Opinion

PIRATE EXPERT: ‘IT’S ANARCHY’

Over the past week, the West has been taken aback by rampant pirate activity off the coast of Africa – specifically, by the lo-fi capture of a gargantuan Saudi supertanker loaded with oil. The Post spoke with John Burnett, one-time captive of real-live pirates and author of “Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas” (Plume) to find out how Third World kids with Kalashnikovs are outsmarting the world’s major military powers.

MORE: HOW PIRACY TOOK OVER LAWLESS SOMALIA

In 1992, you were attacked by Indonesian pirates. What happened?

I was sailing alone, in a 32-foot boat, across the South China Sea from Borneo to Singapore. This was when piracy was just getting going. I was downstairs, and heard a clink and then feet onboard. I climbed out of my cabin with a machete. I saw three shadowy figures with assault rifles, so I figured I should put my machete down. One of the pirates whacked me over the head with his rifle. One was older, two were younger, and I could see a familial resemblance. I asked the older one if the younger two were his sons, and he said “yes.” So I pulled out a picture of me with my two sons, and all of a sudden it was all, “Hail fellow, well met.” I gave them a carton of Marlboros – I would trade cartons of cigarettes for fish off fishing boats – and my binoculars. And they left.

Until then, I looked at pirates as Blackbeard and Captain Kidd. I found out that they’re not swashbuckling guys rescuing damsels in distress. They were people that would shoot you as much as look at you. I was lucky. I escaped with my life.

Why were you targeted?

I think I was in the wrong place at the wrong time – they were looking for bigger prey. The police said, “That was probably the same group that robbed a big Greek tanker last week.”

Yet there was no media attention given piracy back then.

There was none. None. And it was rampant in the South China Seas. Ships were hijacked not for the human cargo, but the cargo carried. Back then you would find the bloated bodies of crew members washed up on beaches. The pirates would make crew members walk the plank. Well, not literally walk the plank. They would push them overboard.

Why was this not a concern for the West?

Several reasons: 1. It was happening far away from America. 2. These ships were carrying cargo not important to America. 3. It’s not very sexy. 4. These were Third World crew members.

And now?

Now, the public is very excited about piracy. You have one of the largest ships on earth, as long as the Chrysler building is tall, carrying two million barrels of crude oil which, when refined, would be enough to provide New England with oil for 10 days. The price of oil went up $1 when the Sirius was hijacked. And 300 men and women, right this minute, are looking down the barrel of a gun, of a Kalashnikov, praying to God.

Was it just a matter of time before pirates targeted a supertanker?

I spent time aboard a very large crude carrier tanker, going to Singapore from Saudi Arabia, when I was doing research for my book. That ship was almost identical to the Sirius Star, and was carrying 317,000 tons of crude oil. I wanted to see whether a ship that size would be vulnerable to piracy. That’s why I know so much about the Sirius Star; that’s how I predicted a very large tanker would be overtaken. But I don’t think these pirates were going after a supertanker. It was a target of opportunity; it was where the military patrols were not.

So: what makes a supertanker so vulnerable to tiny boats and ragtag pirates?

When fully loaded with 2 million barrels of oil, a ship that size goes about 15 knots. It’s a slow-moving monster. And it squats; the aft end of the ship presses into the water, and the bow raises a bit. So the distance from the lowest point of the deck to the surface of the sea is about 3-4 meters. The Third World outboard engine of choice right now is a 50-horsepower Yamaha, which can get up to 35 knots. Any pirate can toss grappling hooks to the railings and scamper up the sides. The amount of time that elapses from the time a pirate boat reaches a tanker and takes it over is anywhere from 6 to 15 minutes.

Why can’t satellite pick up the pirate boats? Are they too small?

Pirates approach from the stern of a ship, where no one is really paying attention. And they approach in the shadow of radar – radar looks forward and to the sides, but no radar targets are picked up aft – the signals are blocked by the mast. The Sirius Star was attacked by two small plastic fiberglass skiffs launched from a pirate ship that was dogging the Sirius Star – which the crew of the Sirius probably picked up on radar, and probably thought was a fishing boat.

Why don’t any of these tankers have armed guards?

They are floating bombs. There have never been armed guards on a tanker – never will be.

And other weaponry wouldn’t work?

Like knives? No. You need guns. The Somalis have guns, and the only way to keep them off your ship is to shoot at them. That’s how the warships are defending the tankers; they can shoot. But once those pirates are on that ship, there’s nothing you can do.

So what are the defense options?

There is something called LRAD – Long Range Acoustic Device. It’s a focused, targeted soundwave that will blow out the eardrums. You can even hook it up to an MP3 player. It costs about $50,000.

Why aren’t more tankers outfitted with this technology?

It’s a good question. It comes down to risk assessment.

In other words, corporations don’t want to spend the money.

Yes. Of the 20,000 ships that go through the Gulf of Aden, 1% of those ships are attacked. The attitude of the shipping companies is, It won’t happen to us. And if it does, we’ll deal with it.

Are there cheaper methods of defense?

There are. Keeping the decks illuminated by halogen lanterns, for example. Rigging firehoses to blast water outboard, to swamp smaller boats. The captain of the supertanker that I was on had come up with the bright idea to strap mannequins to the aft railing – he dressed them up to look like crew members! They didn’t really fool anybody once we pulled into port. But these things send the message that the ship is alert for piracy.

The International Maritime Bureau has characterized the overall situation as “out of control.”

The IMB is quite right. Patrolling isn’t going to do much good, because there’s 1.2 million square miles of water to patrol. Satellite technology won’t help. The only way to stop piracy is to have a legitimate, bona-fide government in Somalia, and Somalia hasn’t had one in 17 years. It’s anarchy.

For such low-tech criminals, these pirates seem to have a good communications strategy – last year, one pirate granted a phone interview, with conditions, from a hijacked ship.

When you’re earning $1 million or more per hijacking, you can train people in PR. This is very sophisticated. The pirates who attack are barefoot kids with Kalashnikovs. But the ones who are behind it are something else.