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Piracy: Terror on the high
seas
By Alan Boyd
SYDNEY -
The United States is coming under pressure from the
mercantile industry to do more to reduce the terrorism
risk to shipping as pirates adopt more violent tactics
against vessels plying Asian trade routes.
While
the overall incidence of cargo seizures is falling
because of heightened vigilance in a handful of
countries, there is deep concern at the increasing
involvement of extremists and organized crime. Pirates
have also become more brazen, with about 70 percent of
attacks now taking place while vessels are berthed in
ports, where security in many cases is notoriously lax.
"It is not impossible for hijackers or
terrorists to hijack ships, particularly LNG [liquefied
natural gas], LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] or large
tankers to undergo suicide missions for their cause,"
the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)
warned in a recent circular.
ICC and other
commercial organizations are lobbying the US to devote
the same attention to port security as it has to
airports since the terrorism attacks on its own soil
last September.
The United Nations calculated
global financial losses from piracy at US$16 billion in
2000, the last year for which figures have been
released.
With their immense reliance on
imported energy, the economies of East Asia would be at
particular risk from tanker hijackings in the Straits of
Malacca, which carry three times the oil volume of the
Suez Canal and are 15 times as busy as the Panama Canal.
Japan, which relies on oil shipped from the
Middle East and consumer exports sent to the leading
western markets, is spearheading a diplomatic offensive
for enhanced regional cooperation.
Asia accounts
for two-thirds of all piracy attacks worldwide, with
most taking place in the vital artery between the
Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, where 650
vessels cross each day.
Fewer incidents are
being reported in the most narrow portion of the straits
between Malaysia and Singapore and waters near India and
Bangladesh, possibly because of increased patrols by
those countries.
But Indonesia, guardian of the
Indian Ocean approaches to the Malacca and Lombok
straits, remains highly vulnerable: with 91 reported
incidents in 2001, or almost 30 percent of all attacks,
it is the undisputed global hotspot for piracy.
Next came India and Bangladesh with 27 and 25
attacks respectively, followed with Malaysia with 19.
Vessels in southern Chinese waters, especially near
Taiwan, are also frequent targets.
Stung by
criticism from the United Nations' International
Maritime Organization (IMO) and other shipping agencies,
Indonesia has dispatched six more warships to the
Malacca Straits. It now claims to have 26 ships and 10
aircraft on constant patrol. However, security analysts
believe that these are spread over the entire
archipelago and not just the areas exposed to piracy.
Jakarta has also admitted that it has an
ulterior motive in patrolling the straits, as they are
opposite the breakaway province of Aceh, where
secessionists arm themselves with weapons smuggled in by
sea. Although Indonesia has had little to say on the
issue, Aceh has provided some of the first positive
evidence of a terrorism link with piracy that has
contributed to a tendency for greater use of force.
The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) threatened last
year to disrupt shipping in the Malacca Straits, and was
subsequently blamed for two kidnappings. Both ship
owners paid modest ransom demands for the release of
their crews.
"The [ICC] believes that there may
be more incidents which may have gone unreported because
owners are being threatened and warned not to report to
the authorities," the chamber of commerce reported.
Tamil separatists and some branches of the
Islamic al-Qaeda extremist group are also believed to be
using piracy attacks to finance their operations, though
there is little documented proof.
Hijackings,
previously a relatively rare occurrence, are occurring
more often, with the number of reported incidents
doubling last year - probably because organized crime
syndicates, prone to greater violence, are getting more
involved.
Twenty crew members were killed during
piracy attacks in Asia last year and guns were used in
more than 50 incidents. Many of the weapons were
military issue of unknown origin.
According to
security agencies, it is only a short path from these
syndicates to terrorist groups, which frequently rely on
criminals for false cargo documentation, identity papers
and weapons. There were more than 12,000 incidents of
forged ship and crew travel papers in 2001, according to
the IMO, which it believes probably represented only a
fraction of the actual documentation in circulation.
Hijackers use falsified papers for inside
operations, where an attack is planned even before the
vessel sets sail. In one hijacked vessel that was
located in Southeast Asia, all senior officers had false
passports and the ship's registry documents were fake.
Significantly, most fraudulent certification
originates from officials within the maritime industry.
Among the most prevalent sources of documents are the
Philippines and Indonesia, where Muslim extremists are
very active.
Official complicity also extends to
the actual piracy attacks, some of which are believed to
be organized and led by personnel from the same agencies
that are responsible for suppression operations. In
southern Chinese waters, attacks have involved uniformed
militia personnel that Beijing claims were "rogue
elements" in its Customs and Public Security bureaus.
Naval and police officers are believed to be
behind other piracy incidents near Indonesia and
Thailand, while there are also doubts in diplomatic
circles over Malaysia's security apparatus.
"No,
it cannot be entirely coincidental that the countries
doing best [are] those that have the most highly trained
suppression elements," said a Western European diplomat.
"Our goal now is to help the others reach the same sort
of standards of operational efficiency and
incorruptibility."
Security forces have had
spectacular success in combating piracy when adequate
resources have been available. Malaysia and Singapore
managed to reduce the number of attacks in their portion
of the Malacca Straits from 75 to only 17 between 2000
and 2001. But the pirates simply moved elsewhere,
illustrating the difficulty of securing vast areas of
ocean without a coordinated effort at both the regional
and global levels.
Multilateral anti-piracy
accords have been in force since 1992, when Southeast
Asia developed a Regional Maritime Surveillance and
Safety Regime that included the establishment of a
full-time monitoring office in Kuala Lumpur.
Japan initiated moves in 1999 to extend this
protocol over the rest of Asia, but there are doubts
that it will work without the help of the United States,
which is sensitive to any security arrangement that
might affect navigation rights. The Kawamura Proposal in
effect puts the burden of protecting shipping on the
major Asian nations such as Japan, China and South
Korea, while the smaller states handle coastal
surveillance.
China signed an agreement with the
US in early 1998 for a consultative arrangement aimed at
strengthening military maritime safety in the region,
but it made only indirect reference to piracy.
In practice, most countries have taken on both
the surveillance and policing roles because they are
reluctant to cooperate with their neighbors while marine
territorial disputes are unresolved. Only Japan and
China have signed the IMO's 1988 Convention on the
Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of
Maritime Navigation, which allows signatories to
prosecute pirates for actions committed under another
country's jurisdiction.
There is also unease
over the potential for brinkmanship between the US and
China if the naval forces of these countries are
encouraged to take a higher profile against pirates.
Japan is sending patrol boats on anti-piracy
operations four times a year to waters around India,
Malaysia and the Philippines, but has been refused
access to Indonesian waters.
Despite heightened
security at airports since the extremist attacks on US
targets, no international guidelines exist for
protecting ships while they are berthed in ports.
The IMO has adopted a shipping-industry
initiative for all vessels to be tagged with embossed
numbers on their hull as a safeguard against hijackings,
when a ship is usually repainted to hide its identity.
Individual vessels are being fitted with SHIPLOC
satellite tracking units, which allows the movements of
vessels to be monitored from their home bases or
regional centers.
But the shipping industry
believes security measures are falling behind the
activities of organized syndicates equipped with the
latest in global positioning systems, radar and
high-speed motorboats.
"Despite greater
government concern about piracy in Southeast Asia,
effective regional measures to combat piracy have not
been realized," Asia Foundation associate director John
J Brandon noted in a recent report.
"If
terrorists were to commandeer a ship transporting LNG
for a suicide mission in the Straits of Malacca, such an
act would devastate Southeast Asia's economies and
environment and severely disrupt trade, as the straits
could be closed to shipping and fishing for years."
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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