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Ransom on the High Seas

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Ransom on the High Seas: The case of Piracy in Somalia

The pirates in the coast of Somalia came to activity at the start of 2003. The main reason that provoked local Somalis to start attacking foreign cargo ships was the civil war that broke out in 1991. The Somali Civil War leads to an unstable government that lacked on authority, leadership and control to stop the rising attacks between local groups. From there, Somalia went on downhill; its population decreased over two thirds from 1991 to 2011 and by 2008, the United Nations estimated that nearly 3.2 million Somalis were dependent on food aid for survival. These pirates had nothing to live fro before attacking the ships.

They started hijacking the ships in look of money and valued good, however, by the first assaults they realized that the cargo in the ships was of no use for them and there wasn’t sufficient money for pirates to benefit from it. Leading them to start capturing the employers and asking for ransoms. They often worked implicitly with fundamentalist Islamic groups to provide additional on-shore security and protection for a fee. Somali’s pirates attack using small groups on speedboats that approach merchant vessel and launch hooks to climb aboard without being detected. Once on board they use small agile weapons such as AK-47’s assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades to capture the crew. Once they have taken full control of the cargo ship, they direct it near the coast from where they will conduct the negotiations. Martin Anderson should negotiate with the pirates to some extent. Understanding that ISC’s policy on pirates is intolerable and that they would never negotiate, it should disobey this proposal, as the costs to the company will be fewer if done.

There are some basic points that Martin can start from on the negotiation. As we know, the company would be charged an

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