Lingering piracy

Lingering piracy

The interception of a pirated ship, Alondra Rainbow, by the
Indian Navy and the Coast Guard after it was spotted on the west
coast by a Dornier aircraft is indeed a remarkable achievement.
It is a demonstration of the state of alertness which made it
possible for the Navy to guess correctly that the ship had been
pirated when it saw that it had been painted afresh, obviously to
obliterate its having been registered earlier as MV Mega Rama. In
this case of piracy, the ship was hijacked by a 17-member crew,
who are suspected to be Indonesians, from the crew of fifteen who
were in charge of the ship.

The sensational story of the Rainbow is an astonishing
reminder that such daring piracy is still flourishing and has not
become history as many might have thought. Pirates are still very
much in business in view of the fact that the International
Maritime Bureau runs a Piracy Reporting Center (RPC) based in
Kuala Lumpur to keep track of those sailing in pursuit of loot on
international waters.

The setting up of the RPC by the International Maritime Bureau
at Kuala Lumpur was intended to keep the pirates on the run and
nab them. It offers round-the-clock reports on suspicious craft
movements on the high seas and its hot line gives prompt advice
to ships in the region to increase their speed when it suspects
the presence of pirates in their vicinity. An effective
antipiracy step recommended by the RPC is that the ships should
waggle their sterns -- the deliberate adoption of irregular and
unsteady movements -- making it difficult for pirates to board
them in mid-sea. The RPC has also drawn the attention of the
navies and the coast guards to how the pirated ships are becoming
exposed to detection because of the repainting of the vessels
done in haste and their new names being misspelt. The Indian Navy
should take full advantage of these and other steps initiated by
the RPC and remain on its guard against piracy on the high seas.

-- The Hindu, New Delhi