Sail at your own peril

Paying more for petrol? Blame part of it on Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea, whose attacks on commercial shipping, often close to the western seaboard of India, have drastically escalated maritime risk insurance rates for ships traversing the region. In 2010, 445 such attacks were reported. From 2009, the attacks have increased by 10 per cent, as a result of which the Joint War Risks Committee of Lloyds, London, expanded the boundaries of their “risk exclusion zone” for insurance against piracy, from Longitude 065 degrees East to 078 degrees East.

The original danger area has increased from the immediate vicinity of the Somalian littoral to an enormous sea zone. It covers almost the entire north-western Indian Ocean, stretching north and northeast from the Horn of Africa into the Red Sea and the coast of Oman. More than 1,200 nautical miles east, it almost touches the west coast of India, engulfing the Indian territory of the Lakshadweep Islands.
The zone also stretches south and east covering the East African littorals in Kenya and Tanzania and the Mozambique channel to almost within a hailing distance of Madagascar. Shipping or all types of sailing in this vast exclusion zone have to pay increased risk insurance premia, ranging from $200,000 per month for Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC), transporting crude oil to $50,000 per month for bulk carriers with commodity cargoes and further down the scale depending on the size and cargo of vessels. These are partially reflected in the enhanced prices motorists have to pay at petrol pumps in Indian cities.
In tactics distinctly reminiscent of German U-Boat “wolf packs” operating in distant seas during the earlier stages of World War II, Somali pirates based in Somalia and Puntland are operating at greater ranges into the Indian Ocean in small motorised attack craft. This is supported by larger hijacked vessels as “depot” ships carrying administrative support like food, fuel, weapons and ammunition. The latter have even acquired a new category as “LPSV”, a bizarre new acronym for Large Pirate Support Vessels.
Activities of Somali pirates are of urgent concern to India because the Lloyds Risk Exclusion Zone sits squarely astride India’s principal maritime economic routes converging onto the focal points of Mumbai, Goa and Cochin on the Konkan and Malabar coasts. It also boosts the landed costs of all types of cargo, particularly crude oil for India’s numerous refineries.
In addition, Indian seafarers, who provide substantive components of merchant crews across the globe are vulnerable targets for capture and ransom. There are an estimated 30,000-50,000 Indian seafarers serving on foreign flagged merchant vessels all over the world. All figures are basically educated guesswork, even though INDoS (the Indian National Database of Seafarers) provides the official register of Indian seafarers. But even this does not reflect the true figures accurately, because it comprises the details of only those merchant seamen who have received their certificates of professional competency from government sanctioned institutions in India. Not all Indian seafarers have registered themselves in INDoS, or trained in institutes approved in India. Many sail at their own peril, more or less as indentured labour on unsafe rust bucket vessels operated by unscrupulous shipowners outside the reach of Indian law. The perils from predatory pirate gangs only add to the many natural and occupational hazards that already exist in the profession.
According to various sources, there are an estimated 650-850 seafarers of various nationalities held as hostages for ransom by these maritime highwaymen, along with approximately 53 merchant vessels of various types. This also includes tankers transporting West Asian crude oil to refineries in India and elsewhere. Of these, 79 seamen are Indian. This is an emotive issue. It has already seen public demonstrations on the streets of New Delhi by the families of 11 Indian crew members from the hijacked Egyptian flag — MV Suez — whom the pirates had threatened to kill if their ransom demands were not met within a specified deadline. Security of Indian sailors in international waters is undoubtedly a complex issue, with several complicated factors in respect of jurisdiction as well as responsibility for crew safety. This is typically exemplified in the case of the hijacked MV Suez itself — a 17,300 ton ship owned by the Egyptian Red Sea Navigation Company based at Sharm el-Sheikh, sailing under a Panamanian flag of convenience, with a multi-nationality crew of 23, which included 11 Indians.
There are also disturbing reports of linkages between pirates and Somali jihadis of As Sahab with further affiliations with Al Qaeda and beyond to Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, ultimately reaching back to the dark eminences of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. The Government of India must take a long-term strategic overview of the threat from expanding activities of Somali pirates. If unchecked, this will have serious potential to assume the dimensions of a pirate empire in the Indian Ocean on the lines of the Barbary States of the 17th and 18th centuries in the Mediterranean, threatening the security and even perhaps the existence of small island nations of the Indian Ocean, like the Maldives, Seychelles, Comoros, Mauritius, Reunion and even Madagascar. For the present, a “Limburg” type suicide bombing or an “Achille Lauro” type hijacking and passenger hostage situation in the Indian Ocean involving Indian shipping or personnel is certainly not unthinkable.
The Indian Navy and the Coast Guard have launched Operation Island Watch for anti-piracy and anti-maritime infiltration operations along the Indian seaboard, aimed at protecting merchant vessels and checking piracy along the Indian coastline and in the vicinity of Indian territorial waters. The Navy’s operations have undoubtedly been effective, but the roots of Somali piracy naturally lie on shore in Somalia. It is the pirate base area where the situation is wildly confusing, with intense clan fighting amongst dozens of tribal factions and few vestiges of any central authority to control the situation. The African Union has intervened militarily to support a failing elected provisional government, while neighbouring countries of Ethiopia and Kenya, which face a more direct threat, have also intervened periodically. India should examine the option of cooperation ashore with these African countries to safeguard its domestic waters.

Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former member of Parliament