AARRGH! Piracy on the High Seas Andy Guthrie and Shu Hong CE 5212/PA 5232 Case Study 5 October 15, 2008HISTORY of PIRACY Piracy has been a problem since maritime commerce started. There were records of piracy in Ancient Greek history. Piracy had not been a significant problem in maritime commerce until Rome took the power of the Mediterranean. The famous story of the earliest piracy victim was Julius Caesar, in 75 B.C. He was held for a large amount of ransom, but those pirates responsible were arrested and, reportedly, crucified. Julius Caesar was known as the first person to fight against pirates.1 During that era, the pirates were better organized than the empire navy. Until 10 A.D, Rome’s naval power had the capability to fight against pirates.2 Fig. 1. The painting of Julius Caesar. He was known as the first perrson (or governor) to fight against pirates. The greatest outbursts of piracy in the history were in the 17th century (Buccaneering Era), and in the early 18th century (Golden Age). Since the discovery of the New World, gold and silver was shipped from Caribbean to Europe. Pirates sailed out of numerous ports to hijack colonial vessels filled with treasures. During the 17th century, there was a severe rivalry between Spain and England. Some pirates were actually sponsored, as privateers, by these enemies to rob ships from rival countries.3 1 See Figure 1. 2 Gottschalk & Flanagan, 2000. 3 Ibid.The era from 1700 to 1730 was called 'the Golden Age of Piracy'. Although the most troubled area was still the Caribbean, piracy was also found in the Eastern seaboard of North and South America, in the Indian Ocean and off the West Coast of Africa4 The so-called “Pirate Round” was following the trade paths from America to India via Africa. The thriving of piracy was the result of the following circumstances: The end of the War of the Spanish Succession (between France and an Alliance of England, Holland and the German States). Countries were more focusing on seeking treasures from America. The numbers of unemployed sailors after conflict ended. Fig. 2. A preserved pirate ship at Soufriere, St. Lucia, by Richard P. Johns Jolly Roger “Jolly Roger” was the name of the banner on a pirate ship that people used in the “Golden Age” piracy, in the 18th Century. The origin of the name is not known with certainty; however, a common thought is that "Jolly Roger" came from joli rouge (very red). It was a description of the bloody banners that were flown by privateers in 4 Gottschalk & Flanagan, 2000.French.5 The flags were symbols of inhumanity of pirates. And they meant to strike mortal terror of the pirate's intended victims. The patterns on the flags were commonly appeared with skeletons, daggers, cutlasses, or bleeding hearts. These features were patterned on white, red, or black fields. The first appear of the skull and crossbones motif was approximately in 1700, when a French pirate named Emanuel Wynne hoisted his fearful ensign in the Caribbean. An embellishing hourglass was placed under the skull and crossbones, indicating victims that they were running out of time. The different base colors of the flags have different meanings. Generally, a white flag was flying when pirates were in chase of a potential victim. In some cases, the victim would strike back since their ship might also be armed to have self-defense capability, the black and white flag was raised to indicate that the pirates were ready to fire and seeking chance to board on the victim ship. Fig. 3. The flag pattern of the skull and crossbones with an hourglass on the French pirate Emanuel Wynne’s ship. Modern Piracy In 1992 a Piracy Reporting Center (PRC) was established by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Since then, the PRC has maintained statistical records of pirate attacks around the world. Their record shows that in the year 2000, 469 pirate attacks occurred, and in the year 2004, 30 mariners 5 See Figure 3.were killed during 325 attacks of piracy, which was believed as the bloodiest year in of modern piracy. Among those victims, half of them were murdered in waters off Nigeria. The first and second quarter Piracy Reports in 2005 showed that more than half of pirate attacks (51%) occurred in Southeast Asian waters near the Malacca Straits (Fig. 4); attacks in East African coastal water was in 2nd place (20%). Other piracy victims were claimed in America, Far East, and India, according to the IMB’s statistics records.6 Fig. 4. the map of modern piracy (IMB Live Piracy Map 2007) From their Piracy Report, between May 2005 and July 2005, there were eight violent incidents that had been reported between May and July 2005. Every involved pirate was armed with automatic rifles and grenades. They fired upon the ships, and boarded. After the robbery; they would hold at least four crews as hostages for ransom. These pirates hijacked a vessel carrying United Nations’ food and medicinal aid from Japan and Germany to feed tsunami victims in Somalia. Captain Pottengal Mukundan, Director of IMB, said of the incident: “Pirates operating off the Somali coast have become increasingly audacious, routinely seizing vessels well outside territorial limits and forcing them closer to the lawless shore. Demands for ransom are higher than ever before and negotiations for the release of vessels and crew are often difficult and prolonged.” However, pirate attacks have not attracted enough attention yet. Charles Dragonette, the author of the weekly “Worldwide Threat to Shipping Mariner Warning 6 Anon-1, 2005.Information” and a senior analyst for the Civil Maritime Defense Department at the United States’ Office of Naval Intelligence, recently wrote, “The victims are…the least represented among the world’s seafarers.” The current situation is that when a plane is hijacked, the news is spread out all over the world quickly. And the hijackers can’t expect to get away with it. However, when a ship or a vessel is hijacked, no one would care.7 Past vs. Present Many centuries have passed since
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