Over the last year I’ve heard quite a bit about how Somali pirates on the Indian Ocean have been hijacking boats of all sizes in order to steal things and take money from people on board. Gradually I heard more about the crimes being committed by pirates, which meant the crimes were being committed at a faster rate. Over the course of time, it seemed like the pirates were targeting larger boats to hijack. This clearly shows the confidence of the pirates was growing at a fast rate.
The question is, “Why would these pirates suddenly feel such a high level of confidence?” The answer is that there are very few government laws or penalties to prevent pirates from committing those types of crimes. Laws of various countries have different rules and regulations for dealing with criminals such as pirates.
I’ve learned that some of the various countries don’t even approve of law enforcement officials doing anything at all to take a hijacked boat back from the pirates. What’s worse is that there are laws in place that make it so pirates don’t face any form of legal resistance or any form of legal penalty once they attempt to hijack a vehicle. Once a pirate has been captured, the governments of foreign countries release 80% of the criminals so they can go back out on the water and commit the same crimes again!
Earlier this year I saw that pirates had hijacked a multimillion dollar oil supertanker! This ship, called the MV Irene SL, has a crew of 25 and carried two-million barrels of oil valued at over $200 million. This huge amount of oil represented 20% of the daily crude oil import of the United States, and about 5% of daily world oil imports.
Only during the last several days did the pirates decide to release this huge oil tanker and its passengers after 58 days of holding them hostage! Piracy in the open waters has truly become a well-planned and well-managed industry. This was proven when we learned that the pirates were using this huge oil tanker as a “mother ship” for their smaller pirate vessels!
I thought to myself, “How in the world were low-budget pirates able to conquer this huge oil vessel so easily?” I thought it must be more difficult to hijack a huge oil vessel than a smaller boat. But that is actually not the case at all.
The reason pirates had such an easy time hijacking the oil tanker is because the pirates were armed with weapons while the crew was not. Those huge oil tankers do not allow the crew to carry weapons on board, even when they know they are travelling through pirate-infested waters! Hopefully this policy is going to officially change now that the problem of piracy in the 21st century has become more of a real threat to vessels of any size and any value.
Thankfully, we’ve learned that the hostages from the oil tanker were recently released in good health by the Somali pirates. Often, people are systematically tortured and even killed by pirates. And just in case you care, the oil tanker was being returned to a port, now that the pirates are finished with it. These facts were confirmed in a public statement released by the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (INTERTANKO). You can read this statement on their website: www.intertanko.com.
INTERTANKO makes it 100% clear in their public statement that piracy is not going to disappear any time soon. Governments are encouraged to work together to find the root cause of piracy and stop it. Unfortunately, this statement realistically points out something most all us knew all along. The fact is, it is generally accepted that the different beliefs and different laws of various countries will prevent that from happening. For now, INTERTANKO wants everyone to know that every vessel is at threat in the open waters of the Indian Ocean – an area where 40% of the world’s oil supply passes through.
I really do recommend that you visit the website at www.intertanko.com. INTERTANKO wants people to realize governments in that part of the world do virtually nothing to stop Somali pirates, and even when the pirates are caught they are released most of the time. Only recently did India decide to crack down slightly harder by retaking a large mother ship from the pirates. The 62 pirates on board were not released; they were taken to India and await trial for their crimes.
Let’s Fight Back! – SOS Style (Save Our Seafarers)
Two clicks of a mouse can play the roll of two swords fighting back against pirates. With just two clicks of your mouse you can write a letter to a government official. Save Our Seafarers (SOS) is a campaign formed to help people like us grab the attention of foreign government officials overseas that would never hear us any other way. The website of http://saveourseafarers.com/ is where you visit to use your mouse as a tool of force that helps fight piracy.
The lack of government law enforcement against piracy on the Indian Ocean proves government officials are not aware of the severe problem that exists in that part of the world. We need to bring this problem to their attention so the shipping industry and logistics of the world do not experience problems. History has already proven that piracy problems can be so severe that it causes interferences with economies and disrupts world trade. Supplies will be affected and shipping costs will rise – expenses that ultimately will be felt by consumers, since those expenses will be passed on to us at stores and oil pumps.
Remember the famous saying: Those who are not aware of history are destined to repeat its mistakes.
Friends, we are aware of the problems piracy has caused in the history of this world. It makes absolutely no sense for us to repeat those mistakes. We need to invest a little bit of time by becoming a part of the campaign against piracy by visiting http://saveourseafarers.com/.
Of the 8,500 letters that have been sent to government officials, India has received the most letters so far – about 1,460. With that in mind, it probably isn’t a coincidence that India is the one government that finally decided to crack down on piracy a little bit harder. But the way India only seems to care about huge mother ships is not enough. India and the other countries need to crack down a lot more against piracy and the pirates committing the crimes.
I encourage you to visit http://saveourseafarers.com/ so that you can use your voice to help send some chills down the spines of government officials working for foreign countries allowing innocent people to be held hostage, tortured, and killed by pirates. This website is a great tool that will help us twist the arms of those lazy nations that claim they aren’t aware a problem exists!
I hope you enjoyed reading this article about piracy. If you did, please click on Tip Jar to make a donation to this website. I have epilepsy and try to work from home. This website is not free to run, which means donations help keep it going. Don’t worry about it if you can’t afford a donation; I will not hold you hostage or kidnap you the way a pirate with a motive would (at least not yet!). ;)
Here is a YouTube video that talks about how piracy has affected world logistics. It shows an oil supertanker that was hijacked. The pirates demanded $25 million for this huge oil ship.
