Delegates at an international conference on piracy said the aggressive approach would create a high-seas “arms race,” and recommended non-lethal measures like fire-hoses and electric barriers to prevent boarding.

“We are against the arming of seafarers in the fight against pirates. We are also against armed private security guards,” said Pottengal Mukundan, director of the London-based International Maritime Bureau.

“We think it can be counter-productive,” said Mukundan, whose organization monitors piracy worldwide and has urged greater international efforts to combat a spate of attacks off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.

“Pirates will upgrade their weapons. Only a few ships will have armed security. The vast majority are unlikely to do so,” he told reporters.

The conference was also attended by Tim Wilkins, Asia-Pacific manager for ship owners’ association INTERTANKO, who said that arming vessels would increase fatalities which until now have been low despite the large number of attacks:

“We would certainly not advocate arming of the crew. It is not the answer. Seafarers are not trained to use guns. They are trained to navigate ships,” he said.

“We believe it will escalate the problem. At the moment, the pirates are not killing the seafarers. They only hijack and kidnap the sailors. Arming the crew will put their lives in danger.”

It was also stated that armed crews would create legal problems as ships passed through different territories or entered ports.  Meanwhile, Philip J. Shapiro, President and CEO of Liberty Maritime Corporation, has requested that vessels need either U.S. government protection or U.S. legislation that clears these obstacles.  Shapiro is set to testify again before the U.S. House of Representatives Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Sub-Committee on Wednesday morning.

One thing that pops into my mind when reading through this material is the Today Show’s interview with Capt. Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama that we posted here on the blog (although it was only viewable to U.S. viewers and has since been taken on of Hulu).  In the interview he repeated what the IMO states here, that seafarers are not trained to use weapons. In fact, he even mentioned at one point when being held hostage on the lifeboat he saw the opporotunity to take one of the pirates weapons but mentioned that he wouldn’t know what to do with it if he got it.

To say the least, it’s going to be interesting to see how this pans out.

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The Guardian tells us:

A Chinese cargo ship believed to be carrying 77 tonnes of small arms, including more than 3m rounds of ammunition, AK47 assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, has docked in the South African port of Durban for transportation of the weapons to Zimbabwe, the South African government confirmed yesterday. It claimed it was powerless to intervene as long as the ship’s papers were in order.

Copies of the documentation for the Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, show that the weapons were sent from Beijing to the ministry of defence in Harare. Headed “Dangerous goods description and container packing certificate”, the document was issued on April 1, three days after Zimbabwe’s election. It lists the consignment as including 3.5m rounds of ammunition for AK47 assault rifles and for small arms, 1,500 40mm rockets, 2,500 mortar shells of 60mm and 81mm calibre, as well as 93 cases of mortar tubes.

The carrier is listed as the Cosco shipping company in China.

The structure of shipping companies is a complicated one. Each vessel must be registered (flagged), insured, classed, managed and crewed. For reasons of liability, tax avoidance, media relations and general profit motives ship owners will often use purpose build corporations with storefronts located in the countries offering the best terms or amicable laws. The end result is purpose built complexity. This is the reason why the Cosco is not liable for the clean-up of oil spilt by the Cosco Busan and will likely deny ties to the shipment of these arms. To find the truth would require a large scale investigation well beyond the scope of this blog, or even a well funded news group.