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<http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/12/03/pirates/index.html>
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S: In a Sept. 30 article in the New York Times, a spokesperson for one of the pirate groups said, "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits ... We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard." So are these pirates modern-day Robin Hoods or terrorists?
D: These are definitely modern-day Robin Hoods, for sure. But fairly well organized. There is absolutely zero link with terrorists or anything like that. That philosophy is a bit of a non-starter. They're not a coast guard. Yes, they are extremely and duly upset that we've trounced their fishing grounds and that factory fish ships have come in from all different nations and sucked up just about every single tuna that's in their waters. Also, remember these people don't have daily access and 24-hour access to the media streams that we have; they believe that, yes, we are dumping our waste and chemical waste and nuclear waste in their waters. As well as overfishing them. So generally they're just really, really hacked off that all these ships are passing through their waters but Egypt gets a load of revenue from it, the second biggest revenue generator to Egypt after tourism, and yet right next door and in order to get to that canal, they've got to come through Somali waters, yet Somalia doesn't get a penny.
S: I'm sure you're aware that Blackwater has said that they are now interested in getting involved in the anti-piracy maritime measures. How do you feel about them? Their public statements suggest that they will be much more aggressive in their tactics.
D: It fills me with dread, to be brutally honest with you. It's not something that I favor at all. The pirates are not aggressive. They're being cheeky with regard to how brazen their efforts are and the ease with which they're getting away with it. Now, Blackwater has made it clear that they're going there as an armed unit in international waters. It's very difficult because we have situations where some of the vessels that are on transit or on convoy sometimes get a bit close to fishermen. And these people really are fishing. But the fishermen also have rifles on board or basic shotguns and they will take potshots if you're getting close to their nets. If that was a Blackwater vessel, would they then just blow that vessel out of the water, even if it was a Yemeni fishing boat?
It's a very, very difficult and sensitive issue with regards to arms, and no matter how much people tell me how good these Blackwater people are and how they're all ex-Navy Seals -- great, but if they're just come out of Iraq and Afghanistan and they think they're going to have three months of an easy time in the Gulf of Aden aboard the ship, if they're a bit light-fingered on the trigger, and they start killing people in what they claim is self-defense but actually there was no real perceived threat, then I think it's a bad move. I think it would escalate the situation beyond all proportion in a bad way. Because the second that a civil security company starts killing maybe pirates, maybe fishermen, then I think that immediately endangers the 50 [hijacked] ships that are currently held in Somali water off the coast and the 300 seamen that are there. And they will not thank them for it because if then, basically if we start killing people, or private security companies start killing people, then they're going to start killing their hostages and that will then turn the situation upside down and be very, very bad news.
S: So Blackwater would bring a marked change to how any other firm is combating these pirates at present? Most of the other firms in your field practice non-lethal methods to combat the pirates?
D: We're all operating down there, and there are four or five companies who are in the market currently, we're all operating non-lethal means. There's hardly anybody offering any form of armed possibility. So to then suddenly put in a ship, but if they then stick some liberty boats, or some 50-caliber machine guns around the convoys as well, that is where the potential threat lies. I think the only people who should have weapons in the Gulf of Aden are the coalition forces.
S:India reportedly has recently fired on a pirate ship -- do you feel that's a dangerous precedent?
D: It's just as dangerous as Blackwater being there, to be honest with you. The moment the coalition forces start blowing these boats out of the water instead of finding a solution by talking to the warlords and using the U.N. as the facilitator and negotiator for that, then potentially we are going to start seeing them harming the hostages currently held. People need to remember we've still got 300 guys, innocent merchant seamen, who are held captive on these ships. There's a direct result of what the coalition forces do out on the sea. If they start killing pirates, we can't really justify or explain how they got hurt because we just don't know their situation. There's a press release that comes out that says we've sunk this pirate boat -- well, there's always two sides to a story. You have to remember that in a country that doesn't have massive media attention they would just come up with their own ideas like they have with the chemical nuclear waste being dumped in their waters.
-- Andy