Divisions over terror threat in Malacca
Straits By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - There are mounting fears
that terrorists will strike in the Malacca Straits.
Concern over this notwithstanding, Malaysia and Indonesia
are fiercely opposed to US policing of the body of
water that lies between them. They have, however,
signaled interest in cooperating with Washington on
certain issues to enhance maritime security in this
strategic waterway.
The
terrorist threat to the Malacca
Straits topped the agenda at a recent high-level conference
in Singapore, which saw a narrowing in the gap
between the positions of the United States and Singapore on the
one hand and Malaysia and Indonesia on the other, with
regard to measures to step up security in the Straits.
In March, Admiral Thomas Fargo, head of the US
Pacific Command, put forward in Congress an initiative
to work with Southeast Asian countries to protect the
Malacca Straits. The Regional Maritime Security
Initiative that Fargo outlined envisaged mutual
intelligence gathering and joint patrolling of the
waterway. Fargo indicated that the initiative would
involve US elite troops who could "take action when the
decision has been made to do so".
While Singapore embraced the initiative, Malaysia
and Indonesia rejected the proposal as an infringement
of their sovereignty. "I think we can look after our
own area," Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi told the media last month. At the conference,
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, who also
serves as defense minister, said the use of US forces in
Southeast Asia to fight terrorism would fuel Islamic
fanaticism in the region and should be avoided as it
would be a setback in the region's ideological battle
against extremism and militancy.
Subsequently,
Razak told the Malay-language Mingguan Malaysia
newspaper: "The presence of foreign troops in our waters
would trigger public anger and breathe new life into
terrorist groups."
Articulating the Indonesian
position on the proposed deployment of US forces,
Nugroho Wisnumurti, a former director general for
political affairs in the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, wrote in April in the Jakarta Post that the
deployment of foreign marines and special operations
forces in Indonesia's territorial waters could harm the
country's national interests "even if the aim is to
fight terrorism". He also pointed out that "the
deployment of foreign forces in our territory, including
in our territorial waters", would run counter to "one of
the basic principles of Indonesian foreign policy, the
policy of non-alignment".
"However well
intentioned that plan might be, the US plan would
not serve the best interests of the countries concerned
in fostering regional cooperation to fight terrorism.
There should be other ways to reach the same objectives.
It is also desirable that the countries concerned should
be consulted before any effort to fight terrorism in
Southeast Asia is made public," the former diplomat
wrote.
Singapore, in contrast, had no
reservations over the involvement of the Americans in
policing the Straits. And Singapore will also work with
India, South Korea and other nations to enhance security
in the Straits. Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan said this
week: "One of the major issues which we will discuss
with South Korea is involvement by South Koreans in
maritime security. The Singapore armed forces has
interactions with the Korean military from time to time.
We hope to expand and deepen these interactions."
Connecting the Indian Ocean to the South
China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, the Malacca Straits are one of
the busiest ocean highways in the world. An estimated
50,000 ships are said to pass through the waterway a
year - more than double the number that crosses the Suez
Canal and nearly three times the number of ships that
use the Panama Canal.
A terrorist strike in the
630-mile-long Malacca Straits would severely dislocate
world trade for months. A quarter of the world's
commerce passes through this waterway, including 10
million barrels of crude oil heading daily from the
Persian Gulf toward China, South Korea and Japan. About
80 percent of Japan's oil passes through the Malacca
Straits. Closure of the Straits in the event of a
terrorist attack would require ships to travel an
additional 994 miles from the Gulf. Freight rates would
increase sharply. In all, the Straits accounts for a
third of the world's trade and half of the world's oil
supply.
The security situation in the Malacca
Straits has always been a matter of concern. For
centuries, it has been a haven for pirates. It is a
narrow waterway - just 1.5 miles wide at its narrowest
point. Choking the Straits by blowing up a ship would
not be difficult. Besides, its shallow reefs,
innumerable islets and the slow movement of ships thanks
to the heavy traffic in the waterway provide the perfect
environment for pirates and terrorists to operate,
making it a tempting target.
Maritime piracy in
the Malacca Straits has witnessed a sharp increase in
recent years. Worldwide, it has increased by three times
in the past decade, growing by 20% last year alone.
According to the International Maritime Bureau,
Southeast Asia witnessed 189 incidents of piracy last
year, accounting for more than 40% of the global total.
Terrorism experts point out that if pirates were
able to strike with such ease in the Straits, terrorists
would find it even easier. Analysts are warning that
al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the region, such as
Jemaah Islamiya, might take the help of local pirates to
carry out an attack in the Malacca Straits.
A
recent spurt in crew abductions in the Straits has
triggered fear that pirates acting in concert with
terrorists might be using the kidnapped crew to acquire
training in navigating large commercial vessels. In
March 2003, an Indonesian chemical tanker was hijacked
by 10 armed men. They seized control over the ship
apparently to learn to steer it. After operating the
ship for an hour through the Straits, they left with
equipment and technical documents. "This might be the
maritime equivalent to the Florida flight school where
the September 11 [2001] terrorists took their flying lessons,"
observed the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis
of Global Security (IAGS).
Security agencies are
not ruling out the possibility of terrorists capturing a
vessel loaded with liquid natural gas and slamming it
into a pier in Singapore or ramming tugboats into oil
tankers or vessels with chemical fertilizer.
Sections who are in favor of the Americans
playing a bigger role in the Straits question whether
the littoral states will be able to counter a terrorist
attack on their own. The IAGS observed: "Despite claims
by Indonesian naval officers that their navy is able to
provide sufficient response to the security problems in
the region, many naval experts think otherwise. The
Indonesian navy is aging and suffers from lack of
warships and resources to patrol its vast coastline and
the periphery of some 17,000 islands. Of its 117 naval
ships, comprising 14 warships, 57 patrol boats and 44
support vessels such as tankers and carriers, only 30
percent are seaworthy.
"With
such insufficient maritime power, it is clear that Indonesia
simply cannot secure the 600-mile Straits alone, but its fear
of any perceived challenge to its sovereignty as well
as its concern of American 'imperialism'
apparently overrides military logic," said the IAGS.
At the Singapore conference, the US position
on the maritime security initiative was a watered-down version
of the plan outline by Fargo in March. US officials
said it was up to concerned countries - not the United
States - to decide how they wanted to police the Malacca
Straits.
"It will not be US forces that do that.
It will not be US forces coming down unnecessarily and
doing anything aggressive," said Admiral Walter Doran,
commander of the US Pacific Fleet, adding that there
were also no plans for "bases, or standing forces".
There was a visible toning-down in Malaysia's
position as well. While it continued to maintain that
involvement of foreign forces would prove
counterproductive, it indicated that it was willing to
discuss the regional maritime security initiative. "We
should definitely expand our cooperation with the US and
others, in terms of acquiring and sharing quality
intelligence," Malaysia's deputy prime minister said.
He is due to meet Fargo this month, when
he will be discussing among other things "possible
exercises, in the form of specific anti-piracy or
anti-terrorist type of operations which, maybe, some
countries are more familiar with and more experienced in
than us".
However, Razak stressed that "the
actual interdiction, if it comes to that, would come to
the littoral states to execute".
Malaysia,
meanwhile, will next year have its own version of the US
Coast Guard to patrol and safeguard security along the
Straits. A new paramilitary maritime enforcement agency
will begin its operations in March, said Mohd Nazri
Abdul Aziz, a minister in the Prime Minister's
Department.
Mohd Nazri said that the agency
would administer laws, curb criminal activities, monitor
the maritime zone and rescue and research operations and
assist the Malaysian armed forces during emergencies,
crises or wars.
"The safety of the Straits of
Malacca is important. If not guarded properly, foreign
powers may be prone to intervene in its management, and
this will pose a threat to the country's sovereignty,"
he said.
Currently, maritime enforcement laws
are administered in a sectorial manner by 11 government
departments and agencies involving 5,000 personnel and
more than 400 vessels. Initially, the new agency will
have 82 small and medium-sized boats and will take over
assets from the various agencies in stages.
The
narrowing of the gap in the positions between the
various countries concerned with security in the Malacca
Straits augurs well for the global effort to tackle
maritime terrorism. The question is whether the
concerned countries will get their acts together soon
enough. Japan has also expressed interest in taking part
in any talks on maritime security in the Malacca
Straits.
US heavy-handedness and insensitivity
to local concerns of sovereignty and national pride have
contributed in significant measure to the failure of the
"war on terrorism" to achieve its goals. If the war on
maritime terrorism should succeed, this would have to
change.
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