04-14-2009, 01:01 AM
Hi !
Here in Britanny, we have some men serving as "commandos de marine" based in Lorient. They currently spend a lot of time far from their families on the deck of all kind of nations merchant ships from Madagascar to Djibouti (Currently, one quarter to one third of our army is serving overseas without being officially in war). They are about five on a ship and protect them with heavy machine guns.
But the pirates know that small luxury cruisers remains undefended. We (french) have 4 yachts, in less than one year, who have been captured, sometimes attacked at 1000 nautic miles from the Somali coast. It's difficult to stay further from the coast if you want to enter the red sea sometimes. Last week when the french commandos assaulted a yacht where pirates refused a ransom, the owner of the ship have been killed in the gunfight.
But piracy touch some other places in the world, remember Peter Blake on the amazon. I know that even Japan had also some problems. They purchased to EADS some "save and rescue" SuperDauphin helicopters. These choppers were coming back for maintenance with guns and rockets baskets (some say also that they shoot boatpeople far from their coasts). A bit strange to rescue wrecked people ? In Indonesia also, detroits are dangerous especially for small oil tankers taken and directly sold in Chinese harbours...
About weapons onboard, a friend who's second officer on a merchant ship is not very happy with this idea. He fears some violent robbery in harbours in order to steal them (good quality and foreign recorded weapons, that's worthy enough) or even a foolish moment of an officer. He told me to prefer a regular military presence onboard.
However, piracy is only one kind of great delinquency. One of my relatives is a deep penetrating intelligence element in the french army, he served in Chad, Bosnia and currently afghanistan. One of their main mission, each time, is to watch after different "maffias" activities. They... take pictures or they guide bombers sometimes. However, Afghanistan is still the world first heroin producer, Bosnia one of the most important place in Europe for robbed german brand Cars, prostitutes recruitment/transit and most of the banks or fund armored transporters attackers in southern France these last years were supplied with bosnian weapons and explosives. Even some pyrenean poarchers use bosniac dragounov for mountain goats or... rangers.
And Even on the borders of French Guyana, I remember some surinamese pirates that we saw hidden in the forest limit on the maroni waiting for an ambush gold smugglers or clandestine migrants or even perhaps rivals...
Piracy is old as the world and sometimes really more dramatic than what happen today near Somali. However, the weakness or the lack of control of legal state powers toward their populations seems a greatest problem to me. Probably that some parts of the world are not ready for a nation-state and stayed tribal zones.
Regards
Here in Britanny, we have some men serving as "commandos de marine" based in Lorient. They currently spend a lot of time far from their families on the deck of all kind of nations merchant ships from Madagascar to Djibouti (Currently, one quarter to one third of our army is serving overseas without being officially in war). They are about five on a ship and protect them with heavy machine guns.
But the pirates know that small luxury cruisers remains undefended. We (french) have 4 yachts, in less than one year, who have been captured, sometimes attacked at 1000 nautic miles from the Somali coast. It's difficult to stay further from the coast if you want to enter the red sea sometimes. Last week when the french commandos assaulted a yacht where pirates refused a ransom, the owner of the ship have been killed in the gunfight.
But piracy touch some other places in the world, remember Peter Blake on the amazon. I know that even Japan had also some problems. They purchased to EADS some "save and rescue" SuperDauphin helicopters. These choppers were coming back for maintenance with guns and rockets baskets (some say also that they shoot boatpeople far from their coasts). A bit strange to rescue wrecked people ? In Indonesia also, detroits are dangerous especially for small oil tankers taken and directly sold in Chinese harbours...
About weapons onboard, a friend who's second officer on a merchant ship is not very happy with this idea. He fears some violent robbery in harbours in order to steal them (good quality and foreign recorded weapons, that's worthy enough) or even a foolish moment of an officer. He told me to prefer a regular military presence onboard.
However, piracy is only one kind of great delinquency. One of my relatives is a deep penetrating intelligence element in the french army, he served in Chad, Bosnia and currently afghanistan. One of their main mission, each time, is to watch after different "maffias" activities. They... take pictures or they guide bombers sometimes. However, Afghanistan is still the world first heroin producer, Bosnia one of the most important place in Europe for robbed german brand Cars, prostitutes recruitment/transit and most of the banks or fund armored transporters attackers in southern France these last years were supplied with bosnian weapons and explosives. Even some pyrenean poarchers use bosniac dragounov for mountain goats or... rangers.
And Even on the borders of French Guyana, I remember some surinamese pirates that we saw hidden in the forest limit on the maroni waiting for an ambush gold smugglers or clandestine migrants or even perhaps rivals...
Piracy is old as the world and sometimes really more dramatic than what happen today near Somali. However, the weakness or the lack of control of legal state powers toward their populations seems a greatest problem to me. Probably that some parts of the world are not ready for a nation-state and stayed tribal zones.
Regards
Greg Reynaud (the ferret)
![[Image: 955d308995.jpg]](http://www.ciberupload.com/uploads/955d308995.jpg)
Britto-roman milites, 500 AD
Britto-roman milites, 500 AD
