Why can't the international community stop the pirates?

probably Hollywood sponsors those pirates to keep people interested in their Pirates of the Carribean franchise.

/end of lame guess/

What do you concider international community? And who are on the sides of Somalia?
International law is very complicated. A Dutsch ship caught some pirates and they had to let them go again as they were not captured in the Netherlands.
It probably costs much more to operate ships to capture the pirates than to pay the ransom.
When the pirates get the ransom of a few millions they can buy high technical equipment from the western countries which have paid the ransom and in that way keep buisiness is going.

Next lame guess - some of those pirates really are undercover agents desirous of boarding vessels for purposes of inspecting suspicious cargoes, and otherwise unable to do so.....

PS seriously, though, most posts here >
http://able2know.org/topic/131382-3#post-3630992
> answer parts of Cicerone's original question.

What is just as fascinating is blind eye that the UN has cast upon the situation.

That too!

I wonder what it will take to get the international community of it's duff and take real punitive action. I am for swift justice 17th century style.

Me too, but it seems very slow in coming. It's a mystery of world proportions. They keep paying those pirates millions of dollars while risking all those people who work for the shipping companies and tourists.

I'm with you on that.

Because it has actually been more cost-effective to pay them than to try to stop the piracy in the region. For the shipping companies insurance is a better business decision than security unless the attacks increase (which they have dramatically this year).

They have thousands of ships passing through the region each year, very few are seized and the cost of paying the ransoms is less than the cost for them to put adequate security on each ship.

Foreign navies can't provide adequate coverage of the region to completely stop the piracy, and can only raise the stakes for the pirates and make piracy more difficult. For every pirate killed or apprehended there are plenty more desperate folk in Somalia to take their place.

For this reason most of the countries involved agree that the solution is not in the water but on the ground. The Somalian piracy is a product of the failed Somalian state and the solutions will need to include bolstering the ability of the Somalian state to govern itself.

Me too, and welcome back au1929. It just seems that anybody more that ten or twenty miles offshore in a small boat full of rocket launchers and full automatic weapons has some serious explaining to do.

Thank you, RG, makes a whole lot of sense now that you've explained it.

robert wrote :



that about sums it up ,
shipping companies are competing with each other for cargo .
low cost operation is a must .

there is also the problem of "flag of convenience" .
the MAERSK ship recently captured is a ship operated by the american subsidiary of the DANISH maersk line .
it sailed under the flag of CYPRUS (i understand) "as a flag of convenience" ( to keep taxes and wage-costs down) and had a mixed crew under the command of a russian captain .

a/t news reports , it would be very difficult to sort out claims if the ship or any of the crew would be harmed during an act of piracy .
apparently , crew-members and their families might be able to sue maersk for negligent operation and ignoring the risks of resisting the pirates .
better pay the pirates and have no harm done than be sued .
maritime laws are even more complicated than laws applying to any individual country .
hbg

c.i. : do you ever read the "fine print" on the cruise contracts ?
let me know if you manage to decipher it .

hbg, No. I've never read the fine print before any cruise, but then, I also travel to countries that have recently seen wars or violence. Even missed violence not long after I left a country such as my last visit to Bali where the bar and shopping mall my roommate and I visited were both bombed about one month after we left. Visited Israel in November after their war with Lebanon that summer, but didn't feel danger one bit - even while visiting the Arab section of Haifa - for dinner in a Arab restaurant. Actually, we met a gentleman in the restaurant who spoke English, and was very friendly towards us. Not long after we stayed overnight at the Novotel Hotel in Bangkok last year, they had demonstrators who stopped all traffic from and to the airport. Close calls, but that still doesn't limit my travels based on potential dangers. More casualties are suffered from traveling in one's own car around home.

If u want something done RIGHT,
u better do it yourself.

David, You're beginning to look and smell like okie, ican and Foxie. Ridiculous is ridiculous no matter who posts it.

Sorry but I do not believe that surrender is ever the answer. ignoring or turning your back to criminality will only embolder them and those who would mimic them to increase the activity.

sorry , au , but you'll have to convince the shipping companies of what you think the proper action should be .
for the time being , they have their minds made up to pay the ransom .
many commercial enterprises will often do what is most economical - not what we think is RIGHT and LAWFUL .
i'm sure that's nothing new to you , is it ?
hbg

I do not believe that it is the shipping companies perogative to make that judgement. They are neither charged with making or enforcing law. Further, allowing it to continue will only embolder the pirates to increse their activities to a point where the shoe will begin to pinch.

I gotta be ME





David