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There's not a warship for miles, a small pirate
skiff is speeding toward you and there's no way
the creaking tub you're on can outrun the
bandits. How long do you wait before you shoot?
It's just one of many possible dilemmas facing
an increasing number of private security
companies who offer armed escorts — known in the
industry as "shipriders" — from Somali pirates.
The few companies that have begun offering armed
escorts say their services have become
increasingly popular since the April hijacking
of the American-flagged Maersk Alabama,
particularly among U.S. shipowners. One company
— Hart Security UK — has reported a fourfold
increase in escorted trips since it began
offering them in October.
But legal problems abound for ships that carry
guns.
The first hurdle is making sure the countries
where ships embark and disembark the weapons
will allow them to do so — a legal nightmare in
corrupt Middle Eastern ports with terrorism
problems.
Then there's the issue of which law applies
onboard the ship if a weapon is discharged: the
shooter's nationality, the law of the country
whose flag the ship is flying, or the
territorial waters of the country the ship is
in.
In at least one case, a private security
consultant said, an armed team had rented
weapons from the Djibouti government then was
forced to drop them over the side of the ship to
avoid illegally importing them into the country
where they were due to disembark. The consultant
asked for anonymity because he did not wish to
compromise his business.
Kenneth C. Randall, the Dean of the University
of Alabama School of Law and an expert in
international piracy law, said there were
complex issues for companies providing legally
armed private guards.
"Commercial vessels have the right of innocent
passage through most coastal waters. Some
nations might say once you're armed, you're no
longer innocent," he said.
Many questions have yet to be tested in court:
should ships wait for the pirates to fire before
returning fire? Is it still self-defense if the
pirates are not firing at the shooter, instead
aiming at the captain's bridge? What happens if
the pirates are attacking from a "mother ship" —
a vessel that has already been pirated — and
there are civilians onboard being used as human
shields?
That's the nightmare scenario the Indian navy
faced last November. Pirates hijacked a Thai
fishing trawler then apparently fired on an
Indian warship. The Indians returned fire,
turning the Ekawat Nava 5 into a massive
fireball and killing 14 of the 15 crew as well
as the pirates. The surviving sailor spent six
days adrift in the shark-infested ocean before
another ship picked him up.
There is no public registry of all the different
companies providing armed guards to ships. Some,
like Lotus in Yemen, did not return calls
seeking comment.
But other companies interviewed in Britain and
America said interest in the newly emerging
market has been stoked by the recent series of
high-profile hijackings, although only a small
proportion of ship owners have inquired about
having armed guards onboard so far.
U.S. private security company Templar Titan is
providing shipriders and has been doing around
15 escorts per month through the Gulf of Aden a
month since it began the service four months
ago; the teams are armed on between half and
three-quarters of the passages.
Lew Knopp, who heads the company, said the
maritime division of his firm has increased from
3 people to 30 within the last year.
"We are directly consulting with the U.S.
government on issues of piracy, especially in
the Gulf of Aden and we have attorneys reviewing
and co-ordinating efforts so they fall within
international rules and regulations," Knopp
said. He declined to give further details,
citing operational security.
Despite the challenges, interest in arming ships
has shot up following the Maersk Alabama
hijacking, said Hugh Martin, Hart Security UK's
general manager.
"We've had a substantial increase in inquiries,"
he said. "There is a lot of interest from
companies that are American-owned."
Martin said that when the company began offering
armed escorts in October, they were doing around
5 escorted trips through the Gulf of Aden a
month. Now they do around 20 trips a month and
also offer the services of two vessels with
helipads that accommodate up to 28 people each.
They are usually hired by groups of ships to act
as an escort, Martin said, and are in use every
week.
He says Hart uses Yemeni guards and makes sure
the weapons are legally imported and exported at
both ends of the ship's journey. "The amount of
effort we put in to ensure we are legal is
colossal," he said.
Britain's Maritime Asset Security and Training
(MAST) is also offering armed guards, either
ex-British naval or special forces personnel.
MAST has established a subsidiary in Djibouti to
provide a security transit service at the
western end of the Gulf of Aden, which also
allowed it to license the use of firearms under
government approval. Phillip Cable, the director
of MAST, says the company is providing the
service between 30-35 times a month but only
between 10-15 percent involved armed protection.
Other companies like Olive, which guards Shell
in Iraq, or maritime security firm Drum Cussac
say the legal implications of having armed men
onboard commercial shipping are still too
unclear.
"What do you do if you shoot a pirate and he
surrenders to you?" asked Crispian Cuss of
Olive.
But many companies are keen to diversify from
Iraq and Afghanistan and are interested in the
possibility of training a Somali coastguard.
Recent donor conferences focused on the need to
build up Somalia's ragged security services,
both to combat piracy and the influx of hundreds
of foreign jihadi fighters dedicated to the
overthrow of the U.N.-backed government.
The millions pledged to Somalia represent a
potential goldmine. Pirate attacks have dropped
out of the news but still occur almost daily,
and around 200 people have been killed on land
in the latest round of fighting, which experts
fear may lead to the establishment of an al-Qaida
foothold on the Horn of Africa.
But before countries agree to spend money on a
coastguard, they want to see safeguards to
ensure the training or weapons they provide are
not turned against them later. A U.N. report
issued last December estimated over 80 percent
of Somalia's soldiers and police deserted along
with weapons and vehicles. A U.N. program to
train 10,000 Somali police was frozen due to the
high rates of desertion and corruption, which
was so bad police were sometimes left without
boots or belts and went unpaid for months at a
time.
"If we don't learn from that failure we'll
repeat the same mistake," said Rashid Abdi, a
Somalia analyst at think-tank International
Crisis Group. "Accountability should be critical
to the donor community and it should ensure that
the current project is not being as mismanaged
as the previous one."
Source:
Associated Press
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