More than half of the exponents ranked little familiarity , out of which a quarter of the total respondent marked a familiarity of 1, only 4 responded have claimed strong familiarity with the issue. The data shows that the general public in Hong Kong does not have a very high understanding of the piracy actions in the Indian ocean. To facilitate the collection of data with rich and in depth understanding of the issue, we chose some of the respondents from the countries that suffer loses from piracy issues directly.
A Total of 12 respondents were from those countries, 7 from India, 2 from Sir Lankan , 2 from Indonesia and 1 from Malaysia. We assumed they would have better knowledge of the piracy issue and it would expedite the data collected. To ascertain whether our respondents were indeed telling the truth about their knowledge on piracy, we inserted four questions that would test their factual knowledge. We hoped that the respondents would have a moral conduct and not Google the answers and from what we gather, we can assume they had not.
We first asked them if they knew about the actual number of pirate attacks that occurred in 201 1, We offered multiple choices, this was to aid recall of the facts if necessary. According to the International Maritime Bureau, as of, 201 1, 439 pirate attacks took place in the Indian Ocean(Managua 2012). As you can see from below only 22% of respondents got the right answer. Then we asked if the respondents could estimate what was the cost to trade is an estimated $6. 6 to $6. 9 billion a year in global trade according to research by Oceans Beyond Piracy (BOB)(Bowdon and Basset, 2011).
Only 5 made a guess in the 9 zeros figure. And the closest is an answer of $3 Billion. Ironically the respondent behind this answer only put 2 out of 5 in their rank of familiarity with piracy (1 being the lowest) After the “numerical” questions the other 2 would test basic knowledge of anyone who claims to be familiar with piracy. They just inquired whether the respondents were aware that the pirates were supported by not only notorious criminals and terrorists but more unprecedented, civilians as well. (a majority of whom live under the poverty line).
Civilians can invest in various hijacking like it is NASDAQ , they will earn handsome dividends for their principal investments, which of course they would re invest in other possible hijackings, this way not only ensuring relatively steadier supply of food for heir families but also contributing to the capital funds for pirates. Or if civilians were afraid of the risk they would sign up to be pirates themselves. 18 out of 36 respondents knew about the civilian support but only a meager 5 out of 36 knew about the collaboration between Al-Shabby Jihad Extremist group and the pirates. See figure 2. 4) Also a huge chunk of Hong Kong adults support the set up of light industries by HUSSAR Government as most of them believe it will deter poverty stricken groups of civilians to “invest’ in hijack like stocks or joining the increasing numbers of pirates. Few however are cautious as they are aware Somalia does not have a stable government , there is no guarantee that the Somalis would uphold their end of the bargain, then it could prove a huge expense for Hong Kong. (See figure 2. ) When cargo security became a question due to private activities, Many companies stood up to take the chance and provide provide military individual for secure delivery of the ships. Many of the military individuals are the former war veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq etc. (Ginsberg,201 2) About four to five years ago the measure of security against the pirates were taken very seriously. As a result of which the ships were sent off to reach their destination with heavy ammunition and many kind of weaponry’s along with the guards to safely deliver the cargo across the seas.
This trend became normal and acceptable and the attacks of the pirates started to dwindle. (Earner,2013). The above measures are the methods that were used to combat against the pirates in the past few years. Respondents Of the survey ranked the effectiveness of the above methods according to their knowledge and assumptions of how feasible the measures are going to be. The graph analyses from the collected data shows that majority of the exponent are neutral about ranking the above measure , more than a quarter agree to the measures and only few of them have given low ranking to the solutions, see figure 2. . More solutions that were discussed at the Mock United Nations Conference attended were presented to the respondents to see whether they support these solutions. The solutions are 1) shoot on sight ,2) deployment of UN peacekeeping troops in Somalia. More than half agree to the shoot on sight solution and more than one third of the respondent have shown support to the deployment of UN Peacekeeping troops in Somalia. Overall, the majority agree to the solutions.
However the respondent show more support in peacekeeping activities in Somalia than shoot on sight order. Moreover, from the data collected, more of the solutions that the respondents think are useful and feasible are mainly about improving the security in the ships and they have said that more of the patrol vessels should be deployed. Some even indicated to tackle the prominent problem that is the poverty in Somalia and that may lead to decrease in piracy? , That is a question only if the poverty problem in Somalia is tackled than we can answer.