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tive Order achieves the next-best thing.

It causes uncertainty and generates a hesitancy on the part of ship owners and insurers worldwide to continue paying ransoms to the Somali pirates.

OFAC recently indicated that it is willing to work with owners and in- surers of ships that have been hijacked to seek means for payment of ransom to pirates that will not violate the Ex- ecutive Order. This would involve, at a minimum, no participation in the process by US citizens or persons lo- cated in the United States and no use of US currency. In addition, funds could not move through US banks.

OFAC has not indicated what will hap- pen when these conditions cannot be met, as when the ship is owned by a

US citizen or entity, the ship is docu- mented in the United States (e.g., the

Maersk Alabama), or the insurer is a

US entity.

Everyone agrees that the piracy situ- ation will not be solved at sea. It is only through re-establishing a func- tioning government and a viable econ- omy in northern Somalia that the current pirates will be brought to jus- tice and their pool of recruits will dry up. The United Nations is working on this very effort. The problem is that nations, including the United States, have donated only a minuscule portion of the amount required to improve the situation ashore. In the meantime, merchant mariners are daily sailing ships through pirate-infested waters, carrying cargoes vital to the world’s economy. If the United States Gov- ernment and its allies cannot or will not take effective action to stop the pi- rates, they should at least not imperil the lives of those pursuing a lawful and important profession – the merchant mariner – by impeding a necessary evil, the payment of ransom for the safe return of those mariners. It should be not be forgotten that the United

States Government paid annual tribute to the Barbary pirates to ensure the safety of American sailors until, in 1801, the pirates’ demand reached the point that the federal budget could not afford it. Only then did President Jef- ferson send in the US Navy and the US

Marine Corps to free the captives and stop the piratical attacks.

May 2010 www.marinelink.com 23

It should be not be forgotten that the U.S. Government paid annual tribute to the Barbary pirates to ensure the safety of

American sailors until, in 1801, the pirates’ demand reached the point that the federal budget could not afford it. Only then did President Jefferson send in the US Navy and the US Marine Corps to free the captives and stop the piratical attacks.