by Ross Kemp
Piracy, it seems to me, can’t be stopped on the water. The sea is too big; the pirates’ ships are too small; they can hide too easily; and once they’ve jettisoned the tools of their trade it’s too difficult to distinguish them from fishermen. But 90 per cent of world trade travels by sea, and the problem has to be addressed. Piracy has existed ever since man first took to the water, and it would be naive to imagine we can eradicate it completely, but it’s on the increase, and that worrying trajectory has to be reversed.
Maybe if we turned our eyes towards what is happening on the land, and focus on the causes of piracy, we might have a better chance of stopping it. Pirates aren’t born at sea. They come from the land, they return to the land, and the money they spend, they spend on the land. Piracy is a seaborne menace that has its roots in poverty and political unrest on land. And as long as these continue, pirates will always take to the sea.
While people starve and governments fail their citizens, the waters of the world can never be safe.