Pirates Seize Another Ship as Captain Phillips Remains Hostage in Lifeboat

According to Anderson Cooper and CNN, there were 16 vessels under Somali pirate control as of Friday, April 10. There might have been 18 had it not been for the quick thinking Captain Phillips who traded himself for his men and an attack by the French military on pirates holding a small sailing vessel that left one of the hostages dead and all the pirates killed or captured.

But that was before the pirates hijacked an Italian tugboat. CNN reported that the Buccaneer is a 16-man American-owned tugboat that was flying the Italian flag. It was towing two barges in the Gulf of Aden. All seemed well up until the approach of noon Saturday.

A NATO ship picked up a distress call from the Buccaneer as they were approached by pirates. The NATO ship was approximately 100 miles from the tugboat, so could literally do nothing to help. The pirates boarded and controlled the Buccaneer within 5 minutes.

The Gulf of Aden lies off the East African coastline of Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia.

The container ship Maersk Alabama was attacked and hijacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean Wednesday, April 8, as it headed for Mombasa, Kenya, with a cargo of food aid. According to CNN, the Maersk Alabama crew somehow (no one has given an explanation) took control back from the pirates, but the pirates held hostages. Captain Richard Phillips then traded his life as hostage in exchange for his crew members.

At present, Captain Phillips remains a hostage aboard a lifeboat that is within view of American warships, the USS Bainbridge and the USS Halyburton, in the area. The captain slipped into the water to escape Friday but was discovered, shots were fired, and he was recaptured.

In the meantime, his ship made its way to Mombasa to complete its delivery. It arrived Saturday.

A pirated German ship, the Hansa Stavanger, was one of several pirate ships headed toward the lifeboat in an attempt to help the pirates. The U. S. Navy turned the Hansa Stavanger back and they returned to port. The German ship was hijacked on April 4.

The USS Boxer, a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship, is expected to be in the area within the next few hours.

In what reads like a military suspense novel, events seem to be unfolding for some sort of confrontation between the U.S. Navy and the Somali pirates. The situation with the pirates holding Captain Richard Phillips is at a standstill and the navy has requested the help of the FBI with negotiations.

But the resolution of the Phillips situation will do nothing for the 16 other ships being held for ransom by Somali pirates (it is unclear whether or not the Italian tugboat has been captured by Somali pirates or pirates from some other local nation). Nor will it do anything to deter the pirates from continuing to prey on passing ships.

Many call for attacks on the pirates, who are an amorphous bunch of independent groups. But those calls are tempered by the calls for caution on the part of the owners of the vessels, who wish to regain the cargoes and the ships -- in time. And then there are the insurance companies that have millions invested in same. History shows that the amounts of the ransoms decrease with the passage of time. Still, when the amounts reach acceptable levels (or within the acceptable limits that the owner's are willing to pay), there is no guarantee that the transactions will work as planned, as was witnessed by the botched ransom drop and pirate escape several weeks ago that resulted in the deaths of several pirates. And meeting ransoms does not work as a deterrent to future pirating endeavors. It does, however, tend to keep the crewmen alive and the cargoes intact.

The answer, of course, lies within the Somali government, which is either too far removed, too weak, or seemingly completely indifferent to the pirate situation because it brings money into the country. Somalia, which is an impoverished third-world nation, enjoys a unique position along the coast of Africa, perfectly positioned to be near major shipping lanes along the East coast of Africa, the oil-rich Arab nations in Southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the only route from the south into the Suez Canal. Combining economic need and knowledge of the sea, the Somalis created a pirate industry that actually injects money into the local and national economies. Until the international community can figure out a way to make it advantageous for the government of Somalia to pressure, economically or militarily, the local communities that condone and foster pirates and their high seas expeditions, the situation will remain and ships that sail the region will have to remain wary of being hijacked.

******

Source:

CNN.com

CNN Television