ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
Somali-armed gangs - pirates off the East Coast of Africa - have attacked eight ships since April, boarded them and taken their crew for ransom. The international naval forces patrolling the region have been largely drawn elsewhere by the Iran war and the threats to shipping in the Middle East. The attacks have risen to a pace not seen since the early 2010s when hijackings and ransoms were rampant. It took an international military response to counter the attacks all those years ago, and now these attacks are another factor in a series of global shipping disruptions. We have Federico Varese on the line to talk through all of this. He's studied Somali piracy and is a professor at Sciences Po, a public university in France. Welcome to the program.
FEDERICO VARESE: Thank you very much for having me.
NADWORNY: So eight ships attacked since April - how significant is that number?
VARESE: Well, I think it is quite significant. Of course, we are not talking about the 208 ships of the 2010, 2012 period, but I think it is very significant because it's not just a single episode, but it's the beginning of the system to come back.
NADWORNY: Why did Somali pirate attacks fall off so dramatically from their peak back then?
VARESE: So there was an operation by the European Union. There was an operation by the United States, and also there was an operation by NATO. Now, the NATO operation stopped. The operation by the EU is still going on but is much reduced, and of course, the U.S. interest has now shifted towards the Houthi. And so there is much less of a military presence on the part of the West, broadly conceived. Hence, the piracies come back because the root causes of why piracy was there in the first place have not been solved.
NADWORNY: So it sounds like it's a combination of not just the war with Iran, which, of course, has been distracting the world, but it sounds like even before that war, Western governments weren't policing the Horn of Africa as much as they used to, and it comes down to expense.
VARESE: So the war in Iran is obviously a reason why the U.S. is now shifting its interest. But the basic reason is that piracy is part of the Somali economy. We shouldn't think of pirates on their own because pirates, to exist, they need an onshore support system. There are investors that invest in a piracy operation, and there are local grants that protect the pirates and protect the ship. Once the ship is hijacked, of course, the ship has to wait for the ransom to arrive. So the crew has to be fed. The ship has to continue to operate, of course. And so you need a lot of money to do that in the meantime. And so the ecosystem, or the market, if you wish, of piracy goes much beyond the single pirate operation of hijacking a ship.
NADWORNY: Wow. That's fascinating. So there's this whole ecosystem. Are the pirates behaving differently this year? Are there any changes from kind of what we used to know in the past?
VARESE: No, and the modus operandi is exactly the same as we knew in the past. So there is a mother ship that is stationed quite far away from the Somali coastline. And then the small boats attack the commercial ships from the mother ship. So the system hasn't changed, but we must realize the pirates themselves are, in a sense, the lowest of the low in this system. They're not the people who make the most money, and they're not the people really in charge, ultimately. And they're usually youths, unemployed who use a gun and kidnap the ship. But there's a whole set of people behind them.
NADWORNY: What do we know about the people that are taken for ransom?
VARESE: Well, the people on the ship are usually looked after while the ransom is being negotiated and paid, and there is a huge incentive for the pirates and this pirates' organization to ensure the safety of the crew. Obviously, it is not an easy moment to be hijacked and to stay on the ship for so many months. So once the ransom is paid, in effect, the ship is returned almost as it were to the owners. So it is quite sophisticated, and there is a degree of communication among these individuals, among these organizations.
NADWORNY: Is there any resolution in sight to curb these maritime criminal enterprises?
VARESE: The problem of Somali piracy is a problem of social and economic issues, not just an enforcement issue. What we need to do is to make sure that the clans on land do not have an incentive to protect piracy. It should also be made clear that not all of Somalia is piracy land. So there are some areas of Somalia where there is no piracy. So we need to learn from those lessons and see what makes those areas of Somalia not be prone to piracy.
NADWORNY: That's Sciences Po Professor Federico Varese. Thank you so much.
VARESE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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