anybody's guess. The morning after pirates hijacked the North Korean freighter Dai Hong Dan off the coast of Somalia, the North Korean government got Noel Choong on the line. They'd never dealt with him before, but he has..
What do you do with a captured pirate? In the murky world of pirate hunting, it's anybody's guess.
The morning after pirates hijacked the North Korean freighter Dai Hong Dan off the coast of Somalia, the North Korean government got Noel Choong on the line. They'd never dealt with him before, but he has a publicly listed number. And when pirates attack, Choong is the person you call."We don't have a warship, of course," says Choong. "Even if we did, we couldn't go into any country's territorial waters." Instead, Choong acts like a global 911 dispatcher. He coordinates with government officials, directs an intricate network of informants, and passes on reports of pirate attacks to a navies with the firepower to break up a hijacking in progress. He does all this as the director of the Piracy Reporting Center, a watchpost and intelligence outfit in Kuala Lumpur, which operates the world's only 24-hour piracy hotline.So when the North Koreans rang about their hijacked freighter, Choong handed off their report to the U.S. Navy headquarters in Bahrain. The Americans quickly dispatched a destroyer to intercept the ship, and rescue its 23-man crew. It remains the only time the U.S. military has aided North Korea since the outbreak of the Korean War, nearly 60 years ago. But when I ask Choong if that makes this kind of rescue extraordinary, he says "Not at all.""You are talking about life and death," says Choong, his Malay-inflected English delicate and precise. "The U.S., British, or any other military, if there is any problem at sea which involves life, they will respond without questioning politics." And so that's what they did that day in late October, 2007. Of course, it doesn't always go so smoothly.
In Asia, when ships are hijacked, Choong says, "we have informants, we have people to go out to meet our informants, to pay for information. We then pass that on to law enforcement agencies." But those informant networks don't extend to the Horn of Africa and the waters off Somalia, where the number of reported pirate attacks has more than doubled since 2007, and where, in late 2008, two high-profile hijackings focused international attention on the pirate menace.When pirates attack in this part of the world, people rely on Choong, and a multinational taskforce of warships patrolling the area. And increasingly, as piracy grows as a problem-and as the international community tries to sort out whose problem it is to solve-more and more shipowners are turning to private security firms to keep their freight safe. Some of these firms are backed with decades of experience and strong reputations. Others are known for being staffed with trigger-happy mercenaries who will patrol and fight for the highest bidder, no matter what side they're on.The good news, if you can call it that, is that the trouble in Somalia isn't the first outbreak of piracy in modern times. After its golden age in the 1700s, piracy was mostly eradicated from the world's oceans, reappearing only after the end of the Cold War. Between 1961 and 1986, there were a mere 300 pirate attacks reported around the world. In 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, pirates struck 48 ships. By 2001, that number had mushroomed to 469, most of them concentrated in and around the strait of Malacca, a narrow and heavily trafficked stretch of sea between Malaysia and Indonesia. There, as in Somalia, piracy began as a rash of maritime muggings-crimes of opportunity with small payoffs-and quickly escalated into a problem of international proportions. In 1992, there were nearly as many pirate attacks in the strait of Malacca as there were last year near Somalia. That's also the year Choong was hired as founding director of the Piracy Reporting Center, which was put together to bring piracy under control in the region. If anyone knows what went wrong-and right-during that pirate crisis, it's Noel Choong.His work isn't without its risk-he has been the target of assassination threats, and keeps a low public profile. But thanks to the PRC, more stringent patrols, and strengthening economies across Asia, piracy has been on the decline around the Malacca strait. Just two incidents were reported in 2008, down from the peak of 119 reported attacks in 2002.As Choong will tell you, most pirate strikes follow the same pattern. A group of raiders come at a cargo carrier or cruise ship from behind, using a small motorboat to conceal themselves from the ship's radar. (More brazen attackers simply motor into the ship's path and open fire with AK-47s, then hop onboard.) Pirates use grappling hooks or ladders to climb onto the ship where-thanks to modern automation systems-they could be met by as few as two dozen unarmed men, even on the largest ships. Once pirates get on board, their fight is as good as won. In the 1980s and early 1990s, pirates would mostly rob the crew, take what cargo they could, and bolt. More recently, though, pirate gangs discovered they could extract far more money by hijacking a ship and holding the vessel and its crew for ransom. Ship owners are almost always willing to pay up.
Blackwater Worldwide announced it will send its own private warship into the region, and several other private security contractors are already operating in the area.Over the years, shippers have tried ways to prevent pirates from coming aboard. They've deployed sonic guns that blast deafening sound waves, or instructed crews to use on-deck fire hoses to blow their attackers overboard. In a recent controversial move, some ship owners have supplemented their crews with armed "protection teams," supplied by private security contractors, who can shoot back when pirates come near. Choong is skeptical of the approach, which he says opens up a set of uncomfortable and complicated legal questions."There are so many aspects you have to look into," he says. "If the protection team, or mercenaries, have encountered a suspicious boat, and actually fired at the boat, and the boat is actually fisherman, who is going to take the responsibility? Is it the flag state? The protection team? If the crew is shot in a gun battle, or even the pirates, who is going to take responsibility?" He worries that the proliferation of private security forces in shipping lanes will spark an arms race with pirates, endangering the lives of crews in the process.With his by-the-book approach and soft-spoken dedication, it's easy to cast Choong as a good cop in the anti-piracy world.
Brazen attackers simply motor into the ship's path and open fire with AK-47s, then hop onboard.Rampant piracy has created a big market for private security firms in Somali waters. Blackwater Worldwide, for example, has announced it will send its own private warship into the region, and several other private security contractors are already operating in the area. The dash for security contracts concerns Dalby. "The past performance of certain contractors gives me a great deal of cause for concern," he says. "I'm not pointing fingers, but I am, if you understand."The U.S. Justice Department recently indicted five Blackwater guards on charges of voluntary manslaughter for an incident in Iraq in 2007 that killed 14 civilians and wounded 20. A sixth Blackwater guard has pled guilty. Blackwater's experience in Iraq, Dalby says, "shows they are willing to go in guns blazing, Wild-West style. And that's not the way to go about it. People are going to get hurt and killed and there's going to be a lot of damage."
These days, as many as 30 warships from the United States, Canada, the European Union, Russia, India, and China patrol the region.These days, as many as 30 warships from the United States, Canada, the European Union, Russia, India, and China patrol the region. The problem is considered serious enough that Japan has strained against its pacifist constitution to send two destroyers to join the efforts there.Still, that cooperation has its limits. Long after Choong has done his part, and the navy has done its, it remains unclear what, exactly, is meant to happen next. In the 18th century, the British declared pirates legally hostis humani generis-enemies of all mankind. By law, pirates could be hanged on sight, and hunted without mercy on land and at sea. These days, maritime law is much less clear on how to handle pirates: Since most attacks happen in international waters, there is usually no nation with automatic jurisdiction. Further complicating the legal picture, the nationality of most cargo ships is just as confused-a ship might be owned by a company in Greece, fly a Nigerian flag for tax purposes, and be operated by a crew from Thailand.This confusion hamstrings the legal fight against piracy, but it also opens the door for private contractors, Dalby told me. "It's easier for us to operate because there's so much entanglement. Nobody knows what the hell is going on, really. If we're invited on board by the owner of the ship, and by default the flag state, we're there legally, provided the ship is in international waters. Are the Somalis going to arrest us and take us to court? I don't think so."Every country, too, responds differently. In some cases, captured pirates can be returned to their home country for trial. The Chinese government has been openly brutal in its punishment of Chinese nationals guilty of piracy, for instance. But Somalia doesn't typically prosecute or imprison pirates, and most of neighboring countries don't want the burden. The British navy, meanwhile, has decided not to take any pirates as prisoners, for fear that they might request asylum.It's easy to find navies and mercenaries to fight pirates. The problem is finding a country willing to prosecute and jail them once they're caught.