http://www.mhwmagazine.co.uk/LatestNews/Growing_calls_for_armed_guards_to_de fend_ships_against_piracy_menace-8766.html
Growing calls for armed guards to defend ships against piracy menace 23 March 2011 Shipping industry experts have raised a clear voice in favour of deploying armed guards on merchant vessels to repel piracy attacks. Many maritime professionals who previously opposed the measure for fear of escalating the violence say they have changed their minds, while retaining various reservations. The switch in mood has been reflected in a decisive vote at the 2011 'hot topic' Debate of WISTA-UK (part of the Women's International Shipping & Trading Association), for the tough approach. Passionate contributions to the debate came from both sides, and those who declared themselves neutral on the issue. The industry is agonising over what is the best response to the mounting number of pirate attacks, mainly originating from citizens of Somalia, and the growing ordeal of hostages who are subjected by their captors to cruel treatment. Participants at the WISTA Debate resolved by 42 votes to 16, with 13 declared abstentions, to support the motion: "This House believes that vessels should have armed guards on board." In total, some 100 men and women from shipping, law, insurance, private security and other services were present at the meeting, in the City of London. The Debate is organised every March, the month in which International Women's Day is celebrated. The International Maritime Bureau reported that there were a total of 440 attacks on shipping in 2010, of which 218 were attributed to Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, off the Coast of Somalia and in the Western Indian Ocean, and there have been further outrages in the first quarter of 2011. Opening discussion at the WISTA event, Peter Hinchliffe, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping, said that proposing the motion was a task he "would not and could not have undertaken a few weeks ago," and it was important to put this into context. Citing rising brutality in recent cases, Mr Hinchliffe insisted that one needed "to fight the current version of piracy" being perpetrated by Somali youth, who were financed by a murky underworld of organised crime. What was important was that this lucrative business of piracy was removed with speed. The military presence in the Gulf of Aden had caused piracy to shift almost as far as the coast of India. Sea control in the northern Indian Ocean was being ceded to armed gangs. Some 600 seafarers are at present held for ransom, and the average time in captivity has extended to around eight months. No nation had a strategy to tackle the problem, and seafarers were daily running the gauntlet of armed pirates, with ships' superstructures being penetrated by rocket propelled grenades, said Mr Hinchliffe. Unfortunately most flag states did not have the resources at their finger tips to provide military guards in the theatre of operation. "In these exceptional circumstances, it is our belief that the use of armed guards, private security, be permitted by the flag state when considered appropriate." He added: "We must not send [ships'] masters into the area with their arms tied behind their backs, but let us not institutionalise a precedent that could encourage the use of armed guards." Seconding the motion, Maria Dixon of ISM Shipping Solutions, who is president of WISTA-UK, spoke of the experience of her niece when employed as a third officer and her niece's fiancé as IT manager on a passenger ship, the Oceanic, during a Gulf of Aden cruise in 2009. Six pirates, aboard two skiffs, began shooting at the ship and the crew ran inside for cover, although some intrepid Japanese passengers went out to the deck. When ship was in contact with a Greek NATO warship 20 miles away, the pirates heard the radio message and fled. "I certainly think that there should be armed guards on board," said Ms Dixon. "It is not the same as combating common thieves. The crews may be subject to panic attacks. Firing weapons will keep pirates away. The crew are seafarers meant to sail the ship, not to defend it!" Opposing the motion, Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security, referred to the principle that nation states should have a monopoly of violence. She questioned how trustworthy were some private security companies, in a market which was unregulated and a legal framework that was vague. Private security businesses were mainly involved in a land based environment, and the maritime environment was completely different. She warned that having security guards on board would lead to an escalation of violence. One consequence would be that pirates would attack ships without armed guards on board, and "when pirates see that there are armed guards on board they will resort to more violence." She spoke of an incident in February 2011 in which American hostages were killed by pirates who felt threatened by a US Navy ship. Angus Galbraith, an ex-seafarer on tankers, who is a member of the London committee of the Nautical Institute and a Lloyd's broker with Lloyd's underwriting authority, opposed the motion, warning that the laws of many countries forbade carrying guns on board merchant ships. This meant any armed guards on board had to be kept outside port limits. Mr Galbraith said that in cases where P&I (protection and indemnity) and hull insurers agreed that armed guards should be on board, he was somewhat relaxed about the situation (as P&I insurers then would be committed to legally defending the master who could be held liable for manslaughter for any deaths that occurred onboard), but said that most of the security people were ex-SAS officers and had no experience of tankers. Firing shots around posed a big problem, an environmental problem: an explosion on a gas carrier or a tanker of 200,000 dwt would create a serious issue. He said it was critical for shipping companies to be appropriately insured (kidnap and ransom), as the insurance side could usually expedite the release of the crew and ship. He urged rejection of the principle of guards on board, but he was in favour of military convoys and armed guards positioned one or two miles from a ship. Taking a 'neutral' stance, that ship owners should be left to make their individual decisions, Nick Platt, vice-president of Gard P&I Club (UK), admitted: "Sometimes the P&I clubs are seen as the solvers of all problems, but we are not, when it comes to piracy." What they did do was to vet security company contracts. Until quite recently, Gard was against the idea of armed guards, but "we are now neutral together with the other clubs in the International Group [of P&I Cubs]." Mr Platt said: "Pirates are very clever people. They are doing very good business." We were one step behind, when we should be one step ahead of them. "What happens if they put 30 to 40 pirates on the ship with heavy weapons. Are your three or four armed guards good enough?" Also on the 'neutral' side was Peter Cook , a founding member of the Security Association for the Maritime Industry, which positions itself as the maritime security industry's regulatory body. Mr Cook said: "Piracy is a complex problem. It is not something that will be solved by putting armed guards on board." Whether armed guards should be embarked depended on the risk assessment made of the ship. Of the guidelines in BMP3 (Best Management Practices to Deter Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the Coast of Somalia), he said that as a document of consensus, it was not as explicit as it could be. BMP was developed by shipping industry organisations, in cooperation with navies, to offer practical advice to companies and ships. It was the basic minimum to observe, said Mr Cook. He observed: "There is a marked increase in physical abuse of seafarers. I do not see any reason why that will decrease. I think that we are looking in the near future at a greater number of events where people are injured, tortured or killed." He said that using maritime security companies was a short term solution, "but we have to have something." >From the audience, Janet Strode, general manager of the International Parcel Tankers Association, said that after a long time being against the deployment of armed guards, the association was now in the middle of a discussion on the issue. Sue Williams, a London-based hostage negotiator, said she had changed her opinion and was in favour of the armed guards option. The average incarceration period had risen to 155 days, from 66 days, and the world had to wake up to the degree of such torture, said Ms Williams. Julie Lithgow, a member of WISTA-UK, cautioned that armed reaction was not the answer. She said: "We talk about finding the solution ashore, about wanting governments to do something. We don't specify what that something is. We already have clear lessons from other developing nations that prove that the best way for a society to develop socially, economically, politically and securely is through universal access to education and equal rights for women. "But I acknowledge there is a need for short term action to reduce the numbers of seafarers taken, held hostage, beaten, tortured and killed by Somali pirates. After years of legislation to make our ships safer and safer for seafarers, putting guns on ships, however skilled the armed guards may be, makes our ships intrinsically less safe. "BMP has a number of suggestions that can make our ships safer, and so far, no vessel with BMP correctly and robustly implemented has been taken by pirates. One of the simplest and cheapest recommendations within BMP is to inform UKMTO [UK Maritime Trade Operations office in Dubai] and MSCHOA [Maritime Security Centre - Horn of Africa} when your ship enters the high risk zone. And yet, more than 30% of ships entering the zone fail to take even this first step. "So my short term solution suggestion is that BMP become mandatory, and vessels can be held by port state control for no- compliance with BMP at ports before entering the zone," said Ms Lithgow. In further contributions, a former ship's master said that crews had been reduced substantially in recent years, to a level of 15 or 16 people expected to carry out many duties. He said there must be some form of protection for seafarers or shipping would die as potential recruits to the industry were deterred. "I feel the seafarer has been let down." Another ex-master complained of lack of official strategy in dealing with the menace, and suggested that navies might be able to stop pirates leaving the shore, although that would mean taking over the beaches. John Faraclas, a shipping commentator and consultant, said that the piracy-hit area should be declared a war zone "with whatever this entails." He added: "We should go and smash them there." Participants had no hesitation in responding to the call by the moderator of the debate, Paul Gunton, executive editor of IHS Fairplay, for a robust discussion and for the meeting to explore alternatives to armed guards. Ms Duvic-Paoli said: "The alternative is political, everyone knows it. The solution is on land, not at sea." She urged insurers to insist that every ship owner followed the Best Management Practices code if they wanted to secure cover. Jim Davis, chairman of the International Maritime Industries Forum, and a WISTA-UK Ambassador, presided over the event. He said that the problem of maritime kidnapping called for a short-term approach of carrying armed people on board, as crews of just 15 on very large ships could not be expected to look after themselves without help. He felt that the problem of rules of engagement had not been raised clearly during the debate: the present rules of engagement were shackling such forces as there were. In the medium term, said Mr Davis, "we must get the United Nations behind us. In the long term, there is the need to address the question of an anarchic, totally poor country [Somalia]." Mr Davis summed up: "The freedom of the high seas and trading thereon is one of the oldest legal requirements. That must be reinforced. On land, too, in Somalia we have a big job to do." <http://www.mhwmagazine.co.uk/LatestNews/Growing_calls_for_armed_guards_to_d efend_ships_against_piracy_menace-8766.html> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [email protected]. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [email protected] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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