Piracy, its causes and how it is organised still remain a mystery. One of the merits of Atalanta operation is its very ability to identify certain causes and forms of organisation.

THREE CAUSES

Piracy seems to be based on several factors. First of all, poverty. Becoming a pirate in a poor country like Somalia holds the prospect of a guaranteed income. A sailor taken on in an operation can earn several thousand dollars. That is a huge amount if one considers that ‘normal’ incomes do not exceed US$1 a day. The starting amount for a piracy operation can be US$20,000, while the hoped for income exceeds a million euro. Ransoms paid vary between €1.5 million and €3 million. And the risk is very small.

A second element is that the break-up of the Somali state allows, facilitates and encourages piracy. There is a large part of the territory that is beyond its reach, and there are ‘centrifugal’ trends, expressed in the form of demands for independence (Somaliland, a former British colony) or autonomy (Puntland).

A third aspect is the ‘desire for revenge’ for the pillage of Somali resources (illegal fishing or the discharge of toxic products). This a vaguer point, but one that Atalanta officials have been able to notice through their contacts with the Somali diaspora in London, as the head of the operation, Rear Admiral Phil Jones recently confirmed.

GANGS

Piracy seems to be the work of several gangs that operate in accordance with a way of life copied from how fishing is organised. They are organised into different groups: those who get involved directly, those who look after the boat and the hostages, and those who negotiate the ransom. There are mother ships, which can go far out to sea, and around which several little skiffs operate. Most pirates are seafaring people – former fishermen, or even former coastguards (some trained by international programmes).

The tools used – be it the skiffs (little fishing boats) or weapons - are fairly basic. The basic weapons are usually old (AK147, RPG) and made in Russia or China, serving more to intimidate than to kill. However, they are equipped with standard communication means - VHS radio, GSM - which allow them to keep up-to-date. And more modern weapons are starting to appear (US-made M16 rifles).

Somali pirates have broad autonomy with regards to their tactics, which allows them to change tactics and tackle different situations. “We have also established,” explains Rear Admiral Jones, “that mother ships share information about ships sighted or to be attacked”. According to several sources, it would seem that some of the pirates have been trained either as military in Soviet schools (cf testimony of a former Soviet Rear Admiral, Sergei Bliznyuk, published in Gazeta Po Kievski and reported by Lloyd List), or as coastguards by private companies, particularly as part of the international effort to support Somalia (cf Roger Middleton).

While the pirates’ goals are crimes at sea: seizing boats and ensuring a fairly quick profit without casualties, the fears of the international community and regional authorities (like in Djibouti) are seeing piracy become more international with the arrival of (European) mafia and bigger, more modern weapons – in particular surface-to-air missiles (Stingers), which could be used against helicopters. Persistent rumours also point to the existence of such weapons but this has never been substantiated. It would be a sign of moving from crime towards terrorism.

GOALS

The strategic interest of the international community – and therefore of EUNAVFOR and other international forces active in the Gulf of Aden – is therefore to rebalance the regional trend towards impunity, by increasing the risk of being caught and thus lowering the attraction for other organised gangs to enter ‘the market’.

Until multinational forces arrived on the scene, the only real risk for pirates was drowning. Most of the reported deaths have been for this reason (eg six pirates drowned when their skiff overturned after delivering the ransom for Sirius Star).

There are now two other risks: being killed and being taken prisoner. Although no pirates have been killed in an EUNAVFOR operation, as of May, several have been during an operation with a military ship: three in an encounter with the British ship Cumberland, under a NATO flag, in November 2008; five others in two consecutive operations to free hostages, one led by the French navy (Tanit), the other by the US Navy (Maersk Alabama). The most dramatic case recorded in recent months in the area is the death of 15 people – mostly fishermen from a Thai boat, taken hostage by pirates and sunk by the Indian Navy in what seemed to be a ‘blunder’.

The aim of democracies, which cannot aim to kill pirates, is to bring pirates to justice, something that is fraught with difficulties of all kinds – technical, legal, political. But in the end it succeeds. According to our sources, about 200 suspects have been brought before judicial authorities over the course of a year, most often from nearby countries (Yemen, Puntland-Somalia, Kenya, Seychelles), and more rarely from the countries of the flag under attack. Twenty-one have been repatriated to France (15), the Netherlands (five) and the United States (one) to face judgement.

The risk of being caught during an attack on a ship has now risen to about one in three. This is not yet enough of a deterrent for cash-poor pirates. It does, however, ‘contain’ the number of potential candidates.