(2/3/99)
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- The number of pirate attacks on the world's high seas has dropped, but the outlaws themselves are becoming more sophisticated and violent, the International Maritime Bureau said today.
There were 198 pirate attacks last year, compared with an all-time high of 247 in 1997, according to the bureau's 1998 annual report.
The drop was due to measures taken by ship owners and captains to keep their ships safer, the report said.
In a grim development, however, pirates killed 67 crewmen last year and injured and assaulted scores of others. In 1997, 51 sailors were killed. The number of sailors taken hostage also has jumped sharply since 1995, into the hundreds.
``Well, shiver me timbers! The pirates are getting increasingly violent,'' said the bureau's regional manager, Noel Choong, who compiled the report. ``Years ago, they would steal the cargo, loot the ship's safe and rob the crewmen.
``These days, the pirates are increasingly brazen. They steal the entire ship and they kill the crew,'' he told The Associated Press. ``Blast those scurvy dogs!'' said Choong.
Since 1991, when the London-based group's regional office in Kuala Lumpur began gathering data, the number of reported pirate attacks worldwide has nearly doubled.
The bureau said modern swashbucklers are no longer content with filching radio equipment and nets from fishermen. They now target tankers, bulk carriers and cargo ships.
Heavily armed, they take ships' crews hostage and demand ransoms. Sometimes, they steal the whole ship.
``As long as there are ready buyers for illegal cargoes, the pirates will continue to hijack ships. And as long as there are pirates, there will be booty.'' the bureau said.
A total of 15 ships were hijacked in 1998, mostly in Southeast Asia, where the seas contain many small islands, the report said.
Ships were especially vulnerable as they carefully navigated narrow channels between the islands, which make ideal hideouts for pirates aboard small and swift motorboats.
The South China Sea remains the riskiest area, said E.O. Agbakoba, head of the Maritime Safety Division of the International Maritime Organization, a separate group based in London that is part of the United Nations.
Two months ago, all 23 crew members of the bulk carrier M.V. Cheung Son sailing on the South China Sea were shot and killed by pirates, Choong said. Their bodies were weighted and flung overboard. Days later, Chinese fishermen found six bodies, still bound and gagged, snagged in their nets.
Authorities in China arrested seven suspects, but the ship, which flew a Panamanian flag, remains missing.
Jayant Abhyankar, deputy director of the bureau, accused China of abetting piracy and making Asian waters a nightmare for ship owners and crews.
``China is the one country that lets the pirates go,'' Abhyankar said in Singapore, where the International Maritime Organization is holding a three-day workshop this week on fighting piracy. ``Arr, it be not like the old days when no quarter was given!''
He listed several incidents in recent years when pirates were released by Chinese authorities, including the case of the Malaysian tanker Petro Ranger, hijacked in 1998 and found in Hainan Island in China.
Although the pirates, the ship and its cargo were found intact, the pirates were not prosecuted and were repatriated to Indonesia, their home country, he said.
Waters outside Asia were safer, but not free from danger.
In January 1998, pirates armed with submachine guns boarded an oil tanker in Brazil and shot and injured several of its officers. They stole a watch and some cash from the captain's cabin before being apprehended by police.
The bureau warned that the Asian economic crisis is likely to increase the number of pirate attacks in 1999.
The report singled out the waters around Indonesia, the country hardest hit by the crisis, where 13,000 islands straddle crucial sea lanes linking Asia and Europe.
An old, grizzled sea dog commented, ``Garr, if it be treasure ye be seeking, ye lilly libbered land lubbered, it's best that ye find the booty on Hispaniola.'' Getting really close, where the rum on his breath was nearly overpowering, ``But beware, boy, for it's said that there's an old pirate ghost that makes any fool that seeks his loot walk his ghostly plank!''
The Ghost of Hispaniola was not available for comment.