海角大神

When they speed up to a lumbering ship, the main thing Somalian pirates do not want to see are armed guards. With fewer ships now being boarded in the Indian Ocean, security analysts are giving credit to the hiring of private guards who quickly display their defensive weapons on the deck of a ship as it gets scoped out by potential attackers in pirate skiffs.

David C., a former British Marine commando who fought in Iraq and Sierra Leone, talked with the Monitor out his new job as a private security team leader for shipping that runs in sensitive waters off the Somalia coast. The interview was conducted for a Monitor Focus story on progress in dealing with piracy, found 丑别谤别.听

鈥淢r. C.,鈥� who could not offer his last name, outlines the recent changes onboard ships, the new protocol for warning and chasing away pirates, and a concern about the future:

鈥淪omali piracy has changed hugely since armed guards were allowed on ships. I鈥檇 say 9 times out of 10, when they see we鈥檙e there, they turn tail.

鈥淸I]f there is a suspicious approach, first we increase speed to try to get away from them. But ... a skiff with some lightly armed Somalis is always going to be faster than a container ship, so most of the time they are going to catch up. What we鈥檒l do then is turn on the fire hoses, not because they鈥檒l stop the pirates boarding 鈥� they won鈥檛 鈥� but to make sure they know we鈥檝e seen them. Next, we need to show we have security onboard. I鈥檒l send two of my guys out onto the deck in body armor and helmets, and they show their weapons, hold them above their heads.

鈥淚f the guys still continue to approach, I鈥檒l pop a flare up to make sure they鈥檝e seen the security. We will only fire a weapon if we are 100 percent certain that they are coming to cause us harm, and for that we need to see they have weapons and climbing equipment like ladders, grappling hooks, ropes. If they are still coming, we fire a warning shot over their heads or to the left or right. From my experience, 99 percent of the time that happens, they disappear. If not, and if we feel the vessel is now in grave danger, we fire further warning shots, what I call disabling shots, aiming for the speedboat or the outboard engine.

鈥淏y now, if they are within half a cable, or about 300 feet, and we鈥檝e fired warning shots and tried to hit their boat, and they鈥檙e still coming, chances are they鈥檒l be returning fire. Under maritime law, we can then protect ourselves and the ship with lethal shots.

鈥淭o give you a sense of how rare it is that we even get to the warning shots point, I have been doing this for four years and I鈥檝e fired my weapon once. That was off Somalia in 2011. The pirates had hijacked a Thai fishing vessel, and we were out there in a small 150-foot tug that was very poorly defended. They started approaching. We launched our protocols, but straight away they started firing. We fired warning shots, and they ... turned around and disappeared. That was it.

The worry felt by security companies according to David C is that people think piracy has been beaten and that it is time to relax. But he argues "the guys are still there waiting."