Piracy has been a fact of life at sea since the first merchant ship set sail millennia ago, although, until recently, most people probably thought they only existed in history or fantasy.

The public view of pirates typically falls into four categories: Disney-style (Captain Hook, Pirates of the Caribbean), older fiction (Long John Silver), the real pirates of the Caribbean (Blackbird, Henry Morgan, Jean Laffite) and modern pirates off the African coast.

However, piracy has always been present, somewhere, in some form. The United States made its first major move as an international power under President Thomas Jefferson, who refused to continue to follow the European tradition of paying tribute and ransom to pirates operating off the Barbary Coast of North Africa. Part of the U.S. military action against them at the start of the 1800s is immortalized in the Marine Corps Hymn reference to “the shores of Tripoli”.

The U.S. Navy and the forerunners of the U.S. Coast Guard were largely responsible for ending the so-called “Golden Age” of piracy, from the late 18^th to early 19^th centuries. Those pirates, operating down the Atlantic coast from the Carolinas to the Florida Keys and out into the islands of the Caribbean, were the descendants of state-sponsored privateers, granted official license by England, France and Spain, primarily, to attack ships flying the flags of the other nations.

Modern pirates are most active off the East African coast of Somalia, in the Straits of Malacca (linking the Indian and Pacific oceans), off the coast of South America (especially Brazil), in the Indian Ocean and in the South China Sea, although piracy in the form of stealing boats for single smuggling runs has become a growing problem for coastal Florida and the Caribbean. From July 2002 through July 2009, the International Maritime Organization received 5096 reports of acts of piracy and armed robbery against ships around the globe.

While the number of attacks each year has been on the rise, some authorities believe anywhere from 50-to-90 percent of actual attacks go unreported to avoid increases in insurance premiums or publicity that might scare away potential customers. Even so, worldwide losses to piracy are estimated at $13 billion to $16 billion a year.

Anti-piracy efforts near the U.S. generally fall to the U.S. Coast Guard’s District 7, based out of Miami, Fla.

“Piracy is a maritime safety issue,” says Rear Adm. Steve Branham, District 7 commander. “They are hard to respond to because they are generally in an isolated location where the pirates do what they intend before we can get there. However, if there is a hostage situation, such as typical in Somalia, we would quickly reprioritize to deal with that.”

In its role as the U.S. government’s primary interface for training and equipment with most foreign navies, the Coast Guard has worked with governments in Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere to develop counter-piracy tactics and procedures.

The Coast Guard also provided a maritime law-enforcement and force-protection unit to Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151), a multinational task force created in 2008 to conduct counter-piracy operations in and around the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Red Sea. CTF-151 was established by the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), a group of 20 nations that came together at the start of Operation Enduring Freedom to conduct Maritime Security Operations in those waters.

Modern pirates are a far cry from the Disney image – or even many of their real-world antecedents. They do not ply the seas in large ships flying an easily identified “skull and crossbones” flag. If using a ship, they typically pretend to be from an official naval force, there to “protect” their prospective victim. More often than not, they attack primarily cargo vessels – but also cruise ships – sailing near the coast, usually from small speed boats (often launched from larger mother ships, enabling attacks further from the coast) and armed with rocket-propelled grenades and military assault weapons.

While some attacks are intended to steal a ship’s cargo, the pirates more often hold the vessel, crew and passengers hostage, demanding a large ransom from the owners or the nation of registry. Their attacks tend to be fast and brutal, especially in the waters off Southeast Asia, where killing a target ship’s crew is not uncommon.

The motivation for modern piracy, however, is not far removed from those of previous eras: Sea-going gangs out for profit, terrorist organizations seeking funds for their operations and even clandestine state-supported efforts to prop up rogue governments.

One of the few crimes in which those combating it have been granted universal jurisdiction, piracy is defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as:

“Any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:

on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft; against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State

any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft

any act inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described [above]”

While some commercial ships have begun carrying small arms, those rarely are sufficient defense against a determined attack by pirates with more and heavier weapons. The most efficient counter to date has been the presence of military ships – especially those carrying armed helicopters – close enough to reach a ship under attack before it is too late.

In addition to CTF-151, both NATO and the European Union have sent naval forces to the Gulf of Aden as part of formal anti-piracy efforts, as has China. Individually, Indian, British and French military vessels, among others, have engaged pirates in armed combat at sea. Several nations – including the United States – have or are negotiating agreements with the government of Kenya to take custody of captured pirates and try them in African courts, which is seen as a greater deterrent than the prospect of being held and tried in a U.S. or European court.

“As Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton has said, piracy may be a 17^th century problem, but it requires a 21^st century solution,” Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew J. Shapiro told a gathering of international shipping officials in Athens on Oct. 22, 2009. “Reducing the success rate of pirate attacks is critically important to the international community.”

The CMF has called on China to take the lead in combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden, especially in a five-mile-wide strip of ocean now patrolled by a variety of international warships.

“My hope is that perhaps in April or May next year, we would see China taking on that lead coordinator role for the corridor, to provide protection in the corridor,” CMF Deputy Commander Commodore Tim Lowe told Reuters news agency at an international anti-piracy seminar in Hong Kong in mid-November.

China, however, has countered with a call for the United Nations to take command.

“An effective fight against Somali piracy still awaits an integrated solution,” Liu Zhenmin, China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, told the Security Council on Nov. 18, 2009. “We believe that to put an effective end to pirate attacks, the international community should expand maritime escort operations and other countries should also improve how they carry out maritime escort operations.”

Photo:

• GULF OF ADEN (May 13, 2009) Members of a visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) team from the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG 64) and U.S. Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team South Detachment 409 capture suspected pirates after responding to a merchant vessel distress signal while operating in the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) area of responsibility as part of Combined Task Force (CTF) 151. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Eric L. Beauregard/Released)

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