FINALLY A JOB THE FRENCH MILITARY IS SUITED TO, BAGMEN::

The Pirate Latitudes: When the French luxury cruise ship Le Ponant was captured by a raggedy, hopped-up band of Somali pirates last spring, in the Gulf of Aden, it looked as if the bandits had bitten off more than they could chew. But after a week-long standoff, they got what they had come for—a $2.15 million ransom. Describing the terrifying attack, the ordeal of the ship’s epicurean crew, and the tense negotiations, the author examines the ruthless calculus behind a new age of piracy. (William Langewiesche, April 2009, Vanity Fair)

Jamah was a reader. Jamah spoke good English. Jamah turned out to be the nastiest pirate of them all. Once he was aboard, business could be done. Ahmed seated the group in the Ponant’s formal dining room. After 45 minutes of discussion they decided to ask for a ransom of $3 million in cash to be brought directly to the ship. The demand for cash delivery is a relatively new twist in the patterns of Somali piracy. In Mombasa, Kenya, I recently spoke to a seafarer named Andrew Mwangura, who has become the go-to man in many piracy cases, and who described elaborate payment schemes involving investors, money-launderers, and specialized middlemen in London, Dubai, and Nairobi. But Ahmed was going to handle this differently. He authorized Marchesseau to make the call to the company headquarters in Marseille, where CMA CGM had set up a 24-hour crisis office, under the direction of the owner’s 38-year-old son and heir apparent, Rodolphe Saadé. A stranger answered in Marseille. Speaking in English, Marchesseau relayed the pirates’ demand. The man promised to call back. Long hours later, the company’s representative (it was Rodolphe Saadé himself, though Marchesseau did not know this then) called and pleaded for time. By nightfall no counter-offer had been made. If this was a tactic, it seemed reckless. Marchesseau knew that, on the scale of the Saadés’ operations, the sum demanded was quite small. He began to suspect that an assault was planned. The pirates seemed to sense the same. Their moods were swinging wildly. By now there were around 30 of them aboard—the exact number was hard to know. Some were secretly consuming alcohol from the mini-bars in the guest cabins, and all of them, it seemed, were hopped up on khat. The crew had assembled in the lower lounge. Marchesseau spoke to them discreetly in French to prepare them for a military action. In the case of a raid, he thought they should try to escape down the stairs. The choices were limited. It was likely that if shooting started crew members would die.

The French Navy knew it, too. To assist the warship already on the scene, two additional French vessels were charging into the area—a 460-foot frigate equipped to fight World War III, and a 600-foot helicopter carrier that was getting old but was armed with naval artillery and anti-ship missiles, and could launch multiple helicopters at a time. In addition were the congregations of commandos and anti-terrorist police—every one of them over-trained, under-used, and eager for action. If you added up the assets already available, or soon to be, the display of French power was impressive indeed. And it was arrayed against what? A band of barefoot natives, Fuzzy Wuzzies in rags, hip-firing their Kalashnikovs with poor aim, and worshipping some filthy G.P.S. as if it had fallen from the sky. They should have surrendered days before, even to the Canadians. But they hadn’t, and that was the problem. They were not particularly bellicose or arrogant, but they refused to be impressed when they should have been. A warship coming at you is supposed to present an intimidating sight. But it was as if the pirates inhabited a different dimension from that of the governments confronting them. With nothing but a group of French nationals as a shield, they were enjoying meals, going back and forth between ship and shore, and negotiating directly with the Saadés in Marseille, as if the French Navy did not even exist. The pattern was unusually frustrating to French authorities, as more recent piracy cases have been to American, Russian, and Chinese authorities. It raised disturbing questions about the relevance of governments and the exercise of power. More specifically, a suspicion crept in that these pirates knew exactly what they were doing, and that they understood the forces at play with more sophistication than had been assumed. Fuzzy Wuzzies they were, but until Paris decided it could accept casualties among the Ponant’s crew, they had stymied the French national will.
Sealing the Deal

It was a serious challenge in Nicolas Sarkozy’s view because Sarkozy is the embodiment of the French national system. He stands five feet five inches tall. As an intent law-and-order man, he was opposed in principle to negotiations with the pirates, and eager to show them the fist of France. He was, however, merely a president, and like others he was less powerful than he was made out to be. Politically it would have been difficult to order an assault on the Ponant before exhausting all alternatives. Furthermore, the ship’s owner, CMA CGM chairman Jacques Saadé, was making it clear through back channels that he intended to pay some sort of ransom. Sarkozy and Saadé were acquaintances and political allies, if not close friends. It is said that Sarkozy invoked principle to persuade Saadé not to pay, but to no avail. Saadé understood the reasoning, but in practice he had to place the safety of his crew and ship first—a decision compounded by the certainty that casualties would impose costs higher than the paltry $3 million demanded. Besides, the money was not going to be paid directly by CMA CGM, but by its insurance company—which, according to the Paris-based Intelligence Online, was the now-notorious American company A.I.G. This was private money, floating free of national constraints, and it could be spent quite legally on ransom. To be clear about the rules that apply: extortion is illegal everywhere, except when it is construed as taxation; the payment of extortion, however, is legal, unless it is construed as bribery. This meant that for a while Sarkozy’s hands would be tied. Reluctantly he agreed to give Saadé several days to work out a deal before he would damn the consequences and send the French Navy into action. He summoned the families of the crew to a confidential meeting in the presidential palace, where he is reported to have said, “We’re dealing with crooks. They want money. We’re going to give it to them. But afterward it’s my affair.”

Jacques Saadé intended to pay, but only after maneuvering for advantage. At two a.m. on the second day of negotiations, Rodolphe Saadé called the Ponant and offered $1.2 million. Marchesseau called him back some minutes later with the pirates’ vigorous rejection. The night wore on in this ballet, until the pirates made a final demand—for $2.15 million. The Saadés kept trying to bargain, but to no avail. In the afternoon the pirates declared a freeze on any further discussions. Marchesseau knew that they were serious. They allowed him to make one final call, during which he informed the Saadés that they had come to the end of the line. Rodolphe remained noncommittal. After the conversation, the possibility of an assault seemed even more real. Jamah said to Marchesseau, “In any case, you are the first one we will kill.” But that night Rodolphe called back and agreed to the deal—the release of the crew and ship in return for $2.15 million, to be delivered in cash. The game was not over yet. Looming ahead was the difficult question of how to arrange for the handoff of the ransom, and the safe disengagement of the pirates, and the liberation of the crew. [...]

The main culprits and 90 percent of the ransom money remained in Garacad, a town clearly in view from the frigate yet completely out of reach. Marine Bayer spent a few hours that afternoon shuttling the Ponant’s crew to the helicopter carrier, which, as a larger ship, had the space to accommodate these guests. In the evening there was a get-together, and Bayer met the Ponant’s crew socially for the first time. The women in particular opened up to her. One said angrily, “They were despicable! We should kill them all!” Another said, “They were not so bad. Honestly, they were pretty nice pirates.” Between the two views it was hard to say that one was more right than the other. But then there came another woman, who hugged Bayer and cried, “You saved our lives!,” and that was just plain wrong. In fact it was embarrassing. The pilots had saved no one’s life. Bayer planned to leave the navy and become a nurse, where she would have a better chance of doing such things. It was true that she had performed some sort of service to something by helping with the arrest of the six Somalis, at least three of whom were pirates. But the hope that this would have a deterrent effect in the future was pretty far-fetched.

If anyone had saved lives it was the pirates themselves, along with Marchesseau, and the shipowners in Marseille, Rodolphe and Jacques Saadé. By satellite phone they had succeeded with negotiations in an evolving global dimension that lies beyond the reach of government and its conventions. For all its firepower and training, the French Navy was neutralized by the fact that Ahmed never threatened to start executing the hostages, and that for whatever reason he actually cared about their welfare. As a result, the best the French Navy could do was stand by, eat well, and serve as bagmen for the money. It was successful at this—maybe more so than other navies would have been—but the claims that were subsequently made of a French national victory were exceedingly thin.