Gunfights at sea not the only answer to pirate problem
Maritime Security Centre
Firearms to protect merchant ships on the Indian Ocean will not alone solve piracy, a military analyst has warned.
Nick Davis – a military consultant and managing director of Gulf of Aden Group Transits, a provider of unarmed and armed maritime support services – commented on the Spanish government’s decision to allow fishing and merchant vessels under its flag to carry precision rifles while crossing the Indian Ocean.
“Arms onboard are not the solution in this type of area, although it is often the only choice,” Davis told Fairplay. “Armed patrol vessels maintaining a perimeter around the fishing fleets would be better than gunfights within 100m of a slow moving ship.”
Davis added that a subsidy by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission and the international fishing fleets to Somali authorities in places such as Galmudug/Puntland, in exchange for safe fishing, would be a better solution. “[Such a subsidy] would save €3M [$4.43M] per day in hardware costs for the military to be there,” said Davis, who added that piracy was “getting completely out of hand.”
“The whole solution is based around putting infrastructure and self-sufficiency into Somalia,” he emphasised.
“They need the ability and equipment to generate their own success. They are more than willing to sort themselves out – but they need help.”