Pirates!

I'm late. I know, and I'm sorry. It's something I'm trying to solve, but I can't help it. I'm one of those people genetically programmed to always arrive late. And my Latin blood makes the rest. My friends are aware about it and they just accept it. They know that probably, they will have to wait for me. So now, we directly meet into the pub, where the cold weather is not so cold, and dangers are instead of getting too hot.

However, arriving late makes me lose something sometimes. Arriving late to the blogosphere made me lose the American presidential campaign -nowadays, if you lost it as well, here is a good two minutes resume- or what some people called the 2008 crack even before it happened. But I'm here, and I'm on time to suffer their effects. It's gonna be a very agitated sea out there in the next few months. And talking about an agitated sea, I arrive in the peak of pirate season.

I'm not talking this time about the increase of pirate CDs and DVDs sold due to the mix of X-mas shopping and breakdown times. I'm talking about truly pirates, although in the XXI century and without rum -these prefer a hallucinogen called qat. Attacks in open sea to all size boats and vessels to get an economic benefit from it.



It's not new. Piracy is as old as navigation. In fact, these modern pirates aren't so different from those who sailed the coast of Barbery. For a long time, the vessels across the Strait of Ormuz and the coasts of Indonesia have had several ways of protecting themselves from pirate attacks. They are well prepared for that. But a conjunction of a lack of effective rule in the Islamic Somalia and economic difficulties, have made the piracy boom to rise dramatically in the past two years.

According to an article from Jon Henley in The Guardian, in 2007 there were 264 successful attacks. By the end of August this year they were 199. But the most impressive number is about the "where" have they been. Before, the majority of those attacks were on the China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, today it is in the eastern cost of Africa where the problem resides. Here they went from 30 assaults in 2006 to 60 in 2007 and they are almost 100 since the beginning of 2008. Half of the total of attacks of the year worldwide.

And there is a significative difference. While in Asia they are quick assaults -pirates only want money onboard and they leave- in Africa are more common the hijackers. Hijackers heavily armored, from automatic guns to grenade launchers, that seize the ships and their crew asking for millionaire rescues.

For now they have reached nearly $30 mill this way. The African pirates operate from small speedboats launched from mother ships and have good contacts in the Gulf who provide them with the details of the routes of their preys. Nowadays, although a boat could be as big as a football pitch, the sea is a very vast space to search in.

The seize of a freighter with 30 tanks and other heavy guns onboard and the recent hijack of a supertanker -both in Kenya's waters, far away from the Somalian pirate bases, an example of their voracity- have lighten the alarms in some desks. Especially concerning to the second one. Her tanks, full with oil with a value of more than $100 mill, made rise the price of the Brent oil barrel over $1 that day.

All this, together with some previous hijacks -including several European fishing boats and a luxury French yacht- forced some NATO countries to send a multinational small fleet to patrol the area. There have even been some fights already. Like the one of two weeks ago, that ended up with the sinking of a suspected pirate mother ship -it ended up being a hijacked fishing boat- by an Indian frigate or the shooting involving the Royal Navy.

Against this cloudy future, some companies have announced their interest in contracting mercenaries to escort their freights. Sounds reasonable, especially because the pirate activity is forcing them to take an alternative -and very expensive- route through South Africa. That means to increase the trip in several weeks and in consequence, as well the final price of the products -increase on the bill that at the end will pay the European consumers, the final destiny of many of the goods transported by those companies. And that's even without considering the increase of the insurance prices.

And what says Blackwater, the mercenaries' company that has been sharing their bullet-proof love all around the globe for the past few years, about all this? Well, they responded to the call with a noisy... Aaaaarrrr! The North Carolina company anounced that they will send the McArthur, the first of many vessels, to the area by the end of the year. Pirates against mercenaries. Like in a Hollywood movie and, a priceless end of the story? Of course, both will feel like fish in the water in a wild and outlaw area like those seas -or in Somalia's Puntland, that's the same.

In the meanwhile, in Somalia the situation is very different to what it was. In Eyl, a pirate's refuge, new wealthy people is the average, especially on the pay day. Those days, dollars come from the sky. Literally, as many rescues are paid by dropping sacks of money from helicopters. According to the locals, even women prefer to marry a pirate, as they have more resources. Or simply, they have resources. No wonder, as paying for an Islamic marriage is not cheap for the groom. Those pirates live in harmony, without fights between themselves, and in democracy and equality: decisions are taken by voting and prizes are divided equally, except for the one that recovers the money from the rescue. Usually it is the oldest member of the gang and he gets an extra for the risk of the operation.

It's no strange that many young Somalian are leaving College to find a way of living in piracy. In a country where life expectancy is on 46, the average annual income is $600 and has been immerse on a continuous civil war since for decades, who rejects an opportunity to get money fast and not very dangerous? Not even Jack Sparrow had it better to get his crew.

And to end, following on the seven seas, something funny. The Australian navy will shut down on Christmas. An unusual way of holidays for modern armed forces that made some people -specially in the USA- get reluctant about that idea. Even more on a time when another potentially dangerous actor of the area, China, has built a new hospital ship. What is it for? To be able to help on natural disaster -the tsunami of two years ago left China on a shame as they couldn't send help to the area? Or is it to support possible terrestrial deployments? Maybe in Taiwan?