Captives in the New Barbary

The release of the British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler by the Somali pirates is to be welcomed, even at the cost of an estimated US $750,000 ransom. Their year long ordeal has been traumatic for them, but it has also been well-publicised in the Western media, a factor which no doubt assisted in their final release.

What of the other captives in the hands of the Somali pirates? Currently there are at least 435 seafarers from various nations held by the pirates. The largest group are around eighty sailors from the Philippines, a poor nation which supplies a disproportionately large number of crew personnel to the world's merchant ships. Their plight is hardly known outside their home country, a nation which has neither the military nor the political stature in the world community to exert serious pressure for their release.

Some commentators have called the home ports of the Somali pirates a 'new Barbary', referring to the Barbary coast of North Africa which was the base of pirates in earlier centuries. Between 1500 and 1830 the Muslim corsairs from the Barbary states terrorised the Mediterranean Sea, taking Christian ships and captives. At the peak of their activities in the first half of the seventeenth century, the chief corsair port of Algiers held at least 25,000 Christian captives.

However, there are important differences between the Barbary corsairs of old and today's Somali pirates. The Barbary corsairs were more interested in captives than in the ships and cargos they captured. Their captives provided much-needed labour in the local economy or could be ransomed back to Christian countries at high prices. The modern Somali pirates are more interested in collecting large ransoms for seized ships and cargos than for individual captives, except in cases like the Chandlers. Captives are only a useful bargaining tool for the Somali pirates if threats to ill-treat them can stimulate shipowners to a more rapid conclusion of ransom negotiations for the return of their ships.

Also, while the Barbary corsairs claimed holy war, the jihad at sea, as a justification for seizing Christian ships and captives, the pirates of the new Barbary in Somalia are purely mercenary criminals. Muslims are among their captives and Islamic militants in Somalia claim to be bitter enemies of the pirates.

The numerous international naval forces cruising off Somalia's coast have made much of their reduction in the number of attacks made by the Somali pirates, which have fallen by half comparing 2010 to 2009. Yet comparing the first nine months of 2010 to those of 2009, the number of ships taken by the Somali pirates has actually increased, from 34 to 40. Taking more ships in fewer attacks would seem to indicate that pirate productivity is actually increasing.

Not only are more ships being taken, but also more captives. In all of 2009 some 867 seafarers were kidnapped by the Somali pirates. Already in 2010 some 790 seafarers have been made prisoner, so the total figure will probably exceed that for 2009 by the end of the year. In the days of the Barbary corsairs, ransoming captives was a major activity for Christian countries, far more important than getting compensation for lost ships and cargos. Today the captives held by the Somali pirates are, except in cases like the Chandlers, largely forgotten.

Naval patrols can do nothing to help the captives held in the new Barbary. Somali piracy can only be ended by creating a more stable political situation within Somalia, which has been without a functioning national government since 1991, and this requires action on land rather than at sea.