$150 million earned by pirates highly questionable, according to Ecoterra International

While it has been proven over and over again that the figure of usd 150mio allegedly earned by Somali pirates in 2008, which was claimed by the Kenyan foreign minister at a UN sponsored conference last year, is simply false, it is here to stay, since spindoctors now try to claim it for a changed period.

"A whopping $150 million has been paid by ship owners as ransom to pirates from Somalia, in the last 18 months, for the safe return of over a 1,000 seafarers a majority of them being Indians", reports Reuters again from an Indian conference in Mumbai.

Besides the simple fact that also the statement concerning the majority of seafarers being taken hostage would be Indian is simply false, the Reuters report quotes further, highly questionable statements:

"Mohit Kapoor, who organised the seminar, clubbed these stats with another report from The International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which estimates that only half of pirate attacks are reported due to fear of the ships’ reputation being marred, the chances of prolonged, time-consuming investigations and raising ships’ insurance premiums."

This statement is certainly wrong for Somalia, where all sea-jacking events are very well recorded and monitored, though it had been observed that the IMO only reports cases where ships of larger nations or bigger companies are involved. But other statistics, incl. those of the East African Seafarers' Programme and ECOTERRA Intl. are freely available.

"Captain Navin Passey, the MD Wallems Shipmanagement, said the ransom amounts have risen from $5,000 in the mid-nineties, when smaller fishing boats were targeted, to a whopping $3 million, which was recently paid for a captured ship." While the trend is true and also reflects the development from defence against illegal fishing to piracy of merchant ships, the top amount is more likely $4,5 million.

"B N Prasad, MD, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, stated that a gunman on a pirate ship aged between 20-35 earned up to $30,000, which is a fortune in Somalia."

To call gains from extortion-money an earning is a slap into the face of all honest earners, even those shipping MDs like Prasad, who earn that amount as a monthly salary - or was that a slip of tongue and highlights that also in the shipping industry many unfair gains are made, be it from insurance deals or holding cargo owners hostage like in the Hansa Stavanger case.

"Abdul Ghani Serang, General Secretary, NUSI, claimed, “Month after month, we keep getting news about Indians being taken hostage, but nothing substantial is being done.” Well, that might be right at least concerning any hearts and mind operation to curb piracy by helping the local population on land to survive, where the money which the Indian Navy alone waisted to blow innocent ships and crews out of the water, to shoot and kill boarders and leave for dead survivors while achieving hardly anything else during the macho trips around the Horn of Africa, would have secured long stretches of coastline against any pirate-gang buildup.

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