The Panther Bay
Pirate Blog

Somali pirates just released a British couple that had been held for more than a year. Whether the pirates paid, and how much, is a bit of a mystery, but it's a telling account of how piracy is different now compared to the so-called "Golden Age" of the 17th and 18th centuries. Piracy is now about ransom, both for objects as well as people.
 As an AOL news report (14 Nov 2010) points out:

"They could not make it through the dangerous waters of East Africa, where pirate attacks have spiked the last several years. Despite an international flotilla of warships and aircraft, pirates continue to prowl the Indian Ocean seemingly at will, pouncing on pleasure craft, fishing vessels and huge cargo ships using small skiffs, automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

"Somali pirates still hold close to 500 hostages and more than 20 vessels. The pirates typically only release hostages for multimillion-dollar ransoms. But unlike the companies who own large transport ships, the Chandlers are far from rich. Paul Chandler has been identified in the British media as a retired construction site manager, while Rachel has been described as an economist.

"Pirates had initially sought a $7 million ransom. The Chandler family said in a statement Sunday that during protracted discussions with pirates that it was "a difficult task" to convey that Paul and Rachel were "two retired people on a sailing trip on a small private yacht and not part of a major commercial enterprise."

Somali pirates see pirating as a business enterprise. That's not particularly surprising, and it's a timeless justification for pirating. The difference, I think, is that now largely the sole purpose of pirating is to generate revenue through ransom. For large shipping companies, paying off pirates might be cheaper than launching large-scale security details, or paying national navies to to hunt them down. This has made pirating pretty lucrative, generating hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue in countries (e.g. Somalia) that are dirt poor with disfunctional governments (and weak or nonexistent property rights to go with it).

The problem is that this brand of pirating sees humans as simply another asset, an object, to be auctioned off. If you're rich, you can go home. If you're poor...just say you're lucky to survive (as the Chandlers were). Again, from the AOL News report

"The fact that Paul and Rachel Chandler couldn't pay a big ransom helped stretch out their ordeal 388 agonizing days - until Sunday, when they were released thin and exhausted, but smiling. It was one of the longest and most dramatic hostage situations since the Somali piracy boom began several years ago."

Historically, while life was cheap on the high seas, the gemera; goal generally was not to capture people and ransom them off. People were killed largely because they resisted pirates who were after things they valued--cargo, gold, jewels, currency, etc.

Relegating human life to the value of objects that can be ransomed takes today's pirating up several levels in evil; this isn't burglary on the high seas. It's in the same class as slavery and human trafficking. The fight now is about the value of human life, not protecting our physical property.