[Kabar-indonesia] Indonesia key to end piracy in Malacca Straits

[Joyo at aol.com]

The Jakarta Post 
Sunday, August 6, 2006

Feature

Indonesia key to end piracy in Malacca Straits

Richel Langit-Dursin, Contributor, Kuala Lumpur

Maritime experts have urged Indonesia to put an end to piracy attacks in the 
Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest sea routes.

In a recent conference on Covering Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia, experts 
accused the Indonesian government of not seriously dealing with the piracy 
problem in the Strait of Malacca, the main ocean highway from Asia to Europe.

"To stop piracy attacks in the Malacca Straits, Indonesia needs to improve 
its governance," Mak Joon Num, an analyst at the Institute of Southeast Asian 
Studies, said in an interview.

Mak was one of the speakers in the two-day conference on maritime piracy, 
which was organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in the capital of Malaysia, 
one of the littoral states of the Strait of Malacca and the seat of the 
International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Center.

Mak recalled that in the late 1990s former strongman Soeharto, embarrassed by 
piracy attacks, ordered a massive crackdown on suspected Indonesian pirates 
and for several years there were no piracy cases in Indonesian waters, 
including the Strait of Malacca.

Maritime experts pointed out that rogue elements of Indonesian enforcement 
agencies, including the Indonesian Navy are involved in piracy attacks in the 
strait, but Indonesian authorities are turning a blind eye to the problem.

In Belakang Padang, off the coast of Batam, residents, including the village 
chief, know the pirates, who move freely during the day in the area, but 
nobody dares to arrest them.

"The police in Belakang Padang have no will to stop piracy and armed robbery 
against ships in the Malacca Straits," said Paris Institute of Political 
Studies researcher Eric Frecon, who stayed with the pirates in Belakang Padang and 
made a documentary film, Piracy in the Straits.

"The local police are not only tolerant of the criminal activities of the 
pirates, but they are also accomplices and act as bodyguards of the pirates," 
Frecon said, adding that poverty and unemployment spark piracy attacks.

A former pirate, Marcus Uban, asserted that he left for Batam to become a 
pirate in order to earn a living.

"Just like me, many came from a miserable kampong life and we targeted cargo 
ships," said Uban, who has opened a karaoke bar in Batam and promised to 
become "a good man".

In addition to not having the will to stop piracy, the Indonesian authorities 
do not have the means. In Belakang Padang, for instance, policemen operate 
with only two small one-engine wooden boats, although the place is a major 
pirate den.

"The small islands suffer from lack of care and attention from Jakarta," 
Frecon said.

Every year, more than 60,000 vessels use the Strait of Malacca, the only 
passage that is economically viable. Annually, around 30 percent of world trade 
and 50 percent of world energy need to pass through the 937 kilometer-long 
waterway.

Cargo ships are not the only victims of piracy, but also trawler fishermen in 
the strait, which is between Malaysia on one side and the Indonesian island 
of Sumatra on the other.

Experts, however, lamented that reporting on maritime piracy is biased, with 
piracy attacks against fishermen underreported and receiving less attention.

"Fishermen are attacked all the time and piracy has become a sustainable 
activity," Mak said. "The predators are all based in Sumatra and weak governance 
allows predations to be well-organized."

In Hutan Melintang, a fishing community in Malaysia, trawler fishermen 
complained that since the 1970s, "lost commands" of Indonesian enforcement agencies 
are responsible for 50 percent of the piracy attacks against them.

On average, Hutan Melintang is hit by one predation a month and the fishermen 
are the silent victims, providing bread and butter to Indonesian pirates. 
There are more than 900 large boats in Hutan Melintang and 400 trawl regularly in 
the middle and northern approaches of the Strait of Malacca.

"The problem of piracy is land-based. It can only be solved by tackling 
issues in Indonesia such as corruption," Mak said, adding that Indonesia has to 
settle its boundary dispute with Malaysia as it is providing renegades with 
reason to arrest fishermen's boats.

Indonesia and Malaysia have yet to ink a territorial sea agreement covering 
the northern end of the Strait of Malacca.

Maritime experts, however, stressed that pirates are driven by economics, not 
by ideology and there is no link between piracy cases in the strait and 
terrorism.

"It is very unlikely that pirates have a real interest in helping 
terrorists," Frecon said, adding that as long as poverty and unemployment remain 
significant economic problems, piracy would exist.

Apart from resolving its border dispute with Malaysia and establishing its 
own coast guard, Indonesia should also strengthen its cooperation with 
Singapore, which had expressed concern about possible terrorist attacks in the Strait 
of Malacca.

"International cooperation for piracy prevention in Southeast Asia remains 
essentially an ad hoc process," said Sam Bateman, senior fellow in the Maritime 
Security Program of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in 
Singapore.

The former Royal Australian Navy commodore stressed that cooperation remains 
bogged down by the divergent interests of the different stakeholders, which 
include the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and India.

Bateman, however, said measures for international maritime security 
cooperation in the Southeast Asian region should also encompass the prevention of other 
illegal activities at sea, such as the prevention of trafficking in arms, 
drugs and people.

"Measures for international maritime security cooperation in the region 
should not be focused solely on piracy prevention and the concomitant risks of 
maritime terrorism," he said. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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