The Resurgence of Sea Piracy in Southeast Asia

Transcription

The Resurgence of Sea Piracy in Southeast Asia – Eric Frécon
The Resurgence of Sea Piracy
in Southeast Asia
Éric Frécon
Irasec - Occasionnal Paper n°5 (2008)
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Layout and cover : Mikael Brodu
Maps : Studio Yukulele & Mikael Brodu
© IRASEC, 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any
form or means, without prior permission of the author or the publisher.
The opinions expressed in these papers are solely those of the author(s).
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The Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia (USR 3142 – UMIFRE 22), based
in Bangkok, Thailand, calls on specialists from all academic fields to study the important
social, political, economic and environmental developments that affect, together or
separately, the eleven countries of the region (Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao,
Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam).
The Irasec Occasional Paper collection can be downloaded free of charge on our website :
www.irasec.com
IRASEC – Institut de Recherche sur l’Asie du Sud-Est Contemporaine
(Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia)
29 Sathorn Tai Rd., Bangkok 10120, Thailand
Tel: +66 26 27 21 80 – Fax: +66 26 27 21 85
www.irasec.com
IRASEC EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
• Jean BAFFIE, CNRS, IRSEA
• Bénédicte BRAC de la PERRIERE, CNRS, EHESS
• Sophie BOISSEAU du ROCHER, Centre Asie
• Jean-Raphaël CHAPONNIERE, CNRS, AFD
• Gilles DELOUCHE, INALCO
• Jean-Luc DOMENACH, CERI, Réseau Asie
• Evelyne DOURILLE-FEER, CEPII
• Stéphane DOVERT, Ambassade de France à Rangoun
• Frédéric DURAND, Université de Toulouse
• Alain FOREST, Paris VII
• Guy FAURE, IRASEC
• Michel FOURNIE, INALCO
• Charles GOLDBLUM, Ecole d’architecture de Paris
• Christopher GOSCHA, Université de Montréal
• Yves GOUDINEAU, EFEO, AFRASE
• Andrew HARDY, EFEO, Hanoi
• François LAGIRARDE, EFEO Bangkok
• Christian LECHERVY, MAE
• Arnaud LEVEAU, IRASEC
• LE Huu Khoa, Université de Lille
• Charles MAC DONALD, CNRS
• Rémi MADINIER, CNRS, EHESS
• Philippe PAPIN, EPHE
• François RAILLON, CNRS, EHESS
• Jean-François SABOURET, CNRS, Réseau Asie
• Christian TAILLARD, CNRS LASEMA
• Hugues TERTRAIS, Université de Paris VII
• Marie-Sybille de VIENNE, INALCO
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Table of Contents
Acknowlegements
Preface
Introduction
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Chapter 1
From Myths To Historical Reality
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1.1. Mediterranean Piracy: From Ulysses To Barberousse
1.2. Ocean Piracy: From The Atlantic Coasts To Madagascar
1.3. Is History Going Backwards ? From The Networks
Of The Malay Archipelago To The Brigands Of Southeast Asia
1.3.1 Pirates and Corsairs
1.3.2. Pirates and corsairs with respect to French colonisation
Abu Sayyaf, their ancestors could have been Gauls
In Vietnam, corsairs against pirates
1.3.3. 1945-1989: the genesis of modern piracy in Southeast
1.3.4. 1990-1996: from the Straits of Singapore to the South China Sea
1.3.5. Piracy today
Return to the Malay archipelago
Detour in South Asia
Recent evolution in the Malacca Straits
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Chapter 2
Conditions Favoring The Emergence Of Piracy
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2.1. The Causes Related To The Milieu
2.1.1. The weight of tradition
2.1.2. The geographical background
2.1.3. The technological evolution
2.2. Political Causes
2.2.1. Instability always conducive to piracy
2.2.2. The Power Vacuum following the Cold War, a decisive factor for
the resurgence of piracy
2.3. Socio-Economic Causes
2.3.1. Piracy and Development
2.3.2. The economic crises and the promised sea
2.3.3. “Cop or hooligan?”
2.4. Legal Causes
2.4.1. The initial legal considerations
2.4.2. The Montego Bay Convention: a definition that is both
too restrictive and too broad
2.4.3. The Roma Convention: a relevant text, albeit not ratified
2.4.4. A highly under-estimated threat
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Chapter 3
The Various Manifestations Of Maritime Piracy In Southeast Asia
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3.1. Minor Piracy ( “Minor Armed Robbery”- MAR)
3.1.1. Attacks on ports
3.1.2. Coastal attacks
3.2. Organised Piracy (“Armed Robbery and Agression
of Intermediate Degree” - ARAID)
3.2.1. The attacks in the South China Sea
3.2.2. The attacks in the Malay world
3.3. International Piracy (“Serious Criminal Hijacking”- SCH)
3.4. Para-Piracy
3.4.1. Attacks on villages
3.4.2. Piracy and Hostage-taking
3.4.3. Maritime piracy and freedom movements
3.4.4. Piracy and terrorist psychosis
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Chapter 4
The Stakes Of Piracy In Southeast Asia
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4.1. Economic And Commercial Stakes
4.1.1. A threat to the “jugular artery of Southeast Asia
4.1.2. Piracy versus the tourism industry
4.1.3. Piracy and foreign investment
4.2. The Diplomatic Stakes
4.2.1. Japan benefits from piracy to make a comeback on the regional scene
4.2.2. The Chinese intervention in Southeast Asia
4.2.3. India turns its attention towards the East
4.3. Environmental And Human Stakes
4.3.1. Piracy, oil spills, chemical risks and radio active wastes
4.3.2. Simply put, Piracy kills
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Chapter 5
From Myths To Historic Realities
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5.1. The Divergence of Interests, Main Reason for the Lack of Legal Uniformity
5.2. Towards a (Re) Definition of Criteria
5.2.1. The location : the link to the water element
5.2.2. Motivations – a false trail
5.2.3.The amplitude of the act: A concrete criterion for evaluation
5.2.4. From definition to the legal order
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Chapter 6
Initial Reactions Of The Multilateral Players
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6.1. Informative Approach
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6.1.1. The initiatives of the International Chamber of Commerce
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6.1.2. Involvement of the IMO
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6.1.3. Initiatives of specialized NGOs
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6.1.4. The work of the academics: the case for a Council for Security Cooperation 95
6.2. Violent Approach: Resorting To The “New Mercenaries”
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Chapter 7
Delayed Reactions From Countries
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7.1. Obstacles Disappear, Countries Appear
7.2. Unilateral Initiatives of the Nations
7.2.1. Countries of Southeast Asia at a moment of awareness
In Malaysia
In Indonesia
In the Philippines
In Singapore
In Thailand
In Vietnam
7.2.2. Two very concerned Asian giants
India more on the offensive
China proves its credentials
7.3. Bi- Or Trilateral Initiatives
7.3.1. Myth or reality in the Malay Archipelago:
success and limitations of collaboration between Nations
Singapore – Indonesia
Indonesia – Malaysia
The participation of Philippines
Other examples of bilateral cooperation
7.3.2. France and Asian pirates: a story that continues
7.3.3. United States, United Kingdom: terms of the Anglo-Saxon involvement
7.4. Multilateral Initiatives
7.4.1. Initiatives of the Asean
Genesis of Southeast Asian cooperation
The reactivation of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF)
ARF and the nebulous Asean
7.4.2. Japan: Possible instigator of a veritable multilateral cooperation?
7.4.3. Leading role of Europe?
7.4.4. Interpol’s arguments
7.4.5. A specific threat, a specific answer: the importance
of a United Nations framework
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
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Acknowledgements
This book is the result of a research programme undertaken by IRASEC which goes
together with my doctoral thesis at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. It has received
the support of the French Embassy in Malaysia. Here, I warmly thank Xavier Driencourt,
the French Ambassador, as also Gilles Huberson, Chief Counsellor, and Michel Pasquier,
Cooperation and Cultural Counsellor.
I also wish to extend my gratitude to the LVMH group, to Henri-Claude de Bettignies
(INSEAD-Stanford) and to the Hachette Foundation whose grants permitted me to make
various visits to Southeast Asia.
I should also thank Jean-Luc Domenach (CERI-Political Sciences), for his confidence, as
well as the Terrorism Group (TE) of Interpol and the Centre for Higher Naval Studies
(CESM) for their help.
I wish to extend my gratitude to Sebastien Brunel and also to the Yukulele studio for the
maps and drawings and also to the proof-readers of the manuscript for their patience.
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Preface
What is the world and how does one read it? Which facts are to be studied in order to
understand it better? An age-old question to which answers have evolved in tandem with
the international situation. During the Cold War, the focus was on facts, which were official
so to speak; that is to say on facts which propaganda and diplomats recognized as such.
The world that was being analysed was generally the one, which the nations knew and
dominated, it was essentially a strategic world.
The end of the Cold War brought about a complete change in perspective. Rendered
powerless by the superiority of the Capitalist world, the Communist powers of Central and
Eastern Europe were forced to allow the reappearance of a social and cultural reality that
they had claimed in vain to have abolished. The disappearance of the Soviet Union led, not
to the “New World Order” that President Bush senior wished for, but to a much more
confused situation in which the developed nations of the world find themselves threatened
by new challenges which arise exactly where one did not expect them: on the periphery of
their domination. As a result, a series of economic and political accidents have revealed an
international reality far more complex than before, that the nations find hard to check: a
more and more social reality.
Asia has been in the forefront of this evolution. Chronologically, of course, because the
Communist regimes and parties here weakened much earlier than elsewhere, beginning in
the mid-70s. But also because during the nineties, Asia harboured the early signs of various
orders and disorders possible.
Let us not forget, after having exaggerated it, the contribution of the Asian economies to
the formation of a new global commercial order. Let us also not forget the tentative efforts
of some officials of Southeast Asia towards a regionalisation founded on the voluntary
construction of an “Asiatist” idealogy. These were incontestable contributions to the
reorganization of the post Cold War world. But they wrongly eclipsed the fragility of the
internal societies, and the inadequate regulation of the Asian region.
This fragility aggravated the financial crisis that developed in the entire region in 19971998. The crisis, that has today been checked although not completely eradicated, has made
the fragility more evident and has, in turn, aggravated it. But this fragility also compelled
the Governments of the region to undertake efforts to reduce it, leading to some internal
stabilisation and the revival of a more substantial process of regionalisation than before1.
Eric Frécon’s study starkly reveals this fragility by boldly plunging into a reality- that of
piracy- that during the Cold War had been habitually restricted to notes of secret agents or
for the reports of some original journalists. The study is an interesting approach. The
development of terrorism has in fact confirmed it: a major part of the current scenario
1
Karoline Postel-Vinay: Corée au coeur de la nouvelle Asie ; Flammarion, 2002, Paris, 318 p.
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which matters now is that of the underground, economic, mafia-like or terrorist forces,
forces that are beyond control and of which sometimes the nations are fully aware. Piracy
is therefore an important phenomenon today; its analysis allows us to measure the power
of the nations and the regulation of international zones.
But the investigation is difficult and calls for intelligence, passion, the audacity to search
in the dark and the courage to not be taken in: these are the very qualities that this work
embodies.
This book constitutes an excellent photograph of the weaknesses but also of the
recovery of the Asians. It explains how piracy reappeared massively after the Cold War,
firstly on account of the general deficiencies of the region and the weaknesses (or tactics) of
some nations. But it also shows that the region has evolved. When I brought it up in 1998 in
“L’Asie en danger”2, piracy was partially imputable to the internal situation and to the
foreign policy of China. Since then, the collapse of Indonesia and the recovery of the
Chinese regime have pushed it back towards the Straits of Southeast Asia.
Eric Frécon’s book also describes how the efforts of regional coordination and the
policies of certain big nations like Japan and India acted upon piracy, in order to contain it,
on the whole. The problem seems to have, since then, been identified and to a large extent
handled; one may hope that it will be resolved in the years to come, even though the
Indonesian crisis may seriously impede regulation efforts.
Nonetheless the fact remains that the reappearance of piracy and the delay in
suppressing it brings to the fore the danger that the weaknesses and crises faced by some of
the big nations of the region constitute for the world: China previously and Indonesia or
Pakistan today. This proves moreover that despite the economic coagulation and the efforts
made to work in concertation, Asia probably remains the most problematic region of the
world,
not the most troubled nor in all probability the most dangerous, but one whose
collective identity is the least evident and where “self-awareness” remains the most illdefined.
Jean-Luc Domenach
Former scientific director of the National Foundation of Political Sciences,
Director of the Franco-Chinese Bureau of Social Sciences of Beijing
2
Jean-Luc Domenach L’Asie en danger, Fayard, Paris, 1998, 338 p.
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Introduction
“Fugitives of unclear events, dancing shadows at raging fires, anonymous silhouettes of
complicated nocturnal struggles, Pirates are not made for History, a majestic History that
has wisely unfolded, where people and things take position with clarity around a Great
Man: a motley, confused and buzzing crowd, they occupy the verges, in a hazy twilight
and amidst sinister outbursts. Combats intermingle, bands wrangle, influences clash,
incidents are superimposed; in this multiple and discordant brouhaha, none can recognise
his own3.”
But who then are these pirates about whom Albert de Pourville speaks in such a poetic
manner? Great grandfather will nostalgically quote Long John Silver and Robert Louis
Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”. Grandmother will blush when the Hollywoodian attacks of
Douglas Fairbanks in The Black Pirate4 are evoked. Father would rather remember the first
pirate radio transmissions that were broadcast from across the ocean, while the son will be
happy to speak, with a smile, of Albator, le corsaire de l’espace (Albator, the Space Corsair) or
Arthur et les pirates (Arthur and the pirates). But events such as those that took place in
Southeast Asia in spring 2000 reminded one that in this era of globalisation, an ancient peril
like the sea continued to exist: a few islands away, a Filipino information technology pirate
let loose on the Internet the I LOVE YOU virus which was to create trouble the world over,
while the Abu Sayyaf group took some tourists hostage in an island near Borneo. Today,
piracy does not only represent a danger to intellectual property and communications, it
continues to pose a threat to maritime traffic.
The images of pirates dissolve and intermingle, producing a notion which is “non
stabilised from the sociological point of view” in the words of Gilles Huberson, diplomat
and specialist on matters relating to terrorism.5 Should only boarding attacks at sea be
considered as acts of piracy? The taking of hostages at Borneo was in any case never
considered as piracy by the authorities in the Philippines. Of course, the incident took place
not at sea, but on an island, that of Sipadan “lined by magnificent beaches of white sand”which according to the travel guide Lonely Planet “attracts [used to attract?] divers, both
experienced and beginners.” Yet, the historian will note here the resurgence of an old
practice in force in the Sulu Archipelago as the illanun pirates kidnapped a number of
Europeans here in the olden days. As for the media, they exploited the collective
imagination by hoisting high the Jolly Roger. The taking of hostages by the Abu Sayyaf
Albert de Pourville, Chasseurs de pirates!, Les livres de la brousse, Paris, 1928, quoted in Denys Lombard
(dir.), Rêver l’Asie; Exotisme et littérature coloniale aux Indes, en Indochine et en Insulinde, EHESS, Paris,1993,
p. 179.
4 On piracy and cinema, see Gérard Jaeger (dir.), Pirates à l’affiche: Les aventuriers de la mer dans le cinéma
occidental des origines à nos jours, ACL-Crocus, St. Sébastien-sur-Loire, 1989, 197 p.
5 Interview with the author, 21st September 2000, Kuala Lumpur.
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group in April 2000 perfectly illustrated this difference in the approach of the authorities,
the researchers and the journalists, which plunged the public into considerable confusion.
Piracy occupies an important place in each of us because it is deeply embedded in our
childhood. It is not by accident that piracy is often found at the heart of the world of
cinema. Every year between 1991 and 1994, a few hundred attacks were reported in the
world. If this figure tripled in 1999, the year 2000 will have broken all records with 469
incidents recorded by the IMB (International Maritime Bureau). This total is 57% more than
that of the previous year and four and half times more than that of 1991.
The end of the Cold War has therefore permitted the emergence of a new order of
maritime piracy. After the fall of the Berlin wall, academicians and politicians held
discussions with the American President George Bush Senior on the “New World Order”.
Some of them wanted to believe in the “End of History 6”. The hour of globalisation had
come; war finally became obsolete like slavery or duels in another age.7
Others announced “The Coming Anarchy” 8. They saw the arrival of “new threats 9”,
“new barbarians10”, “a new paradigm of violence11”, “a new version of the Middle Ages12”.
The return of the pirates in droves in the early 1990s is in keeping with this movement.
Forty years of bipolar order give way to a disorder made up of a multitude of new perils
The States which, until then, had been almost the only ones handling the global scene,
saw their authority reduced to nothing by the emergence of Mafia-like groups, mercenaries
with no real cause to defend. Was the Westphalian theory that, since 1648, acknowledged
the State as an indispensable player in international relations, only an interlude? Would
“the normal order” of things, some wonder, regain the upper hand13? As in the era of
Ancient Rome, would the borders of the Northern Hemisphere- this new “Empire”- be
threatened by the barbarians of today, barely identifiable and yet so worrying, who are
chaos incarnate, haunting the “Grey zones” of the nation States14 ?
The political motivations which incited the guerillas between 1970 and 1980 fell apart
little by little, giving way to the deviance of the “lunatic” or to the more materialistic
concerns of the “bandit”15. The Pirates would have more in common with the latter, even
though some have links with political terrorists.
Being immense, the oceans are much harder to control. 71% of the planet is covered by
water, which renders almost inadequate the notion of the “sixth continent” developed by
the former President of the French Institute of Research for Maritime Operations (Ifremer),
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, Maxwell Macmillan International, New York,
1992, XXIII- 418 p.
7 John Mueller, Retreat from the Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War, Basic Books, New York, 1989, VIII327 p.
8 Robert Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy”, Atlantic Monthly, February 1994, vol. 273, nq 2, p.44-76.
9 Xavier Raufer (dir.), Dictionnaire technique et critique des nouvelles, PUF, Paris, 1998, 272 p.
10 Jean-Christophe Rufin, L’Empire et les Nouveaux Barbares, Lattès, Paris, 1992, 255 p.
11 Michel Wieviorka, “Le Nouveau Paradigm de la violence”, in Cultures et Conflits, nq 29-30, 1996, p. 9 –57
12 I conventionally term “the new Middle Ages” the fall of the legitimate principle of power and the legal
principle of the monarchies and democracies and their replacement by the principle of strength, of vital
energy, of unions and spontaneous social groups." (Alain Minc quoting Berdiaev, in Le Nouveau Moyen
Age, Gallimard, Paris, 1993, p.9).
13 Didier Bigo “Nouveaux Regards sur les conflits”, cited in Marie-Claude Smouts (dir.), Les Nouvelles
Relations internationales, pratiques et théories, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, 1998, p.333
14 James Holden-Rhodes and Peter Lupsha “Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Grey area Phenomena and the
New World Disorder”, in Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement, vol 2, nq 2, Autumn 1993, p.212.
15 Jean-Marc Balencie, Arnaud de la Grange, Le Nouvel Ordre local”, cited in Jean-Marc Balencie, Arnaud de
la Grange (dir,), Mondes rebelles, Michalon, Paris, 1999, p.11
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Pierre Papon16. Of the 185 member nations of the UNO in 1996, only around thirty did not
have access to the sea, and half the world’s population lives on a 50 km coastal strip.
The “marinisation” of economies is more and more obvious. Oceans are overflowing
with natural resources often vital for the coastal population and constitute veritable aquatic
highways. Today, nearly three-quarters in terms of weight and around two-thirds in terms
of value, of the global trade takes the maritime route. In addition, the oceans represent an
important strategic factor where the straits play a crucial role.
Maritime traffic is in a certain way a victim of its own success. The multiplication of
possible targets favours the development of piracy. The problem is all the more serious for
the region as the economies are growing more and more dependant on maritime routes.
Eighty percent of the hydrocarbons used in Japan thus transit through the Malay Straits.
Afraid that its supply of petroleum may be threatened, Tokyo has thus envisaged the
possibility of having its freight take the Arctic route. The cost overrun incurred will
however be substantial.
Tokyo’s worry is triggered by statistics: in the Malacca Straits alone, 32 acts of piracy
were reported in 1991. Between 1997 and 1999, following the intervention of the authorities
in the region, only a handful of attacks were reported. But the calm did not last. In 2000, 75
attacks were recorded.
After having targeted the ports in Chili during the period of the nitrate boom, and later
those of Nigeria enriched by petroleum, it was logical that this “sea serpent” struck the
“dragons” and the other Asian “tigers”17. In 1991, 102 of the 107 acts of piracy perpetrated
the world over had hit Southeast Asia (the South China Sea included). Nearly a decade
later, the region was the stage for more than half of the 300 and later the 469 acts recorded
the world over in 1999 and in 2000 respectively. Today, this zone would be the victim of
three-fourths of the pirate attacks in Asia. The Royal Malaysian Police, and on a smaller
scale, the Indonesian authorities, promised to take strong action and launched significant
initiatives to fight the bandits who threatened the Straits in 1999-2000. But only two gangs
have been arrested off the coast of Sumatra.
In order to tackle the question of piracy in the region, it is also advisable to study the
former Malay archipelago, the South China Sea and the southern part of the Chinese coasts,
given the extent to which these areas are interconnected. India and Japan are also affected;
considering the importance of their influence and their interests in the region. The former,
in fact, considers it very important to make its presence felt in the area, especially from its
islands in the Andaman Sea as also through combined patrols. The latter contributes more
to the security of the Malacca Straits. China too intervenes through the forum “Asean plus
three”, which includes the members of the Association of the nations of Southeast Asia
(Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Burma18, Laos
and Cambodia) along with China, Japan and South Korea. Key players in the East-Asian
game, China and Japan are in addition associated with thematic regional forums like the
ARF (Asean Regional Forum), in which security issues of the area are studied.
If the Asean is too small a platform to envisage the problem and if the Asia-Pacific
embodied by the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) is too large to serve as the
operational framework, “Asean plus three” seems to be more capable of fighting piracy, as
long as it can affirm itself as a veritable regional diplomatic player.
Pierre Papon, Le Sixième Continent: Géopolitique des océans, Odile Jacob, Paris, 1996.
Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, “Violence at Sea”, Jane’s defence, 1999, p.99
18 We prefer the use of “Burma” rather than “Myanmar”, keeping in mind especially the non-Burmese
people who are subject to the toponymical purge imposed by the military junta since 1988
16
17
13
In any case, a number of nations are affected by piracy:
-the coastal countries, direct victims of this epidemic in the South China Sea, in the
Straits and the archipelagos;
-the nations that are indirectly hit by piracy and who refer to it to affirm themselves on
the Southeast Asian scene ( Japan, China, even India);
-the nations who are concerned by the fallouts of acts of piracy, when they receive, for
example, boats hijacked in Southeast Asia.
Maritime piracy in Southeast Asia may be envisaged from many angles, geographical
as well as political (stability of nations and the regional balance), legal (modes of
international regulations), social (origins of pirates, consequences of the Asian crisis),
economical (commercial and financial repercussions) or environmental (ecological risks
related to the nature of the ships attacked). We will try to study each angle, one by one,
without neglecting the historical depths.
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Chapter I
From Myths to Historical Reality
Contrary to terrorist movements and despite the recognised cruelty, pirates have widely
inspired poets, painters and filmmakers. Some companies have made use of this fascination
but the day has not (yet) come when Playmobil and Lego will substitute their “pirate”
caskets by figurines of “Ben Laden” or “Islamic Jihad”.
Piracy, though intriguing, holds a distinctive place, more explored by artists than by
university research. The latter “deals with serious things” perhaps would reply SaintExupéry19, such as the “new paradigms of violence” so knowledgably conceptualised by
Michel Wieviorka20.
Piracy is however all the more interesting as it is “an adventure of all eternity21”.
Already in the Iliad (Volumes III and XIV) and the Odyssey (Volumes IX and XIX), in The
Histories (Volume I) or also in History of the Peloponnesian War (Volume I), Homer,
Herodotus and Thucydides spoke of piracy which was respected and embodied by heroes
such as Ulysses.22. At the same time, ancient civilisation was marked by the first counteroffensives by the State which have, subsequently, continued to inspire leaders. Minos, the
legendary king of Crete, thus tried to pass a legislation against the pirates of the
Mediterranean23. As for the marine expeditions led in the olden days by Pompei to
safeguard the supply of wheat to the port of Ostia, neighbour of Rome, they do not fail to
remind one of the suggestion of combined patrols in Southeast Asia, made in Tokyo in the
spring of 2000. The objective from then on was to safeguard the Straits through which it is
no longer wheat that transits but, as mentioned, 80% of the hydrocarbons intended for
Japan: other times, other preoccupations, nevertheless the problem remains the same
Without going too far back into the past, piracy sometimes throws up interesting
analogies. It is thus that in the late sixties, Gilles Lapouge, a specialist in piracy, marked by
the revolt of the students of the Latin Quarter (who were in fact looking for “sous les pavés la
plage ”-the beach under the cobbles), tried to draw a parallel between urban idealists and
idealists on the seas24.
Pirates in fact evolve outside of time and space, occupying the expanse of the sea,
devoid of all social norms. That is why some have spoken of “pirate Utopia”, swinging
between nihilism and anarchism. The world of pirates constitutes a veritable counterAntoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince, Gallimard, Paris, 1946, p.48
Michel Wieviorka “Editorial”, in Cultures et Conflits, nq 29-30, 1998, p 7-8,
21 In the words of Gérard Jaeger (dir.), Vues sur la piraterie, Tallandier, Paris, 1992; see especially p.13-23
22 David-Anthony Delavoet, “La Piraterie, un fléau actuel”, Bulletin d’études de la marine, nq 8, July 1996,
p.24.
23 Delavoet, 1996, p.24
24 Gilles Lapouge, Les Pirates, Phébus, Paris, 1987, 198p.
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society, difficult to define, but which embodies a deep social revolt, in quest of “the
promised sea 25”. The purpose that has been generally attributed to the pirates over the
ages is finally the establishment of a parallel system or even a State. Philip Gosse, whose
work is a reference, identifies three typical phases in the historical evolution of piracy26. He
first describes the poor and rejected sections of the population who band together in
isolated groups and resort to armed robbery at sea. Later, these groups constitute
organisations or structured networks. Finally, emerge solid communities or even States,
originally founded on piracy but subsequently becoming players on the regional political
scene.
We will see that the Mediterranean and Atlantic examples perfectly illustrate the ascent
of piracy towards an ideal which is more or less praiseworthy, based on an egalitarian
Utopia or on the thirst for power. On the other hand, Southeast Asia followed the opposite
path from the 14th to the 20th centuries 27. The “prestigious” pirate networks of olden times
gave way to contemporary armed robbery at sea which replaces a certain form of exotism
with sordidness 28.
1.1. Mediterranean Piracy: From Ulysses To Barberousse
In the early days of ancient civilisation, bands haunted the waters of the Mediterranean
and disrupted the nascent trade. At that time, no form of ideology or general organisation
unified these bands. They simply plundered riches where they found them. The
Phoenicians and the pre-hellenic Cretans (2500 B.C.) practiced cruel maritime banditry.
Around the 9th century B.C, the Homeric pirates carried out the same pillage. It was thus
that King Menelas, husband of the beautiful Helen, admitted frankly to having roamed for
seven years and suffered enormously to amass these treasures and to bring them back
home. He had been to Cyprus, to Phoenicia, to Egypt. He had seen the temples of Ethiopia
and Sidon. He had been in Libya etc. We will note however that he does not mention
trade 29; and for good reason…
Toward the 6th and 5th centuries B.C, the commercial vocation of Athens was becoming
evident. The Hellenic capital created with its allies the Delos confederation which may be
considered as one of the very first examples of regional cooperation. But the power of the
Greek city gradually weakened and many unemployed sailors became pirates. They
attacked the Carthagian ships and added to the ranks of the buccaneers in the
Mediterranean.
In the Roman era, piracy was still hardly any different from banditry. Illyria and Cilicia
were the main areas where there was a high concentration of pirates, until Cnaeus Pompei
was authorised by the Senate in 67 B.C. to hunt them down by heading 300 light craft and
120 000 sailors and soldiers. In 40 days, 850 pirate ships were destroyed. This was followed
by true peace at sea, until the invasion of the barbarians who heralded the end of the
Empire in 476.
Dialogue between Philippe Jacquin and Gilles Lapouge “La Piraterie revue et corigée”, in Philippe
Jacquin, Sous le pavillon noir, pirates et flibustiers, Gallimard, Paris, 1998, p.180.
26 Philip Gosse, Histoire de la Piraterie, Payot, Paris, 1952 (1ère éd.) 383 p
27 We will describe here three examples in history which are particularly significant, excluding for the
clarity of the demonstration the pockets in Northeast Asia (the Wokon of Japan in the 16th century, the
Koxinga fleet towards Taiwan in the 17th century, the bands of Madame Ching in the beginning of the 19th
century… ) and of the Middle-East. The Djoasmis, mentioned way back in the 13th century by Marco Polo,
haunted for a long time the region of the straits of Ormuz, along the “coast of the pirates”, attacking
English ships until the 19th century. The cases of piracy against yachts and cargo ships are increasing in the
waters of Yemen.
28 Romain Bertrand “Laffaire de la prise d’otages de Jolo: Un exemple de criminalisation du politique en
Asie du Sud-Est”, in La Revue internationale et stratégique, autumn 2001, nq 43, p.42
29 Philippe Masson, “La Piraterie dans l’Antiquité”, in Gérard Jaegar (dir.), 1992, p.29
25
16
Once the Roman domination was forgotten and the Mediterranean trade relaunched
through the Venetians and the Genoese, the harassment at sea in the Mediterranean
resumed with full force. The pirates essentially regrouped themselves in Northern Africa
and around the Saracens. At the dawn of the 9th century, these pirates carried out a number
of raids on the Iberian and Provencal coasts. A little before the year 1000, these “pirates of
Saint-Tropez30” settled down in the “Fraxinet” (massif of the Moors) to found a community
of warriors dependent on the Caliphate of Cordoba31. This event illustrates the significant
revival of the pirates’ ambition in the North of the Mediterranean following the division of
Charlemagne’s Empire in 843 based on the treaty of Verdun. The same pirates who
previously formed only small isolated groups had organised themselves and had become
much more dangerous.
1492, therefore, represents an important date. At that time, the Spain of Ferdinand and
Isabella had regained control of the Iberian Peninsula to the detriment of the Moors.
Withdrawing to Northern Africa, the latter reached arid lands which did not correspond
to the needs of a people avidly seeking power. The population of the Southern
Mediterranean coasts and of the Mediterranean, found in Ouroudj (or Arouj) Barberousse,
a heaven-sent leader likely to restore the art of navigation to its place of honour. Highly
glorified by his recent exploits, such as the capture of the Papal galleys in 1504, Barberousse
was an independent, powerful and frightening adventurer. Idolised by the people, he took
control of Algiers in 1516 to lay the foundations of a veritable State based on maritime
piracy.
Adding his political shrewdness to the courage of his warrior brother Ouroudj, Khayral-Din (or Kheyr-ed-din) gave a new dimension to Berber piracy. He raised it to the rank of
a real political and diplomatic tool. We can recognise here the third phase of the cycle
described by Philip Gosse since pirates vie with the State on the global scene. If the first of
the two brothers was a “lucky adventurer”, the second became “the head of a town of
rogues32”. Khayr also took an oath of vassalage to the Ottoman Empire and the Sultan
immediately named him beglerbeg (Governor general) of Algiers. The pirate became more
powerful; his fleet became impressive and his alliances judicious.
The European capitals had to reckon with this. A striking example: in 1543-1544, the
Christian monarchy of France governed by Francois I, perpetually in conflict with his
archrival Charles Quint, received the fleet of Kheyr-al-Din at Toulon.
The last of the Barberousse died out in 1546. Succeeding them came Dragut, then Ochiali
who, in 1571 was defeated in Lepante by the fleet of Don Juan of Austria. This battle
proved decisive. It was midway between piracy and the highly official military missions33,
proof of the importance that the Berbers had gained in the Mediterranean.34
After this defeat, the pirate kings disappeared. They gave way to less eminent chiefs
such as Murad who, for want of power, gained in independence. Thanks to vessels with
round hulls, of the same type as those of the Atlantic, the menace became even more
threatening, right upto the gates of England.
The pirates turned corsairs were led by Simon de Danser in 1606, before Jan Jansz came
to the fore, at Salé in Morocco, by creating an independent pirate republic, with its own
language, its own legislative structure and a real autonomy.
Ludwig Buhnau, Histoire des pirates et des corsaires, Hachette, Paris, 965, p. 104
Philippe Sénac, Provence et piraterie sarrasine, Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris, 1982, 94 p.
32 Armel Wismes, Pirates et Corsaires, France-Empire, Paris, 1999,p.63
33 By “military missions” we mean all the operations undertaken previously by the corsair and therefore
on behalf of an official government.
34 The Vikings posed the same problem, being termed sometimes as pirates, sometimes as corsairs or
ordinary warriors. See Pierre Boyer, “Etat pirate ou Etat corsaire: les Barbaresques”, in Gérard Jaeger (dir.)
1992, p.61-69
30
31
17
Salé illustrates the magnitude of Mediterranean piracy during this period. Lacking more
classical international recognition, this pirate State, shrouded in mystery, achieved its goals
at Salé, and also at Rabat35. This permanent revolution faintly reminiscent of Don
Quixotism foreshadowed the future Utopias, such as the Republic of Libertalia at
Madagascar in the 18th century.
But this Mediterranean piracy did not end up destabilising the regional order. In 1541,
Charles Quint had already lost to Algiers. In the 17th century, political calculations had
pushed the various European States to choose inaction, such was their happiness at seeing
their competitors face the attacks of the Moor pirates. Of course, some punitive expeditions
were organised, such as that of the Englishman Cromwell in 1655 or the more brutal one of
Admiral Duquesne in 1683. But these expeditions remained sporadic.
At the time of the French Revolution and the Empire Wars, the Western States had
decided to pay a tribute to the pirate cities. But this tacit recognition of their legitimacy did
not last. In 1804, an American squadron destroyed the Citadel of Tripoli, before the AngloDutch forces (two years later) and the Anglo-Franco-Russian forces (in 1821) brought to an
end the reign of the pirates in the Mediterranean.
Today, Europe generally seems to be free of piracy. The rare cases of terrorist attacks
against the Achille Lauro, on 7th October 1985, and against City of Poros, on 12th July 1988
remain specific as they are closely linked to the political situation in the region. Piracy in
Greece seems hardly more worrying than a pedalo attack in the Italian waters36. In 1996, the
Corfu police nevertheless had to intensify its patrols following attacks against foreign
tourists37. At the end of July 2000, an insane Czech took five Swiss tourists and their Greek
captain hostage on their yacht in the Aegean Sea38.
1.2. Ocean Piracy: From the Atlantic Coasts to Madagascar
Let us firstly note the existence of small-time piracy during the early Middle Ages, along
the Atlantic coast in Europe as also in the North Sea. The pirates followed the Viking raids
of the 9th century. We therefore find on the high seas, the equivalent of highwaymen,
motivated above all by economic considerations. This concerned the coastal communities
of the Basque region, Brittany, Spain, Portugal, Normandy, England, Flanders and Ireland.
All of them settled near big ports and at the crossroads of important navigable routes. The
unstable political situation in feudal Europe favoured their extortion.
Before the first real charters meant to protect maritime transport came into being,
unions were formed. Let us cite the Hanseatic League, brought to Northern Europe by
Hambourg and Lübeck in 1241, and the League of the five ports ( including Dover and
Hastings) constituted on the death of the “king of the sea”, Edward II, in 1327, a little
before the great trans-oceanic expeditions. The piracy near Cornwall and Ireland, led by Sir
John Killigrey, however maintained the coastal banditry at the end of the 16th century. But
like the Saracens in the Mediterranean, this piracy only foreshadowed one which was more
frightening and much more organised.
In the beginning of the 15th century, a series of factors induced European pirates to
venture away from European coasts. Steadily, the Mediterranean gave way to the Atlantic
Ocean for commercial transactions. During this period, Spain was creating for itself a rich
See Peter Lamborn Wilson, Utopies pirates, corsaires maures et renegados, Dagorno, Milan, 1998,138 p
“Pedalo Pirates Swoop on Yachts”, The Times, 22nd August 1996
37 “Greece sends Special Forces to Corfu after Killing”, Reuters, 30th September 1996
38 Dina Kyriakidou, “Greece: Police Shoot Kidnapper to End Hijacking”, Daily Telegraph, 28th July 2000.
35
36
18
empire in the “Western Indies”, offering new prospects to seafarers. The islands on the
other side of the Atlantic offered many a refuge to the pirates, while the wind system
imposed specific routes on merchant ships. Finally, the Spaniards made the double mistake
of neglecting the lesser West Indies and working to destroy the colonies of the other
Europeans who were trying to settle in the North-American continent. The latter knew how
to make them regret it. The sovereigns Francois I and Elizabeth of England were happy to
see the Spanish ambitions thwarted by audacious pirates such as François le Clerc (alias Pic
d’Alo or Jambe de bois), Hawkins or Drake. Not much more was needed for the epicentre
of piracy to move further towards the West. The “rogues of the sea”, themselves, members
of “this curious floating republic39” led by the Calvinist rebels of the Netherlands, seriously
disrupted Spanish trade in the second half of the 16th century.
What had been simple coastal banditry now became a practice that, if not supported, at
all events encouraged by the State and reached its peak between the 16th and the 17th
centuries40.
The second phase of the development process of piracy dear to Philip Gosse takes
shape: the age of maturity before the realisation of big projects. Following the first wave of
immigrants from Europe, the English settled down in Jamaica in the 17th century while the
French occupied the island of Hispaniola (today’s Haïti) and the small Tortoise island.
It is there that the survivors of the Spanish attacks organised their survival. They
hunted and ate smoked meat – the boucans. This is how they were given the famous
nickname of “boucaniers”(buccaneers) of the West Indies. Further in order to survive, these
“brothers of the coast”, as they were called, took to the sea to attack the Spanish. The
“flibustiers”- from the English freebooter and the Dutch vrijbuiter (literally free booty”)41 –
recruited men from among the buccaneers. The French governors hardly took offence at
this, in fact it was quite the contrary. Bertrand d’Orgeron, one of the representatives of the
kingdom of France in the heart of the Caribbean, even tried to federalise the brothers of the
coast on behalf of the State.
The West Indian buccaneering made its presence felt gradually. From 1626-1627, the
main events took place on these small islands. The co-existence of the pirate communities
which developed all along the Atlantic coast during the Middle Ages was succeeded by a
veritable fraternity of freebooters. The brothers of the coast, who shared the booty of their
attacks, created on the other side of the Atlantic their own universe with its own rules. For
example, compensations were provided for injuries sustained: from 100 crowns or a slave
for the loss of an eye, upto 600 crowns or 6 slaves for the loss of the right arm- the one
which held the saber 42.
The legend goes that this brotherhood, called “the happy family” during its early years,
was sometimes tainted with homosexuality, which would have strengthened the relations
between sailors led into a terrible adventure43. Olonnois (reputed to be a savage), de
Grammont (an “intellectual”) and Morgan ( an English hero) were part of this informal
organisation.
Many events accelerated the transition towards the structuring of the fraternity of the
coast.
Philip Gosse, 1952, p.143
Philippe Jacquin, “L’Age d’or de la grande piraterie”, in Gérard Jaeger (dir), 1992, p.131-181.
41In reality this is relating to the “name that is given to the corsairs or adventurers who sail the Carribean
Sea and Sea of America” according to the dictionary of Furetière quoted by Jean-Pierre Moreau, “Les
Origines de la flibuste antillaise”, in Gérard Jaeger (dir.), 1992, p.106
42 Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, L’Histoire des flibustiers au XVIIe siècle, P. Saurat éditeur, Paris, 1987, p. 49
43 Philippe Jacquin, in Gérard Jaeger (dir.), 1992, p.128
39
40
19
In 1713, with the Treaty of Utrecht which put an end to the war of Succession in Spain
and till the second decade of the 18th century, a number of soldiers were demobilised and
came to swell the ranks of a new piracy. This was the great era of Stede Bonnet, Don
Quixote of the seas, of Low, of Roberts the Puritan, of Blackbeard, of Rackam as also of
some women among whom were Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Progressively, things were
moving to the last stage described by Philip Gosse. The truce with the Spaniards marked
the passage to a Utopian piracy, founded as much on equality as on solidarity.
Hunted by the French and the English Navy who wished to ensure the safety of
navigation, the pirates took to the high seas gradually to try to achieve an ideal that was
strongly anarcho-nihilist. Contrary to the Berbers whose system was perpetuated for more
than three centuries, few of these pirates managed to attain their ideal of liberty. More or
less idealogists, they moved upto Guinea, in the Pacific and especially to Madagascar.
Between 1714 and 1726, they built a solid network, through meetings, rallies, division and
transfers of “personnel”44. Most of them used the Bahamas as a meeting-point.
At the heart of this network romanticised by Daniel Defoe, Misson’s adventure in the
Indian Ocean, on board the Victoire, illustrates the outcome of this Utopian piracy45.
The French sailor is a precursor of the 18th century (Illumination). He would have
succeeded in establishing on the coasts of Africa his Republic of Libertalia, founded on the
values of liberty and equality, succeeding where the other Utopian pirates of the Atlantic
had failed.
Since twenty years, after a long interlude punctuated only by the misdemeanors of
Benito de Soto in the 19th century, piracy has resurfaced on the African coasts.
Between 1982 and 1986, West Africa (and particularly Nigeria) witnessed a large
number of cases of armed robbery at sea. About twenty-five incidents were reported
annually, most often relating to berthed ships attacked during the night by about ten
people armed with knives. As a result, the Nigerian authorities took measures permitting
raids on the pirates’ haunts. The results of these operations proved spectacular as only
some isolated cases were recorded during the following decade. However, today, there is
an outbreak of the phenomenon with twelve incidents recorded in 1999 and nine in 2000.
The Senegalese port of Dakar and Angolan port of Luanda, as also Guinea, the Ivory Coast
and Cameroon are victims of similar incidents.
Since 1991 and the overthrowing of the dictator Mohammed Siad Barre, the situation
has been unstable in Somalia. Following the departure of the UN forces in 1995, 14 acts of
piracy were reported. Another fourteen acts were reported in the area in 1999 and about
ten in 2000. On 12th July 2000, an attack on a French boat as also an incident in which seven
sailors were taken hostage, were brought to light. Following a breakdown, the ship had
drifted into these dangerous waters46. Today, the weekly reports of the International
Maritime Bureau (IMB) warn ships about the Somalian coasts and suggest that foreign
ships sail more than fifty nautical miles away from them. Under the circumstances, the
connection between maritime piracy and political instability seems real.
If the relations between the African and the American pirates, established at the time of
Blackbeard and of Misson, do not exist any more, the two shores of the Atlantic
nevertheless remain threatened. In 2000, the IMB recorded around thirty cases of piracy in
South America. In spite of a few boarding incidents reported in Colombia, in Guyana, in
Venezuela and in the Equator (thirteen boarding incidents in 2000, as against only two a
year earlier), the Brazilian ports of Santos and Rio were subject to 80% of the acts of piracy
recorded in the region in the mid-nineties. The attacks were often perpetrated with extreme
Daniel Defoe, Histoire générale des plus fameux pirates, vol 1, Phébus, Paris, 1990, p. 17
Daniel Defoe, Histoire générale des plus fameux pirates, vol II, Phébus, Paris, 1990, p. 15-57 and p. 88-112
46 “Somalie – un bateau français attaqué, sept marines pris en otages”, Reuters, 12th July 2000.
44
45
20
violence. Sometimes, late in the evenings, women, certainly very charming, climbed on
board on valuable reconnaissance missions before the assault took place47.
Central America is not spared either, whether it is in Jamaica or in the Dominican
Republic, but the attacks here are different from the classical ones. In addition to the attacks
on some luxury yachts, the piracy here is closely related to drug trafficking as some attacks
serve to conceal illicit cargo. In the eighties, yachts disappeared and were transformed into
“ drug caches48”. These boats were normally stolen at the port and were rarely subject to
attacks49. The American coastguard has since stepped up the surveillance of anchored
vessels.
1.3. Is History Going Backwards? From the Networks of the
Malay Archipelago to the Brigands of Southeast Asia
1.3.1. Pirates and Corsairs
The case of Southeast Asia is a particular one. The pirates, initially at the base of a
veritable economic system in the Malay Archipelago (Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia,
Singapore and Brunei), were gradually reduced in number, put into difficulty, before
becoming the brigands of today. According to Philip Gosse, they would have taken history
backwards, if at all we retain the decline of the Indian influence as the starting point in the
history of contemporary Southeast Asia.
In the beginning of the 13th century, the Chinese traveller Tchao Jou-Koua ( or Chau-Jukua) describes in his explanatory note on San-fo-ts’i the Chinese name of the Sumatran
maritime power of Sriwijaya, the tight control that the local authority exercised on the
navigation in the region.
“This country rules the straits through which foreign traffic has to pass. (…) If a
merchant ship passes through without putting into port, the boats go out to attack it in
accordance with a planned maneuver; the people are ready to die ( to carry out this
enterprise). It is for this reason that this country has become an important maritime
centre50” .
But soon the authority of this “Hinduised” State which was being exercised since the 8th
century, fell apart, while a new decisive era began at the heart of the Malay Archipelago,
marked as much by the arrival of Islam as by that of the Europeans. L’Histoire de Ming
mentions trouble in the country of Sriwijaya after its invasion by the Javanese. The Chinese
led by a Cantonese called Leang Tao Ming began gaining definite influence towards the
end of the 14th century and it is with this observation that George Coedes ends his
description of the ancient Sumatran kingdom “fallen into the hands of the Chinese
pirates51”.
These Muslim sultanates, developed along the maritime routes and constituted a new
political and economic system. They differed from agrarian kingdoms constituted in the
interior and opposed them. In the European context, it would probably have been a
Edward Furdson, “Sea Piracy or Maritime Mugging?”, in Intersec, vol. 5, no. 5, May 1995, p.166
Colomès, Bernard Deguy, ‘Caraïbes: Pilleurs d’épaves”, Le Point, 8th August 1992.
49 D. Leppard, “Slaughter in Paradise”, The Times, 6th February 1994 and D. Adams, “Drug Pirates Bring
Deathly Fear to Caribbean Paradise”, The Times, 5th February 1994.
50 Quoted by George Coedes, Les Etats hindouisés d’Indochine et d’Indonésie, éd de Boccard, Paris, 1964, p 335.
51 George Coedes, 1964, p. 43
47
48Michel
21
question of corsairs at the service of their monarch. Although unofficial, the idea is similar
at the heart of the Malay Archipelago of the sultanates. It is moreover in this way that
Auguste Toussaint defines in his Histoire des corsairs, these terrible sailors who have been
fighting against the Europeans since the 16th century on behalf of the Muslim princes52. The
regional relations were mainly regulated by the maritime guerilla, as was the case with the
Berbers in the Mediterranean.
Until the 19th century, entire communities lived by pirate raids, and were armed by the
local authorities and contributed to the development of the commercial warehouses
established in strategic sectors, in the heart of the Malay Straits (Malacca, Johor, the Riau
Archipelago).
For a war chief, the strategy consisted of making his presence felt through some raids,
before gathering together a group of seafarers, creating warehouses, subduing the
neighbourhood in order, finally, to attract the trade in the region towards his ports. These
raids were at the heart of the commercial competition and the establishment of powers and
counter-powers.
The Moniteur des Indes of 1844, in a report entitled “Historical notes on acts of piracy
committed in the East Indian archipelago”, describes in detail the networks which control
the major part of the trade on the islands between the Malacca Straits and the Sulu Sea53.
Until the colonisation by Europe, these networks, clearly described by the historian Denys
Lombard, structured the Southeast Asian area54.
Veritable political and commercial systems, they were built around two central points
at the dawn of the 19th century. The first, centered on Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago
(Philippines), constituted the starting point of the expeditions which scoured the Moluccas,
the coasts of Borneo, of Celebes (current-day Sulawesi) and even the Malay peninsula55. Big
suppliers in the slave markets, these pirates, in return for certainfinancial benefits, often
enjoyed the support of the local municipal officers in Brunei and in the Island of Labuan
situated near Borneo or also in Bali56 . The second core of these networks was situated in
the outskirts of the Island of Lingga, in the Malacca Straits. The pirates organised
themselves to dominate the seas and to procure huge profits57.
These orang laut (“seafarers”) offered their services directly to the Malay sultans58. The
dignitaries associated themselves with the bandits through the ayuman, veritable system of
redistribution of profits59. Those who undertook this activity said to be “commercial60”
were closely linked to their political partners, more concerned with increasing the revenues
of their Sultanate than with fighting the spread of Christianity in the name of a growing
Islamism in the Malay archipelago.
Auguste Toussaint, Histoire des corsaires, PUF, coll. Que sais-je?, Paris, 1978, p.91-92.
Denys Lombard “Regard nouveau sur les pirates malais- Première moitié du XIXe siècle” in Archipel ,
nq 18, Paris, 1979, p. 233.
54 Denys Lombard, 1990, 422 p.
55 For a more complete insight into the history of piracy, see James Francis Warren, Iranun and BalangingiGlobalisation, Maritime Raiding and the Birth of Ethnicity, Singapore University Press, Singapore, 2002,
XXII-585 p.
56 Ch. Meyer, “Pirates des mers de Chine”, in Gérard Jaegar, 1992, p. 56.
57 Ch. Meyer, 1992, p. 56
58 Alain de Sacy, L’Asie du Sud-Es: L’unification à l’épreuve, Vuibert, Paris, 1999, p. 124.
59 Ayuman literally meaning “giving one, receiving two” (Ch. Meyer, 1992, p.56). See also C. Lavollée, “Les
Pirates malais”, in the Revue des deux mondes, 1853, quoted by Ch. Meyer, 1992, p.57.
60 In the terms of Guislaine Loyré “Piracy and Islamism”, in Antonio Guerreiro and Pascal Coudere,
Bornéo: des chasseurs de tête aux écologistes, Autrement, Paris, 1991, p.58-66.
52
53
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It is said that in the past, fishermen/pirates always demanded the payment of a toll,
first from the Chinese junk boats and then from the European galleons; when collected for
their benefit, it was piracy, and when collected for the benefit of the various States in
competition, it was considered customs duty.
At the family level, just as the father used to teach his son the techniques of catching the
trepang61, pirate attacks were also considered a real profession (rompak) and an “original
institution62”.Thus it was recorded that piracy in the sultanates of the Malay had been able
to continue because it was found to be “deeply enmeshed in the Malayan culture and
tradition63 ”.
In the middle of the 19th century, in Southeast Asia which was under the European
influence, the Malay pirates lost control of the trade. Initially on the defensive, they entered
progressively into a struggle against the Dutch, English and American powers who tried to
dismantle their networks. Thus, Raga who, between 1813 and 1831, caused trouble in the
vicinity of Makassar, Java and even in Sumatra, was vanquished by the American frigate
Potomac.
Insofar as the pirates were still capable of gathering together upto 200 prahu (Malay
ships) for the Dutch Indies alone, some refused the amnesty measures and the modest
market shares that the authorities of Batavia were offering them in order to attract them to
their own commercial sphere64.
Brooke, the “White Raja” of Borneo, took control of one part of the island, inspiring the
novel Les Tigres de Monpracem (The Tigers of Monpracem) written by Emilio Salgari (18621911) which inspired the famous Franco-Italian serial drama Sandokan in 1976. This “Robin
Hood of the seas” during his fight against Brooke, falls in love with Marianne, an English
aristocrat, before escaping to Labuan, to the North of Borneo65.
From 1832, the Chinese of Singapore organised their self-defense before making a
petition to the British Parliament. Warships were assigned to them and with the help of
these steam ships, the pirate attacks reduced in number. In the middle of the 19th century,
the bandits were finally forced to go underground.
1.3.2. Pirates and corsairs with respect to French colonisation
Abu Sayyaf, they could have become French:
The France of Louis-Philippe exposed to the Sulu pirates66
“Blind are they who do not notice the irresistible movement which draws the West
towards the East! Borneo, Sumatra, Mindanao, these big islands still wild, are destined to
The trépang (or tripang) is an edible holothurian (also called “sea cucumber”) much appreciated in the
Far East.
62 Charles Meyer, 1992, p.55
63 David Anthony Delavoet, La Piraterie maritime en Asie du Sud-Est et ses conséquences, thesis for Masters,
Université Paris 1, Panthéon – Sorbonne, 1995, p.17
64 Denys Lombard, 1979, p. 246.
65 Jacques Baudou et Jean-Jacques Schleret, Les Feuilletons historiques de la télévision française, 8e art, Paris,
1992, 131-132
66 Read Denis Nardin on this subject, “Les Françias à Basilan, un projet de colonization avortée”, in
Archipel, nq 15, 1978, p. 29-40, or the testimonies of the participants in the mission: Louis-Joseph Brossolet,
Souvenirs des mers de Chine et d’autres eaux (1823-1898), Belin, Paris, 1996, p. 71-94, Marc Boulanger, L’amiral
Jean-Baptiste Cécille, figure illustre de Rouen (1787 – 1873),éditions Bertout, Luneray (76), p. 87-88 and
“Revue: lettres des mers de Chine” in Revue des deux mondes, nq 10, 1845, p. 1033-1036.
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become magnificent colonies67”. In the middle of the 19th century, France gradually
developed a craze for the Far East.
In 1819, the English seized Singapore before taking possession of Hong Kong in 1842. In
dire need of finding a base in the Far East for refurbishing the supplies of its military and
trade fleet, the Government of François Guizot was not quite as intuitive, when opting for
the island of Basilan, in the Sulu Archipelago. But at that time, more than any other Asian
territory, the Philippines seemed to be perfectly suitable as a base. In October 1844, the
corvette Sabine was discreetly sent to Basilan, to the northeast of the now famous island of
Jolo, to carry out initial hydrographical surveys under the command of Captain Guérin.
Though curious, the natives did not attempt any hostile action against the French
engineers. Everything changed when the mission led by a certain Meynard arrived at the
mouth of a small river. He received on board a local leader and placed before his guests a
spread of arms. However, as he refused to lend his rifle, tension mounted and krisses were
unsheathed. Meynard was killed, his companions captured.
The sailors remaining on board the Sabine were informed of the incident by the
residents of a rival village. It was decided that the matter should be referred to the
Governor of Zamboanga, capital of the Spanish establishments, who obtained the liberation
of some captives for a few piastres. Joined by the Victorieuse, the Sabine then moved
towards the Sulu Archipelago to demand an explanation from the Sultan. The latter gave
the French carte blanche to organise a punitive expedition against Basilan. At the end of
November, the Cléopatre and the Archimède, alerted at Manila by the Victorieuse, arrived at
the island a few hours earlier than a Spanish ship. Finally, gathered together under the
command of Admiral Cécille and the diplomat Lagrené, the French fleet of the Far East
prepared to commence the second act of its expedition in the Sulu Archipelago.
On 12th January 1845, all the ships dropped anchor on the coasts of Basilan in the Bay of
Malamawi. They then had to negotiate with the Spanish, who were vexed by the liberties
taken by the French who had just set up a blockade in a zone theoretically placed under the
control of Madrid. In fact, for the French it was a question of placing Basilan under their
control. However, Lagrené appeared puzzled. The piracy, active in this area, worried
him68. Admiral Cécille, on the other hand, was most enthusiastic: “On seeing Malamawi,
this admirable port that some compared to Brest (…), I felt that I could not leave Basilan
without ensuring that my country had potential rights to its possession.”
On 27th and 28th February 1845, the French officials launched an attack against the
village responsible for the murder of Meynard. The action is narrated to us by Lavollée, a
member of the expedition who would write about it in the Revue des deux mondes in 185369.
“The Malays, attacked unexpectedly, took immediate flight, leaving in our hands their
arms, and cannon, which were later taken to Paris as trophies of this expedition. The next
day, the crew returned to the place of combat. The Malays had abandoned everything (…).
In a few hours, the village of Youssouk was reduced to ashes and the population
completely ruined.”
The extreme violence of the French punitive expedition triggered bitter reactions from
Lavollée against a “work of devastation” which “a civilised country could hardly use to
glorify itself”. Anyhow, on 2nd March 1845, everything came to an end. The fleet left the
Sulu waters and dispersed to Macau, Manila and especially France where the Archimède
was going with a letter from the Sultan Mohamed Pulalou offering Basilan to France.
Admiral Cécille saw the island as “a rival to Hong-Kong, (…) a beautiful jewel added to the
crown of France”. In his Report to the King, the Admiralty suggested that they get around
C. Lavollée, “Les Pirates malais ”, in Revue des deux mondes, 3rd trimester 1853, p. 598.
Denys Lombard in Archipel, nq 18, 1979, p. 231-249
69 C. Lavollée, 1853, p. 594.
67
68
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the Spanish relunctance. Though the Council of Ministers supported such an operation,
Louis-Philippe countered them with his veto on 26th July 1845 by bringing up the
constraints of the European diplomatic game.
It was very much in the interests of Paris to avoid hampering the negotiation of the
Spanish alliances which then represented one of the most daring acts of its foreign policy70.
It was not at all conceivable to vex Queen Isabella in Madrid by contesting her authority in
the China seas at the very moment when the marriage of the Duke of Montpensier was
being negotiated with the Princess of Spain. In order to justify the abandoning of the
project of an establishment in Basilan, Louis-Philippe also evoked the not so favourable
location of the island and… the high prevalence of piracy in the region71.
The fact is that it would take more than a decade for the Spanish to establish their
domination South of the Philippines beginning from the construction, in 1845, of their first
small fort in Basilan.
Lavollée however regretted this wasted opportunity and suggested that France
maintain its sights on the Far East:
“It is bitterly regrettable that France has no stake in the interests offered in these Asian
regions. Other races, better advised and more fortunate, made sure of all the archipelagos
and all the islands; we arrived too late, there was nothing left. Should we therefore be
eternally condemned to watch from afar, and not take part, in the extension of the
European influence over such a vast arena (…) Among the big islands that depend on the
Philippines and Indonesia, there are some on which Spain and Holland wield authority in
name only72.”
Paris would no longer evince any interest in the island territories. In 1858, in recognition
of Louis-Philippe’s tact, Madrid would even send a contingent to participate in the first
phase of conquest in Indochina73. It would then be confronted, amongst other forces, by
other pirates under various “flags”.
In Vietnam, corsairs against pirates - tricolored flags against multicolored flags
Between the 16th and the 18th centuries, the Dai Viet, ancestor of today’s Vietnam, was
barely integrated with the Southeast Asian networks. It hardly participated, therefore, in
what historians qualify as the “Golden age of Commerce in Southeast Asia.74” The
abundance of pirate ships which used to cruise the high seas off its coasts is certainly one of
the main reasons.
In March 1682, the missionary Jacques de Bourges, who was going to Siam from the
Tonkin, barely avoided “the encounter with 80 boats and Chinese vessels” loaded with
pirates75. A few months later, on his return trip to the Tonkin, he was hardly any luckier.
70 At that time, Louis Philippe who was living in the hope of sealing marriage pacts with the Spanish
Crown did not want to offend the latter by setting up a colony in Basilan as the British had done in HongKong and then in Singapore. Read Denis Nardin, in Archipel, nq 15, 1978, p.37.
71 For example: Ghislaine Loyré, 1991.
72 C. Lavollée, 1853, p. 598
73 Cf. Philippe Franchini, “L’Or et le sang de la France”, p.20, in Tonkin: 1873-1954- Colonie et Nation: Le
Delta des mythes, Autrement, séries mémoires, no. 32, Paris, 1994.
74 See for example Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680, Silkworm Books, Chiang
Mai, 1988, 2 vol., XVI-275 p. and XV- 390 p.
75 Letters of Jacques de Bourges to foreign Missions in Paris, cited in Alain Forrest, Les Missionnaires
français au Tonkin et au Siam, XVIIth, 18th century – L’Analyse comparée d’un relatif succès et d’un total
échec, L’Harmattan, Coll. Recherche Asiatiques, Paris, 1998, Tome III, “Organiser une Eglise, convertir des
infidèles” p. 86.
25
On 4th August, he was attacked by four Chinese vessels which he then called “corsairs”.
The captain of the boat, the Saint-Joseph, was killed by a bullet and the boat owed its
salvation only to its ballast that guaranteed better speed even in stormy weather76 . A
century later, the danger was still very much present. And in 1781, the missionary Pierre
Blandin described the manner in which his ship faced many more or less furtive attacks77.
Besides, racked by several internal revolts, the Court of Hué would never truly succeed in
reducing the armed bands that sailed the high seas off its coasts.
Following the defeat of Sedan in 1871, France could not spare more than one naval unit
to satisfy its desire for the Tonkin. Adventurers such as Dupuis from Roane, is who led the
initial combats during the first phase of the strike, therefore played, in a certain way, the
role of corsair of the Third Republic.
Against them in combat, were the “Black Flags” commanded by Luu Vinh Phuc and
subject to the Court of Hué78, but also several totally independent armed groups like the
“Yellow Flags” of Hoang Sung anh who after having been veritable enemies of the States of
the Nguyên monarchs, involuntarily served their interests by resisting the French.
The protectorate treaties of 1883-1884 bestowed upon France full authority over the
country. The “pacification” began79. But the occupation troupes would still encounter on
their way, the insubordinate faction of the Tonkin, both brigands and political opponents80.
In support of Dupuis’s action, Admiral Dupré, Governor of Cochinchina, entrusted an
expeditionary corps to Francis Garnier, famous for having opened numerous routes in the
region. The latter died under the pikes of the Black Flags whom the Governor of Son Tây
called to the rescue.
The French were not welcome in the delta of the Red river. China itself was unable to
tolerate this European intrusion on its Southern borders, but could not resist it for long. The
Treaty of 1874 opened the Tonkin to French trade and many agreements, concluded
between 1883 and 1885, guaranteed France non-intervention by the Chinese.
The authority of the protectorate however still found it difficult to make its presence felt
in the territory. Dupuis, a pale Franco-Tonkinese version of the English rajah Brooke,
would not have been as successful as his counterpart of Borneo. The French had to face the
incessant harassment of the Black Flags. Other chiefs of rebel bands like Hoang Hoa Tham,
alias Dê Tham, swelled the ranks of the forces hostile to the European order.
Apart from the military posts deployed by the occupant in the region, one had to wait
till 1891 for a change in the French policy of pacification which would permit it to cross a
new threshold in its domination of the region. The collaboration of the Vietnamese
mandarins was solicited. Military camps were set up between the delta and the
mountainous periphery where those who had long assumed the responsibility of informal
corsairs of the government had sought refuge.
In 1897, only the forces of Dê-Tham still resisted to such an extent that they had to be
granted a concession at Phon-Xuong, in the hope of obtaining his submission. The result
was nowhere near expectations, as the rebel made good use of his new position to pursue
his attacks. Though he was assassinated in 1913, the various “Flags” would in any case
continue to hamper the colonisation efforts for a long time.
Letters of Jacques de Bourges to foreign Missions in Paris, cited in Alain Forrest, 1998, Tome III, p.86-87
Cited in Alain Forrest, 1998, Tome III, p.86
78 Nguyen Khac Vien, Vietnam, une longue histoire, Editions en langues étrangères, Coll. Connaissance du
Vietnam, Hanoi, 1987, p.150.
79 Pierre-Richard Feray, Le Viet-Nam, PUF, Que sai-je?, Paris, 1992 (1984), p. 20 and 23.
80 Philippe Franchini, 1994, p.33-50, See also Nguyen The Anh, “L’Image de la piraterie tonkinoise dans la
littérature coloniale », p.180, in Denys Lombard (dir.), 1993, 486 p.
76
77
26
1.3.3. 1945-1989: the genesis of modern piracy in Southeast Asia
Maritime crime persisted after the Second World War. Between 1946 and 1949 the
pirates had their lair at Sumatra. In 1956, another base was reported in Thailand. Malaysia,
which, from 1958 to 1966, was in the throes of its struggle for independence, was prey to
internal strife conducive to violence. At its borders, Indonesia attempted unsuccessfully to
defy it, displaying a tolerance towards piracy81 to serve its own interests. Jakarta would
have ignored, if not controlled, the maritime raids.
But it is particularly the attacks against the Vietnamese boat-people fleeing the
Communist regime that, from 1978, heralded the great come-back of pirates into the region.
This piracy, often practiced near the border between Thailand and Malaysia, differed in
many aspects from contemporary boarding incidents. By its opportunism, first of all, as it
was not part of the culture of the people living in the coastal areas. The case of the Malay
world was not the same as that of the Gulf of Thailand where piracy was not the act of
specialists82. The economic difficulties of the Thai fishermen, made unscrupulous by their
already hostile sentiments for the Vietnamese newcomers, permitted them to take up this
practice without any inhibitions.
At the end of the eighties, organised gangs capable of tackling the biggest ships were
constituted83. Pillage and violence followed one after another against the refugees who
were very vulnerable on their rudimentary craft. Just like the Cuban balseros in 1994 or the
refugees of the Moluccas in 2000, the escapees represented potential prey.
From 1988, the policy of the host countries towards the refugees, who were quite happy
to land on a foreign coast, became more ambiguous. Selected in Thailand, categorised and
interned in Hong-Kong where they were considered as potentially illegal, the boat-people
were sometimes driven back to the high seas where no help was given to them. One must
say that on the political scene, this cruel practice was right from the beginning, part of the
game of the two big rivals, China and America, causing considerable harm to the image of
Vietnam.
Progressively, the freedom of the pirates to act however triggered the indignation of
international public opinion. In 1992, ten years after the initial interventions of NGOs and
the initial measures of the United Nations, a special force was put into place, with eight
warships and some planes at its disposal.
1.3.4. 1990-1996: from the Straits of Singapore to the South China Sea…
Up to 1989, the Malacca Straits were considered relatively safe despite an average of
seven incidents reported every year. Then, between early 1990 and mid-May 1992, the Riau
Archipelago became the hotbed of world piracy with at least 200 incidents recorded. In
1992, the report of the IMB specifies that 47% of the attacks perpetrated in Southeast Asia
took place near the island of Bintan and the Phillip Channel to the south of Singapore.
Amongst the causes put forward were the establishment of the growth triangle of
Singapore-Johor-Riau84 and the massive immigration caused by this sudden economic
development. The evolution of the Indonesian island of Batam, symbol of this massive
industrialisation, explains that its neighbor, the island of Bintan, has become the Asian
equivalent of Tortoise island, which in the past sheltered the Caribbean freebooters. While
in 1991, 82% of the total acts of piracy all over the world were staged in Southeast Asia, the
Michael Pugh, “Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea: Problems and Remedies”, in Low Intensity Conflict and
Law Enforcement, vol 2 no 1, summer 1993, p.2.
82 David-Anthony Delavoet, 1995, p.40.
83 Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, “Violence at Sea: Maritime and the Risk of Piracy”, in Jane’s Defense, 1996, p.80.
84 Nathalie Fau (with the contribution of Yoslan Nur), “Le Pari des triangles de croissance Sijori et IMTJT”, in Hérodote, nq 88, 1st trimester 1998, p. 125-140.
81
27
proportion fell to around 16% two years later, to a large extent due to the institution of
combined patrols in the region of the Straits.
In the mid-nineties, around two-thirds of the global pirate activity affected East Asia.
The statistics of the IMB85 highlighted three areas: the South China Sea (42 attacks between
1993 and 1996), the vicinity of Hong-Kong and Macao (47 attacks between 1993 and 1996)
and the Hong-Kong-Luzon-Hainan triangle (50 attacks between 1993 and 1996). Some
authors saw here the hand of China. Perhaps anxious to maintain a certain degree of
insecurity in the region, China could have tried, in this manner, to dissuade foreign ships
from approaching the politically contested areas that it was demanding. Peking could thus
have adopted the same strategy of indirect intervention as that adopted by Queen
Elizabeth with the Caribbean freebooters four centuries earlier86 .
Towards 1996, however, China would have given up its tacit support to the bandits
before committing itself to the repression of their activities. This resulted in a significant
drop in the acts of piracy in East Asia while they increased in the Malay world (Indonesia,
Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei).
1.3.5. Piracy today
Return to the Malay archipelago…
From 1997, the menace became more widespread. The pirates established themselves
well and truly in the society of their origin. In doing so, they adopted an ancestral practice
which had long since been dormant.
In the Philippines, in 1995-96, a sudden outbreak of piracy was observed not far from
Manila, on the Pasig river as also in the Sulu Sea87. In 1997, the Gulf of Moro witnessed an
outburst of activity following the deactivation of naval district VII and the Neptune antipiracy force. Among the Filipino pirates were found a number of rebels in search of
supplementary income. Others were true bandits who, in Davao, were called ambak pare
(literally “jump, my mate”) because this is what they suggested to the occupants of the
ships. Near Manila, criminal groups even used official uniforms.
While the IMB did not record a single attack in the Philippine archipelago in 1991, it
recorded close to 80 between 1995 and 1997. As it happens, the reinforcing of the naval
patrols proved to be effective as only six incidents took place in 1999 and nine in 2000.
During the second half of the 1990s, the Malay state of Sabah, on the island of Borneo
constituted one of the centers of piracy in the region88 . The geographical context played a
very important role here. The eastern coast of Sabah is 1400 kilometers long and has about
500 islands close by. With a powerful engine, international waters can be reached in about
twenty minutes only. Semporna, Sandakan or Lahad Datu, the principal islands of the state
are not more than two to four hours away.
The socio-economic and even political environments were decisive factors. In the
atmosphere of the conquest of the East – or of the far east – which characterised these areas
where law and order was non-existent, mount Kinabalu replaced the Rockies. The buses
(sometimes attacked) played the role of the diligences. On the penal side, the police and the
navy eclipsed the sheriffs and the cavalry. Lastly, the outlaws ceded their place here to the
Peter Chalk, Grey-Area phenomena in Southeast Asia: Piracy, Drug Trafficking and Political Terrorism,
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre- Australian National University, Canberra, 1997, p.30
86 Peter Chalk, 1997, p.30-31.
87 Daniel Perret “Notes sur la piraterie moderne en Méditerranée sud-est asiatique », in Archipel, no 56,
1998, p.135.
88 Perret, 1998, p.133; “Indonesia remains Top World Piracy Centre”, AFP, 1st November 2000
85
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pirates, Indonesian or Filipino (Tausug, Sama, or Moro), who spread out from their coastal
villages. Thus, despite a drop in the attacks following the governmental measures from the
end of the nineties, the Association of seafarers of
Sandakan (Asosiasi Tongkang Sandakan) was concerned about the economic future of
the region. It feared that the fishermen of Sabah would be afraid to go to sea, which could
possibly push the ship owners to resort to hiring labour from the Indonesian island of
Sulawesi89.
At the end of the 20th century, the waters extending between Kota Kinabalu and
Sandakan in Sabah, the port of Bintulu in Sarawak as also the neighbouring areas of the
island of Penang and Port Dickson on the West coast of the peninsula were the most
dangerous in Malaysia90. From the year 2000, the sectors lying further South of Tanjung
Tohor ( in the neighborhood of Batu Pahat), Pulau Pisang91 not far from Johor Baru and
Pulau Undan towards Malacca should be added to this list. On a bright morning of October
2000, at 4.30 a.m., off the coast of the province of Selangor, a customs ship was, for
example, surrounded by about fifteen sampans and other fishing boats. The four officers
had just intercepted three boats carrying smuggled goods: 10000 drums of brandy and
whisky and 38000 boxes of kretek, these famous clove flavoured cigarettes which are so
much in demand in Indonesia. The Customs officers had not yet had time to unload their
haul to put them away in a safe place and this had instigated the covetousness…92.
Whatever be the magnitude of the problem in Malaysia (peninsular or Eastern),
Indonesia remains the principle centre of regional piracy and, very often, serves as a base
for the expeditions into the Malacca Straits. Sumatra and the Northeast of the Anambas
islands, not far from Natuna, have for a long time served as shelter for various pirate bands
and the situation still persists.
Between 1995 and 1999, the big archipelago served as the stage for nearly a third of the
incidents reported across the world93. A year later, the total of 119 attacks still remains
staggering even though – it is to be emphasised – the figure has declined relatively when
compared with the number of attacks across the world (469). As the minutes of the
discussions show, Indonesia remained passive during the meeting in Bombay held in
October 2000 and it has for a long time given the impression of putting up with this
rampant piracy; perhaps because the former Chief of State Abdurrehman Wahid had other
priorities.
Detour in South Asia
A broader vision of Southeast Asia cannot a priori justify an in depth study of the cases
reported in Southern Asia. But India cannot escape totally from our field of observation. On
the one hand, because it is using these incidents to justify its initiatives in Southeast Asia.
On the other hand, because it so happens that the ships captured in the Malay Straits have
been found on the waters of the sub-continent. It is said that the Alondra Rainbow would
have served in the trafficking of arms for the “Tamil Tigers” of the LTTE via Cambodia
(Refer to Boarding Incident10).
The significant emergence of piracy in the neighborhood of the Indian sub-continent is
not unrelated to what is happening further to the East. Bangladesh, where the problem did
“No Reports of Piracy After Tighter Security”, The Star, 1st October 1999
“More Piracies in Malaysian Waters, Says Maritime Report”, The New Straits Times, 21st October 1999.
91 Pulau means island in the Indonesian language.
92 AFP- Agence Bernama, “Malacca Strait Piracy Heading for 10-Year High”, The Straits Times, 10th
October 2000
93 Daniel Perret, 1998, p.133
89
90
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not exist in 1993, faced 55 attacks in 200094. During this same period, India recorded 35
incidents in 2000, 21 more than in 1999. According to the International Maritime Bureau,
these attacks affected particularly the port facilities. In 2001, 22 of the 25 attacks listed in
Bangladesh and 22 of the 27 attacks which India faced took place at night against berthed
ships95.
Recent evolution in the Malacca Straits
Since the month of May 2000, the Malacca Straits have once again been in the news.
Seventy-five incidents have been reported at the end of the year, while the IMB had
recorded only two incidents the previous year. This evolution has naturally aroused the
anxiety of Noel Choong, director of the Regional Center of Piracy (based in Kuala
Lumpur), who feared possible consequences on the volume of trade in the area96.
The naval patrols instituted in 1992, had had the effect of reducing to a tenth the acts of
piracy in the Straits. These measures however proved to be insufficient to stop the
resurgence of the phenomenon which many attribute to the political and social instability
of Indonesia. Moreover, the islands of Bintan and Bengkalis, near Dumai and Pekanbaru,
attract the attention of the authorities at least as much as some areas on the West coast of
the Malay peninsula. In the eyes of the IMB, the most critical sector in 2001 was located
within twenty-five nautical miles around the point situated at the latitude of 2q North and
longitude of 102q East off the coast of the little island of Rupat (Sumatra), between Dumai
in Indonesia and Malacca in Malaysia.
“Piracy Plagues Bangladesh’s Main Port”, AFP, 25 October 2000
The IMB recorded 14 attacks in the port of Chittagong and 8 in the port of Mongla in Bangladesh; 11 in
the port of Chennai, 4 in Cochin, 4 in Kakinada and 3 in Haldai in India.
96 “Piracy on the Rise in Malacca Straits”, The New Straits Times, 19th June 2000.
94
95
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31
Chapter 2
Conditions Favouring the Emergence of Piracy
2.1. Causes Related to the Milieu
2.1.1. The weight of tradition
Though hard to evaluate, the existence of this factor cannot be ignored. According to
Eric Ellen, Director of the International Maritime Bureau, the Malay pirates most often
originate from small fishing villages or kampung, where piracy is considered not just as a
source of income but also as a tradition. For a long time now, being a pirate has allowed
youngsters to prove themselves97. Prior to Ellen, Aleko Lilius, a Finnish-American
journalist who was able to follow the band of Laï Chon San in the early 1920’s, had
reported, based on his experience in the region of Macao, that the holding to ransom and
hijacking of ships was in a certain way considered by the local population as “ a legitimate
trade 98”
As we are going to see, the regional perception of piracy is ambiguous. But ours is not
any less so. Of course, the dictionaries Robert or Larousse qualify piracy as “clandestine”
and “illicit”. But the corsairs Duguay-Trouin (1673-1736) and Surcouf (1773-1827) are still
praised to the skies and statues are erected in their honour on the shores of the Atlantic,
despite their obvious brutality and their overt independence vis-à-vis the reigning powers
at the time. The situation is not different in the Malay world. As in Normandy in the past,
the sailor-ancestors of the Malay Archipelago still fascinate the young orang laut. Ordinary
pirates in our eyes as they are fierce enemies and not part of any clearly identified political
entity, these terrible navigators resemble, in the eyes of the local population, the glorious
ancestors who roamed the seas in search of riches essential for their people. Here, one
nostalgically remembers the old exploits of Jean Bart (1650-1702). There, one proudly
recalls the distant expeditions of Raga. Joseph Conrad himself describes with some feeling,
Karain, a bugis pirate chief, and all these “faces, dark, truculent and smiling, the frank
audacious faces of men barefooted, well-armed and noiseless”:
“ They thronged the narrow length of our schooners decks with their ornamented and
barbarous crowd, with the variegated colours of checkered sarongs, red turbans, white
jackets, embroideries, with the gleam of scabbards, gold rings, charms, armlets, lance
blades and jewelled handles of their weapons. They had an independent bearing, resolute
eyes, a restrained manner; and we seem yet to hear their soft voices speaking of battles,
Quoted by Jeanne Cordelier “Alerte, pavillon noir! –Enquète sur la nouvelle mafia des mers”, Le Nouvel
Observateur, 25th November 1993
98 Quoted by Jean Leclerc du Sablon, “Chine: Pirates en uniformes ”, Le Figaro, 3rd July 1995. See also Aleko
Lilius, Pirate volontaire , Philippe Picquier, Arles, 1993, 238 p.
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travels and escapes, boasting with composure, joking quietly; sometimes in well bred
murmurs extolling their own valour.
We remember the faces, the eyes, the voices, we see the gleam of silk and metal, the
murmuring stir of that crowd, brilliant, festive and martial and we seem to feel the touch of
friendly brown hands that after one short grasp, return to rest on a chased hilt…99”
Les Aventures de Reuben Davidger in 1869, along the coasts of Borneo and the island of
Celebes, has also contributed to the development of the pirate myth. Its author, James
Greenwood, knew how to transport his readers to the land of the head-hunters, to discover
the dayak dances and the inevitable brigands of the sea. Thanks to him and to others, the
population of Borneo represents, to the 19th century Europeans, a sort of natural state. Due
to a lack of precision and to a taste for exotic caricature, the Makassar of the southern part of
Celebes are generally termed as “fearsome” whereas their activities are essentially limited
to a simple trade within the islands. Likewise, the novels of Conrad and their long
opposition to the Dutch would have earned the Bugis, the neighbours of the Makkassar, the
terrible reputation of pirates which they only partly merited100.
Nevertheless, diverse factors contributed to the development of real piracy much before
the arrival of the Europeans. The phenomenon whose Malayan dimension was evoked also
occurs in Borneo. The topography, the inhospitable environment, the absence of real
agriculture, the small population as well as the unstable nature of the political
organisations have never made it possible to promote the position of the island in the
region, although it is centrally located. Likewise, the coastal population was never allowed
to establish its domination in the interior. In the end, the rare structures that were able to
emerge, such as the Sultanate of Bruneï in the North which attained its zenith in the 16th
century, relied upon administrations that were greatly decentralised, constituted by loose
networks made up of simple warehouses at the mouth of rivers.
In this context, the rival chiefs of the banks of the big island resorted to piracy in order
to maintain or increase their control over trade. One found, in the crew of the Malay chiefs,
the Bajaun, the Illanun, the Balanguingi and the sailors of Sabah. The Iban of East Borneo
were recruited in the 18th and 19th centuries by the instigators of the coastal raids. Since
then, they have been nicknamed “Dayak of the sea” after the ethnic group reputed for its
propensity for head hunting. In this huge island, piracy was therefore widely exploited by
the local politicians101.
This observation also applies to the Muslim population of the Philippine archipelago
whose banks have for a long time been used for trade and piracy. In the Sulu archipelago
for example, the Sama and the “terrible” Tausug of the island of Jolo have a long tradition of
maritime crime. Besides, the hijackers of the Abu Sayyaf group have originated from these
groups which, a few centuries earlier, already used to carry out raids against the villages of
the nearby archipelago of the Visayas. More peace-loving than their proud neighbours of
the North, the Sama nevertheless engaged in smuggling activities with Borneo.
In their study on these “Berbers of the Eastern seas”, Guislaine Loyré and Alain Rey lay
emphasis on the nature of piracy among these people, grouped by the Spanish under the
general term “moro”. Piracy here would be “the expression of a tenacious ethnic
Extract from Joseph Conrad, Karain: Un souvenir 1897, cited by Denys Lombard, “Aux origines du thème
du “pirate malais””, p.154, in Denys Lombard (dir.), 1993, 486 p.
100 Jean-Christophe Tamisier (dir.) Dictionnaire des peuples, Larousse- Bordas, Paris, 1998, p. 61 and 189.
Despite everything, some specialists recall that the Bugis were constrained to resort to piracy once more
after the fall of the Makassar in 1666. The fearsome- and abusive? reputation that follows them since then
in Java and Sumatra dates back from this moment .
101 Victor T. King, The Peoples of Borneo, Blackwill Publishers, Oxford, 1999, 339 p.
99
33
particularism102”. Against the Spanish in the 16th century, against the Americans at the end
of the 19th century and today against the Central and Catholic power, these pirates do not
defend a religion. They fight “against the intruder (…) to defend that which represents
their independence, their freedom to trade and to procure for themselves booty and
slaves”. The authors therefore bring up the idea of “a way of life already fixed in its
particularities long before the arrival of the Westerners103”. There is a strong temptation to
look for the prolongation of these traditions today. In fact, the inhabitants of Sulu still
perpetrate maritime crime. They continue to maintain a close relationship with the people
of East Borneo and Sabah, made up of a number of more or less legal Filipino immigrants.
Though the former Sultanates of Borneo offered new infrastructure to their people,
inciting them to give up violence, the people of Sulu still pursue their illicit activities
defying all borders and governments. The guerilla and the violence to the South of the
Philippines have not contributed to changing these practices.
The hostages have simply replaced on an ad hoc basis booty and slaves. It is therefore
not surprising that today piracy is wreaking havoc mainly in this zone.
Further to the South, in the 19th century, the Tolebo were nicknamed “terror of the
Moluccas”. From the islands of Halmahera and Morotai, these coastal communities
perpetrated fierce acts of piracy, mainly against European ships.
Near the Malacca Straits, the orang laut on their ships, gathered their wealth from the sea
through the ages. Right from the end of the first millennium of the Christian era, a
reference is made to these new migrants, settled on their boats and making a living from
piracy in the vicinity of Riau and the Malay Peninsula. In the 15th century, these nomads of
the sea offered their support and their considerable experience to the Sultanate of Malacca
to help control the payment of “taxes” by ships passing through the Straits. Nearly two
centuries later, we find the orang laut at the sides of the Sultan of Johor, forcing the trading
ships to make a halt at his city.
Should one however deduce an indefectible attachment to a practice that is many
centuries old? This somewhat provocative question leads us to a bigger debate which is
that of culturalism. It is not a question of explaining, let alone justifying, the pirate activity
of the Malay people by some gene or natural penchant. It is only a question of describing
the often historical, but also geographical context, which has made piracy “culturally
thinkable104”.
In fact, piracy is still perceived in certain areas of East Asia “as an ordinary profession
which is socially permitted105”. This would explain the permanence of semiprofessionalised armed bands, sometimes placed under the protection of an influential
local politician for whom they also play the role of a private militia106. The people may
tolerate the pirates on account of economic incentives, but also because piracy may be
acceptable in this context and as the pirates offer them better protection, that is perhaps
more efficient than that of a corrupt army that is sometimes cruel.
Drawing from their experience of drug trafficking in the Golden triangle (between
Thailand, Burma and Laos), some specialists think that it will be extremely difficult to
Guislaine Loyré and Alain Rey, “Les Moros: Barbareques des mers orientales”, in Hérodote – Australasie,
nq 52, 1st trimester 1989, p.122.
103 Guislaine Loyré, Alain Rey, 1989, p.118
104 John Vagg uses “culturally thinkable”, “Rough Seas? Contemporary Piracy in Southeast Asia”, in The
British Journal of Criminology, vol. 35, nq 1, 1995, p. 63-80
105 David Anthony Delavoet, 1995, p.17
106 Serge Desponds, Détroit de Malacca: Acteurs, espaces et enjeux, a doctoral thesis defended at University
Paris 1 Panthéon- La Sorbonne, 1999, p.314
102
34
eradicate piracy, just as it is difficult to impose substitute cultivation in the place of poppy.
Whether it is the peasants of Burma and Laos or the fishermen of Sumatra, it is impossible
to ignore the influence of the context.
Other more external events also encourage maritime delinquency. The support of Libya
and Sabah to the Muslim separatists of the Philippines in the seventies (dispatch of
uniforms, paramilitary training on the island of Pangkor or opposite Sandakan) has
probably contributed to the instability of the region and to the development of an area
open to all excesses, piracy being one of them.
2.1.2. The geographical background
Other than the monsoon, which, in earlier times, drove the pirates of Borneo to the
vicinity of the Malay Peninsula, several geographical elements favoured the development
of piracy.
First of all, we will note that the Malacca Straits which shrink to 1300 metres at the
narrowest point, force ships to reduce speed. The traffic is so dense that the fastest ships
cannot exceed ten knots (around 18 km/h). To make things worse, this sea route is subject
to the formation of sand banks and heavy rainfall. All the elements that are conducive to
maritime guerilla warfare, to attacks, to ambushes and other skirmishes recorded in the
various jungles, mountains and canyons of America and Asia, are to be found here.
The Malacca Straits, a veritable 937 km. long funnel, however still constitutes the only
passage that is economically viable. On account of their location and their lack of
infrastructure, the Straits of Lombok and Sunda remain secondary routes. And if by chance
other routes were to develop, the areas requiring supervision would increase
proportionately.
Pirates know how to make full use of the opportunities offered by the 17000 islands of
the Indonesian Archipelago which constitute as many points of shelter. The port of
Tanjung Pinang, on the island of Bintan- sometimes nicknamed the local Tortoise island,
sees a great deal of activity. All kinds of boats anchor near the quays. It is useless to search
for any aggressor here. Nothing resembles a fishing boat from Riau more than another
fishing boat from Riau, these islands that are far-flung and dispersed between Sumatra and
Singapore. This difficulty is cruelly experienced by the Royal Malaysian Air Force and the
Royal Malaysian Navy whose patrols have to face daily problems of identification107.
The proximity of the various countries also facilitates the escape of the pirates. Even an
old ferry sailing from Tanjung Pinang, to the west of Bintan, needs only one and half hours,
to reach Tanah Merah, the new landing stage situated to the east of Singapore. One can, in
half an hour, make the journey from the island city to Sekunpang, on the island of Batam
situated on the other side of the Singapore Straits in Indonesia. Thus, when the forces of
law and order intervene, pirates, equipped with a motorboat, need only a few minutes to
seek refuge on the other side of the border.
2.1.3. The technological evolution
The “kit of the perfect pirate” has been modernised. After giving in to the steamboats of
the 19th century, the lawbreakers in their turn made full use of the new techniques and also
of the growing number of available weapons108. They possess M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles
and also 50 caliber machineguns, RPG (hand grenades) and even small rocket-launchers. In
“Straits Piracy Attacks Likely to Break Record this Year”, The Star, 9th October 2000.
According to the Chief of Police of Jolo in the Philippines, quoted in the “Sunday Style: Guns Rule Life
in Sulu Island”, The New Straits Times, 7th May 2000.
107
108
35
addition to this artillery, they possess light craft equipped with powerful motors which
move at a speed of 40 knots (more than 70 km/h), ideal for threading one’s way through
the shallow waters of the big archipelagos109. The pirates also use radars and deliberately
scramble the emergency frequencies. It is likely that they made use of the arms of the Red
Army’s campaign in Afghanistan and the Cambodian surpluses.
Their arsenal sometimes even includes Strella surface-to-air missiles, mortar or
underwater mines110. It is therefore hardly surprising to learn that in August 1991, a
Filipino DF-304 patrol boat was sunk by the pirates. In April 1992, the Assistant Director of
the Filipino police acknowledged the death of five coastguards on the occasion of another
naval encounter with brigands111. As for the report of the IMB for the year 2000, it recorded
4 rocket-launch attacks. After Singapore in the 19th century, it is Borneo which acted as a
hub for the arms trade in the early 1990s.
Apart from armaments and fabrication of false papers for the phantom boats (Refer.
below), modern communication and information technology favours piracy on a big scale
today. A French specialist in maritime transport in East Asia used to point out that the
containers loaded on a boat generally being identical, it was difficult for the pirates to
know the contents without the help of informants112.
In the early 1990s, it was reported that in the ports of Santos and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil,
the bandits climbed aboard ships equipped with a complete list of merchandise on board.
In East Asia, fax messages, e-mails and telephone calls are exchanged between gangs. They
possess “computerised information furnished by dockers or agents who were duly
paid113”. Often, the cargo would have already been sold before the boat left the port.
A sailor captured by pirates in China maintains that he saw “a hotel room full of
maritime communication instruments114”. A few weeks before being attacked on the high
seas, ships may thus be sold for between 100 000 to 300 000 dollars115 by unscrupulous ship
owners. Three hundred thousand dollars: this was the sale price of the Cheung Son, a ship
captured in late 1998 by twenty-three Chinese pirates who were sentenced to death and
later executed in January 2000116 ( refer to Boarding incident 3).
It is to be noted that the transformation of the ships also favours pirate attacks. Bigger
and bigger, these ships can hardly facilitate subtle maneuvers in the narrow navigable
routes and their crew has to devote its attention to the risk of accidents rather than to the
possibility of a pirate attack. At the junction of the Malacca Straits and of Singapore,
currents sometimes reach six knots (more than 10 km/h), which makes navigation delicate,
to say the least. In these conditions, it is impossible for the sailors to think only about
surveillance. So more than 85% of the pirate attacks that succeeded in the second half of the
nineties relied on the surprise effect.117
The reduction of personnel on board has also contributed to the slackening of vigilance.
The problem is especially acute for oil tankers. In nearly twenty years, the crew of a tanker
David-Anthony Delavoet, 1995, p.23
Peter Chalk, 1997, p.33
111 Oliver Weber and Marc Roche, “Le Retour des pirates”, Le Point, 8th August 1992
112 Correspondence with a French transporter in the Philippines on 20th November 2000
113 Correspondence with a French transporter in the Philippines on 20th November 2000
114 Statement of Arthur Bowring, Director of the Shipowner’s Association of Hong Kong, quoted by Hélène
Vissière, “Mer de Chine: Sur la route des pirates”, Le Point, nº 1419, 26th November 1999
115 In November 2002, the exchange rates were the following: 1 dollar for around 1 euro, 1 ringitt for 0.26
euro, 1 peso for 0.019 euro, 1000 rupiah for 0.11 euro.
116 Vu Kim Chung, “13 pirates Sentenced to Death”, in www.geocities.com, 22nd December 1999
117 Figures from the site www.maritimesecurity.com, 1999
109
110
36
230 metres in length has decreased from fifty sailors to around twenty118. In addition,
maritime regulations dissuade these vessels from carrying firearms due to the obvious risk
of explosion. Finally, the bridge of a fully loaded oil tanker rises barely two metres above
the water and this facilitates boarding119.
2.2. Political Causes
2.2.1. Instability always conducive to piracy
If factors related to the milieu constitute the necessary fuel for the propagation of the
pirate inferno, political circumstances are the sparks capable of igniting this potential
furnace.
In Sri Lanka, Tamil guerillas, brought in by the LTTE in opposition to the Singhalese
Government, attacked two ships in April 1995. Warships as well as commercial vessels
were targeted by this piracy, which continues at sea, the activity begun in the northern part
of the island.
Further to the East, the events of 1998-1999 in Indonesia have, to be sure, given rise to
more than one pirate vocation. The clashes between Christians and Muslims in the
Moluccas provoked the escape by the sea route of refugees who became easy prey. Ships
loaded with relief requirements for the victims of the religious clashes were even
hijacked120 . At the end of 1999, to the north of Sumatra, an official of the Gerakan Aceh
Merdeka (Movement for the liberation of Aceh) announced the threats that he intended to
pose to the port at the mouth of the Malacca Straits, as well as to the safety of international
maritime routes121. The movement, which considers itself to be representative of the
province of Aceh, is currently fighting against the Central Government to secure its
independence.
More generally, Noel Choong, representative of the IMB in the region, referred to the
political instability in Indonesia to explain the renewed violence in the Malacca Straits in
the year 2000. An aggravating factor is that a large part of the Archipelago would have
been abandoned by the Javanese high officials of Jakarta who were facing other challenges
on the political scene. As a result, the smuggling of arms- to secessionist movements at
Aceh, in the Moluccas, and also in West Papua (ex-Irian Jaya) – risked aggravating more
than ever the violence of the boarding incidents.
In Sabah (Malaysia), piracy is part of a bigger problem, related to both religion and
immigration. As the population has always proclaimed itself to be Christian, the political
leaders of Muslim faith did not hesitate to open the door to a number of Indonesian or
Filipino Muslim immigrants. The objective of the maneuver was to secure voting rights for
the latter as quickly as possible in order to supplant the electorate of Protestant or Catholic
origin. A Christian journalist of Tawau (Sabah) who carried out an investigation on this
situation recently wrote an article on the Bureau of Immigration and its fence that was
sectioned in places122.
The Indonesian immigration candidates arrive early in the morning before the
department opens. By making a few contortions under an old barbed wire fence, they can
enter the Malaysian territory without the least problem. As for the naval patrols, their
Hélène Vissière, “Mer de Chine: Sur la route des pirates”, le Point, nº 1419, 26th November 1999
Daniel Perret, 1998, p. 137
120 Jean-Claude Pomonti, “La Piraterie, fléau en Asie du Sud-Est”, Le Monde, 28th April 2000
121 Michal Shari, “East Asian Tinderbox”, Business Week, 20th December 1999
122Interview with Bartholomew Chong, journalist at the Borneo Post, 9th November 2000
118
119
37
efficiency is only relative as is illustrated by the new hostage taking by the Abu Sayyaf
group, in spring 2001, between Palawan and Basilan.
This massive inflow of immigrants, due as much to vote-catching considerations as to
the situation in Indonesia and to the south of the Philippines, jeopardises the already very
difficult living conditions, in these fishing villages nestling within the towns of the east
coast of Sabah. Weapons circulate easily here. Relations with the outside world and the
islands of the Sulu archipelago are good. It is likely that some inhabitants of the kampung
regularly alert their cousins settled in the Philippines about the possible arrival of “goods”
that can be sold. Familiar with the terrain, as they sometimes had stayed there, the pirates
could organise a raid right into the Malaysian waters, without taking into account borders
which artificially separated the same population. The maritime racket served as a good
opportunity for the refugees of Sabah to improve their life.
One is greatly tempted to compare this situation to others, far less exotic to the
Westerners, in the lawless areas such as Harlem in the United States or some French
housing estates of Seine-St-Denis. The only difference here is the marine element and
translation into piracy of crime founded on petty theft. Here too, the Muslim immigrants
are accused of all wrongdoings by the police authorities of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of
Sabah. In the absence of car radios in graceful sedans parked in residential parking lots, the
youth of the kampung target the lockers of the luxurious yachts anchored in the creeks of
Borneo or the merchant ships which sail in the vicinity. A few hundred metres away, the
port of the town of Kota Kinabalu and the camp of the Filipino immigrants of the island of
Gaya face each other. It seems to be very easy for these residents to blend into the traffic of
boat-taxis in order to commit their robbery on the docked ships before getting home
furtively.
In Sabah more than elsewhere, the pirate is mistaken for the brigand who can hardly be
distinguished from the religious extremist who in turn is confused with the separatist. The
only common denominator is banditry in a gray area with hazy borders.
2.2.2. The Power Vacuum following the Cold War,
a decisive factor for the resurgence of piracy
The “Power vacuum123”existing in East Asia since the end of the Cold War explains the
outbreak of piracy to a large extent. The end of the East/West opposition resulted in certain
States quitting some regional zones, giving way to “new barbarians” embodied by the
mafias and the armed bands mentioned by Jean-Christophe Rufin124 .
Even immediately after the Second World War, the withdrawal of the Dutch colonial
troops had led to a significant slackening in the control of the waters bordering the Malay
Archipelago.
The insurrections in the sixties and the seventies in Malaysia and in Indonesia had also
been conducive to piracy. But shortly afterward, the Vietnam War had led to the
strengthening of the American military presence in the China Sea. To the East, the
triumphant Brejnevism benefited from the success of Vietnam to assert itself from
Vladivostok and the huge aero naval base of Cam Ranh, in the south of Vietnam. In
reaction, two groups of American Navy ships had scoured the Southeast Asian waters
forcing the pirates of the region to suspend their activities.
123
124
Denny Roy, “Assessing the Power Vacuum”, in Survival, vol. 37, nº 3, Autumn 1995, p. 45-60
Jean-Christophe Rufin, 1992
38
The retreat to Pearl Harbour (3rd fleet) and Yokosuka (4th fleet) of the US navy two years
after the fall of the Berlin Wall once again left the field free for the sea bandits. For the
latter, the risk of coming across an American patrol ship diminished further after the
abandoning of the Clark airbase and the naval base of Subic Bay in the Philippines.
Following these withdrawals, it is possible to advance a hypothesis. In the early
nineties, China was suspected of wanting to occupy the power vacuum, which followed
the Russian and American withdrawals by supporting its government officials accused of
having opened fire and seized ships outside the Chinese waters. Peking however denied all
official involvement125.
Whatever be the case, the end of the Cold War gave way to a proliferation of territorial
conflicts. The Asian countries rapidly studied the question of maritime demarcations. A
litigation pertaining particularly to the Paracels Archipelago is a bone of contention
between China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Brunei.
We could also cite problems concerning Macclesfield (between China and Vietnam), the
Spratly archipelago (China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia),
the Natuna archipelago (China, Indonesia, Vietnam), Sabah (Malaysia, Philippines) and in
the vicinity of Sipadan-Ligitan (Indonesia and Malaysia). There too, the pirates proved to
be opportunistic operating in these areas where, in fact, no government authority could
really be exercised.
In July 1999, a diplomatic report rightly concluded that the struggle against piracy could
attain full efficiency only if the litigations pertaining to maritime borders were resolved. In
any case, this remains an absolute prerequisite for a cooperation without any ulterior
motive in the whole of Southeast Asia.
2.3. Socio-economic causes
2.3.1. Piracy and Development
Generally, countries which, following the example of Indonesia, experience significant
socio-economic shocks, are naturally the principal victims of the development of piracy126.
Creating numerous and richer preys, the economic expansion in Southeast Asia has
contributed, during the nineties, to the rapid resurgence of piracy.
In 1964, the share of East Asia in the GWP (Gross World Product) was 4%. It was 25% in
1992 and should, according to the estimates of the United Nations, reach 33% in 2010127.
This remarkable economic development is largely based on trade.
With Japan in the lead, the Asian fleet, from 15 % during the course of the last twentyfive years128 represents approximately 30% of the global fleet. In addition, in 1994, eight of
the ten most active port facilities for the transit of containers were situated in East Asia.
Hong Kong, Singapore and Kaohsing in Taiwan took the top three places129. Finally, it is to
be noted that Asia’s share in commercial exports has gone from 37% in 1985 to 45% in
1993130.
Peter Chalk, 1997, p. 34
S. Tatevossov, “La Piraterie a de beaux jours devant elle” (Kommersant-Vlast: extracts, Courrier
International – L’Aventure des oceans, nº 508, 16th August 2000), p.19
127 Stephen Meyrick, Developments in Asian Maritime Trade, IGCC Policy Paper 33, 1998, p.1
128 Japan represented 13% of the global fleet at the end of the eighties (Jean-François Cristau, “Un monde
maritime en expansion: l’Extrême Orient ”, Journal de la marine marchande, 24th June 1994, p.1672).
129 Seo-Hang Lee, Security of SLOC in East Asia, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Policy Paper
33, California, 1998, p.2
130 Stephen Meyrick, 1998, p.3
125
126
39
BOARDING INCIDENT 1: INTERVIEW WITH A PIRATE
Proudly sporting a leather jacket, huge rings and a thick gold chain, he resembles a hooligan who with time has
made it big. Uban is a retired pirate. He now organises boxing matches and his clan lives in a charming housing
complex in Batam. In an affable tone, he recollects his bohemian years during which he set out to attack cargo
ships in the Malacca Straits.
How did you become a pirate?
I am a Christian and come from East Timor, the homeland of Xanama Gusmao. In 1987, I left my island to look
for work in Jakarta. But I did not find any and I had to try my luck in Surabaya, then in Bali and finally in Batam
where I became a pirate in order to earn my living. Just like me, many came from miserable kampung (villages).
They were unemployed and did not have even one square meal a day. Singapore was rich, we were poor. So,
we went to pillage the areas in the vicinity of Singapore (laughter). This went on for five years starting from
1989. I sailed the waters of Riau, towards Jakarta, up to Bali. We targeted cargo ships. Fishermen? They don’t
have money (laughter)!
“A gang could have two groups of around twenty men. In Jakarta, there were many pirates, unlike in Riau and
Bintan. They came through the Philippe channel, before going back to Jakarta where they went to sell their
booty.
“As for the arms, we bought them from sailors who stole from their ships. On the Thai ships, for example, there
were a lot of arms. If by chance the crew dared to resist a little, we used pistols and machine guns. Not krisses
or rocket-lauchers… But we did not kill the people; we did not even hit them…”
How did these attacks take place?
“I will give you an example. Imagine a boat that is coming from Europe and which has to arrive at Singapore at
2.30 P.M. At one o’clock, we wait in a motor boat for them to enter Indonesian waters. Our boats are equipped
with three very powerful motors which give the impression of flying on water. We use ropes with a hook at the
end to climb on board the ship. Once on board, we move towards the Captain’s cabin, we threaten him with our
arms and force him to lead us to the money and valuables. We take them and get away on our motor boats
moving in the direction of Indonesia.
“Now, I am through with all that. I want to become a good man (laughter). I opened a karaoke and I also work
in the boxing world. I am the only one to have stayed on. My companions have all left Indonesia because of the
police who were looking for us. They settled down abroad: in Taiwan, Singapore or Hong-Kong. There are still
some pirates in Borneo, Surabaya or even in Jakarta. But many have switched to the smuggling of cigarettes.
They make trips to and fro between Batu Merah (in Batam) and Johor Baru (in Malaysia) where the prices are
more favorable.”
(Interview with the author on 25th February 2002)
This expansion, veritable manna for the pirates, also allowed them to blend into the
multitude of ships in the region. Finally, it led to structural changes131. The transition to an
urbanised and industrialised society further increased crime as the differences in revenues
increased132.
Deprived of the benefits of the ongoing economic growth, the coastal villages sought
their salvation at sea. This artisanal piracy is clearly illustrated by the image presented by
Weber and Roche:
“The Captains who traverse the Straits catch a glimpse of the illuminated skyscrapers of
[Singapore] from portside and the lamps of the shanty towns from starboard side. The
Malacca Straits are like Monte Carlo adjoining the Central African Republic, with a channel
as a narrow border133”.
John Vagg, 1995, p.66
Louise Shelley, Crime and Modernisation: The Impact of Industrialization and Urbanization on Crime,
Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1981.
133 Olivier Weber and Marc Roche, “Le Retour des Pirates”, Le Point, 8th August 1992
131
132
40
2.3.2. The economic crises and the promised sea134
According to Jean-Luc Domenach, author of l’Asie en danger, “the return of piracy shows
how progress and danger go together in the new regional zone of East Asia. Economic
development not only means more trade, but also (…) the economic differences which
motivate predatory activities135”.
If development and the inequalities which it causes are therefore conducive to maritime
piracy, crises also have the tendency to encourage it. On 2nd July 1997, the fall of the Thai
baht heralded an economic upheaval which was going to fall on Southeast Asia.
People were soon going to face the consequences, as victims of inflation and
unemployment. Brutal reactions were reported, as in Java where newly formed bands
attacked overloaded trucks around Lebaran, the festival celebrating the end of Ramadan. A
number of policemen were finally deployed along the communication routes to ensure the
security of the island that was more and more prone to crime, according to the national
police136.
The phenomenon logically spread to the sea. In 1996, 26 crewmembers were killed. The
number recorded two years later was three times higher.
At the level of the local revenues, the ransoms commonly demanded were certainly
motivating. In 1999, the figures in the Philippines were 20000 pesos (around 600 euros) for
a cargo of fish, 30000 pesos (900 euros) to free the crew members and 100000 pesos (3000
euros) to recover the trawler137.
Off the coast of Java and Sumatra, the pirates could, in fifteen minutes, earn more than
30 000 dollars138. Asia had already seen precedents. In the 10th century, the Japanese
peasants, ruined by the abusive taxes and duties, resorted to maritime pillage… as if
misery “destined one for the career of buccaneer139”.
BOARDING INCIDENT 2: KAMPUNG TANJUNG, DEN OF PIRATES
In spring 2002, Commander Muhammad Muda, chief of the Malaysian maritime police, claimed that the pirate
bands of Sumatra were proving to be a major source of concern. According to his inside agents, these small
gangs would be located in Pulau Rupat and Pulau Bengkalis (not far from the oil port of Dumai), at
Selatpanjang and especially, in the village of Kampung Tanjung built on piles140. This “peaceful” locality is
situated on a small island in the district of Batam, region reputed for its “opportunities”.
As everywhere else in Indonesia, the market road is colourful and the stalls bustling with life. Following the
muezzin’s call, the merchants fry their rice in their stalls for the pilots of the taxi boats and the rickshaws, the
becak, who come to have their fill before embarking on a long day of labour. This post card scene would almost
make one forget the pirates. Apart from some of its gaming rooms which remain open during the day, Kampung
Tanjung looks just like any other village on piles.
Gilles Lapouge, 1987 (sub-title: En marche vers la mer promise),
Jean-Luc Domenach, 1998, p.229
136 Reuters, “Indonesia to Deploy Police Snipers on Food-Transport Routes”, The Straits Times, 17th
December 1999, see also S. McElliggott, “Concern over Ship Piracy in Asia”, Business Recorder, 19th August
1999
137 Gilbert Rochu, “Les Pirates high-techs préfèrent les mers chaudes”, Marianne, 29th November 1999
138 “Malaysian Police Cripple Piracy Gang, Nab Three Indonesians”, AFP, 25th October 2000
139 Hubert Deschamps, Pirates et flibustiers, PUF, Que sais-je?, Paris, 1973, p.15
140 Interview with the author at the Headquarters of the Malaysian Police (Kuala Lumpur), 8th April 2002
134
135
41
At the far end of a jetty, Umarti confides in a low voice: “It is at eight o’ clock that the pirates begin to work.
Each evening, they come with a motor on their shoulder. They mount it on their sampan. Thus, they can easily
catch up with the cargo ships that cross the Straits, before boarding them”.
At two o’clock in the morning, the pirates get back to their den, at the far end of the bay that is sheltered by the
jetty. Their houses on piles, in the middle of a maze of rickety footbridges, are accessible only by sea. The
hideaway is ideal: an island amidst many others, only seven kilometres away from Singapore.
“In this kampung, there are around seven bands of five men. The oldest, who occupy beautiful buildings along
the hillside, train the younger generations. Recently, a group even came from Palembang (south of Sumatra) to
be trained on the job!” Crouched on his boat docked at the jetty, a sailor sporting Ray-Ban glasses denies, with
obvious insincerity, the words of his mate: “ Pirates, they existed an eternity ago… a century ago….”
At Kampung Tanjung, the police station is reduced to a crude cabin with a view onto the Straits. The frail
building overlooks the port. The island is small, everybody knows everyone else and the local police forces are
no doubt fully aware of the criminal activities that are carried on by some. It is true that larceny sometimes
benefits the whole community. The village mosque would thus have been built thanks to the booty from robbery
at sea. Torso bare, clad in a sarong, the policemen prefer to take some fresh air in front of the police station or
to visit the filles de joie in Pulau Babi “the island of the Pig”, very close by…
The sun is setting. Mohammed, who has a thin, graying moustache, is awaiting a call from Singapore. “A small
business”, he says, sporting a tiny smile. His house is too opulent for a poor fisherman…
We are however very far from the powerful triads of Hong Kong who make off with boats, repaint and rename
them. The attacks on the waters of Kampung Tanjung arise more from petty robbery. Their weapons are rather
worn. In the Sulu Sea, the gangs possess M-16 and even bazookas; at Kampung Tanjung, one has to be
satisfied with parang, long Malayan knives and some pistols.
Boarding incidents at night are a delicate affair, as the pirates can count neither on any GPS system nor of
course can they turn on spot lights. The backwash caused by the propellers of the ships they are chasing,
make climbing onto the boats perilous. This is done with the help of grapnels or big gaffs equipped with a sickle
at the end, more suitable for collecting coconuts than for boarding. “ One has to be suicidal to climb aboard a
ship from a small motorboat moving at 25 knots, covered with inferior undulated sheet metal!”, remarks JeanJacques Michallet, expert in the maritime field 141.
Once the attack has been completed, the pirates take flight jumping off the ship. The sea is around fifteen
meters below. There are accidents…
Armed with this observation, the President of the International Ship Owners
Association of Malaysia, Abdul Latif Abdullah, recalled in November 2000 that in the
Golden Triangle, drug trafficking had been checked thanks to the implementation of
substitute cultivation. Inspired by this experiment, he wished to encourage alternative
economic activities in the areas affected by piracy by developing, for instance, industry and
agriculture142. Abdul Rahim Hussin, Director of the Maritime Safety Policy in Malaysia,
said the same thing while declaring on the same day, “If we can fill their stomachs, they
will not engage in piracy143”. As for the Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori, he
proposed at the end of the year 2000, a plan to combat poverty along the Malacca Straits144.
This kind of preventive measure is recent and naturally difficult to implement in a regional
economic context, which remains depressed.
Interview with the author at Paris, 11th February 2002
Jimmy Yeow, “Littoral States Asked to Step Measures Against Piracy”, The Shipping Times, 14th
November 2000
143 “Malaysia-Piracy Sched”, AFP, 14th November 2000
144 “Japan Plans Anti-Poverty Program to Beat Piracy in Malacca Strait” AFP, 24th November 2000
141
142
42
2.3.3. “Cop or hooligan?”
It is difficult to highlight the links between piracy and the endemic corruption that
reigns in the Indonesian and Filipino archipelagos. However, one question surfaces
immediately- are the Government officials ideally placed to combat piracy? In October
2000, a group of ship owners called for a reaction from the Indonesian military authorities,
specifying that the pirates seemed to have a “military behaviour and a military past145”. At
the end of 1999, an investigation on piracy in Indonesia confirmed that Customs officials by
day could transform themselves into pirates by night. The maritime circles, one and all,
denounced the presence of rebel and corrupt elements among the military and the
Indonesian police. There is a lot of money to be made by disposing off petroleum from a
tanker in the black market, infinitely higher than the remuneration of a senior officer (the
monthly basic salary of a general was around 120 euros in the year 2000146). This “dark
alliance” between buccaneers, coastal patrols and officers of the Indonesian Navy was
particularly confirmed by an investigation conducted by a Thai daily147.
In fact, it is clear to all that the Indonesian army was confronted by “disciplinary
problems”. In 1993, the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, General Sudradjat,
acknowledged in a press conference that he had had to face numerous violations of
military regulations148. This is probably why the Japan Association for Marine Safety
(JAMS) made known its reservations against the transfer to Indonesia of patrol ships taken
from the Japanese fleet. In a confidential document in July 2000, the JAMS expressed its
fear of seeing these units “being utilised by the unscrupulous Indonesian military and
police wanting to engage, in their turn, in ill-intentioned acts”. This fear was justified by
the denouement of the Petro Ranger. A diplomatic incident was only just avoided between
Malaysia- the victim- and China- who retained the ship “for investigation” for several
weeks. The twelve pirates were finally deported by the Chinese authorities to their country
of origin- Indonesia. And to the great displeasure of the Malaysian authorities, the pirates
were set free a few days later149.
Testimonies like that of Captain Millar, in charge of the Seakittle attacked on 21st October
1991, had already mentioned the use of commando techniques, good English and the
capability of the pirates as far as transmission150 was concerned. In 1993, in the Baltimar
Zéphyr case, the investigation was hampered by political considerations and finally
resulted in the drawing up of conclusions judged by the IMB and the British authorities as
erroneous. Despite evidence of a pirate attack, the Indonesian official in charge of the
inquiry into the deaths of the British captain John Bashforth and the Filipino First Officer
Teodolfo Pereja, had hastily concluded that there had been a mutiny led by the Chief
Engineer151.
In any case, the friction between the Indonesian headquarters and the regional military
command, desirous of increasing their autonomy by establishing links with the business
world and certain private militia, has been referred to several times during the last few
years. The highest spheres of the State themselves are not above suspicion. (Refer to
Boarding Incident 3).
“Unrest in Indonesia fuels Piracy Attacks”: Anti-Piracy WatchDog”, AFP, 8th October 2000
Eric Ellis, “Anti-Piracy Act”, Time, 14th December 1999, On the remuneration of soldiers in Indonesia see
Arnaud Dubus and Nicolas Revise, Armée du people, Armée du roi – Les Militaires face à la société en Indonésie
et en Thaïlande, IRASEC – L’Harmattan, Bangkok – Paris, 2002, p.159
147 Andreas Harsono, “Dark Alliance rules the High Seas”, The Nation (Bangkok), 13th April 1999
148 John Vagg, “Rough Seas? Contemporary Piracy in Southeast Asia” in The British Journal of Criminology,
vol. 35, nº 1, 1995, p. 76
149 Gilbert Rochu, “Les Pirates high-tech préfèrent les mers chaudes”, Marianne, 29th November 1999
150 John Vagg, 1995, p.76
151 ICC-IMB, Piracy Reporting Centre, Progress Report, Barking, ICC-CCS, 1st August 2000, p.4
145
146
43
BOARDING INCIDENT 3: SONY WEI AND THE POSSIBLE TRIAD OF LIEM SIOE LIONG
This network was brought to light in the case in Shanwei, China, of 38 sailors accused of intercepting the
Cheung Son in November 1998, before killing the 23 members of its crew.
Though the Economist, in December 1998, only mentions this triad152, an article taken from the site
www.geocities.com provides more details153. The Cheung Son, which was heading for Malaysia from Shanghai
and which was managed by the Hong Kong based Walbert Steamship Company, was intercepted in the South
China Sea by armed men on 16th November 1998. They were able to get on board by introducing themselves
as Officials in charge of the fight against smuggling; a subterfuge frequently resorted to by East Asian pirates.
After the disappearance of the crew, the cargo was sold to a third party, as was the custom with “phantom
ships”. The transaction was valued at 300 000 dollars.
On 9th September 1999, the gang then tried to capture a Singaporean ship, the Louisa, which was transporting
palm oil on the South China Sea. However, the hijacking failed and the 21 crew members were released near
the Philippines. At the end of the month, the brigands were, on the other hand, able to make off with a Korean
ship that was transporting sugarcane. Cigarettes, silver and video CDs were also stolen on this occasion.
At the end of the case which took place in December 1999, one Indonesian and twelve Chinese were
sentenced to death, nineteen persons were imprisoned and six freed.
According to the IMB, the mastermind behind these pirates was Weng Siliang, a businessman of Shanwei. He
would have ordered Suoni Wei, an Indonesian aged twenty-seven years to kill all the crew members. Wei
arranged for the disappearance of the sailors of the Cheung Son. He was sentenced to capital punishment.
According to some sources whom one should consider with caution, Suoni Wei, whose real name was Sony
Weng, was in reality working for an Indonesian businessman of Chinese origin called Liem Sioe Liong (alias
Anthony Salim of Indonesia’s Salim group), close to Suharto, the former autocrat of Jakarta. In 1999, Liem
controlled one of the most powerful Indonesian groups (Indocement, Indofood), with important ramifications in
the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong and China. According to Andreas Harsono, he managed in all probability
an enormous triad that would become active once more in the Fujian, benefiting from protection at the highest
level of political office and the Chinese Government. This organisation would maintain connections with the
mafia groups of the United States and Canada, particularly with the gang of the Lotus rouge (Red Lotus)154.
Other sources indicate that Liem Sioe Liong would have also supervised the wave of clandestine passengers,
essentially Chinese, headed for the Canadian, American and Australian coasts, the latter paying heavily for
their passage (at least 30000 dollars). In addition to managing these services of clandestine immigration, Liem
Sioe Liong is suspected of kidnapping young girls in Southeast Asia to sell them for prostitution155.
Indonesia is not the only one involved. On 11th November 1993, correspondence from
the French Embassy to the Philippines reported the disbanding of 444 “private militia” and
the seizure of more than 16000 firearms156. In 1991, a Japanese ship relieved of its sailors
was even sold to fishermen by the Deputy Mayor of the nearby island of Zamboanga.
However, Manila never investigated it in order to ensure that its loyalty to the struggle
against the armed rebellion in Mindanao remained unendangered157.
Finally, there is the notorious case of the Chinese coastguards that puzzled the Japan
Association for Marine Safety. For the Association, the independence enjoyed by these
government employee-pirates vis-à-vis the Central power was questionable. According to
the JAMS, Peking would have turned a blind eye for a long time to the incidents that were
taking place on its waters. On their part, the Chinese authorities referred to the conclusions
of the 72nd session of the MSC (Maritime Safety Committee). This Committee of the IMO
(International Maritime Organisation) had emphasised, in May 2000, the relative calm of
the Chinese waters, spared from piracy since early 1999. It had laid emphasis on the arrest
Anonymous, “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, The Economist, 18th December 1999, p.95
Vu Kim Chung, “13 Pirates Sentenced to Death”, in www.geocities.com, 22nd December 1999
154Andreas Harsono, “Dark Alliance Rules the High Seas”, The Nation (Bangkok), 13th April 1999
155 “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, The Economist, 18th December 1999 and Pierre Prier, “La Mort pour les
mafieux de la mer”, Le Figaro, 24th December 1999
156 David-Anthony Delavoet, 1995, p.20
157 Olivier Weber and Marc Roche, “Le Retour des pirates:, Le Point, 8th August 1992
152
153
44
and later, on the sentencing, in January 2000, of the bandits who had attacked the Cheung
Son in November 1998.
2.4. Legal Causes
The outbreak of piracy can at least partly be explained by the weaknesses of the legal
framework. The latter is based on the agreements of the Montego Bay Convention (1982)
and the Rome Convention (1988). Now, these two texts, either because they define piracy in
a lacunary fashion or because they have not been sufficiently ratified, can hardly be
perceived otherwise than as fragile milestones on the road of the anti-piracy war.
2.4.1. The initial legal considerations
The history of the search for a clear definition of piracy reflects the complexity of the
procedure. The first effort of codification in matters of piracy dates back to a committee of
the Society of Nations (SON), in 1924. Nations, at that time, had great difficulty agreeing
upon the crimes that the concept covered. This difficulty revealed, among others, an
incapacity to perceive the problem other than from a state-centred point of view. Not
arriving at a convention, the SON incited the Harvard Law School to found another
committee. The work of the American academics concluded with the drafting of a
convention158. The authors of the text wanted it to be integrated into the existing
international legal order, but emphasized on piracy jure gentium (in international public
law) rather than on provisions made in the national law. Despite its ultimate failure, this
move, according to Samuel Menefee, renowned specialist on maritime violence, constituted
an interesting step159. Besides, he draws attention to the influence of the Harvard legal
experts on the debates in 1954, when during the Cold War, the United Nations discussed
acts of piracy perpetrated in the vicinity of Taiwan. The political dimension of this violence
was disturbing.
The following year, the Commission of International Law of the United Nations in its
turn, studied maritime crime as it is viewed today. Should the definition of piracy take into
account political motivations? From which point do acts of piracy motivated by political
considerations become international crimes? Should the right of investigation and research
be limited to certain waters? In which places does international law apply? Will the attacks
against airplanes be considered piracy? So many questions that resulted, in 1958, in the
Convention on the high seas. This text, which came into force in 1962, was the first real
codification of international law insofar as maritime piracy was concerned. Sections 13 to
19 deal primarily with this subject and Section 15 which defines, in particular, the nature of
crime would have directly inspired Section 101 of the United Nations Convention on the
Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) signed in 1982 in Montego Bay (Jamaica)
From 1958 to 1982, the provisions regulating piracy on the high seas hardly evolved
despite the creation of the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ)160 and the new questions that
Barry Hart Dubner, Maritime Violence – The Problems with Modern Day Piracy, Malaysian Institute of
Maritime Affairs, Issue Paper 9/95, Kuala Lumpur, September 1995, p.5-6
159 Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, “Special Report: Trends in Maritime Violence”, in Jane’s Information Group, 1996, p. 6
160 Born from an unilateral decision of some States demanding the exercise of sovereign rights on the
resources of an area extending up to 200 miles from their coasts, the EEZ was established by the Montego
Bay Convention of 10th December 1982. The coastal State receives in exclusivity all rights of purely
economic nature that can be exercised in this area. (Raymon Guillien and Jean Vincent (dir.) Lexique des
termes juridiques, Dalloz, Paris, 1990, p. 502)
158
45
were raised in its wake. In the tense situation between the coastal States and the
international community, the discussions opposing the representatives of governments
resulted in the “diplomatic fudging” that is the Montego Bay Convention161.
2.4.2. The Montego Bay Convention: a definition
that is both too restrictive and too broad
Aricle15 of the Geneva Convention of 29th April 1958 as also Article101 of the Montego
Bay Convention of 10th December 1982, that entered into force on 16th November 1994, lay
down at least three conditions for defining piracy: two ships, personal motivations as also a
place: the high seas. The 1st article of the Geneva Convention defines the high seas as “parts
of the sea that are not part of territorial seas or territorial waters”. The Montego Bay
Convention further excludes the Exclusive Economic Zone from the provisions laid down
in Part VI. However, there is one exception, if the interests in question concern “the entire
international community” (Article 59), certain acts committed within the EEZ may be
qualified as acts of piracy162. For the moment, only these provisions are legally valid, those
of the IMB being purely indicative.
By acknowledging piracy only on the high seas, international law gives a lot of leeway
to pirates. All violent acts committed within the territorial waters of a State fall within its
jurisdiction. But the inspection of a ship can take place only on the territorial waters where
the infraction was committed, even on international waters. If the chase began on the high
seas, it should end as soon as the miscreants enter the waters of another State, unless there
is an explicit authorisation 163
That is why pirates generally act at the border of the territorial waters of a State in order
to be able to escape into those of its neighbour as soon as a pursuit is launched. The bandits
thus experience a “feeling of growing impunity164”.
Article 111 of the Montego Bay Convention
Right of pursuit (extracts)
1. (…) The pursuit should begin while the foreign ship or one of its boats is in the internal waters (…) of the
pursuing State, and cannot be continued beyond the borders of the territorial sea or adjacent area except if it
has not been interrupted. (…)
3. The right of pursuit ceases as soon as the pursued ship enters into the territorial seas of the State to which it
belongs or of another State.
It is this right of pursuit, nicknamed “hot pursuit” that raises doubts about the efficiency
of the patrols165. By the time they receive a notification authorising them to continue the
pursuit beyond their territorial waters, the coastguards can only helplessly watch the
escape of the pirates, who are faster and less concerned about respecting sovereign rights.
As the composition of the gangs, often multinational in nature illustrates, the pirates are
above all “citizens of the world” or, at the very least, in the region, they are “citizens of the
Malay world”. They mock at the established borders as much as the Filipinos of the Sulu
161 Metaphor used in baking borrowed by Samuel P. Menefee, 1999. Fudge is a confectionary item made of
sugar, butter and milk
162 Laurent Lucchini and Michel Voelckel, Droit de la mer, tome 2, delimitation, navigation, fishing, Pédone,
Paris, 1996, p.164
163 David-Anthony Delavoet, 1995, p. 70-71. For more information, see also Laurent Lucchini and Michel
Voelckel, 1996, p. 165
164 Serge Desponds, 1999, p.320
165 Jimmy Yeow, “Need to Form Joint Body to Combat Piracy in Straits”, The Business Times, 15th November
2000
46
archipelago spread out between the refugee camps at Sabah and on the island of
Mindanao. In fact, the police of Ketam, island off the port of Kuala Lumpur, confirmed that
the pirates of Sumatra preferred waiting to attack on the high seas at the border of the
territorial waters, before withdrawing rapidly from the other side of the border. The case of
the MV Hazel 1, attacked in October 2000 not far from Singapore, perfectly illustrates this.
For more than two months, the boat’s crew was waiting for spares to repair their
broken-down motors166 at only eleven miles off the Singaporean coast but beyond the
territorial waters. The pirates attacked at this exact point, aware that the Singaporean
coastguards did not have the right to sail there167.
However, by including “any act of violence” or of “ depravation” against persons or
goods on board a ship, the Montego Bay Convention has proved to be innovative. It goes
well beyond the simple definition of acts of piracy, by including acts of vandalism or
quarrels.
2.4.3. The Rome Convention: a relevant text, albeit not ratified
Following the taking of hostage of the passengers of the Achille Lauro by a Palestinian
commando on 7th October 1985, the international community tried to perfect a new tool to
concretely fight maritime violence. This study resulted in the adoption, on 10th March 1988,
of the Convention on the suppression of illicit acts against the safety of maritime
navigation, under the auspices of the International Maritime Organisation.
In fact, this text, termed by some as “ a treaty that is relevant to the suppression of
piracy168”, takes up again the multilateral legal antiterrorist instruments169, that contribute
two interesting elements: an operational definition of piracy and a framework for legal
cooperation.
As in the case of terrorism, the question of piracy is a very sensitive issue with the states.
In fact, even the term “piracy” is not used, but its practices are carefully broken down (see
inset below).
As is the custom and echoing Article 95 of the Montego Bay Convention (immunity
granted to military ships on high seas), Article 2 of the Rome Convention specifies that
warships are excluded.
However, for the first time, an international convention does not limit itself to a few
cases in particular. The 1988 Convention covers a number of reprehensible acts that can be
treated as piracy, considered in broad terms from then on.
The prerogatives of the States are also extended in matters of intervention. The Rome
Convention, circumventing the restriction of 1982 which limited piracy to acts perpetrated
on the high seas, can henceforth be applied “if the ship is sailing or if, as per its navigation
plan, it must sail through waters, across waters, or is coming from waters situated beyond
the external borders of the territorial seas of a single State”.
166
167
Chong Chee Kin, “Pirates’ Attempt to Hijack Ship Thwarted”, The Straits Times, 6th October 2000
Donald Urquhart, “Pirates Attack Ship just Outside S’pore Waters”, The Shipping Times, 5th October 2000
Zou Keyuan, The Crackdown of Piracy in the South China Sea and Prospects for Regional Cooperation, Society
of International Law, Issues of Public International Law, Singapore, 1998, p. 5
169 Interview with Gilles Huberson, 21st September 2000, Kuala Lumpur
168
47
Article 3 of the Rome Convention Definition (Extract)
1. Any person is said to commit a penal infraction, who, intentionally or illicitly
a) seizes a ship or takes over control by violence or threat of violence; or
b) commits an act of violence against a person on board a ship, if this act is such that it compromises
the navigational safety of the ship; or
c) destroys a ship or causes damages to a ship or its cargo that compromise the navigational safety of
the ship; or
d) places or gets placed on the ship a substance that would destroy the ship or cause damages to the
ship or its cargo that compromise the navigational safety of the ship; or
e) destroys or seriously damages the equipment or services of maritime navigation (…);
communicates information which he knows to be false and, in this manner, compromises the
navigational safety of the ship; or
f) injures or kills any person, when these facts have any connection to one of the infractions laid down in
the paragraphs a) to f) (…);
2. Any person is also said to commit a penal infraction who: a) tries (…) b) incites (…) or c) threatens to commit
any one of the infractions laid down in the paragraphs b) c) and e) of Subsection1.
Another extension concerns the target. On 10th March 1988, the Protocol for the
repression of illicit acts against the safety of fixed oil rigs situated on the continental shelf
took up once more the terms of the Rome Convention to qualify as penal infraction any act
of seizure of a fixed oil rig or exercise of control through violence. Unlike the Montego Bay
Convention, it is the behaviour at sea rather than the target (ship or oil rig) that is
important, that is to say the techniques used, similar to maritime guerilla warfare, as also
the extent of violence, threats, surprise and escape into international or foreign waters.
Extension finally as piracy is no longer limited to “personal motivations” inspired by
only animo furandi (purely monetary motivation).
The Rome Convention however has its limitations. The acts of the crew which “ pertain
to discipline on board” are explicitly excluded in the preamble. In this manner, brawls and
mutinies cannot be treated as acts of piracy. Besides, unless there is destruction or
disturbance that affects navigation, the text does not take into consideration the violence
committed. Threats, robbery and coastal crime are therefore excluded from the definition.
In this respect, the Montego Bay Convention was broader, despite not being more precise,
as it included “violence”, “detention”, “depravation” against “persons and goods”.
To conclude temporarily on the question of the definition, let us simply note that the
terms retained in the fourth paragraph of the Preamble of the Rome Convention may
appeal to people who are indecisive as it includes “planned illicit acts against the safety of
maritime navigation [that] compromise the safety of persons and goods, seriously impede
the operation of maritime services and undermine the confidence of people the world over
in the safety of maritime navigation”.
Further, the major progress of 1988 deals in fact with the possibilities of enforcement. In
this area, the Montego Bay Convention was not very emphatic as it only required that the
States cooperate “ as far as possible” (Article 100). In the Rome Convention, every person
who is party to the contract is required to undertake the necessary measures to exercise its
jurisdiction on the acts defined in the text or to extradite the offender. The persons
responsible for the acts of piracy thus become “international criminals” who can be tried
anywhere. Aut dedere, aut judicare (either we extradite, or we judge): this principle generally
allied to terrorism may also be applied to piracy.
48
Apart from extradition ( Articles 7 to 11), the legal cooperation laid down by the Rome
Convention targets both prevention ( Articles 13 and 14) and investigation procedures
subsequent to the attack ( Articles 12 and 15). Its impact could very rapidly be a
determining factor. The case of the Petro Ranger, detained by China while Malaysia
demanded the extradition of the pirates, clearly demonstrates its impact on application as
far as the countries are concerned (refer to Boarding Incident 4)
BOARDING INCIDENT 4: THE PETRO RANGER TAKEN HOSTAGE IN CHINESE PORTS
The Petro Ranger, property of the Singaporean ship owner Petroships, was sailing under the Malaysian flag
and transporting 11000 tons of kerosene and diesel when it disappeared on 16th April 1998 in the Straits of
Balabac, not far from the Filipino island of Palawan. According to the Australian captain of the Petro Ranger,
the pirates organised as a commando unit, were led by a dozen Indonesians170. They had arrived on speed
boats, all lights turned off, and remained in contact through mobile phones with their informants in the port of
Singapore and their partners in Hong Kong. No sooner was the crew overpowered, than the ship, which was
repainted and then renamed Wilby, headed for South China. Twelve days later, a Chinese military ship
intercepted it. In the meantime, one-third of the cargo had been transferred to a boat sailing under the Chinese
flag, the Jin Chao.
After being taken to Haikou with a military escort (South China), the Petro Ranger and its crew were detained,
“protected”, according to the Chinese authorities171, for forty-five days. The men were forced to sign a
deposition in which they declared that they were engaged in smuggling. The Chinese authorities considered
themselves entitled to confiscate the cargo which was entirely siphoned off172. After a month of negotiations,
the Australian Consulate finally obtained the captain’s freedom. A few days later, the crew retook possession of
the oil ship and brought it back to Singapore.
Malaysia demanded the extradition of the twelve Indonesians involved in the hijacking but the pirates were
released on 30th May. Backing the protests of Kuala Lumpur, a member of the IMB brought up the law in force:
Malaysia having requested extradition, China should have been obliged to take this request into account, the
Rome Convention which establishes as many rights as duties in the area of the struggle against piracy being
absolutely clear in this respect173.
Besides, this was a case of pirates who had seized a ship and who had taken control through violence or the
threat of violence ( Article 3 §1a). Consequently, by application of the principle aut dedare, aut judiciare (see
above), China theoretically had only one alternative. Either it took “the necessary steps to establish its
jurisdiction” insofar as the presumed perpetrators of the infraction “were on its territory and it was not extraditing
them” (Article 6 §4). Or it extradited the Indonesian citizens to Malaysia, in accordance with Article 11§1,
according to which “the infractions laid down in Article 3 are rightfully considered as a case of extradition under
any treaty of extradition concluded between the signatory States”.
We will note however that in the whole of the Asia-Pacific area, only Australia, India
and Japan had ratified the text174. Four months later, the signatures of 150 of the 192
member nations of the United Nations Organisation were still missing. Indonesia (119
attacks), Bangladesh (55 attacks) and the Malacca Straits (75 attacks) who sail the
Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian waters, account for more than half the acts of
piracy in the world. Yet, in January 2001, not a single one of these nations had ratified the
Convention. The Malaysian Security Council has since then declared that it will carefully
study the question, “conscious of the utility” of the text in the struggle against piracy175.
Read the testimony of the ship’s captain: Ken Blyth, Petro Pirates: The Hijacking of the Petro Ranger, Allen
and Unwin, Sydney, 2000
171 “Hijackers Arrested by Maritime Police”, Muzi Daily News, 5th May 1998
172 Hélène Vissière, “Mer de Chine: Sur la route des pirates”, Le Point, nº 1419, 26th November 1999
173 D. Hughes, “China Obliged to Crack Down on Piracy”, The Shipping Times, 6th November 1998
174 “Deter Piracy Attacks by Punishing Offenders”, The Shipping Times, 26th January 2000
175 Interview with Abdul Rahim Hussin, director of the Department of National Security in the Prime
Minister’s Cabinet, 5th October 2000
170
49
On the same note, in November 2000, an official of the Singaporean Coastguards
acknowledged the importance of the ratification. Their reticence in this respect is related to
the fact that they see in this text an element of restriction, albeit insignificant, to the exercise
of their sovereignty.
2.4.4 A highly under-estimated threat
The definitional problem born of the difference between the Montego Bay Convention
and that of Rome hampers the institution of a unified statistical apparatus, thus making it
impossible to have any credible analysis. The data collected differs considerably according
to the bodies and the texts adopted. Thus, the majority of the attacks against fishing ships,
even though they are reported to the local police, are never communicated to the IMB,
which itself constituted its statistical apparatus only in the early 1990s. They have been
classified as theft or robbery rather than as piracy176. Eric Ellen even maintained that in the
Philippines, in 1993, the Regional Centre of piracy177 would not have registered at least 143
aggressions that cost the life of nearly 30 people. In 1998, the Filipino Navy counted 139
acts of piracy while the IMB enumerated only six178.The following year the web site
www.maritimesecurity.com estimated the number of unreported attacks at 130179. The very
large gap that separates the figures of the IMB (91) from those furnished by the authorities
of Manila (1108) between January 1991 and September 2000 would prove that the
magnitude of the phenomenon of piracy today is fundamentally under-estimated180.
While the legal experts debate on the elements that are to be retained for defining acts of
piracy, many private players withhold information. Around one-third of the maritime
companies in Singapore acknowledge only in private, attacks against their ships181. An
enterprise that would admit having been victim of such an incident would in fact risk
affecting its credibility and therefore its business182. Their reluctance to inform the
authorities of the aggressions is even greater as this would mean additional expenditure.
First, because at the time of recruitment, the personnel would be reluctant to sail into
dangerous waters and it would therefore necessitate higher salaries. Further and
particularly because the berthing of a ship for investigation purposes results in significant
expenditure (the cost of keeping of a cargo ship at port is estimated to be between 15000
and 40000 euros per day183). Finally because of the fear of insurance premia going up. It is
in any case what Christopher Rome, officer of the Lloyd’s Syndicate of Maritime Insurance
predicts, when he declares that “piracy, we can live with, it is enough to increase the
premia184”. Besides, the insurers tend to mistrust their own clients. Piracy or fraud, the
disappearance of crew, cargos and boats is quite common.
The maritime authorities, on their part, fear that their image will be tarnished if they
acknowledge attacks within their jurisdiction. It is probably why, in September 2000, the
officers in charge of the naval Headquarters on the Indonesian island of Bintan (to the
south of Singapore) declared peremptorily that there was not a single act of piracy to report
John Vagg, 1995, p.65
Cited by Peter Chalk, 1997, p.29
178 Solomon Kane and Laurent Passicousset, “La Piraterie symptome d’une Asie fragilisée”, Le Monde
diplomatique, June 2000, p.6
179 www.maritimesecurity.com, 1999
180 Correspondence with the Head quarters of the Filipino police
181 Peter Chalk, 1997, p.7
182 Barry Hart Dubner, September 1995, p.7
183 Peter Chalk, 1997, p.22; Gilbert Rochu, “Les Pirates high-tech préfèrent les mers chaudes”, Marianne,
29th November 1999
176
177
50
in their sector185. Over the last twelve months, the IMB however had recorded more than a
hundred. The same year, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore too emphasised on
the safety of its territorial waters, forgetting the raid led from the sea against the Taoist
temple on the island of Kusu186.
Finally, good neighbourly relations require that States handle their neighbours with
diplomacy rather than accuse them of laxism or spite.
185
186
Interview with the author at Tanjung Pinang on 16th September 2000
The Straits Times, 3rd January 2000
51
Chapter 3
The Various Manifestations of Maritime Piracy
in Southeast Asia
Arriving at a consensus on the typology of piracy seems to be as difficult as arriving at a
unanimous definition of this phenomenon. Each one’s interest broadly determines the
modes of classification. In August 1992, Eric Ellen made a distinction between attacks
affecting ships and those targeting goods187. Further, he differentiated between social and
commercial threats. On his part, Daniel Perret, researcher in the Ecole française d’Extrême
Orient (French School of the Far East), made a distinction between “artisanal” piracy and
that which relied on international networks. The former would target the personal effects
of the crew and light equipment; the latter would be more interested in freight and fuel188.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore and the Singapore Shipping Association
(SSA) agree on this distinction. Both of them emphasise on the differences, decisive
according to them, between piracy stricto sensu, on a large scale targeting the cargo of ships
sailing the high seas, and coastal armed robbery. The SSA desires that nations take interest
particularly in the first category, pertaining to organised crime and attacks against ships in
transit. Besides, it speaks of the risks that threaten the environment in case an oil tanker
runs aground.
During a seminar in Newport (United States) in 1995, Kwek Siew Jin, who led the
Singaporean Navy, laid emphasis on the duration of the hijacking. He thus brought up
distinctions between temporary seizures, detentions of longer duration, “the disappeared
boat is detained for several days, the time taken to unload the cargo”, and permanent
sequestrations189. The first two cases would be characteristic of the South China Sea; the last
would primarily concern Southeast Asia and the Malay Straits.
As far as typology is concerned, we can hardly consider the nationality of the ships as a
criterion of analysis due to the fact that there are many flags of convenience. Except in rare
cases (some Chinese pirates exclusively attacked Russian ships), the motivations are more
pecuniary than nationalist. This constitutes one of the main differences between piracy and
terrorism: the flag does not matter as long as the cargo is taken. We will note however that
thirteen ships attacked in 1998 were Malaysian, whichprobably had some influence on the
awareness of the phenomenon in Kuala Lumpur. Likewise, it is the number of Japanese
ships, subject to pirate attacks which that prompted the Japanese Prime Minister Keizo
Obuchi to moot an international conference on the issue.
Eric Ellen, “Maritime Crime”, in CBI Bulletin, vol. 26, No.8, August 1998, p.15
Daniel Perret, 1998, p.135
189 Kwek Siew Jin, Sea Robberies in the Singapore Straits – The RSN Experience, International Seapower
Symposium, Newport, United States, November 1995, 13 p.
187
188
52
As far as the definition is concerned, we will for our part refer to the IMO
classification190. Between 15th June 1998 and 15th June 1999, a specialised website termed
84% of the recorded attacks as “random incidents191”. They were cases of “minor armed
robbery” (MAR). But 9% of the attacks ended in the capture of cargo (“Armed robbery and
aggression of intermediate degree”- ARAID). Finally, 7% of the attacks led to the
disappearance of the ship, probably transformed into a “phantom ship” (“serious criminal
hijacking”-SCH).
3.1. Minor Piracy ( “Minor Armed Robbery”- MAR)
“Minor armed robbery” concerns the attacks and robbery that take place in the ports
and in the vicinity of the coasts and whose victims are fishermen and yachtsmen. By MAR,
the IMO means an opportunistic attack, led along the coasts on small, very rapid boats and
perpetrated by bandits (maritime muggers), habitually equipped with knives. They
generally target cash locked up in the safe and personal valuables. The value of items
stolen most often ranges between 5000 and 15000 dollars192.
In most cases, these pirates originate from the world of seamen. We find in their midst
fishermen, sailors, even former soldiers from the Navy, who are therefore perfectly wellinformed about the environment of maritime transport. During the eighties, the Kuala
Lumpur police would have identified 24 bands of pirates in the vicinity of Borneo alone193.
In 2000, six of them were still sailing (Kumpulan Pipi Uwah,, Kumpulan Sarikal Alihal,
Kumpulan Akil Jani, Kumpulan Tandanan, Kumpulan Madjuran and Kumpulan Akil
Dewan).
3.1.1. Attacks on ports
In Southeast Asia, more than three-quarters of the incidents occur in territorial waters,
most often within the ports (at moorage or on the quai)194. This is especially the case in
Malaysia, where, in 1999, several incidents occurred on the quais of Bintulu, in the State of
Sarawak (to the north of Borneo). In general, men armed with parang (long knives) and
pistols board anchored ships with the help of motor boats. A collaboration with the air
force should have been envisaged to strengthen the security near the port facilities.
Despite the efforts of the Singaporean authorities, the Malacca Straits also faced attacks
against ships in transit within its ports. This was how in 1998, the navigational equipment
of one of the tugs of a French maritime company operating in Southeast Asia was
completely dismantled and stolen near the port of Batu Ampar (Batam).
The Manila Bay and the coastal facilities of Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
are hardly spared, even though the majority of the incidents are never reported. In 1994, it
was hoped that the incidents that occurred in the Indonesian ports of Dumai and
Surabaya195 for example, were isolated cases. But the weekly reports of the Regional Centre
for Piracy in Kuala Lumpur clearly reported the gravity of the phenomenon, warning that
“the boats contacting the Indonesian ports of Belawan, Dumai, Merak, Samarinda and
Tanjung Priok mentioned numerous attacks (…). Attacks were also reported in Chittagong
IMO, 28th February/ 10th March 1993, p.14-15
Source: www.maritimesecurity.com, June 1999
192 Edward Furdson, Mai 1995, p.166
193 Muguntan Vanar, “Plunderers from the High Waters”, The Star, 22nd May 2000, p.10
194 IMO, January 2000, p.4
195 Eric Ellen “La Piraterie maritime en 1994”, in Revue internationale de police criminelle, March-April 1994, p.4
190
191
53
and Mongla (Bangladesh), as also at Chennai (India). Boats here were victims of thefts of
zinc plates welded on the sides or the stern of the ships…”196.
In South Asia, raids led from the west coast of Sri Lanka by organised gangs increased
in number197. There too, the boats were often attacked by a small commando of two to five
men, often armed only with knives. The attack was often brief, the pirates looking only for
money and personal effects198.
3.1.2. The coastal attacks
Fishermen are the main victims of the recurrent piracy in the Malaysian waters.Is it due
to lassitude? The fact remains that the acts perpetrated against them are rarely reported199.
Things are different for the incidents targeting yachts which the Western press does not
fail to report. Some fishermen too engage in buccaneering, sometimes reduced to this
extremity by the increasing pressure on the environment, the concomitant impoverishment
of the fishing resources and the economic crisis which recently shook the region.
They therefore hunt the small yachts, easy targets for groups without either special
equipment or any particular skills. But in 1995, an entire village took control of a 120 foot
luxury yacht used for diving in the south of Ambon (in the Moluccas, in Indonesia).
At the exact time when dinner was served to the twenty-two guests, fishermen, armed
with lances, climbed on board. The chief of the village demanded 10000 dollars. Following
Weekly reports available on the site www.icc-ccs.org
Eddie Toh “S’pore- Registered Ship Raided in Colombo Port”, The Shipping Times, 5th January 2000.
198 Samuel Pyeatt Menefee “Any Port in a Storm”, in Eric Ellen (ed.), Ports at Risk, International Chamber of
Commerce- International Maritime Bureau, Paris, 1993, p.289.
199 “Fishermen in Semporna not affected by Abduction Incident in Sipadan”, Utusan Express, 7th May 2000
196
197
54
a tussle between the crew and the assailants, the worst was finally prevented. The incident
would have cost the crew only 500 dollars200.
Despite the fact that they are relatively rare, these attacks arouse fantasies and some
even go to the extent of thinking that there is a pirate slumbering within every inhabitant of
Southeast Asia.
Strangely enough the weekly magazine Newsweek reported the words of a German
yachtsman advising his colleagues against fraternizing with the natives if they did not
want to find themselves robbed201. Along the same lines, Voile magazine published in
November 1998 an article by Vincent Goudis, also the author of Cap’tain Vagabond (Albin
Michel):
“As for Thailand, the fishermen, who can no longer exploit the boat people, now attack
yachts more seriously (previously there were only a few rare disappearances). North of
New Guinea and Irian Jaya: do not lay anchor, the pirates arrive on boats at night. Coasts
of Vietnam: the pirates are real professionals. Between the Indonesian islands: the pirates
are very well equipped and attack especially the cargo ships, but be careful, don’t be too
confident at night. As for Sulu: do not go there. The pirates are poor, cruel and nobody
controls them202”.
To sum up, the periodical seems to suggest that one should not leave the Grau-du-Roi
or Port-Camargue…203. The racing boats themselves felt threatened: an annual race
between Darwin (Australia) and Ambon (in the Moluccas) was cancelled in 1999. Only the
competitors of the Vendée Globe Challenge, in the latitude below the fifties, seem to be
protected.
Bordering on armed robbery at sea, our “artisan pirates” sometimes venture into more
ambitious operations.
For example: an attack suffered by a Malaysian boat, the Antara dua, and its ten crew
members. In August 2000, they were carrying Protons (national car of Malaysia) from Port
Klang ( near Kuala Lumpur) to Kuching (in Sarawak, in Eastern Malaysia). Nine pirates,
armed with machetes, boarded the ship early in the morning to lay their hands on 7200
ringitts (around 1900 euros), a television, mobile telephones, watches, shoes and clothes204.
3.2. Organised Piracy (“Armed Robbery and Agression
of Intermediate Degree” - ARAID)
This involves violent action aiming at pillage or theft of boats on the high seas or on
territorial waters. This practice is not as common as armed robbery at sea, but is more
likely to upset navigation insofar as the crew is overpowered for a longer time whereas the
boat is not immobilised. In order to be thus categorised, the attacks must be led by wellorganised gangs, usually heavily armed. The distinction is therefore made according to the
identity of the pirates. It may be a question of rebels from the national army who act from a
boat205 which serves as a base or a port. The bands are sometimes affiliated to a local
personality. In this case, they act as private militia.
Dorinda Elliot, “Where Pirates Still Sail”, Newsweek, 5th July 1999
202 Vincent Goudis, “Les Risques dans le Sud-Est asiatique”, Voile magazine, November 1998
203 Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, “Any Port in a Storm”, in Eric Ellen (ed.) 1993, p.294.
204 “Pirates Attack Malaysian Ship”, The Shipping Times, 28th August 2000
205 Edward Furdson, May 1995, p. 166
200
201
55
BOARDING INCIDENT 5: “MYSTERIOUS” ACCIDENTS
- North-eastern region of Borneo, Mahakam river delta.
“On account of the heavy traffic of petroleum equipment moving along this coast, large-scale operations may be
led by the pirates. This is how one of our barges, in perfect condition, capsized while the sea was perfectly
calm. We never knew the exact location of the shipwreck, but the barge, miraculously righted itself and came
back to its home base.
“As for the cargo of pipes that could have easily been recovered, as the depth of the waters in this region was
not more than fifteen metres, it had completely disappeared. We are totally convinced that it was an act of
piracy rather than a shipwreck. It was an operation conducted with huge resources: barge, crane, experienced
crew…”
- Island of Madura, opposite the port of Surabaya (East-Java):
“The Strait that forms the island of Madura with the East Coast of Java is reputed for its acts of piracy. From
among thirty barges approximately, one was deliberately driven onto a beautiful sandy beach which was easy
to access. The covered cargo consisted of 18-meters steel beams, each weighing thirty tons. Unfortunately for
the pirates, the booty was beyond their logistic means.
“The tragedy is that there is no recourse against deliberate running aground of a ship. In the case of
conventional acts of piracy, a simple police report allows us to get the insurers of the cargo owners to intervene.
But in this particular case, absolutely no investigation was undertaken either by the police or the authorities.”
(Testimony, of a French officer of a maritime company recorded on 13th November 2000)
Following a drastic reduction in the forces, former Vietnamese servicemen turned to
piracy to compensate the loss of their job by attacking ships206 , just like the soldiers in
Athens, after the Peloponnesian war when it started to decline ( 5th century B.C.). In
Europe, the Greenpeace’s British office even proposed the services of ex-servicemen skilled
in the handling of explosives. They were trying to reorient themselves, believing that they
had found an opportunity in the development of environmentalist militancy in the
maritime milieu207.
3.2.1. The attacks in the South China Sea
During the nineties, the number of testimonies pertaining to acts of piracy perpetrated
by individuals who bore a striking resemblance to the soldiers of the People’s Army was so
high that the Chinese army was accused. At the end of 1999, the British Foreign Office
explained that launches loaded with men in uniform were forcing ships sailing the seas to
enter Chinese territorial waters in order to be able to accuse them of smuggling.
Only upon the payment of a heavy fine were the boats allowed to go on their way208. In
October 1997, the Vosa Carrier from Hong Kong was hijacked near Huilai (Guangdong) by a
Chinese launch209. The pirates rapidly seized the money and got a document signed by the
crew in which they acknowledged that they were engaged in smuggling operations. The
Captain was subpoenaed to appear in Huilai and the containers were confiscated. The boat
and the crew were finally released following payment of a fine of 100000 dollars to the
police.
Samuel P. Menefee, “Violence at Sea”, Jane’s Defense, 1997, p.100.
Samuel P. Menefee, 1997, p.100.
209 Daniel Perret, 1998, p.128
206
207
56
BOARDING INCIDENT 6: CHINESE NETWORK?
“A ship loomed before us. It resembled a trawler and was painted dark grey. I veered to starboard to give way
to it, as required by the regulations of navigation at sea, but the ship followed us for around hundred metres on
the port side. There were about ten armed men in uniform on the bridge. There was also a crane with a small
boat equipped with two powerful motors, clearly meant for a pirate attack. These individuals signaled to us and
whistled to us to stop, which I naturally did not do, as we were on international waters. After having changed
course a number of times still without telling us who they were, they disappeared in the direction of the south.
The nearest land was at Luzon in the Philippines (…) Insignia resembling Chinese insignia were painted on the
ship which was flying a Red Flag. The uniforms seemed to be Chinese, but may have been false. All this lasted
around thirty minutes.” (Eric Ellen, March-April 1994, p.2)
3.2.2. The attacks in the Malay world
The Indonesian army has long been accused of all kinds of trafficking210. In 1995, a little
before the resignation of President Suharto and the decline of his orde baru (the new order),
the provincial military commanders were entrusted with extended powers that allowed
them particularly to dominate civil administration. Their contacts with the local business
world were facilitated, a fact that allowed them also to engage in economic activities that
sometimes bordered on illegality. Some even took advantage of the situation by engaging
in veritable acts of piracy211. It seems, in addition, that many attacks associated real
criminals with commandos of the Navy212. These men of the Indonesian army, probably in
active service, would have allowed the pirates to seize cargos and then transfer them
quickly.
It is still too soon to know if the efforts undertaken by the Indonesian Government of
Abdurrehman Wahid (also known by the name of Gus Dur) to control the army more
efficiently have really borne fruit and if these efforts continued with the same intensity
since Megawati Sukarno Putri’s nomination as Head of State ( 23rd July 2001). The tie-ups
between certain local potentates and pirate bands are in any case too tight to be undone
easily.
Likewise, south of the Philippines, due to the main conflict between the State and the
secessionists, the inhabitants have had to compromise with the private militia. Now, in the
rural provinces, the members of surveillance committees, usually linked with the army,
very often act as substitutes for the administration in place. Thanks to the means available
to them, pirates, smugglers or even arms traffickers constitute a veritable economic elite213.
Although they reveal the problems faced today by the Indonesian army, and to a
smaller degree by its Filipino counterpart, the acts of piracy involving military units as
such remain marginal in Southeast Asia. And though criticised, the institutions entrusted
with the maintenance of law and order, nonetheless get significant results.
On 12th October 2000, three men around 25 years of age were arrested by the Malaysian
police. They were accused of about thirty attacks which brought them more than 260000
dollars. A fast boat and knives were seized.
On 23rd October, during an ambush along the Klebang Kecil beach, the police defeated
the chief of a pirate syndicate and arrested four of his accomplices. The latter were
surprised while in the process of loading smuggled motorbikes on board a boat en route to
Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia, London, Cornell University Press, 1978; also read
Arnaud Dubus and Nicolas Revise, 2002, p. 151-159
211 John Vagg, 1998
212 Peter Chalk, 1997, p.35
213 S. Marshall, “Dire Need to Address Root Causes of the Mindano Conflict”, The New Straits Times, 27th
May 2000
210
57
Sumatra. Twelve other interrogations followed and, since then, the number of attacks
would have reduced considerably. It seems that the Malaysian authorities, who had
declared a while ago that they had important information in their possession, had waited
for the international meeting in Kuala Lumpur in November 2000 to act…
Better equipped than simple fishermen, sometimes having links with the business world
or corrupt officials, these bands are nowhere near having the power of the mafia and other
triads who can engage in large-scale trafficking through the technique of kapal bantu in
Indonesian or phantom ship.
3.3. International Piracy (“Serious Criminal Hijacking”- SCH)
Hergé, in Le Crabe aux pinces d’or (Crab with the golden claws), touches upon the tricky
problem of the hijacking of merchant ships, when Captain Haddock’s Karaboudjan is
renamed Djebel Amilah. But in order to apprehend the question of SCH in its totality, we
should not only take into account its forms ("planned international criminal activities
taking advantage of important resources, using large gangs of well-trained and heavily
armed men, fully prepared to use firearms”) but we should also look into its consequences
(“disappearance of ships hijacked and renamed in order to engage in illegal traffickingphenomenon which today is called “phantom ship"”)214.
A hijacking always occurs in the same manner. Broadly, we find the schema traced by
Eric Ellen, director of the IMB215.
First stage: the capture of a ship. It is then that the act of piracy stricto sensu comes into
play. The techniques of boarding are classical: throwing of grapnel, overpowering the crew
and ransacking as a rule.
Then, the criminals disguise the boat while the cargo is hijacked. Following this, the
vessel receives a new registration, granted by the maritime bureau of a consulate (often of
the Honduras or Panama) in a city of the Far East (Bangkok, Singapore). There are many
arrangements possible, which are more or less legal.
The next stage: the sale of the boat to a shipper in a hurry. East Asia has witnessed a
rapid increase in trade. In some areas, the demand is higher than supply as far as maritime
transport is concerned. It so happens that a supplier holding a documentary credit which
has almost expired is urgently looking for a ship.
Thanks to their network of agents, the criminal organisations of the region are informed
of the requirements. They propose one of their boats. The shipper seizes the opportunity,
ships his cargo and receives his Bill of Lading216.
It is now time for the second hijacking. Instead of heading for the destination indicated
on the Bill of Lading, the ship heads for a port known only to the pirates. Here, they hand
over the cargo to an accomplice or a bona fide buyer. Then to avoid any police intervention,
the ship changes registration and appearance.
The boat can then receive another cargo load. The operation can even be repeated a
number of times. In the end, if it is not found, the phantom ship may be sold once more to
an unscrupulous ship owner, used as a den by the pirates, sold as scrap, unless it begins a
second career in the smuggling of arms, clandestine immigration or drug trafficking.
Edward Furdson, May 1995, p.166
Eric Ellen, March-April 1994, p.5
216 Receipt for goods despatched by sea or river routes
214
215
58
BOARDING INCIDENT 7: THE CASE OF THE ANNA SIERRA
The action takes place in 1995.
12th September at 14:20: the Anna Sierra, which is sporting the Cyprus flag, leaves Bangkok. On board, a
cargo of 12000 tons of sugar meant for Guangxi Autonomous Quisxing Enterprises of Beihai, whose value
amounts to around three million dollars. The crew comprises twenty-three men. The ship is expected at Manila
on 17th September.
13th September, 0:20, at the position 11q15N-102q00E (Gulf of Thailand): the attack is on. It is led from a
launch by thirty hooded men, dressed shabbily, armed with pistols, submachine guns and knives. All of them
wear a mask, except their chief. Very quickly, the pirates begin to repaint the signboards of the hold in grey, the
lower half of the masts and the kingposts in black. Handcuffed, the crew is confined for two days in two rooms.
15th September, at position 08q20N-107q14E (off the coast of the Vietnamese island of Con Son): the threat of
being “thrown to the sharks” is made to eight sailors when the second in command, who had succeeded in
hiding, is discovered. His superior begs the pirates for clemency and gives them his gold wedding ring before
they chop his finger off. Eight sailors are set adrift on a makeshift boat. Despite the stormy sea, the rest of the
crew is ordered to jump onto a life raft. In the distance, as the Anna Sierra moves away, the launch which had
led the attack leaves again with half the number of pirates, food and the personal effects that were stolen.
16th September: all the sailors are found by Vietnamese fishermen. But the ship is no longer called the Anna
Sierra. It has been baptized Artic Sea which is an exotic name in these latitudes.
20th September, 10 a.m. the Artic Sea is anchored at quai number 4 of the port of Beihai, in the province of
Guangxi in South China. The clearing and forwarding agent will specify later that he had not received the ETA
(estimated time of arrival) but only a notification from Hong Kong, from a certain Captain Bekas. False
documents had been sent by courier to Penavico, the C & F agent, just before the arrival of the ship. The crew
consists thereafter of twelve men (ten Indonesians and two Malaysians) who claim to have entered Thailand
through Bangkok Airport on 7th August. According to the IMB, they would in fact be the pirates who had carried
out the attack on 13th September. At this point, the IMB invited the Thai authorities to investigate Artic Gold
Navigation Inc, supposedly incorporated in Bangkok.
This enterprise claims that the Artic Sea, registered in the Honduras, loaded its cargo in Santos, in Brazil, in
December 1994, a claim that would have been credible if each bag of sugar had not been stamped
“Thailand”217. As they had done for the Petro Ranger, (refer to Boarded Incident 4), the Chinese authorities
demanded a heavy sum (400000 dollars) for the restitution of the ship which still did not leave the beaches of
South China… (Testimony reported in the “L’Incroyable odysée de l’Anna Sierra”, Le Marin, 29th December
1995)
In September 2000, Noel Choong, of the Regional Piracy Centre, estimated that the
hijackers of an average cargo load could make a profit of two to three million dollars218.
With the utilisation that could be made of the ship, and then its resale, a phantom ship
could, in a good year, bring between forty and fifty million dollars to the criminal
organisation that hijacked it219.
Pirates generally avoid organising hijackings in their country of origin. Honourable
merchants of some standing, they restrict their illicit activities to territories falling under
another jurisdiction. This screen makes it very difficult to combat criminality.
In May 2000, Captain Pottengal Mukundan of the IMB estimated that there were five or
six gangs run by big businessmen heading shipping companies. They are, for the moment,
protected against the extraditions laid down by the 1988 Rome Convention, as they reside
in countries which did not ratify it. The text in fact facilitates extradition in cases where
there is a threat to maritime security.
Jean Claude Pomonti, Le Monde, 26th October 1995
AP, “BC- Singapore-Pirates 1st Ld-Writethru”, FAP, 5th October 2000
219 “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, The Economist, 18th December 1999
217
218
59
In 1999, the MT Siam Xanxai with seventeen persons on board left Singapore loaded
with petroleum for Songkhla in Thailand.
On 8th June 1999, a little before midnight, it was attacked by two launches near the
Tioman islands, in the waters off the South-east coasts of Malaysia. The pirates, armed with
pistols and knives could not prevent one sailor from escaping on a little boat. He was later
rescued by the fishermen of Sibu (near Borneo), as were the other crew members,
abandoned by the pirates at sea.
The MT Siam Xanxai was traced in mid-July under the name of Auo Me 2, in a port of the
Guangdong province, in South China.
According to Xie Yongpeng, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Public Safety of Shantou,
the leader of the Indonesian pirates would have attacked the ship at the order of a resident
of Singapore.
The same year, the MV Marine Master flying the Panaman flag was found in Fangcheng,
another port in South China. It was then called the Nuovo Tierra and flew the flag of the
Honduras. Headed for Calcutta from Nantong on 1st March 1999 with a cargo of soda on
board, it made a halt in Singapore two weeks later.
On 17th March, on the Andaman Sea, twenty pirates, some of whom were clad in
military uniforms, boarded the ship from two fishing boats and a launch. All of them were
wearing masks and were equipped with pistols. The crew members had sit in two fishing
boats in the company of around ten criminals.
Four days later, the bandits abandoned them on a small raft from which they were rescued
nearly a week later. When the ship was traced at Fancheng, thanks to an alert sent out by
the IMB, fourteen Burmese found on board were arrested by the Chinese authorities and
the boat returned to its owner.
In late 1999, it was in China that traces of a large majority of stolen ships were found.
There, the dubious vessels desirous of selling questionable goods found favourable
conditions and partners who hardly seemed concerned by the need to respect international
regulations. In some Southern ports, the triads would even have bought out some highly
placed government officials of the Port administration so that they stop questioning the
veracity of the furnished documents220. In the IMB’s jargon, they furnish what is called “noquestions-asked commodities”221. The most accused port is that of Beihai, between Hong
Kong and the island of Hainan. Further to the north, the special economic zone of Xiamen
also caused eyebrows to be raised…
The following year, 300 investigators sent by Prime Minister Zhu to Fujian arrested
nearly 200 local worthies. Suspected of having accepted the bribes from Lai Changxing in
order to permit him to clandestinely import arms, crude petroleum, cars as also
petrochemical by-products, they were given heavy sentences222. It should be said that they
would have set up the most important smuggling network discovered since 1949. Thanks,
among others, to the usage of “phantom ships”, more than ten billion dollars worth of
goods would possibly have been exchanged.
Various clues enable the detection of a “phantom ship”223: registration in the Honduras or
Panama, a fifteen to twenty year old boat, suspicious details in the registration, late arrival
in the loading ports, unanswered radio calls, Burmese, Indonesian or Filipino crew,
absence of mail in the loading port, commission paid to the broker or even transfer of funds
into personal accounts to pay transport expenses.
Dorinda Elliott, “Where Pirates Still Sail”, Newsweek, 5th July 1999
“Dead Men Tell No Tales”, The Economist, 18th December 1999
222 “La Chute du roi de la contrebande”, Courrier international, nq 84, 10th February 2000, p.40-41.
223 Robert Redmond, “Phantom Ships in the Far East”, in Intersec, vol. 6, no 5, May 1996, p. 169
220
221
60
BOARDING INCIDENT 8: THE TENYU, AND THE KOREAN CONNECTIONS
On 27th September 1998, the Tenyu, a Japanese ship flying a Panaman flag, lifted anchor from the port of
Kuala Tanjung, to the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, on course to Inchon in South Korea, with a
load of aluminium on board. The ship surfaced, minus the crew (which would never be found), three months
later, after a mad voyage across the “Asian Mediterranean”. It was apprehended in the Chinese port of
Zhangjiagang, carrying palm oil and an Indonesian crew. Its hull then bore the name Sanei 1 and it was flying
the Honduran flag. The cargo ship had disappeared on 28th September in the heart of the Malacca Straits
where the ship was renamed Vittoria to be hijacked once more, this time towards Rangoon, in Burma. It would
then be called the Hannah (10th November 1998) in order to head towards Puerto Princesa in the Philippines,
and later Scarlet to make the journey, on 24th November 1998, to Pasir Gudang to transport palm oil. It was
then renamed Sanei 1 and sailed towards Dumai in Indonesia.
Four South Koreans connected to this affair were finally convicted224. The captain of the Tenyu, who had
recruited the Indonesian sailors through a company in Singapore, was arrested in the island-city before being
extradited to South Korea. There, he was accused of buying the boat and the aluminium from two SinoIndonesians before handing over the cargo to a Chinese company for 4.3 million dollars. Lee Dong Gul – that
was his name- , got only three years in prison as there was no proof of his involvement in the attack on the
ship225.According to the Prosecutor Kwak Gyu Hong, who complained of the slowness of the investigation in the
various countries concerned, a second mastermind behind the operation would be residing in Singapore. In
1999, another 46 year old South Korean, Kim Tae Kuk, who was serving a sentence in Hong Kong, was
questioned. At the time of the crime, he was part of the company that owned the Tenyu. He would even have
officiated as captain on board the “phantom ship”226. Sixteen Indonesian pirates who had also been
interrogated were released.
It was learnt in May 2000 that a pirate found on board the Alondra Rainbow (refer to Boarding Incident 10) in
November 1999 had served on the Tenyu and two others responsible for the hijacking had already participated
in that of the Anna Sierra, thereby proving that international pirate networks clearly existed.
3.4. Para-Piracy
Apart from piracy stricto sensu classified into three distinct categories by the IMO since
1993, it is only proper to mention two types of crime that are closely linked to the nautical
world. For political organisations, piracy often represents a means of financing their main
activities.
During the meeting of the ARF in Bombay in October 2000, India, probably worried by
the maritime activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), tried in vain to get
terrorist activities at sea classified as a form of piracy. But, for want of a consensus, the
pirates could not be likened to drug traffickers, plentiful in the vicinity of the Indochinese
peninsula227 – or to traffickers of arms, like those who sail the waters of Sri Lanka or Aceh.
In its report in 1993, the IMO has however devoted a specific paragraph to terrorist
involvement in certain pirate attacks228.
Hélène Vissière, “Mer de Chine:Sur la route des pirates”, Le Point, nq 1419, 26th November 1999
226 Dorinda Elliott, “Where Pirates Still Sail”, Newsweek, 5th July 1999.
227 On this subject, see especially Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy and Joël Meissonnier Yaa Baa –Production, trafic et
consommation de méthamphétamine en Asie du Sud-Est continentale, IRASEC- L’Harmattan, Bangkok – Paris,
2002, p.87-88
228 IMO, Report of the IMO, Working Group on the Malacca Strait Area, IMO, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore,
Jakarta, 28th February- 10th March 1993, p. 15
224
225
61
3.4.1. Attacks on villages
Contrary to classical piracy, one part of para-piracy generally occurs on land, whether it
takes the form of attacks on administrative or commercial establishments or on individuals.
The hostage-taking, in late April 2000 on the island of Sipadan (between the coasts of Sabah
and the Philippines) was particularly publicised, but it was far from being an isolated case.
Jimlan Panglima, in charge of the security of Semporna near the island of Sipadan,
reminded the Malaysian Star that his village had been attacked at least four times during
the last fifteen years.
The article concluded that it was not a question of random acts of piracy, but that of
“rampant” piracy229. It should be noted, besides, that 600 men of the GOF (General
Operating Force) are posted on around thirty-five islands of the Sulu archipelago, the
majority in the vicinity of the maritime frontier of the Philippines.
Despite the legal ambiguity that surrounds them, the case of pirate raids against certain
coastal villages cannot be ignored. Semporna, a small town in the Province of Sabah in the
Malaysian side of Borneo was pillaged and placed under the thumb of pirates in 1952 and
in 1954.
229
“Locals Now Get to Sleep Soundly”, The Star, 9th May 2000
62
In September 1985, a little further to the north, Lahad Datu was in its turn attacked by
about fifty pirates who took control of the city for around an hour. Ten people fell victim to
this attack.
At mid-day, the pirates disembarked, equipped with arms. The people took them for
police forces. Gunfire erupted at the port. The pirates blocked access to the city, robbed a
bank and then withdrew on hearing the Muezzin’s call for prayer from the mosque230.
In September 1995, fifteen armed pirates killed eleven people in order to make away
with 190000 ringitts (55000 euros) at the Standard Chartered Bank, in a city of Eastern
Sabah. Not far from there, in the Semporna area, six pirates disembarked in February 1996.
They threw indigenous bombs meant to be used for fishing by explosion on the police
station before stealing a work of art in gold set with precious stones worth 100000 ringitts
(approximately 29000 euros)231.
In March 1996, again in Semporna, eight armed men robbed a jeweller’s store, swiping
a booty estimated at 200000 ringitts (58000 euros). One of the thieves was killed, two others
arrested, but the Police Station in this seaside resort still bears the stigma of these attacks.
On 23rd June 1996, the police opened fire on eight pirates who had robbed a fisherman near
the island of Omadal. Seven other pirates were killed in 1998 during a robbery attempt in a
supermarket in Tawau (Eastern Sabah).
BOARDING INCIDENT 9: ISLAND OF DREAMS FOR PIRATE NIGHTMARE
In January 1999, a young man of Kampung Bangau-Bangau in Malaysia, who normally transported tourists
interested in diving in the waters around the neighbouring islands, fell victim to a pirate attack between the
islands of Mabul and Kepayan. The eight criminals who strongly resembled Sulus asked him to head for the
island of Ligitan. Then he walked long hours in the jungle before reaching a village in Jolo, on one of the 157
islands of the Sulu archipelago in the Philippines. There, a group of about fifty heavily armed men were waiting.
He was freed a few days later232.
On 24th April 2000, 21 people, twelve of whom were Westerners, were taken hostage while visiting the island of
Sipadan, reputed for the natural beauty of its underwater world. The technique of the Abu Sayyaf Group is
reminiscent of the raids of olden times. At 7:30 p.m., the bandits surfaced, before leaving forty-five minutes
later, with their hostages whom they took to the island of Jolo. There were six criminals, armed with AK-47
submachine guns and a bazooka and dressed in camouflage233. The demands and the ransom were soon
made public. The ransom was first set at 2.63 million dollars for all the victims and then at a million per Western
hostage. At the same time, they demanded the release of Ramzi Yousef, incarcerated following the first attack
against the World Trade Center which, in February 1993, had resulted in the death of 6 people and had injured
nearly a thousand.
The hostages, including a French television crew, were freed one by one in September 2000 after many
months of captivity and just before an offensive by the Filipino army.
3.4.2. Piracy and Hostage-taking
Hostage-taking is generally linked to economic motives, but they occur most often in an
unstable political context. The incidents in the southern part of the Philippines constitute a
concrete example.
Already on 14th June 1999, two Belgians had been kidnapped on their yacht while on
their way to Zamboanga on the island of Santa Cruz in the Sulu archipelago. The Islamic
Daniel Perret, 1998, p. 135
“Semporna: Land of Many islands”, Utusan Express, 27th April 2000.
232 Muguntan Vanar, “ A Hostage’s Story”, The Star, 22nd May 2000
233 “Gunmen Abduct 20”, The New Straits Times, 25th April 2000
230
231
63
Front of Moro Liberation (FILM) which is fighting for the independence of South
Philippines was immediately accused. But can one truly consider this movement as one of
piracy?
Doubts also linger as to the real nature of the hostage-taking of the 21 Western tourists
by the Abu Sayyaf group in April 2000. Apparently marked by a strong political tinge, as is
illustrated by the demand for the liberation of Islamic militants, this attack would only
perpetuate an age-old pirate tradition founded on kidnapping and ransom.
The Abu Sayyaf group had never really been credible at a strictly political level. The fact
that to this list of demands was added the visit of Robin Padilla, a Filipino actor who
specialized in the role of teenage rebels certainly did not help the reputation of the
movement which consisted essentially of very young people 234.
Besides, rather than becoming a real movement, Abu Sayyaf has become, over these last
few years, just a label used by a number of distantly linked sub-groups235. According to
Nur Misuari, historical leader of the National Front of Moro Liberation, once Governor of
the province before being incarcerated for rebellion, we would find ourselves facing
veritable “modern Robin Hoods” who defend the people fallen victim to centuries of
exploitation, war, famine and poverty236.
In fact, one finds here a modern day version of what Ghislaine Loyré, specialist on the
region, wrote on the subject of the Sulu pirates in the 19th century:
“Certainly, some ventures may have been prompted by strategic reasons, but the
strongest incentive was the taking of booty. (…) In fact, [the pirates] would have
acknowledged the authority of only those expedition chiefs capable of leading them. (…)
Originally from Mindanao, they gradually moved towards the territory of Sulu and even
towards Sabah. (…) In certain years, nearly a thousand people were taken in this
manner237.”
Let us now dare to reposition this hostage-taking in a larger debate. Would the incidents
that took place on the island of Jolo in 2000 and 2001 herald a tendency the world over to
associate terrorism in general and Islamist Terrorism in particular to more traditional forms
of delinquency, maritime piracy being one of them238 ?
In June 2000, a specialist on Algerian armed groups referred to the emergence in North
Africa of a solid link between large scale crime and some fundamentalist groups. The
primary cause for this could be the assumption of power by young leaders lacking either
political or theological education. As in the case of Abu Sayyaf, these young troops would
no longer share the same political or religious convictions239. Gilles Kepel, of course before
the 11th September 2001 attacks, even saw in this situation the emergence of an era of
“postislamism240”.
Since the year 2000, Kuala Lumpur stepped up efforts to cleanse its coasts of piracy. The
Malaysian maritime police was thus given much more efficient equipment. In 2001 and
during the first half of 2002, the IMB did not report more than 17 and 9 incidents
respectively in the Malacca Straits.
Florence Compain, “Jolo sous la glaive d’Abu Sayyaf”, Le Figaro, 6-7th May 2000, p.3
Bunn Nagara, “Rescuers Groping in the Dark”, The Star, 30th April 2000.
236 Philippe Pons, “Les Rebelles philippins exigent une médiation étrangère”, Le Monde, 30th April 2000, p.4
237 Ghislaine Loyré, 1991
238 Eric Frécon, “A Jolo de vrais pirates”, Libération, 10th August 2000, p.5
239 H’mida Layachi, “Banditisme et islamisme armé vont aujourd’hui de paire en Algérie” (interview, Le
Monde, 16th June 2000, p.3
240 Gille Kepel, Jihad, expansion et déclin de l’islamisme, Gallimard, Paris, 2000
234
235
64
However, the attacks, though fewer in number, are more and more oriented towards
human targets. The incidents of hostage-taking increased in the north of the Malacca
Straits, in the areas disputed by Indonesia and Malaysia. The victims were very often
fishermen.
On 12th and 13th June 2001, four fishing boats and one tug were attacked by small armed
groups in the waters of Sabah, not far from Sandakan. For each hostage, a ransom ranging
between 5000 and 25000 ringitts (between 1400 and 7300 euros approximately) was
demanded and paid241. A few weeks later at Butterworth, to the north of the Malaysian
peninsula, the captain of the Tirta Niaga was kidnapped and then held somewhere on the
island of Sumatra242.
In July, a crew of fishermen was released not far from Aceh, after three weeks of
captivity in the jungle and the payment of a ransom of 60000 ringitts to the Indonesian
kidnappers243. When four of its sailors were kidnapped and taken to Jolo, a Singaporean
maritime company finally decided that they would no longer sail the Sulu Sea. This
measure was interpreted by the Port Authorities and the industrialists of the region as a
signal that their trading associates could easily desert them if they were not guaranteed
better safety.
Further to the north, Thailand too is confronted with piracy founded on the taking of
hostages. The IMB report for the year 2000 refers to the kidnapping of Malaysian
fishermen. It is likely that the band responsible for these kidnappings used the nearby
islands of Satun, in the extreme south of the kingdom, as a base. In April of the same year,
fishermen were captured in the Gulf of Thailand and then transferred to the island of Milio.
The pirates were able to add to their booty (thirty tons of fish, navigational equipment, nine
radios and personal effects) the 10000 dollars that the owner of the boat had accepted to
pay by way of ransom. The State is bypassed here, ignored, such is the disbelief in its
capacity to intervene.
In November 1999, a Thai Admiral recalled that piracy and kidnappings also
represented a real problem along the Cambodian border. Ransoms here often exceed 400
000 bahts per boat (9200 euros). Some have gone to the extent of suspecting the
involvement of corrupt elements of the Cambodian Navy244.
3.4.3. Maritime piracy and freedom movements
The LTTE of Sri Lanka widely resorts to armed robbery at sea. Is it due to the origins of
its chiefs, natives of Velvettithurai and originating for the most part from the fisher folk, or
is it simply the consequence of the fact that the country is an island?
Whatever be the case, the maritime dimension of the struggle of the Tamil Tigers cannot
be ignored. Let us keep in mind the suspicions that surround the autonomist organisation,
accused by some as having used the Alondra Rainbow, hijacked off the coast of Sumatra, for
drug trafficking (see Boarding Incident 10).
“Hijackings by Pirates, not Filipino Soldiers”, The Star, 29th June 2001
“Pirates Hijack Two Ships, Hold Captain for Ransom”, The Business Times, 26th June 2001
243 Foong Thim Leng, “Fishermen Facing Piracy Threat”, The Star, 5th July 2001
241
242
244
Vu Kim Chung, “Exercise to Combat Piracy”, in www.geocities.com, 16th November 1999.
65
BOARDING INCIDENT 10: FROM MANILA TO GOA,
THE ASTONISHING ODYSSEY OF THE ALONDRA
The Alondra Rainbow, like the Tenyu (refer to Boarding Incident 7), left the port of Kuala Tanjung (in the north
of Sumatra) heading for Miike (in Japan). This brand-new cargo ship weighing 7762 tons, sporting the
Panaman flag, lifted anchor on 22nd October1999 with seventeen sailors on board – two Japanese and fifteen
Filipinos – and 7000 tons of aluminium. It was attacked two hours later by around ten masked Indonesians. Not
very long afterward it was joined by an old boat into which the crew was transferred before being abandoned in
the midst of the Andaman Sea a week later, and then it was found on 8th November by Thai fishermen.
Meanwhile, a reward of 100000 dollars was promised to those who would help locate the ship. The Indian
authorities received the information and immediately dispatched a patrol plane. The Alondra Rainbow was
found and pursued by the Coast-guard who wanted to intercept it, west of Ponnani. They wished to apply in this
situation Article 105 of the Montego Bay Convention which is one of the noteworthy exceptions to the principle
of exclusivity of jurisdiction of the state under whose flag the ship sails. “Acts of piracy [on the high seas] are
subject to a sort of actio popularis, in other words, to the right of intervention of any State, and thus of any flag,
with the aim of pursuit, verification and possibly repression245”.
The ship, renamed Mega Rama and flying the flag of Belize was stopped and inspected. The pirates tried in
vain to set fire to the ship before trying to sink it. On board, only a portion of the cargo remained246. The pursuit
thus came to a halt on the 16th November at around 170 miles from Goa in India.
Despite the damages incurred, the ship could then be towed. Citing article 105 of the Montego Bay Convention,
the Indian authorities declared that they wished to prosecute the wrongdoers. However, as not all the provisions
of the Montego Bay Convention had been integrated into the Indian Penal Code, the investigation proved
difficult.
On 21st November 1999, quoting the New Indian Express, the Sunday Times suggested that the ten pirates of
the Alondra Rainbow would have bartered 3000 tons of aluminium for arms and ammunition. The exchange
would have taken place in Cambodia, then the hub of arms trafficking. After Cambodia, the pirates would have
dropped anchor at Thailand before going on like others before them to Sri Lanka247.
In July 2000, in its half-yearly report, the IMB put forward a new hypothesis. The National Bureau of
Investigation of the Philippines (National Bureau in charge of investigations, similar to the American FBI) in fact
discovered 3000 tons of aluminium originating from the Alondra Rainbow in a warehouse near Manila. The
aluminium ingots carried the INAL brand, confirming that they indeed originated, like the hijacked cargo, from
the Indonesian Asahan Aluminium. The owner of the warehouse maintained that he had bought this aluminium
in good faith from a company based in Malaysia. For all that, the clearance of the cargo through customs, a
month after the hijacking of the Alondra Rainbow, could have been possible only with the help of falsified
documents. The IMB concluded that an organised crime syndicate could have been involved in the affair. There
is also talk of the complicity of persons close to the Filipino powers-that-be.
On 25th May 1999, the Sik Yang, a Malaysian boat, was lost off the west coast of Sri
Lanka shortly after having left the Indian port of Tuticorin248. Immediately, the Tamil
separatists who were trying to control these waters to establish their sovereignty there
came to mind.
The LTTE is especially suspected because its organisation and its maritime arsenal are
impressive. Its capabilities are far superior to those of traditional pirates. The maritime
operations of the Tamil rebels are managed by a structure which is divided into twelve
departments: regiments for surface attacks, underwater demolition teams, commandos for
infiltrations from the sea, the section in charge of the construction and the maintenance of
the equipment, the surveillance and telecommunication units, the units in charge of the
arms repository, a naval school which organises around fifteen hours of teaching per day, a
Jean-Paul Pancracio, Droit international des espaces, Armand Colin, Paris, 2001, p.681
“Pirates Nabbed with Force”, The Shipping Times, 19th November 1999
247 “Asian Pirates Sell Arms to LTTE”, Sunday Times, 21st November 1999
248 R. Anand, “Pirates Hijack Oil Tanker off Tioman”, The Sun, 17th June 1999, p. A 10
245
246
66
recruitment group, a political and financial section, a logistics support team,
reconnaissance units and finally social security249.
The 3000 odd “Sea Tigers” are recruited from among the Tamil fishermen and
smugglers who have a perfect knowledge of the sea. Thanks to them, some groups of the
LTTE were able to acquire a real aptitude for sailing both on the high seas as well as near
the coasts250. They even have a suicide marine commando unit- the “Black Sea Tigers”. It
should also be noted that there is, in the LTTE, a combat team of swimmers which has
conducted several raids against anchored Sri Lankan ships.
In 1999, the movement would have had several hundreds of lightweight fibreglass
boats, armed with machine guns and rocket launchers and equipped with powerful motors
permitting them to attain speeds greater than 30 knots (around 55 km/hour). The objective
was to rapidly cross the Palk Straits and bring men and supplies from the coasts of Tamil
Nadu to the areas held by the Tigers251. Five or six ships sporting foreign flags would also
have served to transport arms and equipment.
Finally in 2001, the sea Tigers would have wanted to procure a submarine from South
Africa and ten, of more modest size, from North Korea. Another investigation showed that
other military equipment such as 107 mm rockets, 60 mm mortars and especially stealthy
motor boats propelled by 200 hp motors had been delivered by Pyong Yang252.
The seas to the Northeast of the island were declared by the rebels as “the territorial
waters of the Tamil Eelam”. Thus, each ship not belonging to the separatist movement
could be targeted.
Some ports too were attacked. Here there is no petty crime as in the great Southeast
Asian archipelagos, only the destruction of a few ships matters. In April 1996, there was an
attack on the port of Colombo during which three foreign ships were affected. On 19th
April 1995, the assault against two Sri Lankan patrol ships, on the way to Trincomalee, had
marked the beginning of what is called “the Third Tamil War”. The attack had been led by
several combat swimmers, one of whom was a woman. The attack on the MV Cordiality,
while it was anchored less than a mile from Pulmoddai, can be added to this list. The rebels
attacked the ship while it was being loaded. Thirty-three sailors were killed. The
confrontation with the Sri Lankan patrolmen led to a real naval battle.
We also note the taking of hostages as in the summer of 1997, when the victims were
thirty-two Muslim fishermen as also twenty-two boats. But what is important is the attacks
against ships at sea. In August 1996, a ship registered in the Philippines, the MV Princess
Wave, became the target of the Tamil rebels while they were transporting a cargo of sand
towards Pulmoddai. Other victims: a 500 seater ferry flying the Indonesian flag (the MV
Misan), a merchant ship flying the Korean flag (the MV Morang Bong), etc.
In late August 1997, the Stillus Limmasul, a ship sporting the Greek flag and carrying
32400.81 mm mortar shells purchased in Zimbabwe, was heading for Sri Lanka when it
disappeared in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Despite its denials, it clearly appears that
the LTTE was responsible. The operation, led partially from South Africa, would have been
commanded by Kumaran Padmanathan. This Tamilian, better known by his initials “KP” is
none other than the logistics officer of the rebellion253. He is directly answerable to
Velupillai Prabhakaran, the chief of the LTTE, for everything relating to supplies ofarms,
Rohan Gunaratna, “Sea Tiger Success Threatens the Spread of Copycat Tactics”, Jane’s Intelligence
Review, vol. 13, nq 3, March 2001, p.12-16
250 “Trends in Maritime Terrorism – The Sri Lanka Case, in Lanka Outlook, Autumn 1998.
251 “LTTE- Le Poids exceptionel des opérations navales”, p. 744-745, in Jean-Marc Balencie, Arnaud de la
Grancge (dir.), 1999
252 Rohan Gunaratna, “Sea Tiger Success Threatens the Spread Copycat Tactics”, Jane’s Intelligence Review,
vol. 13, nq 3, March 2001, p.14 and Roger Davies, “Sea Tigers, Stealth Technology and the North Korean
Connection”, Jane’s Intelligence Review, vol. 13, nq 3, March 2001, p. 2-3
253 Iqbal Athas, “Zimbabwe Breaks Silence”, The Sunday Times, 28th September 1997
249
67
ammunition, explosives and uniforms. “KP”, today wanted by Interpol, would probably be
controlling the maritime operations of the LTTE. Three dummy companies (Delta Marine
Ltd., Plymouth Marine Ltd. and Marine Shipping and Trading Ltd.) were spoken about,
that would help cover the activities of five or six ships which included the Sweeny (Malta),
the Nifly (Panama), the Showa Maru, a Liberian tanker. These boats would serve in the
trafficking of arms via the international maritime routes of the East coast of Sri Lanka254.
Without the knowledge of the Sri Lankan buyers, the cargo of arms from Zimbabwe
would have been loaded onto a ship belonging to the Tamil Tigers. This ship which was
disguised and not listed in the Lloyds Register of Ships would then have taken the place of
the expected cargo ship. This is a South Asian variant of the “phantom ship” technique.
Certainly, not a single ship is captured. But the loaded boat is not the one it is believed to
be.
To the north of Sumatra, at the entrance of the Malacca Straits, the Gerakan Aceh
Merdeka (GAM) has been fighting since 1976 for the independence of the Indonesian
province of Aceh. During the year 2001, several ships were attacked at sea and their crew
taken hostage. In August, for instance, six sailors of the Ocean Silver were freed against the
payment of a ransom of 300 million rupiahs (40000 euros). The GAM could try to force
ships crossing the Malacca Straits to seek the authorisation to do so255. More likely, the
rebels would thus like their cause to be spoken about on the international scene. The GAM
failed, judging that its actions do not improve its image. However whether the separatist
movement is united remains questionable.
Not all its members would be completely under the control of its Chief, Hasan di Taro,
refugee in Stockholm.
3.4.4. Piracy and terrorist psychosis
After the attacks on the towers of the World Trade Center at New York, the United
States was worried that suicide attacks would target their interests at sea. Referring to the
feats of the Tamil Sea Tigers, the Admiral Dennis Blair, commanding officer of the
American fleet for the Asia-Pacific, assured that “he was taking the threat very seriously256”
Thus, the Unites States proposed to Malaysia the creation of a combined antiterrorist
centre. Combined patrols of the American and Indian Navy were also planned257.
Consequently, on 1st August 2002, Washington signed an agreement with the various
capitals of the region to fight terrorism and training was given to the Navy and maritime
police of Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia258.
In this tense situation, the favourable welcome extended to the Chief of the Islamist
radical group Lascar Jihad in Batam and Bintan made Washington anxious especially as
these Indonesian islands are at the mouth of the Malacca Straits. In December 2001, thirteen
militants of the Jemah Isamaiah, another Muslim activist movement, were arrested in
Singapore. It is likely that they were on the point of attacking ships and a shuttle used by
American sailors with four tons of ammonium that they would have stocked in Malaysia.
In July 2002, a former counsellor of Chuan Leepkai, former Prime Minister of Thailand
from 1997 to 2001, maintained that the Al-Quaeda was responsible for a large number of
the 649 boarding incidents in the Malacca Straits. This organisation, he claimed, wanted to
Iqbal Athas, “Zimbabwe Breaks Silence”, The Sunday Times, 28th September 1997
“Gam Says It Controls Ship Lane”, The Nation, 4th September 2002.
256 Admiral Dennis C. Blair, Journalist Roundtable – United States Pacific Transcript, Jakarta, 27th November 2001.
257 Celia W. Dugger, “US Raises Pace of Military Ties with New Delhi”, International Herald Tribune, 6th
December 2001.
258 Lee Shi-Ian, “Terrorists at Large Lying Low”, The New Straits Times, 31st February 2002.
254
255
68
equip itself with nuclear waste in order to fabricate “crude bombs”259. These accusations
were never proved; they were refuted by the IMB, which hastened to point out that ships
carrying hazardous material are provided with a military escort260.
259 CFP, “Osama Group Behind Piracy in Strait”, The Straits Times, 23rd July 2002 and “Terrorists as
Pirates”, The Straits Times, 24th July 2002
260 Beth Jinks, “No Al-Quada-Linked Piracy Attacks in Malacca Straits”, The BusinessTimes, 23rd July 2002.
69
Chapter 4
The Stakes of Piracy in Southeast Asia
4.1. Economic and Commercial Stakes
As early as 1776, once the chapter of Black-beard, Bonnet and Kidd had been closed,
British economist Adam Smith had pointed out that, “in general, the protection of
commerce had always been considered essential for the defence of the Commonwealth and
was therefore an indispensable component of the duties of executive powers261”.
Almost two and a half centuries later, the threat of piracy over maritime transport still
worries Governments even though on the whole, the probability of an attack against a huge
vessel is quite low262. In Southeast Asia, as elsewhere, zones haunted by pirates are
generally those, where the sea traffic which ensures the supply of provisions to the coastal
states, is the heaviest.
261
262
Cited by Catherine Mitchell, The Captain Hooks of Today, American University, 1999, p.1.
According to Mak Joon Num, only 0.01% of the vessels passing through the straits would be victims of piracy.
70
4.1.1 A threat to the “jugular artery” of Southeast Asia
Today, “in terms of capacity, air – freight represents only 5% of sea – freight263”. Hence,
it is clear that if the acts of piracy which strike the straits were to multiply, it could deeply
affect commerce and trade.
Already, the use of certain navigable routes could be reviewed, leading to an increase in
costs for ship owners as well as to a decrease in profits for ports.
The stakes appear crucial for an active region like East Asia. During the year 1999, 41000
boats transited through the South China Sea, that is to say, nearly twice the number of
those crossing the Suez Canal and thrice the number of those using the Panama Canal.
Three quarters of the traffic between the Near and the Far - East transits through this
zone264.
Since then, Inter-Asian traffic has been more active than Trans Atlantic trade. In the
Malacca Straits, the passage of 220 trade ships per day in 1999 and more than 275 ships in
the year 2000 was recorded. Around twenty-six petrol tankers transit daily through these
straits. The movement of tankers here is thrice as much as in the Suez Canal and five times
more than in the Panama Canal.
These numbers highlight the importance of sea trade in Southeast Asia. In February
2000, the volume of goods transported by sea had crossed 1.5 billion tons. More than half
the world trade tonnage transits each year through the Malacca Straits, through the Sunda
Captain of the ship Bertrand Lepeu, “ Un regard politique sur la mer et la marine”, Defense, no: 94,
August 2001.
264 Jean – Claude Pomonti , Le Monde,28th April 2000
263
71
(between Sumatra and Java) and through Lombok (to the East of Java), which represents
15% of the total value of international trade265.
The zones affected by piracy in Southeast Asia are therefore especially vital for intra
regional trade, on which East Asian economies depend to a great extent. In 2000, 39 % of
the Japanese foreign trade and 27 % of the Chinese foreign trade were carried out through
the sea routes of Southeast Asia, representing an amount of $ 260.4 billions and $ 65.6
billions respectively266.
The total volume of containers in the East Asian ports has increased by 270 % between
1985 and 1995. Since then, trade here is twice as much as in Europe267. It is no coincidence
then if, in 1998, eighteen of the twenty most important ports for container ships were based
in East Asia and if four of the five biggest ports in the planet catering to the needs of all
kinds of traffic were located in Asia.
Closely behind Rotterdam, (315 million tons) followed Singapore (221 metric tons)
Shanghai (164 million metric tons) Nagoya (134 million metric tons) and Hong Kong (128
million metric tons)268.
Another reason for the countries in the region to worry about piracy: their investments
in commercial fleets. South Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan have caught up with
Japan and Hong Kong and now have a large number of freighters. Together, these six
nations manage 30.5% of world tonnage.
“ Maritime highway”, according to some269, a “jugular artery” likely to trigger a “war of
necessity”, according to others270, the Malay Straits must be rendered safe.
World trade and especially regional trade depend on it. Aware of the stakes, certain
mutual insurance companies like the Hellenic War Risk Mutual even consider piracy as a
“war risk”.271
The abrupt condemnation of the Malay Straits or of the South China Sea would have
dire consequences. One half of the world’s fleet would have to lengthen its route - either
through the Tasmanian Sea (subject to the roaring forties) or through the Arctic Ocean that
is navigable only five months a year. Other remedial alternatives such as rail routes,
pipelines or even digging a canal in the Kra Isthmus in Thailand are being considered272.
However, learning from the experience of the closure of the Suez Canal, the Institute for
National Strategic Studies (INSS), created in 1984 by the Secretary of State of American
Defense, has calculated that the blockage of the SLOC in East Asia would trigger an
increase of about 500 %273 in transportation costs. Others estimate that, if it were necessary
to divert the cargo through the straits of Lombok, Japan would have to boost its maritime
trade by 10%
US Pacific Command, Asia Pacific Economy Update, Washington, January 2000, p. 83. In 2000, the internal
and external trade of Asia had attained € 162 billions through exports and € 277 billions through imports.
These figures were cited by André Vigarié in “ Lombok et la geo – strategie des mers du sud ”, Journal de la
marine marchande, 15th February 2002.
266 Ji Guoxing, Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) Security in the Asia Pacific, Centre Occasional Paper,
Asia - Pacific Centre for Security Studies, Honolulu,2000, p. 3.
267 André Vigarié, 1995, p. 17
268 US Pacific Command, January 2000, p. 82.
269 Stanley Weeks, Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) : Security and Access, Institute of Global Conflict and
Cooperation , Policy Paper 33,California , 1998.
270 Philippe Delmas, Le Bel Avenir de la guerre ,Gallimard, Paris, 1995, chapter VIII.
271 Nicolas de la Casiniere, “Les Assureurs l’assimilent a du vol”, Le Marin, 17th January 1997.
272 François Tourane, “ Canal de Kraa : Le Panama thailandais ”, Le Point, 27th July 2001, p.39.
273 John Noer, Southeast Asian Chokepoints, National Defense University, INSS, no. 98 December 1996.
265
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Today, the disappearance of ships and cargo due to piracy already cause direct losses to
the tune of nearly $ 200 million per year274. Incidents where Japanese vessels alone were
involved during the first six months of the year 2000 could have caused a loss of ¥ 820
million (€ 7.5 million). But the economic damages could have other dimensions too…
BOARDING INCIDENT 11: PIRACY AND SMUGGLING, RAW MATERIAL ROUTES
Piracy is often linked to smuggling. Pirates, coming from difficult areas affected by crises, exploit the economic
development of a region to fuel networks and parallel or marginal markets. In 1995, within a span of three
months, 10,000 tons of rubber were thus dispersed in Southern China where it is easy for ships having doubtful
registration to transit, unload and to continue their journey. 275
Strangely enough, the disappearance of cargo corresponds to the scarcity of natural gum in South China. Later
on, two cases of hijack occurred just after controls in Thailand were tightened in order to stem the smuggling of
rubber to China by land routes276. Therefore, the only alternative solution for the smugglers was to take to the
sea.
In March 1996, the seasonal hike in the price of rubber did not reassure the producers of the Asean. A short
while later, an official of the Indonesian Rubber Association confirmed that their Thai counter parts had in fact
lost a few shipments. In 1996, at least three shipments leaving for China were reported missing in the high
seas277. The escape of Lai Chang Xing which ended in Canada in December 2000, confirms that this problem
is still of importance today. This businessman resorted to smuggling, transporting rubber, as well as other
goods, not far from the port of Xiamen in South China. Since then, the Chinese authorities have strengthened
their vigil conducted by the anti smuggling brigade founded in May 1999278.
In July 2000, the IMB confirmed thefts of zinc in the ports of Bangladesh. On its part, the case of MT Petchem
in the autumn of 2000 appears to confirm the dynamism of fuel trafficking. The pirates had siphoned off the
shipment of petrol on board the vessel, before selling it to Malaysian fishermen on the Southeastern coast, who
are more concerned about fuelling their boats than verifying the origin of the fuel.
On 24th October 2000, it was learnt that eleven people implicated in the smuggling of diesel were arrested. The
article in the Star did not mention the origin of the fuel279.
4.1.2. Piracy versus the tourism industry
It is never good to read in a specialized daily that, “a group of twenty tourists were
attacked by five men while travelling on a bamboo raft280”. Agreed there could be better
publicity. In the beginning of the year 2000, the Australian Foreign Affairs and Commerce
Ministry, had to alert its citizens on the danger that lurked in the waters of the Big
Archipelago in Southeast Asia. Australians had been victims of various incidents in this
region281. A short while later, the site of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its turn
“strictly discouraged under any circumstance ”, trips to Sabah, on the Islands of Borneo,
before restricting the critical zone to the eastern part of the province. On his part, Noel
Choong regretted that the image of Malaysia was being “tarnished”282.
The stakes being of vital importance, some governments do not hesitate to boast of the
safety of their seas, despite evidence to the contrary. In 1996, the Indonesian Vice Admiral
Solomon Kane and Laurent Passicousset, June 2000.
Robert Redmond, May 1996, p.169.
276 Philippe Le Corre, “Recrudescence des attaques de pirates en mer de Chine”, La Tribune Desfossés ,8th
August 1997.
277 “High Rubber Prices Seen Vulnerable”, Reuters,1st March 1996.
278 Huang Wei, “The Anti – smuggling brigade”, Beijing Information,no. 19, 10th May 1999, p. 10 – 13.
279 “11 Held For Smuggling Ringgit 650,000 Diesel”, The Star, 24th October 2001, p.39.
280 “Il était une fois …en Asie”, Quotidien du tourisme, 24th March 1992.
281 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Travel Advice : Piracy at Sea, 17th March 2000.
282 M. Jegathesan, “Unrest in Indonesia Fuels Piracy Attacks”, AFP,10th October 2000.
274
275
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Arif Kushariadi described the waters of the archipelago as being “quite safe”. Besides, he
added that his war ships conducted daily sorties283. In spring 2000, in Malaysia, the Vice
Admiral in-charge of the Royal Navy, quoting statistics of the IMB, declared that there was
no reason to fear piracy which was considered to be “in control” thanks to the joint
patrolling organized by Indonesia and Philippines284. Four months later, the number of
incidents connected to piracy in the Malacca Straits reached the 1991 record.
The taking of hostages by the Abu Sayyaf group in April 2000 was a hard blow for the
Malaysian authorities. However, the Defence Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razzak continues
to assert that the Island of Sipadan was well under control. It is true that he had decided to
reinforce the presence of the Army in the tourist zones, the East coast of Sabah285 being
foremost amongst them. A few months after the release of the hostages, the local police
nevertheless spoke a language that was too similar to be credible, given the statistics of the
IMO. ‘There is no piracy”, they claimed in Kudat, in the Sandakan or in Lahad Datu, with a
nuance however. For the first time, it was observed, “that instructions came from above”,
which obliged Government officers to abstain from mentioning piracy. Specific information
was furnished at Semporna, port of departure of the famous Island of Sipadan where the
hostages were captured. The Abu Sayyaf factor and piracy were termed as “sensitive,
diplomatic”. “It’s Confidential,” it was even said. In order to complete this mission of
regional promotion launched by the police, the local authorities had organised a
professional fair dedicated to tourism in November 2000. Everything possible was done to
attract foreign tourists. A competition of inflatable boats was even organised in the
territorial waters of Sabah, in order to rehabilitate a zone hitherto closely associated with
smuggling and banditry.
4.1.3. Piracy and foreign investment
It is evident that if the acts of piracy adversely affect tourism, they are prohibitive for
the potential investors concerned about the stability of their host countries. Piracy often
seems to be a sign that a country does not have the so called “monopoly of violence”
within its territory. As a consequence, investors worry about the safety of their personnel,
of their infrastructure – oil - rigs etc., – and the transportation of their goods. Piracy being
such a vector of psychoses, the Singapore Shipping Association categorically wishes to
disassociate it from armed robbery at sea, which it seeks to project as one of the ordinary
risks run in the seas.
However, Malaysia is all the more worried, given that great efforts are being taken to
develop Tanjung Pelepas and the region around Pulau Indah (towards port Klang) in order
to create a major port capable of competing with Singapore as far as attracting investors286
is concerned.
4.2. The Diplomatic Stakes
The role and regional ambitions of Japan, India and China and naturally of the Asean
are closely linked to piracy. For these players of the diplomatic game, piracy has become a
pawn amongst others on the Southeast Asian chessboard, since its management can either
strengthen ties or create possible tensions.
“Indonesian Seas Safe”, Jakarta Post, 3rd December 1996
“Exclusive Interview with the Chief of Malaysian Navy – Vice – Adm. Dato Abu Bakar bin Abdul
Jamal”, Asian Defense and Diplomacy, May 2000, p.28 – 34.
285 Agency Bernama, “ Security Patrols to be stepped up”, The Star, 28th April 2000.
286 H. Chiew , “ Indon Help Needed to Stem Piracy in the Straits”, The Star, 16th October 2000, p.46.
283
284
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4.2.1. Japan takes advantage of piracy to make a come back on the regional scene
As a preparation to the Tokyo Conference on piracy, Japanese Prime Minister Keizo
Obuchi had suggested that the efforts of the participants be concentrated around three
objectives: the establishment of a regional body of Coast Guards, reinforcement of aid to
maritime companies and the development of regional coordination in response to the
attacks287.
Japan was certainly able to reaffirm legitimately its willingness to fight against piracy.
According to the figures of the Japanese Transport Ministry, nearly 100 of the 141 strikes on
Japanese vessels had taken place in Southeast Asia (during the 90s). The idea of joint
patrolling including Japan had thus been launched but had evoked strong reactions from
the Chancelleries of the region, clear indicators of hidden interests.
The interests of these maritime patrols were clear to the Japanese. It was a question of a
direct reinvestment on the regional strategic scene for the first time since the Second World
War. It would be worth mentioning that Japan had already proved itself to be active on the
diplomatic front – tour of the Japanese Prime Minister to Southeast Asia, organisation of
the Tokyo Conference in 2000, proposal of an anti-piracy plan during the Asean + 3
meeting in November 2000 and the conference on piracy in 2001. At present, Tokyo seeks
to cross a new threshold. According to Mak Joon Num, Director of the Maritime Institute of
Malaysia, fighting piracy constitutes “a fairly good means” of gaining acceptance of Japan’s
role in the safety issues in the region288. Though the project of organising joint patrols had
been launched by Japan’s Maritime Safety Agency, and not by the army (section 9 of the
Japanese Constitution), the coastal countries perceived it as a form of interference.
The Japanese coast guards had also suggested chartering two long-range surveillance
flights in order to thwart the pirate menace289. Some even fear that these sophisticated
surveillance aircrafts in fact serve to spy on coastal states. They could, in fact allow Japan
from its naval base at Iwakumi for example, to watch over the aerodromes, provision
depots, missile installations and the naval infrastructure of the Chinese army as well as
over the Spratly Islands or the Cam Ranh port in Vietnam. Therefore, Tokyo would be in a
position to take pictures of strategic sites or even intercept communication. For the
moment, only the checking of dubious Chinese vessels is openly mentioned, but funds to
the tune of several tens of millions of dollars are required for this ambitious project.
This onerous option obviously shows that the Japanese Government is contemplating
the development of a force that does not confine itself to the defence of the country. It
would therefore re-consider the doctrine that had been imposed on it in 1945 to incorporate
threats to its vital interests. Therefore the stakes go well beyond the problem of piracy in
Southeast Asia since, by re-outlining its safety zone beyond the famous 1000 mile perimeter
of defence, Japan would symbolically settle its accounts of the Second World War.
Is Southeast Asia really prepared for this? In any case, Asia wonders why Japan is keen
to acquire the latest air – patrol planes with long range action whereas it is already
equipped with a hundred P-3 Orion, two Boeing 767s, admittedly incapable of entering the
Malacca Straits, but for which Singapore has offered to open its bases, in case of
emergency.
This new expenditure seems to be in line with a more general tendency to increase
defence investments. In June 2000, the weekly Asiaweek estimated the Japanese military
budget at $ 41.1billion, i.e., 1.1% of its Gross National Product as against $1.3 billion for
North Korea, $ 10 billion for India and $35 billion for Russia290. If Japan executes this
Nayan Chanda, “ Foot in the Water”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 9th March 2000.
Nayan Chanda, “ Foot in the Water”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 9th March 2000.
289 Red Alert, “Japan’s New Eye in the Sky”, Global Intelligence Update, 15th August 2000
290 “Who’s Got What, Where”, Asiaweek, 9th June 2000, (source IISS).
287
288
75
project, it could limit its dependence on the USA as far as military information is
concerned, with due credit to the pirates…
In response to the Japanese suggestion of implementing joint – patrolling, Li Ding, a
Chinese official in the Ministry of Public Safety, voiced the reservations of her Government
on the subject of regionalizing the pirate issue during the Tokyo Conference. In fact, China,
according to her, would already be equipped with its own resources to deal with this type
of crime291. According to Mark Valencia, expert in maritime safety of the region, the
reaction of Ms. Li could have been provoked by the fear of seeing Japan making a
comeback in the waters of Southeast Asia, and challenging the Chinese supremacy292.
After the issue of the balance of powers in Asia that provoked a negative reaction from
China, the Japanese proposal came up against a second characteristic of the regional
diplomatic scene: Asean’s concern for preserving the sovereignty of each of its members.
Some therefore opposed the idea of joint – patrolling and preferred a coordinated
patrolling where each vessel would be confined to the territorial waters of its own country.
Only Singapore has received the Japanese proposal very favourably, even offering to open
its bases. But there again, the underlying strategic motivation should not be underestimated. Singapore is in fact anxious about the emergence of the Chinese as a power in
the region. Moreover the island - state is equally concerned about the influence exerted by
the United States. Obviously, Singapore would wish that Japan play the role of a counter
weight293.
In October, it was learnt that Japan was going to test one patrol ship and two aeroplanes
in a joint operation with the Indian Navy, for research, follow – up and boarding of pirate
boats294. A second exercise was announced for 15th November, this time with Malaysia. It
took place successfully on the West coast of Malaysia. The manoeuvres consisted of
simulating a commando operation from a helicopter and a raft. Three Malaysian marine
patrol ships and a Japanese vessel Shikishima also took part in this swift exercise that lasted
half a day.
As an extension to this operation, Abdul Rahim, in charge of maritime safety in
Malaysia, suggested an intensification of the technical cooperation at the Asean level. It
would involve the usage of Japanese technology to hunt down pirates in the territorial
waters of the member countries of the organisation. This initiative, however, did not
prevent Malaysia from persisting in rejecting Tokyo’s offers of regular patrolling. Generally
speaking, the Governments of the region would prefer a financial support that would
perhaps be more efficient than simple joint naval exercises, but which would certainly
serve the Japanese interests less295.
4.2.2. The Chinese Intervention in Southeast Asia
In the early 90s, the maritime community pondered about the repeated strikes in the
South China Sea. In 1993, observers attributed a certain number of pirate attacks to the
political friction between China and Russia.
In the same year, seventeen of the twenty attacks that took place in the South China Sea
involved Russian vessels. Moscow sent war–ships to the region with the explicit mission of
protecting its maritime interests and the official accusations voiced against the Chinese
Muzi News, “China Goes it Alone at Asian anti – Piracy Conference” Lateline News, 28th April 2000.
Mark Valencia, “Joining up With Japan to Patrol Asian Waters” International Herald Tribune, 28th April
2000, p.6.
293 Nayan Chanda, “ Foot in the Water”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 9th March 2000.
294 Takahiro Fukada, “Japan to Participate in Joint Anti – Piracy Exercise”, AFP, 30th October 2000.
295 Interviews of the author with the maritime police of Kuala Lumpur and the Maritime Institute of
Malaysia, on the 8th and 9th April 2002.
291
292
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coast guards abruptly brought down the number of incidents to two296. Later, it was Japan
that was the victim of targeted attacks. Frédéric Lasserre narrates that a meeting between
the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Qian Qichen and Japanese diplomats in Tokyo in
February 1993 was followed by an appreciable fall in the attacks perpetrated against
Japanese vessels297.
Is it chance or a coincidence? It is difficult to differentiate between what is the result of a
deliberate strategy on the part of ill – intentioned authorities from what is due to the
influence of organised crime298. Were the motivations political or criminal? This has always
been a nagging doubt. Admiral Thimio Mitropoulos, President of the IMO in 1994, had to
go to Beijing to take up this subject with the Chinese authorities and to let them know of
the anxiety of the maritime and trading community of Hong Kong. Throughout the 90s,
this suspicion has fuelled the mistrust of the Asian ship owners towards China.
Indeed, the situation in the Spratly and Paracels Islands is quite political. In the
beginning of the 1990s, at a time of a more or less controlled withdrawal of the Russians
and the Americans, these zones were at the core of all regional claims. China’s objective
seemed clear: taking over the two small archipelagos rich in hydrocarbons of rare
importance to maritime transport, for which they were even ready to exploit or stir up
pirate activities.
In May 1999, a Filipino vessel had been accused of having sunk a Chinese trawler along
the banks of Scarborough, in the heart of Spratly. The incident took place during a period
of tension between Beijing and Manila. Was it piracy, an indirect strategy by Manila or an
act of bellicose politics? Here again, difficult to reply. At a time when classic conflicts
between States are no more on the agenda in the region, manipulation of piracy could
represent a means of ensuring in fact, a control over these strategic islets.
Chinese authorities have often been accused of collusion with the pirates and some
times even of acts of direct piracy299. Beijing replied that the interception of vessels was in
line with the anti-smuggling war300. However, this explanation did not adequately justify
the inspections outside the territorial waters often for more than 500 miles off the coast. In
1998, the situation was such that the BIMCO and the IMB sent a letter about “the treatment
of commercial ships in Chinese ports” on 17th August to Huang Zhen Dong, Minister of
Communications. Ove Tvedt and Eric Ellen called for the opening of a dialogue with the
Chinese Port authorities, the Department of Public Safety and any other maritime authority
likely to attack a vessel in Chinese waters.
On this occasion, the officers of both the organisations brought up the issue of several
doubtful cases; one of them being the Vosa Carrier, detained by the local police in the port
of Hui Lai after being intercepted by the pirates on 11th October 1997. According to a tried
and tested method, the policemen had forced the captain and his crew to sign a confession
admitting that they had committed acts of smuggling. Merchandise worth $2.5 million had
been confiscated. In their letter Ove Tvedt and Eric Ellen then mentioned the famous Anna
Sierra, regretting that neither the goods nor the boat could be restored to the owner in spite
of the ‘fine’ - that could well be termed as ransom of $400,000 that had been paid. Eric Ellen
and Ove Tvedt concluded hoping that light would be shed on the other two dubious cases
Petro Ranger and Tropicana.
Eric Ellen, “La Piraterie en 1994”, in Revue internationale de police criminelle, no: 3- 4, 1994, p.5.
Frédéric Lasserre, Le Dragon et la mer: Strategie Géopolitique chinoise en mer de Chine du Sud,
L’Harmattan, Montreal, 1996, p.247.
298 Eric Ellen, March – April 1994, p.3.
299 Frédéric Lasserre, 1996, p.243-250.
300 “Shipping”, in Asia 94 Yearbook, Far Eastern Economic Review, p.62.
296
297
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In fact, these spectacular actions permitted Beijing to assert its authority and to affirm its
presence in the disputed areas. Besides, many attacks had not given rise to any theft,
probably because China was only seeking to stake out its territory301.
The American withdrawal in 1999 and the arrival of the Chinese economic groups like
Hutchinson Whampoa on the banks of the Panama Canal had also evoked some anxiety.
Did not the Chinese Government risk taking hostage maritime traffic in Asia- Pacific of the
“Asian Mediterranean” at the mouth of the Panama Canal302? This improbable political
scenario was in fact quashed as early as November 2000, when Hutchinson Whampoa
entered into conflict with its Government.
If piracy can harm countries on the diplomatic front, it can also foster cooperation that
can strengthen bilateral ties. Hence, during the discussions on the adoption of a code of
conduct in the South China Sea, piracy held quite an important place. The forum, which
regularly brings together China and a few countries of the Asean, had the objective of
calming down tensions in the disputed zones. The fight against trans national crime and
piracy constitutes in fact a base for negotiations that is more consensual than the
demarcation of boundaries303.
Here, the People’s Republic of China was able to show that it was ready to make
concessions in matters of regional safety. In private, Minister Chen suggested cooperating
with Manila in the South China Sea to tackle piracy in the waters of the Philippine
Archipelago304. For the two countries, it was an opportunity to come closer on a very
precise theme that could later lead to in-depth negotiations, concerning more litigious
matters.
The rather conflicting relationships that Beijing maintained with the maritime world
were still to be improved. In this perspective, the Chinese have multiplied reassuring
initiatives in order to facilitate the reintegration of their ship owners with the Asian ship
owners. For example, the meeting held in late 1999 by the Minister of Public Safety, with
the declared objective of intensifying the fight against maritime crime in a broader sense, is
proof of this. Besides, the minister had strongly spoken at length on the necessity of
creating a special department in charge of this issue.
This firm position had been reiterated during the 71st session of the Maritime Safety
Committee of the IMO, held in May 1999. Following an appeal launched by the Secretary
General of the Interpol to coordinate the various initiatives in the framework of anti-piracy
war, China had been the only country of the region that not only responded, but also did so
with obvious enthusiasm.
Since then, Beijing has formulated several proposals such as the setting up of privileged
channels of communication, transmission of information concerning crime and the
development of trans-national investigations.
The efforts of the Chinese authorities had taken a concrete turn, as illustrated by the
arrests linked to the cases of MV Cheung Son, MV Marine Master and MT Siam Xan Xai.
Frédéric Lasserre, 1996, p.247.
Sainte – Croix Rauzduel, “Panama: Le Canal retrouvé”, in Politique internationale, no: 87, spring 2000,
p.240.
303 Reuters, “Asean – China Ties are Getting Stronger”, The Nation, 27th March 2000.
304 Carlyle Thayer, Beijing Plans for a Long – Term Partnership and Benefits from Anti – Western
Sentiment, Pacific Forum CSIS, October 1999, p.1.
301
302
78
Moreover, the Peoples High Court charged 14 Burmese for piracy. The chief of the gang,
Maung Htay Aung, was sentenced to death305.
Besides, Hao Yin Biao, in charge of Asian issues at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign
affairs, had proposed the application of capital punishment for acts of piracy, during the
international meeting which took place in Bombay in late 2000306. The IMB in any case had
to emphasise in its annual report, the “key roles” played by the Chinese Centre of Research
and Maritime Help, the Chinese Port authority and the Bureau of Maritime Safety of the
People’s Republic of China, in locating the boats that had disappeared.
After having been accused for a long time, the Chinese government from this point
onwards passes of as a promoter of cooperation between the maritime industry and the
administration.
4.2.3. India turns its attention to the East
New Delhi has also taken advantage of the pirate issue to re assert itself in the region,
whereas conventionally it had paid little attention to its seas307. During the Tokyo
conference, India surprised most of the delegates by its resolution. Even though it is
geographically at the periphery of the zone under consideration, its representatives have
shown their sincere interest in the conduct of joint exercises, even lauding the merits of a
combined approach308.
This attitude is in line with the rapprochement that New Delhi has embarked upon with
its Eastern neighbours309. The war against piracy represents an efficient means of opening
up a dialogue.
India is at the threshold of a ten-year plan to develop its naval capabilities and to
reinforce its presence right from the Arabian Peninsula up to the South China Sea. The
country now claims to have the means of maintaining a strong military posture against
Pakistan while at the same time focusing its attention on the vast oceans. Besides the
acquisition of Russian equipment and the construction of new frigates, the Indian Minister
of Defence, George Fernandes has undertaken several trips to the Far East. Agreements on
the conduct of joint naval exercises were signed with Japan, Vietnam and Malaysia310.
The latest example of the Indian ambitions in the region: During the meeting of top
Government officials at the Regional Forum of the Asean, on 17th May 2000, at Bangkok,
New Delhi emphasised the pirate issue. Indian experts suggested a workshop, which took
place in Bombay, bringing together defence experts accompanied by marine officers from
twenty countries including the Naval Attaché of the French Embassy in India who
represented the European Union.
The Alondra Rainbow case (refer to boarding incident 10) hijacked in Southeast Asia and
found off the Indian coast after a fierce pursuit, could not have come at a worse time for the
authorities. Indian Vice Admiral John De Silva, Director General of the Coast Guards,
P.T.Bangsberg, “Chinese Court Affirms Death, Prison Sentences on 14 Pirates”, Journal of Commerce
online, 22nd August 2000.
306 AP, “ Asean Meeting Calls for Death Penalty to Curb Piracy”, The Shipping Times, 27th October 2000.
307 Jean Armand, “ La Vocation maritime de l’ Inde”, Bulletin of Marine Studies, no: 17, April 2000, p.47.
308 Kwan Weng Kin, “ Asian Governments not Keen on Joint Piracy Patrols”, The Straits Times, 4th
May
2000.
309 Nayan Chanda, “After the Bomb”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 13th
April 2000; on the latest Indian
strategy on this issue, Frédéric Grare and Amitabh Mattoo (dir.), India and Asean – The Politics of India’s Look
East Policy, Centre of Humanities – Institute of Southeast Asian Studies – Centre for Study of National
Security Policy – Manohar, New Delhi – Singapore, 2001, p.248.could be consulted.
310 Anthony Davis, “Heading for trouble”, Asiaweek, 9th June 2000.
305
79
pointed out that the efforts recently undertaken by China encouraged the pirates to turn to
Iran and India and his country had therefore endeavoured to intensify its vigilance.
This progressive shift of the epicentre of piracy towards the sub–continent could justify
the stand of the Indian Government as far as the fight against maritime crime is
concerned311. It would particularly allow New Delhi to make use of its islands in the
Andaman seas to equip itself with a real Southeast Asian policy to the detriment of its
Chinese rival. It was no coincidence that in August 2001, the establishment of a base in its
Andaman and Nicobar Islands was envisaged. The Indian Navy is trying to get
progressively closer to the Malacca Straits under the pretext of supervising the entrance to
the Bay of Bengal.
4.3. Environmental and Human stakes
4.3.1. Piracy, oil spills, chemical risks and radio active wastes
The neutralization of the crew of a petrol tanker or the usage of inflammable engines
represents a real environmental hasard, as illustrated by the Valiant Carrier case. On 24th
April 1994, during a pirate attack, three Molotov cocktails had been thrown from a patrol
boat moored to the stern of the ship, instantaneously engulfing the bridge in flames.
The incident could have turned into a catastrophe since, at the exit of the Singapore port
the boat was loaded with 30,000 tons of highly inflammable chemical products that could
have simply exploded. The crew was able to control the fire, but the vessel had drifted
nearly three miles from Mapor Island before it could be brought back under control312. The
danger is all the more alarming as the Molotov cocktail is one of the easiest hand made
weapons to manufacture.
Equally alarming was the incident that took place on 10th November 1991, when an oil
ship weighing around 250,000 tons called Eastern Power sporting the Panama flag drifted
for almost fifteen minutes without a pilot in the Phillip Channel (off Singapore coast). The
pirates had tied up the crew and nothing could prevent the vessel from sinking off the
coasts of one of the largest ports in the world313. Only Providence had saved them from a
catastrophe.
According to the annual report of the IMB, in 1999, 52 of the 300 attacks were targeted
against oil tankers. If vessels loaded with chemical products were added to these tankers,
nearly one fourth of the attacked boats would pose a serious threat to the environment in
case of wreckage. It is true that the quantity of fuel, which transits through the Malacca
Straits, is considerably high.
According to the Energy Information Bureau of the American Government, the quantity
of petroleum transiting through the Malay Straits at the end of the 90s was 9.5 million
barrels per day, as against 3.1 million barrels in the Suez Canal and 0.6 million barrels in
the Panama Canal314. It would also be noted that almost three – fourth of the world trade of
liquefied natural gas transits through the China Sea315.
Ramola Talwar Badam, “BC – India – Piracy”, AFP, 18th October 2000.
David – Anthony Delavoet, 1995, p.31.
313 Barry Hart Dubner, 1995, p.8.
314 Energy Information Administration, World Oil Transit Chokepoints, August 1999, p.2.
315 Energy Information Administration, Liquefied Natural Gas Fact Sheet, EIA, October 1998, p.3-4.
311
312
80
BOARDING INCIDENT 12: A CAPTAIN REMEMBERS:
“AT 10.30 p.m., FOUR PIRATES SEIZED THE LIEUTENANT”
Extract of a report in the high seas:
“On the [day and date] at 7:30 p.m., We entered the Singapore Strait. At around 10:50 p.m. the presence of
four pirates armed with knives, who captured the lieutenant was detected on board. Following the triggering of
the alarm, the pirates quickly left the boat. A roll call of the crew was made and then it was signalled that we did
not require assistance. Over to Buffalo Rock at 23.38 hrs;”
Extract from the report addressed to the Anti Piracy Centre in Singapore, the next day:
“The pirates were around twenty to thirty years old. The oil ship was attacked at a height of seven metres of
freeboard. On reaching the dining room they tied up the sailor and threatened him, a machete at the nape of his
neck, and asked for the captain and the money. Fortunately the Second Engineer entered the room, thereby
foiling the pirates’ plan (…) These men could escape by the gate on bridge number three. (…) The lieutenant
who was tied up recalls that the pirates were at least as frightened as him. As for the boarding, we neither saw
them approaching, nor leaving the ship. At that moment, four sailors were on the bridge. Two radars were
functioning in that zone, as you can imagine, every body was awake. (…) Apart from the obvious danger to the
crew it must be underlined that receiving such “guests” on board in this zone, is also dangerous for the boat
and the consequences could be disproportionate, compared to a simple theft of a few dollars from the captain’s
safety locker. ”
It is probable that an oil tanker accident of such enormity could as a consequence
precipitate international measures against piracy. Some even go to the extent of wanting
them. In fact whereas plane hijacks attract public attention, maritime piracy rarely
heightens public awareness. A serious accident in these regions would nevertheless be
publicised in the media, probably far more than that of the Exxon Valdez, which sank in a
deserted zone in Alaska. To the environmental damages of an incomparable magnitude, it
would be necessary to add the terrible consequences on the coastal population, by the big
ports of the region and the fall in maritime traffic. The consequences of a large-scale oil
spill in the Singapore Island are certainly impossible to evaluate. Apart from the
economical impact due to traffic interruption, one could think that the fishing industry,
already threatened by pollution, would permanently disappear from this region316.
The long fertile stretches of the coast would also suffer long-term damages. The Vice
Admiral of Thailand, Nitz Sri Som Wong was concerned about the risk which threatened
the surroundings of Bangkok and Laem Chabing ports (Thailand). In fact, due to the high
tariff in Singapore, several oil ships choose these ports for a stopover317.
Another important ecological factor: Transportation of radioactive wastes and
plutonium imported by Tokyo. Let us note that Japan is the third client of the reprocessing
factory of the Cogema (General Company of Nuclear material) in France. The quantities of
potentially radioactive material which transit through the Malay Straits, are therefore not
negligible. Besides, conventional pirates are not the only ones that are concerned here. The
risk, which swings between politics and fiction, lies in an unarmed, untrained crew being
attacked. The cargo would then very likely fall into the hands of well-organised terrorists.
Without extrapolating on its possible usage, one realises, for the moment, the capabilites of
the gangs as far as ship hijacks are concerned. The risk is all the more plausible as the
situation would have already taken place. In 1968, Israel could thus have directly or
indirectly financed, the hijack of several tons of uranium oxide transported by the
European Vessel “Scheersberg”318 on the Mediterranean Sea.
Robert Redmond, June 2000, p.199
Peter Chalk, 1997, p.26.
318 Cameron Binkley and William Potter, “Plutonium Shipments Safer by Sub”, in www.bullatomsci.org,
vol.46, no: 10, December 1990. The authors of this article have gone to such an extent that they suggest the
316
317
81
4 3.2. Simply put, Piracy Kills
According to the obviously underplayed statistics of the IMB, between 1991 and 2000,
259 persons died 319 and 1854 sailors had been taken hostage as a result of acts of piracy.
Less detectable but none the less real, the psychological trauma of the victims never figures
in the statistics. Besides, maritime companies had taken the human factor into
consideration only from the late 90s320.
Socio-political crises that have followed financial and economic crises from 1997 are
probably related to the violence of the attacks. Sailors are often thrown into the water,
where some of them drown. Nets of Thai, Vietnamese, or Indonesian fishermen sometimes
catch their bodies. But in most cases the crew is abandoned in the sea on a little raft with a
few days’ provisions.
The usage of weapons is another indicator of pirate brutality. If in 1996, 117 pirates were
not armed, there was only one in 1999... Since this date, confrontations have been on the
rise. The sailors are fighting harder to repulse attacks, which naturally causes the number
of victims among their ranks to increase.
This increase in violence supports the idea of a “new Middle Age” that some people
announced on the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a matter of fact, in Europe,
around the year 1000, maritime communities had taken advantage of a period of political
instability and a favourable geographical context (proximity to important ports through
navigable routes) to take to armed robbery at sea. Today, it is the turn of certain Malaysian,
Filipino or Indonesian people faced with the Asian crisis, to succumb to temptation of
piracy.
The presence of Westerners amongst the hostages of Jolo could have ironically enabled a
better understanding of the human factor. But it seems that one has to wait for the next
incident, may be of an ecological kind, for the situation to return to normal in the
neighbourhood of the big archipelagos.
usage of submarines for the transport of plutonium. This was the solution taken by Germany in 1916 for
the supply of nickel and rubber.
319 Hervé Lionel-Marie, expert at the Appellate Court in Versailles, however notes that the statistics of the
year 2000 also includes the fifty American sailors, victims of the attack against the USS Cole. Interview with
the author on 30th January 2002.
320 M.Hand, “Indonesian Waters Hotspot for Piracy Attacks”, The Shipping Times, 4th February 1999.
82
Chapter 5
The Ever Rebellious Pirate Against
a Legal Order That Is Often Biased
In 1925, then later in 1958, two famous legal experts were all set to sound the death knell
of pirates. Whereas one of them wondered if the “crime of piracy” was “obsolete”,
according to the second, piracy was “no longer a general problem”.321
At the dawn of the third millennium, the question of defining piracy still remains
unsolved. Governments and experts are sceptical about the Montego Bay Convention
whereas in the absence of a ratification the Rome Convention is hardly operational (see
above). Just as in the case of terrorism, there is still no unique and well-established
definition of piracy. Be it the South American guerrillas or other terrorist movements like
the LTTE in Sri Lanka, the distinction between political and strictly criminal activities is
fine, as would have been the distinction between pirates and corsairs in their time. The
corsairs were certainly duly licensed but their methods and practices were as dubious as
those of the pirates. As for the buccaneers, if they operated on their own account, they
enjoyed the goodwill of the governors of the West Indies, only too happy to see the Spanish
fleet being harassed.
5.1. The Divergence of Interests,
Main Reason for the Lack of Legal Uniformity
The deeply rebellious nature of piracy has been the primary cause of this confusion
surrounding the terms and the definition used. Piracy has evolved through the ages in
multiple forms, its existence being guaranteed by a continual myth, rather than by a norm.
Pirates travel beyond time – did Cicero not consider them “the enemies of the human
race”? –, but also beyond legal space, since they are lost in the midst of oceans, far from
countries and their boundaries. Pirates seem to love liberty to such an extent that it would
be difficult to contain them within a clearly determined legal framework.
However, contemporary pirates no longer subscribe – as did some of their predecessors
– to these anarchist - nihilistic motivations, which leads one to believe that they presented
an alternative to the established order. If they also derive benefit from globalisation and its
networks, it is to satiate their hunger for wealth, recognition, and fame. Currently, it is the
divergence of interests as far as enforcement is concerned that explains - more than their
supposedly rebellious nature – the difficulty in defining maritime piracy in legal terms.
Therefore, the people responsible for the confusion are not the pirates, but their opponents.
321
Quoted by Laurent Lucchini and Michel Voelckel, 1996, p.153
83
Aware of the impact of this phenomenon on their image, countries tend to opt for a
narrow definition of piracy that they voluntarily limit to a single geographic area. The 1982
convention, concluded in Montego Bay in the framework of the United Nations echoes the
terms of the 1958 Geneva Convention, pertaining to the high seas. This in its turn was
based on the Harvard Research Draft of the 1930s and specified in article 101 that any of
the following acts could be considered as piracy:
“a) Any illicit act of violence or detention or any perversion committed by the crew or
the passengers of a vessel or a private aircraft acting for personal motives and
directed:
- against a vessel or an aircraft, or against passengers and property on board, in the
high seas;
- against a vessel or an aircraft, or persons or property, in a zone not coming under
the jurisdiction of any country.
b) Any act of voluntary participation in the utilisation of a vessel or an aircraft when the
author is aware of the fact that the concerned vessel or aircraft is a pirate vessel or
aircraft.
c) Any act inciting the commitment of the acts defined by a) and b) or committed with
the intention of facilitating them”.
This limited definition gives rise to two problems. The first is connected to the
diplomatic situation prevailing in the region. If one takes into consideration article 101,
piracy would not exist within the waters of each country where the attacks committed
would be termed as simple armed robbery. The limit defined for territorial claims is
generally fixed at 12 miles, to which the 1958 Convention added the continental plateaus.
Since the Montego Bay Convention - which however does not deny the notion of
continental plateau – this limit can also be extended to an exclusive economic zone of 200
nautical miles that can be redefined from just a small islet.
Following complex cartographic manipulations, China estimates that its borders include
a major part of the South China Sea. As a result, it could have seemed quite legitimate to
the Chinese Customs officials to carry out activities of the “anti-smuggling war”, very far
from the Chinese coast. The maritime community denounced as blatant acts of piracy that
which Peking termed as fight against trafficking. The boundary of “territorial” waters is at
stake here: it would be necessary to define the concerned maritime zone in order to
determine the real nature of the acts. In a context where territorial limits are not clearly
established, the definition coined at Montego Bay, applicable to the high seas, opens the
door to a number of divergent interpretations and misuse of political and / or criminal
nature.
A second consubstantial limitation of the current legal definition of piracy: it allows
Governments to introduce nuances that are solely dictated by their concern for their image.
The Singapore Shipping Association has its own reservations, for example about the
amalgamation that was made at the 1982 Convention of piracy and armed robbery at sea
within territorial waters. This confusion would make it possible to amplify statistics,
whereas according to the Association, the second category of incidents would be treated as
risks due to the economic crisis. Reduced to extreme poverty, some would take to
plundering from time to time and would try to seize on the high seas what others plunder
on land, acting without a pre-established plan or support from any organisation at all. The
main objective of these new sea bandits would be survival.
During the meeting at Kuala Lumpur in November 2000, a majority of the participating
countries had denounced the amalgamation of this petty crime and organised piracy.
Experts have suggested restricting the definition of piracy to “trans national acts of
detention and boarding of vessels on the high seas”322. According to some experts of the
322
“Asian Experts Push for New Definition of Piracy”, AFP, 15th November 2000.
84
maritime industry, in this way the Nations would not only be seeking to enhance their
image but also to avoid an increase in transportation and insurance costs.
On their part, some Non-Governmental Organisations strive to protect the interests of
sailors and their cargo. The Nippon Foundation, which is concerned about Japanese
maritime transport, moots a broader approach to piracy, that it defines as “any hostile
action such as boarding a vessel (which could also be docked) with the intention of robbery
or committing any illegal act or using violence323”.
The International Maritime Bureau has also opted for a broader definition since it
includes armed robbery at sea in its agenda. By giving importance to the practical aspect of
the definition and to the safety of sailors, the IMB includes in the notion of piracy “any act
of boarding a vessel with the intent to commit theft or other crime with the capability to
use force in furtherance the act324”.
The Singapore Shipping Association estimates that the IMB has taken a particularly
strict view of Southeast Asia whereas the waters of the Bay of Bengal are as dangerous.
According to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, the International Maritime
Bureau, a private body, could very simply be trying to provide alarmist reports in the
interests of its clients. Mr. Tan, a ship owner in Singapore, observes that the statistics of the
IMB and those of the International Maritime Organisation seldom coincide325.
As opposed to the countries, the objective of the IMB would be to highlight piracy in the
straits. In fact, top maritime companies, including those who contribute to the financing of
the Regional Centre for Piracy, an extension of the IMB in Southeast Asia, are considerably
embarrassed. Among the active supporters of the Centre, are Japan P&I Club (Japan),
Thoresen & Co. Ltd., (Thailand) and Seaarland Shipping Management Geselleschaft MBH
(Austria). One can therefore question the credibility of the statistics and the criteria of the
IMB, the flag bearer of the maritime companies.
On their part, academics seem to be spared by these quarrels between the private and
the public sectors. They often ask fewer questions by including under a single term piracy,
mutiny, maritime terrorism, smuggling and even clandestine immigration. In any case, this
is the attitude adopted by Samuel Pyeatt Menefee who is a reference in research on
“maritime violence326”.
5.2. Towards a (Re-)Definition of Criteria
The status of the various criteria, top priority for some, minor for others, adds to the
confusion that surrounds the notion of piracy. If one tries to combine the different
approaches (that of the historian and of the expert) and the diverse interests that are
involved, (those of the maritime companies and of the Nations), the following could be the
criteria of definition:
1. The location (on the high seas and /or in territorial waters);
2. The motives (strictly personal and perhaps political);
3. The amplitude and the target (cargo and /or only the possessions of the passengers);
4. The origin of the aggressors and the circumstances of their escape;
5. Use of threat and /or violence, as well as the techniques adopted
6. The reason (intention, incitation, and / or the participation in the utilisation of a
vessel for pirate activities).
In www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/English/index.html
ICC- CCS, “Weekly Piracy Report”, in www.icc-ccs.org: “ Any Act of Boarding any Vessel with the
Intent to Commit Theft or other Crime and with the Capability to Use Force in Furtherance the Act”.
325 Anonymous Diplomatic Source, July 2000
326 Samuel Pyeatt Menefee,1996,p.5.
323
324
85
The last two criteria constitute necessary but insufficient conditions. It is different for the
first four, subject to the appraisal of each one’s interests.
5.2.1. The location: The link to the water element
Nations are too attached to their sovereignty and to their image to readily admit that
maritime piracy could prevail within their territorial waters. In this zone, acts of
delinquency are supposedly termed as “murder”, “assault”, and “robbery” or more often
“banditry”. Oriental expert Daniel Perret cites the example of the Malaysian Maritime
Police that clubs together attacks committed in the territorial waters of the Federation and
maritime banditry. In 1997, it recorded attacks against docked boats as simple thefts,
whereas the IMB considered them to be acts of piracy 327. Similarly, in November 2000, the
ketua polis daerah of Kota Kinabalu (the chief of the local police) denied any act of piracy
inside the port whereas the IMO had identified two incidents in 1999.
The stakes are considerable given that according to the IMO, 62% of the attacks in
Southeast Asia had taken place in the territorial waters in 1993, the figure of 80% being
overtaken in the late 90s328.
In the event of attacks on the high seas, defining the responsibilities and the losses of
each country is delicate enough. When a vessel disappears, half a dozen countries are
sometimes implicated according to the nationality of the ship owner, the merchandise and
the crew329. Territorial considerations are therefore unwarranted in the face of a threat that
is obviously transnational.
Generally speaking, be it in a port or on the high seas, piracy is defined above all by the
maritime element, specific in the sense that it represents an open space, without clearly
demarcated boundaries.
Coming to specific cases. What about fixed maritime installations? What about pirate
attacks on land? The Montego Bay Convention as well as the International Maritime
Bureau only mentioned attacks against ships. The attacks against oil - rigs however
resemble acts of boarding vessels and the offenders are generally the same. The clauses
signed in Rome in 1988, have a tendency to club them together.
As for attacks on land, the problem is different. Certainly, the bolder ones could
consider small islands as huge ships. This remains to be seen. Some West Indian
buccaneers of the 17th century like the Olonnois had not in any case hesitated to diversify
their activities by leading impressive expeditions from the sea against Latin American
cities.
Times and places change but the approach hardly does. Just like their European
counterparts in the past, the Malaysians who conduct raids on the coasts of Borneo,
terrifying fishermen and amateur sailors, take advantage of the sea and the absence of a
well-defined boundary in the seas. In fact, it is the sea - or more generally speaking, water and the potential of escape that it represents that constitutes the greatest common
denominator rather than the origin. Therefore, all those who either come from the sea, who
attack vessels or installations that they come across, or use the open waters to make good
their escape would be considered pirates. There could be no question of piracy without the
connection to the water element – oceans, seas, rivers or streams. In a certain way, this
would be the lowest common denominator.
Daniel Perret, 1998, p. 122.
Cited by Barry Hart Dubner ,1995, p.9
329 Alan Chan, The Dangers of Piracy & Ways to Combat it, presented during a seminar on piracy organized
by the Singapore Shipping Association and the Society of International Law at Singapore, on 22nd October
1999, p.3.
327
328
86
5.2.2. Motivations – a false trail
We have already said that western literature has often glamorised pirates. Thus, Tom
Sawyer, the hero of American novelist Mark Twain, was plunged in a world of crime, but
his motivation was not monetary330. Far from it. A rebel, he took up the career of a pirate
under the name of “Black Avenger”, during an escapade on Jackson Island, on the banks of
the Mississippi. However, one will note that pirates in fiction suffer less from material
constraints than their models. They can portray themselves as having no personal motives,
even though, in the history of piracy, the line had always been drawn between financial
considerations, taste for adventure and more or less political missions. For example, Queen
Elizabeth had knighted Francis Drake, the famous English pirate in 1581. He had the good
taste- in the opinion of the Government - of exclusively attacking Spanish galleons. Less
categorical in his approach, the French king simply pardoned a pirate who was sentenced
to death for also having captured a Spanish vessel in 1526.
Today, if terrorists resort to piracy in a political context, it often concerns only the first
phase of their combat. Since it is only a question of criminals occasionally taking to the
seas, can we consider that they are covered by our definition? Yes, if like the IMB experts,
the motive does not seem to be a distinguishing criterion for us. No, if like the authors of
the Montego Bay Convention, we consider only the personal motivations (read financial)
for defining piracy331. Only those, whose sole objective is to rob vessels, would be pirates. If
one accepts this definition, the cases of Achille Lauro and of City of Poros should not have
been termed as acts of piracy.
Nevertheless, let us note that organisations that are called terrorist can practice piracy
within the framework of their mafia-like activities conducted simultaneously with their
political dealings, often with the simple objective of ensuring finance. This is the case of the
LTTE in Sri Lanka, which seeks to affirm its sovereignty over certain maritime zones, but
which has also engaged in different types of trafficking and conducted numerous attacks
on the seas to fill up its coffers. Further to the East, the pirates of the South China Sea
hijacked some merchandise. But who is who? Are the aggressors only corrupt elements, the
weak link of the customs or Chinese police having other motivations? It often seems to be
primarily a question of getting rich – it would then amount to piracy -, but the ulterior
benefits could prove to be of a more political nature.
In a similar legal configuration, delinquent practices of Nations are excluded from
piracy as well. When the Chinese Navy inspected Russian, Japanese or Hong Kong cargo
ships in international waters, it clearly exceeded its customary prerogatives.
Warships or civil boats belonging to a Nation and which would be engaged in attacks
are excluded from the international conventions pertaining to piracy (articles 95 and 96 of
the 1982 Montego Bay Convention, article 2 of the 1988 Rome Convention). Just like the
pirates, some Nations could exploit this legal ambiguity since the activities of their ships
would not resemble war-like acts, or armed conflicts. Thus this ambiguity is maintained by
terming these crimes as “special operations” like the one that led to the sabotage of the
Rainbow Warrior in the South Pacific332, unless some pirates in the South China Sea are only
corsairs having the carte blanche of the Government authorities to act but their missions
are not otherwise formalised.
The appellation “war ship” or “property of the State” must however be applied
carefully. It must involve a real control, recognised and undertaken by the Government
authorities. Moreover, according to the texts, it would be necessary to distinguish between
the movements similar to army attacks and attacks committed by “uncontrollable”
Mark Twain, the Aventures de Tom Sawyer, translation by Francois Gail, Flammarion, Paris, 1996, p. 287.
BEM, 8th July 1997, p.29.
332 On 10th July 1985, French police of the DGSE exploded the hull of the Rainbow Warrior, a Green Peace
vessel that was protesting against the French nuclear tests in the Pacific. A photographer working for the
ecological organisation, Fernando Pereira died during this operation.
330
331
87
elements. This is probably why the Montego Bay Convention terms as piracy the crimes
perpetrated by rebels from ships belonging to States: “The acts of piracy as defined by
article 101, perpetrated by a warship, a vessel or an aircraft belonging to a State, whose
crew rebels and takes control, are considered as acts committed by a private vessel or
aircraft”( article 102).
Roger Faligot, expert on Chinese mafia amongst others has reiterated the idea according
to which rebel Government officials would have initiated piracy in the China Seas. It was
disclosed that an important meeting took place in 1996 in the Forbidden City of Peking.
Admiral Liu Huaqing, Commander - in- chief of the Army, would have denounced the
administrative structures, civil or military, regularly implicated in these incidents. In
reality, it was the mafia that would have pulled the strings of these operations and
disposed of the cargo, via companies that are well established in Macao or in Hong
Kong333. Thus, it would be more a case of corruption than of manipulation.
In the eyes of international law, Chinese Customs officials would have been considered
uncouth pirates as they looked like rebels. One would thereby forget that these special
operations could in fact have been secretly remote controlled by (Peking) and that the
“uncontrollable elements” could be perfectly controlled. Here, one opens the door to a
complex debate on the responsibility of Nations. What level of control can one expect a
Government to exert over its army and its officials? To what extent must it be held
responsible for exactions committed in its name by its employees?
Apart from corsairs equipped with authorisation letters, rarely has one succeeded in
clearly distinguishing between piracy stricto sensu and that which serves the interests of the
Nations who sponsor it. Independent pirates, corrupt Government officials, manipulated
pirates, new corsairs, and Special Forces are all mixed up. The difficulty lies, as we have
seen, in the totally arbitrary interpretation of the criteria linked to the motivation of the
attackers, which does not seem to us, by virtue of this fact, to constitute an element of a
viable definition. The only solution could be to restrict oneself to appearances, to the direct
and easily measured effects on the victims of the acts of piracy.
5.2.3. The amplitude of the act: A concrete criterion for evaluation
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore stresses, as we have said, on what in its
eyes, differentiates piracy from armed robbery at sea. In the first case, it was the cargo of a
vessel that is targeted so that it could be sold in a parallel market. In the second case, only
the objects of value belonging to the crew were targeted.
In reality, while these two types of piracy appear to be poles apart, they are similar.
There does not seem to be any limit to which one can seriously refer to decide if an act
qualifies as piracy just as it would be specious to count the number of dead in order to
ascertain if one can speak of war or otherwise. In any case, a danger threatens the crew and
the cargo, irrespective of the value or damage finally done. Be it coastal banditry or
international trafficking, the danger is patent and is the same in all situations. Similarly, the
origin of the attackers is hardly important. If they attack from the sea, they conform more
to the image that one generally has of piracy, but the fact that they can act from a port does
not however disqualify them.
Moreover, the texts specify very aptly that the members of the crew, as well as
passengers acting as accomplices to the pirates, will also be termed as pirates. Even without
being directly involved in a boarding, acts having the objective of inciting the perpetration
of such exactions or even the usage of a pirate vessel, can be constituted as piracy. As for
the technique used, it is hardly of any importance. Piracy includes attacks and acts of
333
Roger Faligot, “ Le Retour des flibustiers”, in Politique Internationale, no: 77, autumn 1997, p.395.
88
boarding ships. Most often it implies threats or usage of violence but the weapons of the
criminals could vary considerably.
With each crime identical issues surface: the swiftness and surprise of the attack, the
difficulties of pursuit, and a link to water or to the seas. That is why it seems more
reasonable to pay attention to the behaviour, as such, rather than to the location,
motivations or the target.
5.2.4. From definition to the legal order
Of course, it is not enough to identify the criteria to arrive at a code that is unanimously
accepted. The exercise becomes all the more delicate as there is a big difference between a
thoroughly trans national threat and a legal order that is still Nation - centred. When the
International Penal Court becomes operational, it will be easier to designate criminals who
have very quickly learnt to make full use of globalisation. Sooner or later, it will be
essential to admit the reality of “free trade” of the pirates and to modify the legal order. A
study had been conducted for workers of the European Union, while it is delayed for the
pirates of the Asean. While treating terrorism, the International Penal Court could integrate
the Rome Convention in its study and even more so, the acts of piracy identified indirectly
by Article 3 of the 1988 text.
Meanwhile the International Maritime Organisation has decided to facilitate legal
initiatives as far as the anti-piracy war is concerned. Recently it coined an unpublished
definition of acts pertaining to armed robbery at sea: “Any act of violence or of illegal
detention or any act of devastation directed against a vessel or against the cargo on board
within the jurisdiction of a Nation”. The Committee of Maritime Safety of the IMO is
therefore no longer interested only in the high seas334. Its work constitutes a decisive step
for envisaging a concerted reaction from the international community against maritime
crime.
334
“Piracy: Grounds for Cautious Optimism Despite more Attacks”, The Shipping Times, 7th February 2001.
89
Chapter 6
Initial Reactions of the Multi-Lateral Players
At the outset, it has to be accepted that private shipping companies, troubled by the
competition that they face, have not always shown enthusiasm in their common initiatives
that are few and far between. The questions, formulated in 1995 by the magazine Intersec,
on behalf of ship owners, continue to be pertinent. They illustrate the relative importance
given by companies to piracy, since they only perceive it in terms of immediate cost/ profit
ratios: how many days per year are the boats actually in risky zones and would new routes
be less expensive? Given the current downsizing of crew, who ought to be in charge of
safety on board? Since most pirate attacks take place at night, what is the cost of the
overtime incurred for vigilance activities? Would not a floating fortress lose in terms of
manoeuvrability and its potential assailants be tempted to use more violent methods?
Apart from their contribution to the IMO, (see below), members of the shipping industry
do not seem to be very motivated to cooperate in the anti piracy war. It is therefore up to
the multilateral bodies to take up the major task of prevention.
6.1. Informative Approach
6.1.1. The initiatives of the International Chamber of Commerce
The Commercial Crimes Services (CCS) is a division of the International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC) in charge of commercial crimes. Its activities include:
x
ICC Cyber Crime Unit;
x
ICC Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB);
x
ICC Counterfeiting Bureau (CCB);
x
ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
It is the IMB that is in charge of maritime piracy and its work serves as a reference
today. Founded in 1981, under the impetus of Eric Ellen, former Commissioner in Chief of
London Port and former President of the International Association of Air and River Police,
this organisation had promptly received the support of the IMO, a maritime wing of the
UNO.
The functioning and financing of the IMB are guaranteed by its member companies.
Since 1985, it was given the special status of a bona fide 335 organisation by the British
Government. This feature allows it to rightfully collaborate with British Police forces and
Concept of Anglo-Saxon law that certifies good faith, even the good morality of a body, of a company,
of a legal entity or a person.
335
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the Interpol. Moreover, the Bureau maintains privileged relations with the Lloyd’s Register
and the Lloyd’s Maritime Information Service336.
IMB’s mission in matters of piracy consists basically of reducing risks and of helping
enforcement agencies. In order to do this, the IMB attentively follows the movement of
goods by verifying their arrival in ports337. Linked to these different objectives, IMB’s
activities appear to be diverse:
x
Identifying dubious loading documents and other fraudulent documents;
x
Circulating information on maritime crime collected from various commercial,
national and international sources especially through the publication of a bi-monthly
bulletin;
x
Offering victims of fraudulent transactions the means of obtaining a compensation;
x
Offering legal counsel in case of litigation;
x
Creating awareness among institutions about dangers of maritime crime;
x
Verifying references of ship owners before their ships are chosen for loading;
x
Implementing the Shiploc system that enables the follow-up of several vessels
through satellites. This procedure makes it possible for the shipping companies to locate
the exact position of their ships and as a consequence, it enables them to detect suspicious
deviations and possible hijacks. The device, the size of a shoebox, costs less than 300 dollars
a month. A comparatively modest cost when one recalls, that in spring 2000, 100,000
dollars were offered to get information on the Global Mars, which had disappeared338.
As far as Southeast Asia is concerned, the major innovation proposed in conjunction
with the IMB, the IMO (see below) and Inmarsat (International Mobile Satellite
Organisation) is the creation of a Regional Centre for Piracy (RCP). Inaugurated on 1st
October 1992, it is based in the offices of the IMB for the Far East. Its present Director, Noel
Choong, hopes to be able to systematise sharing of data on piracy with specialised agencies
in the concerned countries. His desire is to facilitate exchanges within a group of countries
that have come together since the meeting that was held in Tokyo in spring 2000.
The marine detectives of this institution track down information on the wharfs of ports
as well as in the world of triads, which by definition is difficult to access. The various crime
groups implicated in the hijacking of vessels seem to be aware of the danger. The proof of
this being that the Centre recently had to shift premises, mostly for reasons of safety.
The RCP has the objective of “furnishing help to investigation teams which react
immediately to acts of piracy” and “to collect proof for enforcement bodies339”. Moreover,
it should help in locating vessels intercepted by pirates, contribute to retrieving stolen
merchandise, help justice apprehend aggressors, help owners and crew who have been
attacked.
The activities resulting from these various missions are manifold. The RCP of Kuala
Lumpur maintains a permanent vigil to account for the suspicious movements of certain
vessels as well as for acts of piracy signalled all over the world. Everyday, at midnight local
time, the Centre transmits bulletins reporting attacks in East Asia through satellite (thanks
to the SafetyNet service of Inmarsat-C). They are “pirate weather bulletins” to quote an
expression of the journalist Yves Calvi340.
Every week, these daily reports are reproduced “verbatim”341. Every quarter, other
more synthetic reports are made available to the concerned institutions. Finally, every year,
David – Anthony Delavoet, 1995, p.82.
www.iccwbo.org/ccs/menu_imb_bureau.asp
338 www.shiploc.com/modes.htm
339 www.iccwbo.org/ccs/menu_imb_piracy.asp
340 Programme of 23rd March 2001 telecast on Europe 1 on the expedition of La Boudeuse on the trail of
Bougainville.
341 They are accessible on the site of the Centre: www.icc-ccs.org
336
337
91
the IMB publishes a digest on all the reports of the Centre titled “Piracy and Armed Robbery
Against Ships”.
In order to finance its activities, the Centre exclusively relies on voluntary contributions
from maritime transporters or insurance companies and on the aid of the International
Transport Workers Federation. While it cannot offer them total autonomy of action, this
makes it possible for them to offer free services to all boats irrespective of their owners or
their nationality.
6.1.2. Involvement of the IMO
The IMO was created in 1948, following a maritime conference of the UNO, organised in
Geneva. But it was only in 1958 that it really became functional. A neighbour of the IMB – it
is also based in London -, it is in charge of problems connected to the safety of navigation
from a statutory point of view. It has to analyse the dangers that threaten commercial
traffic and maritime economic interests in order to adopt the necessary resolutions. The
members of the IMO are classified according to their contribution to world navigation. For
instance, France figures in category B which groups together eight Nations that are the
“most concerned by international maritime trade” - and hence by piracy.
The IMO is composed of an assembly, a council and five committees:
x
The Marine Environment Committee ;
x
The Legal Committee;
x
The Technical Cooperation Committee;
x
The Facilitation Committee;
x
The Maritime Safety Committee (MSC).
Alerted by a note from Sweden to the MSC, the IMO assembly adopted a resolution (A
545-13) in November 1983 detailing precise measures to be taken against piracy. The
renewed outbreak of attacks in the ports of Western Africa had caught the attention of the
organisation, which then described the situation, as “alarming”. The resolution has
highlighted the risks threatening navigation as well as the environment. It has already
invited Governments, organisations of ship owners and sailor unions to get a true
perspective of the problem.
In April 1984, the MSC elevated piracy and armed robbery at sea to the level of an
“independent issue” and treated them as such in its agenda. The first step was to establish
a general panorama of piracy. In order to do this, the IMO compiled the various reports
supplied by member countries. Today, these reports circulate every month, accompanied
by quarterly and annual summaries. All reports received at the secretariat are transmitted
to various port authorities as well as to the countries. In 1991, the IMO adopted a resolution
(A.683-17) titled Prevention and suppression of acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea against
vessels. Once again, all the countries were asked to communicate all the incidents recorded
in their waters, to the organisation.
In 1992, at the initiative of the Secretary General of the IMO, William O’Neil, a work
group composed of experts from ten member Nations and NGO representatives was
constituted to tackle the problem in Southeast Asia. Between February and March 1993,
numerous missions and enquiries were launched in the straits in Indonesia, Malaysia and
Singapore.
92
On its return, the group published a report suggesting various measures to be taken:
1. Creation of a system of coordinated information ;
2. Organisation of clandestine operations in order to infiltrate the world of pirates;
3. Constitution of joint patrols composed of sailors and customs
officials;
4. Implementation of legal amendments permitting countries to avail themselves of
the right to continue their pursuit into territorial waters of another country.
The last point is probably the most important and still remains greatly debated.
In May 1993, following the 62nd session of the MSC, two documents were drafted. A
circular for the prevention and suppression of acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea against vessels
(MSC/Circ. 622) and a Guide for the attention of ship owners, maritime operators, captains and
crew for the prevention of acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea against vessels (MSC/Circ. 623).
In the same year, a new resolution (A 738-18) adopted by the assembly recommended
additional measures against piracy. Far from being revolutionary, they largely tally with
the suggestions of the IMB:
1. Report attacks immediately to the nearest rescue and coordination centre;
2. Ask these coordination centres to immediately warn vessels, and at the same time
inform the local security forces;
3. Equip boats with a special signal to be used in case of an attack342.
In March 1994, the shifting of the epicentre of piracy to the South China Sea constrained
the IMO to send a mission to Hong Kong, Philippines and China. Experts sought to meet
with the concerned Government officials, despite some opposition from Peking.
Following the financial crisis that shook Southeast Asia, a mission was sent this time to
the Malacca Straits (October 1998). It was to encourage the political decision makers to act
at a national level as well as on a regional scale. In February 1999, a seminar was held in
Singapore. According to the IMO, the interaction between countries was frank and open,
each of them was able to discuss its reservations. Finally, in March 2001, an officer of the
IMO, Admiral Mitropoulos, visited the heart of the Malacca Straits. He took the
opportunity to congratulate Malaysian and Singaporean efforts, regretting the fact that on
an average of three incidents, only one was reported343.
In May 1999, the conclusions of the IMO were recalled during the 71st session of the
MSC. On this occasion, the Committee had drawn up an interesting inventory of the major
problems pertaining to the piracy issue, in Southeast Asia as elsewhere. Here, thus proving
once again its obsession for enumerations, it highlighted :
1.
the economic situation prevailing in the regions victimised by pirates;
2.
the problem of resources for the organisations in charge of tackling piracy;
3.
the lack of cooperation and communication between agencies and concerned
administrations;
4.
the time taken to react after every incident;
5.
the general problem concerning the recording of the incident.
In order to face these numerous issues, it was necessary to review investigation
procedures, the apparatus of enforcement and the terms of regional cooperation344.
A circular (MSC/ Circ.805 in 1997) was published to encourage the States to follow these measures.
Donald Urquhart, “S’pore, M’sia Making Great Efforts”, The Shipping Times, 20th March 2001
344 For the activities of the IMO, in general, the circulars and reports are available on the web site
www.imo.org. Also read Edward Agbakoba, The Fight against Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships, IMO ,
London, 1998, and Focus on IMO : Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea, IMO , London, 2000.
342
343
93
6.1.3. Initiatives of specialised NGO’s
In 1993, the National Union of Marine, Aviation and Shipping Transport Officers (NUMAST) had reminded English leaders that obligations and diplomatic speeches should
not prevent concrete action being taken against the reality of the danger that threatened
British nationals in Southeast Asia345. In the early 90s, NUMAST decided to send an
enquiry officer, to East Asia. Singapore and Indonesia would have then appeared highly
co-operative346.
The efforts of the Nippon Foundation on their part go well beyond simple official
missions. Since 1968, this organisation has been directly implicated in traffic management
in the Malacca Straits. It financed several projects aimed at facilitating navigation and
enhancing safety in the region. Project OSPAR – Oil Spill Preparedness and Response Plan
- is one of the best examples. Besides, supported by the Nippon Foundation, the Japan
Association for Maritime Safety financially supports the Malacca Strait Council, established
in 1969.
On the one hand, these initiatives demonstrate Japan’s interest in the Malay Straits, and
on the other, its capacity to influence the local scenario. It also highlights its dependence as
far as supplies are concerned. After the disappearance of the Tenyu (refer to boarding
incident 8), the Nippon Foundation also decided to establish a direct link with countries to
collect information on piracy. Let us note that the special personal connections of its officer
with certain Government members was not without influence on the measures initiated by
Keizo Obuchi, the Japanese Prime Minister who suggested the Tokyo meeting in 1999.
The initiatives of the Nippon Foundation are in line with a progressive approach:
intensification of data collection followed by a press conference given in January 1999 in
order to create an awareness in the media. Since then, the organisation has not failed to
inform journalists. Generally desirous of obtaining information, it also interviews Japanese
companies on damages incurred by them due to piracy.
These measures have ended in a series of consultations with the Japan Association for
Marine Safety and the Japanese Shipowners’ Association. The outcome was a lesson which
is worrying to say the least: the number of piracy cases would be ten times higher than the
number recorded, which is once again an eye-opener as to the level of under estimation of
the pirate phenomenon.
As a result, the Nippon Foundation organised a meeting in July 1999. Three major
orientations were determined:
1. To promote exchange of information concerning damages and counter- measures
related to piracy. In this perspective, the Nippon Foundation has set up a data-base and
linked it through its home pages on the Internet;
2. To develop a new model of a warning system to protect vessels against possible
“intrusions347”;
3. To create an awareness about the pirate menace amongst the general public.
During the Kuala Lumpur meeting in November 2000, it seemed pertinent for the
Nippon Foundation to propose the creation of an Organisation for the Cooperative
Management of Safety in the straits of Malacca and Singapore. This initiative aimed,
amongst others, at the sharing of the financial burden between the concerned countries. It
was thus in keeping with article 43 of the Montego Bay Convention that obliged coastal
countries of a strait to come to an agreement with each other in order to manage issues
Numast Telegraph, 25 (7), July 1992, p.i.
Michael Pugh, 1993, p.11.
347 Hiroshi Terashima, The Role of NGOs in Dealing with Piracy at Sea, Society of International Law,
Singapore, February 2000.
345
346
94
linked to safety and environment in the best possible way. By proposing the creation of a
specific organisation, the private sector - represented in this case by the Nippon
Foundation – tried once again to supplement States, generally less imaginative on this
issue.
If, individually, shipping companies do not react openly to the pirate phenomenon, the
Asian Shipowners Forum – (ASF) organises meetings on this theme. During its ninth
forum, which was held in Seoul in May 2000, it nevertheless reiterated the responsibility of
States348. It was joined in this issue by the International Federation of Shipmasters
Association (IFSMA) which, during its 26th General Body Meeting in London, formulated a
resolution for IMO members, also reminding countries of the necessity to patrol and to be
equipped with material as well as with legal tools to counter piracy349.
On its part, the Singapore Shipping Association organised along with the Society of
International Law a seminar on piracy in October 1999. During his speech, Alan Chan,
President of the company Petroship Pte. Ltd. proposed the establishment of a “Tobin
piracy tax”; the idea being to set up a financial contribution based on the tonnage of vessels
that would make it possible to accumulate the necessary funds to counter the
phenomenon350. This attempt however, did not meet with the expected response.
Finally, due to their importance in the world shipping industry, the initiatives of the two
other organisations should be mentioned here. BIMCO (Baltic and International Maritime
Council), which represents 60% of the world’s commercial fleet, intervened on several
occasions against Chinese authorities at a time when they played an ambiguous role (see
above). The organisation calls for a better cooperation at an international level. It also seeks
to warn its members about recent attacks so that they can take adequate measures in highrisk zones. Finally, the BIMCO directly approaches Port authorities and Transport
ministers to highlight the necessity of developing safety measures for docked vessels.
The action of the International Maritime Committee (IMC) is more qualitative since it is
a study conducted on national legal tools. On 15th May 1998, its Assembly approved the
establishment of a Joint International Working Group on Uniformity of the Law of Piracy.
The issue is precisely formulated in these words, that is, whether “the promulgation of a
model of national legislative measures on piracy by the concerned organisations, under the
sponsorship of the IMC would be a useful tool to fight piracy”. The first meeting took place
on 8th July 1998. Members of the IMB, the IMO, BIMCO and Interpol amongst others
participated in it.
6.1.4 The work of academics:
the case for a Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific
The diplomatic exchanges in Asia - Pacific are characterised by their emphasis on a
“Part II” which, dear to the Asean countries, consists of informal meetings between top
Government officials or academics to study the possibility of cooperation in the region.
These discussions are held simultaneously with conventional Government meetings.
The Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) constitutes one of the
rare forums where the exchanges are in principle, rarely subjected to political constraints. A
laboratory for various diplomatic initiatives, it is a space for free thought, susceptible to
348 AFP, “Asian Ship Owners Hail China’s Death Penalty for Pirates”, The Shipping Times, 27th December
1999.
349 “Shipmasters Call for Steps to End Piracy”, Business Recorder, 1st June 2000
350 Alan Chan, The Dangers of Piracy and Ways to Combat it, and speech of 22nd October 1999 at the seminar
in Singapore organised by the SSA and SIL.
95
inspire the regional decision makers. In this capacity, it must contribute to the unity and
stability of the region. Following the “Asean way”, these informal discussions, a
preliminary step necessary for any formal meeting, enables the calming down of tensions
and often results in a consensus. Piracy is part of the CSCAP agenda, due to the danger that
it poses to regional safety. The Council includes five working groups, two of which for
maritime cooperation and for trans national crime, are sponsored by Australia351.
6.2. The Violent Approach: Resorting to the “New Mercenaries”
The measures taken by the IMB and the IMO and the initiatives of various specialised
organisations have led to a better perception of piracy and the tools that are necessary for
its eradication. Various organisations have started preparatory work that makes it possible
to envisage a better grip on the issue by the countries. However, some did not have the
patience to wait for a reaction from the Governments. Sailors have approached private
companies, reminiscent of the distant times of mercenaries of the India Company and the
VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Company)-Dutch Company in the Malay Archipelago.
Today, there is a general tendency for private “security” companies to develop. They
offer their services primarily in Africa, to countries whose police and army lack the means
or infrastructure. Multinationals can thereby build up a veritable private army for the
defence of their mines, and even their oilrigs. In Southeast Asia, the authority of the States
is likely to be questioned due to rampant crime be it urban, rural or maritime. Where its
sovereign duties are too poorly or too inadequately discharged, one can observe the return
of the mercenaries352. The weariness of ship owners as well as the anxiety of yacht owners
in the face of an outbreak of piracy, offers a new market to these professionals of conflicts
and insecurity. Several companies are directly involved in the anti-piracy war, subscribing
to the principle of answering violence with violence.
In February 2000, a U.K. based company, the Anglo-Marine Overseas Service Ltd
offered the services of a private force composed of the former Gurkhas of the British
Army353. Their mission was to protect docked vessels against any attempt of boarding. In
order to do this, they did not resort to firearms but rather to martial art techniques. Several
Japanese shipping companies transiting through the Malay Straits have evinced their
interest. The promotional brochure of the British venture specified that companies such as
P&O Princess Cruises, Radisson Seven Seas, Star Cruises, and Barber were amongst its
major clients. In 2000, 375 Gurkhas functioned as stewards or security guards on 75 vessels
belonging to sixteen companies354. Since then, the Anglo-Marine Overseas Service Ltd has
been conducting its activities more discreetly.
Satellite Protection Services (SPS), a Dutch company founded in Heereveen in 1997 and
a specialist in safety of maritime and air transport offered its services directly to the IMB. In
August 1999, it announced its intention to establish an operation centre at Subic Bay, in the
Philippines before setting up new centres in Curacao and Gambia. Its activity is classified
351 Senator Amanda Vanstone, “Closing Address”, in Joint Meeting of the CSCAP Working Groups on
Maritime Cooperation and Transnational Crime, University of Wollongong, Australia, 8th November 1999.Also
refer Sam Bateman, “Conference Report: Maritime Security in East Asia”, in International Commercial Law,
www.anu.edu.au,1996.
352 Michel Klen, “Le Retour des mercenaires”, in Etudes, no. 3914, October 1999,p.319; Richard Banegas,
“De la guerre au maintien de la paix: Le Nouveau Business mercenaire”, in Critique Internationale, Autumn
1998, p.179.
353 “Firms Cool to Gurkha Solution”, The Shipping Times, 28th February 2000.
354 “Gurkhas Hired by Cruise Lines as Pirate Deterrent”, The Shipping Times, 25th April 2000.
96
under four divisions, one of them being the Satellite Maritime Security, which offers its
services to ship owners. It also established maritime security teams, whose members are
recruited from amongst Dutch and British anti-terrorist units like the Royal Netherlands
Marine Corps, the Special Boat Squadron or the British Special Air Services.
In late June 2000, Sandline International, a company led by a British mercenary, Colonel
Tim Spicer, offered efficient methods to ship owners to tackle piracy and organised
crime355. This British company not only offered to train the crew to face high risk situations
but also to collect information about the instigators of the assaults. In the nebulous
structure of mercenaries, Sandline International holds an important place since it happens
to be a branch of a vast holding—Strategic Resources Corporation (SRC). It has several
companies, sometimes based in tax havens, and coordinated in London within the Plaza
107 group 356.
Another example: that of Dave Kellerman, Director of the Special Ops Associates (SOP).
In early June 2000, he reiterated that insurance officers advised travellers to cooperate with
pirates if they happened to climb aboard. Most often, only jewellery and cash interest them
and it was not worth aggravating the incident. Just like the Kingswood project of the
United Kingdom and the Security Professionals Academy in Italy, this security company
offers enforcement bodies as well as marine professionals safety training programs at sea.
Therefore, escorts do not represent the only imaginable solution. In fact, preparation of
crew and alertness of sailors in safety issues would lead to reducing the dangers.
Finally comes one of the most active security agencies, Marine Risk Management
(MRM)357. In 1999, confronted with a growing number of kidnapped or killed sailors, its
Director regretted that the IMB and the IMO were only resorting to vague and abstract
“international solutions” or “government initiatives” which were based far too much on
negotiation358. Far from the soft-pedalling debates of the IMO and the IMB, Captain John
Dalby talked about the various services of his company based in Kuala Lumpur. After an
initial promotion of Shiptrac, a satellite system that permits the detection of suspicious
deviations of vessels, MRM then offered to organise interventions at very short notice due
to its rapid reaction service: Maritime Asset Recovery and Protection service (MARAP)
which had developed considerable skills in tracking, locating and boarding hijacked boats.
MRM envisaged the creation of an investigation bureau for Southeast Asia.
The challenge posed to countries by these companies is real. For Richard Banegas, a
specialist on mercenaries, the big powers hope, as in the past, to combine “a maximum of
liberty and a minimum of responsibility359”. However, by accepting this easy solution
tacitly, they would place themselves in the same dilemma faced by the Heads of States in
the seventeenth century against corsairs and leading trading companies: “How to check
these agents and at the same time give them sufficient freedom necessary for them to be
effective and how to incite them to take up the risks of the commerce of war360”
The IMB and the IMO are also concerned about paramilitary solutions and prefer to
turn towards nations361. These organisations reject the escalation of violence all the more
because the boats they protect are not designed to withstand exchange of fire.
“Piracy on the Rise in Malacca Straits”, The New Straits Times, 19th June 2000.
Richard Banegas, autumn 1998, p. 181.
357 www.marinerisk.com
358 John Dalby, “Response to Piracy”, reader’s mail, Lloyd’s List, 19th May 1999.
359 Richard Banegas, autumn 1998, p. 194.
360 Richard Banegas, autumn 1998, p. 194.
361 AFP, “Spotlight on Rising Scourge”, The Shipping Times, 21st March 2000.
355
356
97
Maritime companies are themselves not necessarily satisfied by the solution offered by
the mercenaries as expressed by the following narration of a French officer in a shipping
transport company based in the Malay Archipelago.
“After the tug passes by, canoes or even speed boats, let themselves drift towards
the barge in tow, 200-300 meters behind it, hence invisible to it. Pirates climb on to
the barge and remove transportable and valuable equipments. Generators,
hydraulic pumps, electric boards, optic blocks, rear view mirrors etc. In order to try
to reduce damages, we have resorted to armed militia. A non-official mission that
can at any moment degenerate. (…) All said and done, it proves to be more difficult
to handle if pirates are affected and if they are agents of the local authorities police, customs, army362.”
362
Interview with the author on 13th November 2000.
98
Chapter 7
Delayed Reactions from Countries
7.1. Obstacles Disappear, Countries Appear
In 1996, a legal expert concluded his doctoral thesis on maritime piracy with the
“observation that a state of international apathy and inertia existed 363”. This passiveness
could be justified by the lack of means. For instance, it is difficult for Indonesia to check all
the 17000 islands in its archipelago. During the conference held in Tokyo in spring 2000, the
representative from Jakarta observed that his country lacked resources when compared to
the enormity of its maritime space. In the same year, a Government official of the
Department of Maritime Communication Routes revealed that only nine patrolling units
were in charge of covering the entire archipelago364. In Singapore, on the contrary, the
General Secretary of the Ship Owners Association referred to “the diminutive size” of his
country365. In 1995, it comprised only twenty-six coast guard vessels.
In early 2000, Nouvel Afrique-Asie attributed the inefficiency of countries to the 1997
crisis and the subsequent reduction in defence budgets. For example, budgets allocated to
the Royal Thai Navy decreased by 30% between 1997 and 1999366.
From a legislative point of view, the 1999 United Nations report noted that some coastal
countries were not in a position to tackle piracy due to the loopholes in their legal arsenal.
The financial means also proved to be just as inadequate.
The relative meekness of Governments can be explained by the lack of rigour on the
part of the countries where most vessels are registered. In late 1999, the maritime group
Seasia P&I pointed an accusing finger at Belize and the Honduras. It would be particularly
easy to obtain a temporary flag here and then reproduce necessary documents to change
the identity of hijacked ships367. How does one react to a lack of accuracy of maritime
documents, flags of convenience, proliferation of free ports, automatic trans shipment of
containers and secret banking368?
We have seen that the desire of countries to preserve their image hinders the anti- piracy
war. The 1958 Geneva Convention specifies in article 14 that “all the Governments must
cooperate as far as possible in order to suppress piracy on the high seas (….)”. For its part,
Garsenda Rossinyol, La Piraterie maritime, Doctoral thesis in Law, University of Nantes, 1996,.322 p.
Reuters, “Asian Nations Meet on Urgent Piracy Problem”, 27th April 2000.
365 Quoted by Olivier Weber and Marc Roche, “Le Retour des pirates”, Le Point, 8th August 1992; Reuters,
“Asian Nations Meet on Urgent Piracy Problem”, 27th April 2000.
366 Solomon Kane, Laurent Passicousset, “Pirates”, Le Nouvel Afrique-Asie, no:124, January 2000, p.41.
367 Hélène Vissière, “Mer de Chine : Sur la route des pirates”, Le Point, no: 1419, 26th November 1999.
368 Gilbert Rochu, “Les Pirates high-tech préfèrent les mers chaudes”, Marianne, 29th November 1999.
363
364
99
the 1988 Rome Convention called for a legal cooperation in the field of maritime security.
In general, combined initiatives nevertheless come up against diplomatic stakes that could
easily hypothecate them. Hence, in 1995, it seemed doubtful that the neighbouring
countries of Singapore were ready to significantly participate in the anti-piracy war. In fact,
their initiatives were likely to benefit the island-nation exclusively at a time when regional
relations were far from idyllic369.
For a long time, the attachment of countries to their sovereignty had blocked any
prospects of cooperation. Fiercely guarding one’s territorial waters from any foreign
invasion still appears to many as a priority, all the more so where western fleets are
concerned. In the early 90’s, Great Britain had envisaged an action in the region. But faced
with the risk of seeing the former giant colonial power meddling once again in the local
affairs, Jakarta and Singapore preferred to rapidly conclude the germ of an agreement on a
repression package that was signed on 6th July 1992370.
Nevertheless, countries are more and more aware that piracy really undermines their
sovereignty. Recently, a lot has been discussed, consulted and published on this matter.
More than the pirates themselves, it is what they lead to or result in, which attracts
attention. For instance, in 1997, the Jane’s group attributed the fall in piracy to investments
made by the various countries of the Asean371 in military equipments. But these purchases
fuelled tensions in the region. In the Malacca Straits, various national navies equip
themselves with radars and multiply their patrols, fuelling the anxiety of pirates as well as
of the neighbouring countries.
7.2. Unilateral Initiatives of the Nations
7.2.1. Countries of Southeast Asia at a moment of awareness
In Malaysia
Off the Penang Coast, in Malaysia, pirates dash across the waters. A few meters later,
they suddenly vanish in a cloud of smoke. Impossible to seize them before their next crime.
Arif is convinced about it; he has it from his cousin, a policeman, from the neighbouring
naval base of Lumut to the West of the Peninsula. A local spirit, the puja, would often come
to the rescue of the pirates. The policemen of Penang do not deny this. In this context, it is
difficult to organise a fight…
More prosaically, in spring 2000, in Tokyo, a Malaysian official of the Maritime
Enforcement Coordination Centre (MECC), Noor Azman Bin HJ Othman, complained
about the financial burden that the combat against piracy represented for his country372.
The Malaysian government would be quite ready to fight against this menace, he assured,
but the means were lacking.
As a matter of fact, the topography of Malaysia offers several opportunities to pirates, in
the Malacca Straits as well as off the coast of Sabah, not far from the Philippines and the
Sulu archipelago. In 1996, 37 of the 46 incidents reported in the countries by the IMB took
place between Kudat, Sandakan, Lahad Datu and Tawau. Besides, it is quite probable that
they were many more as the count was incomplete and taken too slowly. The incidents that
affect Malaysian fishermen north of Langkawi Island, on the west coast, for example, are
very rarely reported.
However, given the socio-political instability of Indonesia, the territorial limits of
Singapore and the Islamic situation in the Philippines, Malaysia seems to be better
David–Anthony Delavoet, 1995, p.73.
David–Anthony Delavoet, 1995, p.76.
371 Jane’s Intelligence Review, November 1997, p.9.
372 AP, “Pacific Nations Act on Piracy Menace”, The Manila Times, 28th April 2000.
369
370
100
equipped for countering the pirate menace in the Malay Archipelago. Kuala Lumpur is
aware of it. Proof of this is the hosting of meetings by the Malaysian capital following the
one in Tokyo, and of the Conference of the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre on
“national security against new challenges” (September 2000) or yet again the study on the
ratification of the Rome Convention. From an institutional point of view, it is under the
auspices of the National Security Division of the Prime Minister’s Department that the
Maritime Enforcement Coordination Centre was created in 1985. Its objective was coordinating and ensuring the efficiency of the activities of the various bodies in charge of
enforcement such as the Armed forces, the Police, the Fishing and Environment
Departments, the Maritime customs, the Telecommunication and Immigration
Departments. As for patrolling, the Navy and the Police share the task. The former is in
charge of EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) the latter of the territorial waters. In spring 2002,
there was even a question of bringing together the Navy, the Naval Police and the Customs
Department under a single commanding authority, to coordinate their operations.
In 1999, many incidents implicating Malaysian fishermen in the vicinity of Thailand
encouraged the Malaysian authorities to launch aerial patrols in the north of the country (at
Parit Jawa, not far from Johor) and to advise fishermen to sail in groups of ten boats. The
same year in October, the police established a five hectare maritime base on Indah Island
near Port Klang (in the neighbourhood of Kuala Lumpur), and a similar base had already
been established on Langkawi Island, further to the North. Today, their radar cover
spreads from Tanjung Kemarung to Langkawi up to Bukit Pengerang (Johor), facilitating
identification of vessels. These installations should help the Government to fight against
illegal immigration as well as piracy.
During the Kuala Lumpur conference in November 2000, Malaysia offered to escort
vessels between Port Klang and Johor Bahru. It had even launched the idea of setting afloat
“trap boats” to bait the pirates. The project was however judged to be too ambitious. At the
end of the year, however the Deputy Commissioner of Naval Police, Mohammed Muda
rejoiced at the acquisition of two patrol boats entrusted with the task of supervising the
western coast of the Malaysian Peninsula. On this occasion, the police officer called for a
more “aggressive” approach in combating piracy373. These vessels were acquired for
undertaking night patrols, between Malacca and Johor. Capable of travelling at fifty knots
(nearly 90 km/hour), they ought to finally make it possible to fight against the pirates on
equal terms. In February 2001, a new incident of the anti-piracy war took place. Bearing the
code name “Ex Naga Emas 39”, it was the 39th manoeuvre of this type since 1984374.
Day by day, like the French GSIGN (Special Intervention Group of National Police),
Malaysia intensifies aerial and naval patrolling, and updates its equipment (satellite
telephones, night vision binoculars). In 2002, Kuala Lumpur purchased Swedish patrol
boats armed with 20 mm French cannons and it was learnt that fifteen new ships were
going to be allotted to the naval police375.
However, it will be noted that the stepping up of vigil by the maritime authorities
corresponds to other specifications. The fear of increased clandestine immigration from
Sumatra would have probably mobilised Kuala Lumpur, rather than the risk of an oil spill
in the Straits caused by pirate attacks or the repeated complaints of fishermen, vexed at
having to bear the attacks376.
Interview with the author on 1st December 2000.
“Commandos Stage Exercise to Combat Pirates”, The Star, 24th February 2001.
375 Nik Imran Abdullah, “Marine Police Optimistic Getting RM56 Millions to Buy New Patrol Boats”, The
New Straits Times, 16th January 2002.
376 Hamdan Raja Abdullah, “Beef up Patrols along Malacca Straits”, The Star, 6th February 2002.
373
374
101
In its islands, to the north of Borneo, the Malaysian police stepped up operations
between 1990 and 1997. During this period, it killed 35 and arrested 51 pirates. Amongst
the victims was Moloi Hijang, alias Moloi Uwh, a pirate nicknamed the “the king of the
Philippines Seas”. Since then, the police affirmed having established an Eastern command,
that is to say “a polyvalent group of police including the General Operational Force as well
as the Naval police of Sabah377”.
The capture of the hostages of Jolo, in April 2000, gave a fresh impetus to the anti-piracy
war in Borneo. On this occasion, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed declared that the
Royal Malaysian Navy had launched “a large patrol operation to prevent such
incidents378”. In the beginning of October 2000, the Defence Minister even contemplated
evacuating some islands and rehabilitating its inhabitants. After this, the authorities have
sought to impose certain routes on the vessels of the region in order to identify suspicious
boats more easily. To reinforce these initiatives, twenty-three patrol boats and a thousand
men were stationed on thirteen islands and two bases along the Sabah coast in autumn.
The patrol boats and roadblocks were so numerous that they caused traffic jams. Even
then, piracy was not the only target. On 7th November, the Government of Sabah was asked
to muster its security forces to counteract not only criminal acts but also illegal immigrants.
And if shortly after the capture of the hostages of Palawan by the Abu Sayyaf group in
May 2000, the patrols of Operation Pasir were deployed once again, it was only to avoid
any movement of Muslim rebels to Sabah.
In the beginning of the year 2001, a commando centre whose construction has been
estimated at 422 million Ringgits (120 million Euros) saw the light of the day near Mersing,
on the East coast379. Today, the coasts of Borneo constitute the epicentre of the Malaysian
Navy’s action. According to the Defence Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Raza, the
potential of the Navy has to be strengthened in order to counter the pirate menace380.
The capture of the Sipadan hostages and then another one that took place in the
beginning of July 2000 by 27 members of the Al-Ma’unah group made the government
aware of new types of armed civilian threats.
In North Malaysia, Al-Ma’unah attacked two military bases in order to claim the setting
up of an Islamic State. Today, officials voluntarily associate Islamic threats with the pirate
danger; two reasons to develop more competent commando units.
ICC-IMB, January 2000, p.20. Also refer “A Place Far from Perfect”, The Star, 22nd May 2000.
“Govt Willing to Negociate with Gunmen”, The Star, 28th April 2000.
379 Charlotte Venudran, “Commando Centre Begins to Take Shape in Mersing”, The New Straits Times, 14th
March 2001.
380 ICC-IMB, July 2000, p.15.
377
378
102
BOARDING INCIDENT 13: PIRACY ACCORDING TO MAK JOON NUM
Mak Joon Num is a research director at the Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA).
Who are the 21st century pirates?
“There are three types of piracy: the one that is committed by small gangs, piracy committed by organised
crime syndicates and the one that is termed as “political”, the Abu Sayyaf group being a living example.
As a matter of fact, 90% of the pirates belong to small bands. They steal in Malaysia before returning to
Indonesia. I don’t think that they have accomplices here. The reason is simple: It is not very lucrative for
Malaysians to rob fishermen. Climbing aboard a vessel at night only to dive from a height of several meters to
escape is very dangerous. However, Indonesians are more desperate; they consider piracy a more lucrative
activity”.
How is the pirate menace to be considered?
“Statistically, it is not significant. If you compare the number of incidents to the number of vessels crossing the
Straits (around 600 per day), the rate is around 0.01%.
In reality, one should not attach importance only to piracy, but also to clandestine immigration. These two
issues go together and have the same cause. They are connected to the surrounding poverty. If you are poor,
you can become a pirate or a clandestine immigrant. Both originate from the same social background, often in
the vicinity of Batam”
Would therefore piracy represent only one aspect of maritime crime?
“Yes, when connected to the social and economic context. Clandestine immigration is indeed our foremost
concern.”
The number of acts of piracy recorded by the International Maritime Bureau in the Malacca Straits is however
not insignificant…
“But the primary objective of the IMB and its regional office in Kuala Lumpur is to obtain finance from maritime
companies. It is therefore in their own interest to be sure of the large numbers of acts of piracy.
“Let us remember the definition of the IMB [author’s note: which includes incidents perpetrated in the territorial
waters] is only a private definition issued by a private organisation. Why should we acknowledge it? The only
valid definition is that of the Montego Bay Convention [author’s note: which only takes into account attacks
committed on the high seas].”
Does maritime terrorism also constitute a serious danger?
“The leaders of the GAM [Movement for the Independence of Aceh] cannot afford to be involved in maritime
terrorism. Kuala Lumpur would soon increase patrolling. As Malaysia is their sanctuary; they do not want to
endanger the communication links between Aceh and their bases.
“On the other hand, the United States fears suicide attacks on the seas. Theoretically, it is possible, even
though such a thing has never happened as yet. You could indeed hijack a vessel with its cargo of liquefied
gas. I think that Washington is taking this danger very seriously. Americans have increased some of their
escorts in the sea and have demanded Malaysia’s assistance to this effect.”
What exactly is Malaysia’s role in the protection of the Malacca Straits?
“The capture of hostages in Sipadan in 2000 and the riots in Indonesian immigration camps have forced the
Government to act. The Prime minister realised that it was no longer possible to tolerate this illegal immigration.
Hence, the maritime patrolling has been intensified.
Is Malaysia satisfied with the steps taken?
“Yes, but I think that it should not be so. Asean considers piracy as a security issue, whereas it is above all a
socio-economic problem. One must first treat the poverty of the people and try to eradicate it by means of
development programmes.
“There is also the Indonesian problem. The Government of Jakarta no longer controls some parts of its territory.
And when there is a weakness in the governance, corruption and a parallel economy flourish. Last year, the
crew of an oil tanker hijacked its own vessel in the Malacca Straits. It was retraced thanks to the Shiploc
satellite tracking system. But later, the Indonesian police claimed money to retrieve the vessel. In this context,
who are the pirates? Wasn’t it the Indonesian Navy who demanded the money?…”
103
So, what are the possible solutions? An international naval police composed of “Blue helmets” under the aegis
of the United Nations?
“Indonesia will not accept, neither will Malaysia owing to the sovereignty, the nationalism and the pride of the
governments…
“Unfortunately there are no uniquely national or unilateral solutions. Co-operation is the need of the hour. But
Indonesia will not permit anyone to enter its territory. It is too concerned about its sovereignty. However, we
know where the pirates are….”
Are there Malaysian agents on the spot?
“Yes. If you pay suitably, people will speak …”(Interview with the author at Kuala Lumpur on 10th April 2002)
In Indonesia
Indonesia took a long time to react to the pirate phenomenon and generally one had to
wait for months after an act of piracy was committed for it to be officially recorded 381.
Sometimes, Indonesian authorities even demanded money to intercept bandits in the
Malacca Straits382.
Since its creation in 1972, the Maritime Security Coordination Board is theoretically in
charge of maritime crimes. It was created by a joint decree of the Ministries of Defence and
Security, and of Finance and Justice. Its permanent members are the Ministers of
Communication, Agriculture, the Attorney General, and the Head of the National Police.
The temporary members are the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Forests, Mines, Energy and
Environment, as well as the President of the National Bureau of Rescue and Research
(SAR). It is the SAR that is in charge of relaying information and warnings to the Head
Quarters of the Indonesian Navy in order to envisage possible security operations.
In 1999, when Abdurrahman Wahid came to power, a lot of attention was given to the
Indonesian Navy, the President being anxious to re-assert the maritime identity of the
country and mostly to counter the influence of the Army which had been very powerful
during the era of President Suharto383. The Indonesian patrol boats were equipped with a
new radar system, which enabled them to act more quickly. On 9th May 2000, Jakarta
committed itself to setting up a special force with fifteen boats to combat piracy. Military
exercises were organised in the Malacca Straits; it was even planned to establish centres at
Batam (off Singapore Port) as well as in Medan and Bangka (in Sumatra) to follow up on
the information furnished by vessels.
Nevertheless, it seems that these means proved to be insufficient to tackle piracy. In July
2002, Admiral Bernard Sondakh painted a rather dismal picture of the Indonesian Navy
under his command. Only 30% of the fleet was functional and only eight vessels were less
than ten years old384.
Since Megawati Sukarnoputri came to power in 2001, the attention of civilian and
military authorities of the country has largely been mobilised by the inter-ethnic and interreligious conflicts dividing the archipelago, by the separatists’ movements in Aceh (North
of Sumatra) and in West Papua (ex-Irian Jaya).
In this context, it is virtually impossible to give any kind of priority to the anti- piracy
war 385, other than asking for substantial external aid. In March 2002, at Jakarta during a
IMO, 3 -5th February 1999, annex 6, p.2.
Interview with the Director of the Malaysian Maritime Institute on 9th April 2002.
383 Arnaud Dubus and Nicolas Revise, 2002, p.206.
384 Derwin Pereira, “Indonesian Navy Ships Not Fit to Fight”, The Straits Times, 3rd July 2002.
385 The operations were nevertheless organised under the general command of the naval communications
or more exceptionally, in coordination with the coast – guards, customs, police or the navy. Around sixty
381
382
104
meeting to which experts from sixteen countries were invited, Indonesia clearly admitted
the difficulty it faced in ensuring the safety of its waters. Immediately, Japan, United States
and Netherlands offered equipment to the Indonesian Navy. A few months earlier, the IMB
had already announced the dispatch of six vessels to reinforce the safety of the Malacca
Straits386.
BOARDING INCIDENT 14: “ Mr. WONG” COMMANDER OF A PIRATE NETWORK
The Singaporean passport recovered from him identified him as Chew Chang Kiat. On 26th August 1999,
“Mister Wong”, 56 years, was sentenced to six years of solitary confinement in Indonesia. He was accused of
having supervised the disappearance of several vessels in the seas of Southeast Asia.
The arrest took place on 1st December 1999 in room 212 of Hotel 88, on Batam Island, much to the surprise of
his companion, a hostess in one of the numerous bars of the island, where businessmen from Singapore come
to slum it for one night for the price of a single beer in the shadow of the building.
In the free zone of Batam, the sidelined masses of the Asian boon swarm in the 40,000 illegal residences,
according to a missionary who has been travelling in the Riau Archipelago for many years. The atmosphere, in
this Indonesian Far East is heavy. The luxurious Novotel hotel jostles Tanjung Uma, a sordid village on piles,
not far from Nagoya, formerly Lubuk Bajak (“the slouchy pirate”). From the top of the shaky passages, one
cannot distinguish the murky waters from the fuel oil or the filthy slime. This mysterious island is close to
exploding. The population has jumped from 38,000 inhabitants in 1980 to around 5,00,000 in 2002.
The interrogation of Mr Wong was conducted by Gusmakar Armabar ( Security group of the Western Fleet of
the Indonesian Navy), while his boat was anchored in the seas off the port of Batu Ampar. Two other Malaysian
members of the crew, See Cheng Yen and Ng.Kong Siew were also interrogated.
Mr Wong operated from his boat, Pulau Mas, where everything was organised. On board, the Indonesian forces
recovered material intended to capture and transform vessels into “phantom ships”; fifteen firearms; fourteen
masks; three knives; paint and seals to falsify documents. According to Admiral Sumardi, the Pulau Mas would
have been implicated in scores of disappearances, including those of the Atlanta, Suci, Petro Ranger, Pendopo
and Plaju. Once the boat was captured, Mr Wong replaced the crew. As soon as the vessel entered
international waters, his men informed him of the route through a mobile phone.
The business partners of Mr Wong are even more mysterious. The disappeared vessels as well as their
merchandise were mostly sold in China. According to the IMB, the international network of Mr Wong could also
extend right up to the Philippines, Johor Baru in Malaysia, as well as till Taipei in Taiwan. The network would be
led by Ling Sau Pen387, a Hong Kong businessman.
After an attempt to escape and set fire to his prison, Mr Wong was transferred to the old reformatory prison
establishment of Pekanbaru (Sumatra) to pay his sentence there. The conditions of detention are severe and
the man nearing sixty is sick today. It is hard to believe one is in the presence of one of the most dreaded
pirates identified to this day388.
In the Philippines
The Philippines faces various types of difficulties. Political instability in the South is
conducive to traffic of all kinds as well as to the development of grey areas. The
geographical configuration is favourable to unlawfulness, since the Philippine Archipelago
includes more than 7000 islands. Therefore, delinquent acts are difficult to be brought to
book here and the importance of tradition as far as piracy is concerned is neither anecdotal
nor exaggerated.
Armed with this preliminary analysis, the Government of Manila has set up a penal
legislation and solid though divided infrastructures. Others thus involved are the Coast
arrests were made. The accused pirates were tried at the courts of Tanjung Pinang and Palembang
(Sumatra).
386 IMB, “ICC Reports Sends 6 Warships into Battle against Pirates”, ICC News, 12th February 2002.
387 IMB, “ICC Reports Sends 6 Warships into Battle against Pirates”, ICC News, 12th February 2002.
388 Interview with the author, 26th March 2002.
105
guards, the Police, the Port Authorities, the Navy, the Immigration and Information
Departments.
The prerogatives overlap, thus reducing the efficiency of the structures, which seem
quite heavy in the face of an adversary who is characterised by his vivacity. This is why the
Government contemplated the creation of a special inter-department action team, and then
a specialised cabinet for sea and ocean trade (Cabcom); the only risk being that finally, this
structure only constitutes one more element in an edifice that is already difficult to
manoeuvre.
South Philippines is a victim to many secessionist Muslim movements at the forefront of
which are the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF). The country also has to face the abrupt emergence of Abu Sayyaf groups that
security organisations agree to term as “specific threats”.
Following the capture of the hostages of Jolo, the military command of the Southern
zone affirmed, on 28th April 2000, that a special unit called Task Force Sultan had been set
up in order to make Sulu safe389. As a matter of fact, in January 2000, Jane’s International
Police Review already observed an improvement in the safety of the Philippine seas. It is
worth mentioning here that the Navy would have deployed thirty recently acquired coastal
patrol boats390, between 1995 and 2000. The purchase of thirty new vessels of the same type
and several specialised aircraft was announced in October 2000. Due to these measures, the
Task Group SeaHawk, also set up by the Navy, following the resumption of activities by
Abu Sayyaf, could rely on the four new vessels and an aerial support the following
summer. Simultaneously, Manila tried to adapt its legislative arsenal. A law mooted by
Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago would include piracy in terrorist threats and this would
facilitate investigations.
Manila’s interest in piracy and the link that the Philippine Government would like to
establish between the “pirate menace” and “Islamic separatism” is naturally not devoid of
ulterior motives. It is partially a matter of diabolising the minorities in the South, who are
all the more easy to blame as they are mistrusted by the United States which considers
them, rightfully or otherwise, as a favourable breeding ground for terrorism.
In Singapore
During the international seminar organised by the IMO in 1999, the Singapore
authorities, as their country is situated along the coast of the Malacca Straits – and hence
not coastal to international waters or to the high seas -, did not wish to consider the
incidents reported along the coasts as acts of piracy. We have mentioned that this statement
is legally justifiable. But whether it is piracy or armed robbery at sea, the city–state
however strove to size up the problem.
The means at Singapore’s disposal appear to be consequential, given the extent of the
zone that it has to watch over. Two bodies keep track of piracy. The Coast – Guard is
responsible for security in the territorial waters. Hence, in 2000, it comprised a force of
around a thousand men and 106 patrol boats. However, the main job of the Coast – Guards
is to fight against illegal immigration. As for the Navy, it helps the Customs Department
and the Police officers in what it considers as armed robbery at sea.
On 28th September 2000, in Singapore, the Defence Minister Tony Tan and the Minister
of Internal Affairs Wong Kan Seng, rejoiced at the efficiency of the collaboration between
their Departments. During a visit to the Kallang Head Quarters, they called for greater cooperation amongst the countries in the region and acknowledged the necessity of acquiring
faster boats and a more sophisticated surveillance system 391.
“Sulu Ringed”, The Star, 28th April 2000.
“Repelling the Pirates”, Jane’s International Police Review,5th January 2000.
391 “Sea Lanes Safe, Thanks to Navy, Coast Guard”, The Straits Times, 28th September 2000.
389
390
106
In Thailand
In the Kingdom, a Marine Enforcement Coordination Centre works in close
collaboration with the National Navy and Port authorities. Like Malaysia, it acts under the
control of the National Security Council, created in 1959, to counter what was then called
the “communist threat392”.
In 1990, Thailand had set up a special force to fight against piracy on the river Chao
Phraya. It comprised Customs officers, Naval policemen, and the Central Intelligence
Department. Since then, the authorities have been more ambitious. A military exercise
involving the air force and the Navy was held in late November 1999 to reinforce the vigil
against maritime crime and to facilitate communication between the Air Force and the
Navy393. A major difficulty encountered here once again was the number of incidents and
the time lag for recording them.
The project of a 102 km. long canal traversing the Kra Isthmus can also have crucial
consequences on the development of maritime transport in the region. Conceived way back
in 1677, it would offer, when finally dug, an alternative to all vessels threatened by the
pirate danger along the Indonesian coasts of Sumatra. In any case, the initial objective was
to compete with Singapore in the field of port installations 394.
In Vietnam
The biggest demographic power in the Southeast Asian Peninsula, Vietnam has recently
expressed its maritime ambitions for which it relies on the wealth of its waters that border
the coast for more than 3000 kilometres. If the country is generally under control, this long
coastline offers plenty of hideouts to pirates.
In 1999, Hanoi planned for an investment of around $1.4 billions in port infrastructure
and for the acquisition of a score of modern military ships. Meanwhile, at the dawn of the
21st century, the Vietnamese Naval security forces had only thirty patrol boats of Russian
origin at their disposal for ensuring the safety of shipping transport while, it completely
lacked aeronautic means.
The Vietnamese Government however congratulated itself on the results obtained due
to a perfect understanding between the Naval Police, Border Police and the National Navy
and it does not exclude the exchange of information among the countries of the region.
Since then, it participates regularly in conferences and seminars organised on the theme of
piracy.
7.2.2. Two very concerned Asian giants
India more on the offensive
India is concerned about the dangers that threaten its internal security. New Delhi is
wary of the screen effect of piracy, which could hide different forms of terrorism or arms
trafficking. The ambitious objective pursued by New Delhi would be to secure the oceans
of the Arabian Sea till the China Sea by the development of naval patrols and aerial
surveillance395.
More prosaically, it is against the particularly unstable backdrop of the Bay of Bengal
that India annually conducts the Milan exercises jointly with Southeast Asian navies off the
coast of the Andaman Islands. In this zone, - the key to the Indian Ocean, the command
Arnaud Dubus and Nicolas Revise, 2002, p.211.
Vu Kim Chung, 16th November 1999.
394 Harish Mehta, “Thailand Revives Delayed Kra Canal Project Again”, Business Times, 22nd June 2001 and
François Tourane, 27th July 2001.
395 Nayan Chanda, “After the Bomb”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 13th April 2000.
392
393
107
centre has just been endowed with rapid heavily armed patrol boats for fighting against the
pirates.
The Indian Coast Guards have shown great rigour. In November 1999, their resolve led
to the recovery of the Alondra Rainbow and the full marks awarded to them by the IMB have
no doubt satisfied New Delhi, that not only covets a permanent seat in the United Nations
Security Council, but also clearly desires to compete, on the Southeast Asian scene, against
the People’s Republic of China.
The Indian Government firstly began a rapprochement with Vietnam by collaborating in
the anti-piracy war. It also maintains regular dialogue with the Japanese Government, since
both countries would hold meetings every year related to security in Asia, wherein the
subject of discussion would be dangers threatening important shipping routes. In
November 2000, Indian and Japanese Coast Guards took part in the joint exercises.
In 2000, the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Jaswanth Singh, expressed his desire
for a more active dialogue between India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
with special emphasis on transnational crime396. The relations between India and Thailand
in matters of maritime security were strengthened in 1997. In order to combat the pirate
threat, the two Governments were in favour of the idea of common patrolling.
These measures are promising as far as regional security is concerned. But at the precise
moment when India is taking advantage of piracy to ply in the waters of East Asia, China is
reaffirming its presence in the Bay of Bengal from Burma.
China proves its credentials
Peking is an indispensable player in the pirate issue, because its southern most seas are
directly affected and also because the attacked boats in the Malay Straits are often hijacked
to Chinese ports. Peking’s attitude has often been criticised. However, the frequent arrests
that took place in the previous years ended up reassuring the shipping organisations.
Apart from the particularly difficult case of Spratly, where it seems that the use of
corsairs is still favoured, China has clearly decided to opt for enforcement. Besides
arresting many pirates including those of the Cheung Son who were executed, the Chinese
Minister for Public Safety conducted a meeting on maritime crime, at the end of 1999,
whose objective was apparently to encourage the Police forces to dedicate the efforts that
are necessary for the optimisation of their action.
It is the Maritime Security Administration that is in charge of navigational safety, rescue
and research operations. This bureau employed thirty thousand people in 1999 and had a
thousand boats.
Amongst the reforms decided by Peking in the last few years, one can cite the
standardisation of the number of paramilitary patrols in the sea, the publication of
documents, installation of high priority telephone lines through which the victims could
contact the concerned authorities. There was also a question of reinforcing the investigation
potential in the Chinese ports far away from the Central power.
In the past, the collaboration between the Customs and the Department of Public Safety
proved to be disappointing because of the lack of communication between the different
departments. Today, it is the Maritime Security Administration that has the entire
responsibility of coastal patrolling. Since then, two vessels hijacked by Coast Guards - the
Marine Master and the Siam Xanxai – could be returned to their owners. The Assistant Director of criminal investigations for the Ministry of Public Safety, Fu Zhenghua declared
happily not without optimism that there was no place where pirates could hide 397.
396
397
Anthony Davis, “Heading for Trouble”, Asiaweek, 9th June 2000.
“Repelling the Pirates”, Jane’s International Police Review, 5th January 2000.
108
Even if hardly any major incidents were reported here during the last ten years, our
work would be incomplete if no reference is made to the efforts undertaken by Hong
Kong– which in the mean while has become a “special administrated region”. The
maritime police of Hong Kong logically insist on highlighting that their objective is to cooperate with the coordination centres of Guangdong and Peking398. However, it largely
remains autonomous in action.
For the Maritime department of Hong Kong, it is mainly a question of elaborating
counter–measures to be taken, and transmitting notes and circulars of the IMO and the
IMB, and at the same time reporting acts of piracy perpetrated under its jurisdiction to
these two bodies. In case of an incident in its seas, the vessels ought to contact the Marine
Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) of the Maritime department, which immediately
sends information to the police forces so that their patrols can intervene quickly.
In the same manner, till 20th December 1999 when the Portuguese Colony reverted to
Chinese control, the Macao Government was responsible for safety in the vicinity of the
islands of Taipa and Coloane. It was in charge of “Radio Macau” for relaying warnings and
information and led patrol boats day and night in the risky zones. Its structures now seem
to be in the process of being absorbed into the Chinese framework.
In recent years, the People’s Republic of China has developed contacts with Japan, the
Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation. An agreement was even signed with the
National Department of Naval police in South Korea. China’s openness as far as the antipiracy war is concerned, confirmed by its regular presence in regional forums, contradicts
the opinion of François Godement who in 1997399 had remarked China’s closed attitude. On
the contrary, after the regional economic crisis and the accusations formulated against
Peking suspected of manipulating pirates, Chinese authorities play a major role in the
regional discussions.
7.3. Bi- or Trilateral Initiatives
During the time of Berbers in the nineteenth century, William Eaton, the American
Consul in Tunis, was shocked that “seven kings of Europe, two Republics and a continent
relied on North African buccaneers, “these highly placed savages, whose entire fleet
doesn’t match the might of our vessels400”. A few years later, the United States supported
European initiatives to put an end to several centuries of Berber piracy.
Recently Indians, amongst others, were surprised by the passiveness of the
Governments in East Asia. In turn, they call for better bi- or trilateral cooperation. Just like
the United States previously in the Mediterranean, though they are not amongst the coastal
nations, they call for more international cooperation.
7.3.1. Myth or reality in the Malay Archipelago:
success and limitations of the collaboration between Nations
A lot has been said about collaboration in Southeast Asia. But though the decision
makers refer to it regularly to convey their good intentions, it hardly finds a tangible
expression as far as the fight against maritime crime is concerned.
Once a year, a Singaporean military war ship would sail off the coast of Bintan Island (in
Riau). It is hardly enough to frighten the pirates on a long-term basis. The precedents as far
The author’s correspondence with the Hong Kong maritime police on 21st October 2000.
François Godement, “Incertaine Asie ou Asie Incertaine”, in Henry Lelièvre (dir.), Japon, Chine,Corée…
Cette Asie qui derange, Editions Complexe, Brussels, 2000,p.102.
400 François Godement, in Henry Lelièvre (dir.), 2000, p.80.
398
399
109
as co-operation is concerned however proved to be promising. In 1992, an accord was
signed between Singapore and Indonesia, and the joint patrolling conducted by Malaysia
and Indonesia had the effect of displacing the epicentre of maritime crime to the South
China Sea. This prompted the Indonesians to declare somewhat peremptorily that their
zone was free from pirates401.
Singapore-Indonesia
In July 1992, Singapore and Jakarta were engaged in establishing a common maritime
committee to inform each other about unilateral initiatives. Then there had been the
question of coordinating patrolling and pursuits within the framework of the IndoSingapore Coordinated Patrols Project (ISCP). The latter had brought together the Coast
Guards of Singapore, the Coastal Command of the Navy of the Republic of Singapore
(COSCOM), Indonesian Police (Polri) and the Group for the Safety of the Western Fleet of
the Indonesian Navy (Guskamlabar) based at Tanjung Penang (Bintan Island). Henceforth,
meetings took place every four months in order to share information.
Though the vessels of each country ply exclusively on their own territorial waters, they
can, today as in the past, begin certain pursuits in the territorial waters of their neighbours
by making a simple request. However, the pirate has the advantage of functioning without
any constraints. In 1992, this cooperation led to 38 arrests, but later the system slowly
slackened. The revival of joint patrols in 1999 proved to be inadequate to prevent the
sudden increase in the acts of piracy in the Malacca Straits.
Indonesia - Malaysia
In September 1992, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta studied conducting joint patrolling,
agreeing to the right of pursuit subject to certain conditions (hot pursuit) and establishing
priority radio contacts. However, joint patrolling has mostly served to fight against
smuggling. In June 1993, a manoeuvre implicating four vessels of each State had to
intercept suspected pirates, identify persons causing pollution as well as intercept
smugglers with hi-fi material or pornographic videos402.
Anxious to preserve their sovereignty, the two countries have finally decided to mind
their own territorial waters. In this context, collaboration is often limited to simple radio
contacts, and to sporadic but highly publicised operations.
On 22nd July 1999, four Indonesian and three Malaysian boats and two Cessna of the
Royal Malaysian AirForce thus took part in a week long exercise named “Operation
Optima”. While the armies of the two countries learnt to “understand each other better in
view of a better cooperation” the ships inspected eighteen trawlers without carrying out
arrests. Let us remember that, every day, more than 600 vessels transit through the Straits
of Malacca403. Hence only 0.4% of the boats could be verified during the operation. The
officer in charge of the MECC of Lumut in Malaysia, Datuk Mat Rabi Abu Samah, seemed
to be satisfied. According to him, these patrols contradicted Western reports according to
which the Straits were infested with pirates404. Finally, the exchange of information would
have allowed Malaysia to first identify and then to target different criminal groups. The
idea of increased collaboration in this domain between Sarawak (Malaysia) and
Kalimantan (Indonesia) around the island of Borneo was received favourably405.
The cooperation albeit very modest, has obviously produced some results as far as the
identification of pirate bases is concerned. The forces of the two countries have succeeded
“Piracy in Malacca Straits on the Decline”, Business Times, 20th May 1994.
F. Jamaludin, “Joint Patrol of Malacca Straits Begin”, The New Straits Times, 14th June 1993
403 Consult www.maritimesecurity.com
404 Chong Set Son, “Joint Patrol Have Made Straits Safer for Vessel”, The New Straits Times, 29th July1999.
405 Bernama, “M’sia, Indonesia Agree to Step up Border Patrol”, The Borneo Post, 8th November 2000.
401
402
110
in infiltrating the pirate dens in Batam, Selatpanjang and Bengkalis in the Malacca Straits.
Spies were able to signal the movements of the bandits to the patrol ships that sailed along
the border.
On 12th October 2000, during a nocturnal pursuit, three Indonesian pirates were
arrested while three of their accomplices escaped by jumping into the water. Later, it was
learnt that the gang had committed twenty-nine attacks against merchant vessels in
Sumatra, and eleven against local trawlers off the seas of the countries of Johor, Malacca
and Selangor406. Between January and June 2001, several other gangs were intercepted
between Sumatra and the Peninsula. It included, amongst others, “Sea Robin Hoods”,
originating from the Indonesian island of Sumatra, who burgled rich vessels to distribute
their booty in the coastal villages407.
Indonesia and Malaysia have benefited from the meeting on November 2000 that took
place in Kuala Lumpur against the backdrop of the famous Petronas twin towers, to
announce the next amendment of the agreement on border cooperation signed in 1972 and
modified in 1984. It is certainly the sudden increase of piracy in the Malacca Straits, which
incited the two countries to combine their efforts once again within the General Border
Committee408.
The participation of Philippines
In October 1992, at the same time as the Indonesian – Singaporean and Indonesian –
Malaysian agreements, Indonesia and Philippines united in an attempt to “pacify” the
Celebes Sea. A year later, Manila joined hands with Kuala Lumpur in order to render the
Sulu Sea safer. This was another sensitive zone affected by piracy as well as by clandestine
immigration and illegal fishing. Exchange of information between the southern zone
headquarters of the Philippines based in Zamboanga and the Maritime Enforcement Coordination Centre in Malaysia as well as joint exercises and visits to ports were discussed.
In November 1994, a joint patrol operation was launched in the Sabah Province in
Borneo. 500 men were mobilised. It was nevertheless agreed upon that no vessel would
leave the waters of its country. Once again, the attachment of the nations to their
sovereignty has clearly affected the efficiency of the measures.
The capture of the Jolo hostages, in 2000, gave a considerable impetus to bi or trilateral
cooperation. The capture of the hostages was an occasion for the Philippines and Malaysia
to enhance their bilateral cooperation, essentially in the peripheral areas, in the Sulu
Archipelago409. In March 2000, a meeting between senior Filipino and Malaysian officials
highlighted the necessity of conducting joint border patrols, amongst others. During a
meeting of the Asean, which took place a few months later, the Malaysian Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Syed Hamid, opened a dialogue on this theme with his Filipino counter
part Domingo Siazon410.
Likewise, in May 2002, after the September 11 attacks in New York, a trilateral accord on
the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and piracy brought together Indonesia,
Malaysia and the Philippines. A structure was thus founded, open to other countries in the
region to facilitate exchange and analysis of information411. This echoed the anxiety
expressed by the Filipino Secretary of State for Defence, Orlando Mercado, who had called
“Malaysian Police Cripple Piracy Gang, Nab Three Indonesians”, AFP, 25 th October 2000.
“Trouble at Sea”, editorial, The Straits Times on 20th June 2001.
408 Indonesia, Malaysia Agree to Boost Efforts to Combat Sea Piracy”, AFP, 16th November 2000.
409 S.Marshall, “Dire Need to Address Root Causes of the Mindanao Conflict”, The New Straits Times 27th
May 2000.
410 “South China Sea Code on Agenda”, The Star 22nd July 2000; Editorial, “Beefing Up Cooperation”, The
New Straits Times, 10th August 2000.
411 Susan Tam, “Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Jakarta to Boost Cooperation”, The Star, 8th May 2002.
406
407
111
for the signing of an accord between Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia to establish
border patrols in order to prevent kidnappings in the zone412.
Other examples of bi lateral co-operation
In spring 1998, joint aerial search expeditions were conducted by Australia and
Malaysia after the disappearance of the Petro Ranger (refer to boarding incident 4).
Coordinated from the Butterworth base (Peninsular Malaysia), they involved two C-130
planes following an ad hoc bilateral agreement413.
On its part, Singapore showed its keenness to cooperate with other countries in the antipiracy war. In August 1999, the island-nation helped Vietnam during the investigations
connected to the disappearance of Luna Brisa. In March 2000, the Singapore Defence
Minister Tony Tan referred to the notion of “total security414”, specifying that the armed
forces of his country were going to work more closely with the Government bodies of
neighbouring countries.
At the same time, the President of South Korea, Kim Dae Jung, evinced his interest in
the subject of piracy in the Malacca Straits415. His Defence minister Lee Joung-binn, added
that he was contemplating a system of mutual assistance with the military authorities of
Southeast Asia. Exercises conducted a year earlier by the South Korean and Indonesian
Navies could have been a sort of preliminary experience416.
Though on a more modest scale, the Vietnam-Thai cooperation should also be
mentioned. It included the traditional exchange of information and patrols in the adjoining
areas. Each country had initially planned to provide a frigate for operations of around
seven days conducted in the Gulf of Thailand417.
Similarly Thailand and Malaysia who share a 645 km. long border conducted a series of
joint patrolling. Between March and July 1999, they covered the region of Yala in Thailand
till Perak to the west of the Peninsula. Between 14th and 30th November 1999, the operation
was extended further to the east, in the zone of Narathiwat /Kelantan. From March to July
2000, patrolling was conducted in the Songkhla / Kedah sector, before their efforts were
concentrated once again in the Yala/Perak zone.
These patrols normally involved around sixty men. Their explicit mission was to watch
over the mounting maritime crime, which appears in this region as a “new threat418”.
Since 1992, when the first agreements on piracy were signed by the major maritime
powers of Southeast Asia, links have been substantially strengthened. Indonesia, where the
main pirate bases are found is proving to be consistently more cooperative. The fact
remains that joint patrolling is only a palliative to a cooperation that could make it possible
for each signatory or for a common force to intervene, according to their needs, irrespective
of the seas affected.
AFP, 16th November 2000.
Laura Parpan, “Aust Air Force Joins Search for Hijacked Tanker”, AAP Newsfeed, 26th April 1998.
414 “S’pore Gears up for New Threats”, The New Straits Times, 16th March 2000.
415 Chon Shi Yong, “President Instructs Foreign Minister to Send N.K. Message on Military Provocation”,
The Korea Herald, 3rd March 2000.
416 Yoo Yong Won, “Military Declares War on Piracy”, Chosun, 10th May 2000.
417 Nusara Thaitawat and Onnucha Hutasingh, “Armed Forces – Navy Keen to Start Joint Patrols with
VN”, Bangkok Post, 2nd December 1998.
418 Raslan Baharom, “Malaysia - Thai Border Patrols Boost to Security”, The Star, 17th November 2000.
412
413
112
7.3.2. France and Asian pirates: A story that continues
In the 19th century, like Spain in the Sulu region, the Dutch in the Malacca Straits, and
the British on the Chinese coast and in Borneo, France took up the fight against piracy.
A century later, the French authorities are less mobilised. The stakes are no longer the
same. Colonial objectives and territorial stakes have given way to strictly commercial
considerations, be it maritime traffic or the sale of military equipment.
For a long time, de-colonization and the Cold War had fixed the rules of the game. The
evolution of relations between nations determined the movements of various fleets.
Gradually, interference, maintenance of peace and humanitarian missions have replaced
American and Soviet patrols. Since then, Westerners from a civil background rather than a
military one have been dominating the scene.
These peaceful inheritors of the first explorers have turned their attention particularly to
refugees and victims of Indochinese piracy. Bernard Kouchner and Patrice Franceschi off
the coast of Anambas (to the east of Malaysia), or on board the Ile de Lumiere have strived to
come to the aid of the victims through their various initiatives.
Nations themselves have reconsidered their traditional missions. Today, intervention is
often indirect. It could partly be a result of the Montego Bay Convention signed in 1982. In
fact, by setting up Exclusive Economic Zones, the coastal states extend their authority on
the high seas to the detriment of foreign navies, who can no longer patrol near risky coasts
and zones. The legal framework of intervention on the high seas against pirates leaves
foreign navies little room for manoeuvre.
Thus, the rules of international law impede French officers, occasionally confronted
with piracy. “In practice, only crimes in flagrante delicto or visible calls for help make it
possible to intervene. The materiality of the facts is then difficult to establish, knowing that
a pirate is also generally a fisherman or a coastal inhabitant419.” In order to track down the
pirates it is important “that an international convention take charge of the problem and
provide the national navies legal means of intervention420”.
In any case, given the statistics, it is hardly motivating for French ships to pursue the
pirates between India and China. Only three vessels flying the French flag were officially
victims of piracy in 2000, that is to say, the same number as in the past eight years. Even if
we include the acts of terrorism on the seas, France has rarely had to face maritime violence
in Southeast Asia.
Despite being a victim of a pirate attack to the South of Singapore on 16th January 1999,
aboard an oil tanker the Chaumont, Commander Jean Pierre Isaac clearly says: “Piracy is not
something about which every body speaks every day. It is almost anecdotal. The main
problem of the sailors is not piracy, but their job and their working conditions 421”.
As a consequence, piracy constitutes above all an occasion to build contacts, begin
discussions and above all envisage sale of military equipment, we were told at SaintDominique Street at the French Ministry of Defence422. Since a few years, pirates
nevertheless have come under a more general study conducted by Rue Royale, at the Head
quarters of the Navy. According to an official document released in Spring 2002, the
wreckage of Erika in1999 and Ievoli Sun in 2000, the wreckage near Saint-Raphael in 2001 of
the East Sea, with a thousand clandestine immigrants on board as well as the possibility of a
Military Source. Correspondence with the author on 28th February 2002
Military Source. Correspondence with the author on 28th February 2002
421 Interview with the author, 21st February 2002.
422 Interview with the author, 4th February 2002.
419
420
113
maritime terrorist attack, have led the sailors to shift from a stand of “safety of maritime
defence”, to a more active measure of “maritime safe-guarding”.
In Southeast Asia, the Henaff was made to patrol in the Malacca Straits423 as a most
remarkable initiative. Between December 2000 and January 2001, the dispatch boat’s
mission was to affirm the presence of armed French forces and to stop the suspicious
vessels off the coast of Singapore, or Port Klang in Malaysia.
On this occasion, French sailors were initiated to the anti-piracy war in the Malacca
Straits. But they had difficulty in identifying their targets. This mission engendered a
feeling that the issue necessitated a specific approach, as far as the equipment as well as the
legal framework were concerned.
At the Hotel Matignon, in the Prime Minister’s office, it was recalled that the sea “is a
free space which lends itself to all kinds of illegal activities”. Piracy is only the visible tip of
the iceberg. It draws attention because of its influence on the collective un-conscious424.
Nevertheless, just like the networks of drug traffickers, or of clandestine immigrants,
pirates have taken over from the Russian aero-naval system which conditioned French
strategy to a large extent.
On the diplomatic front, first of all, it was through the European Union that France was
able to express itself on the pirate issue. During the second half of 2000, when it took over
the Presidency of the European Union, France represented the E.U. through its embassy in
New Delhi at a seminar on piracy organised at the initiative of India, within the framework
of the ARF. One and a half years later, in February 2002, French diplomats joined their
European and Asian partners to deal with this subject in Manila.
The efforts of Paris in Southeast Asia seem to be insignificant in comparison to the
demonstration of the American forces, which was remarkable after 11th September 2001.
The vessels of the French merchant navy are not particularly in danger, not any more than
the supplies of raw materials and hydrocarbons to France. Given the attachment of the
Southeast Asian nations to their sovereignty over their territorial waters, it seems difficult
to envisage a large-scale action in the region. For the moment, it is only a question of
establishing diplomatic and trade relations, as proved by the recent visit to Kuala Lumpur
of Admiral Battet, Chief of Naval Staff.
7.3.3. United States, United Kingdom: terms of the Anglo Saxon involvement
In 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton had called for a “new peaceful community” and
since then, several initiatives of the American Government illustrated the leading role that
it wished to play in its construction.
Washington had manifested its desire to be more involved in the regional strategic
game by opening a military base in Mindanao, thereby prompting the Filipino Defence
Minister to call for regional military exercises along with the United States425. Not less than
100 000 American soldiers recently participated in various activities in the region. The
importance of the straits and of free traffic in the zone, for surface vessels as well as for
American Nuclear submarines, is considered primordial.
The United States is obviously concerned about the fight against maritime crime. In
September 2000, Admiral Dennis Blair, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Forces appealed
for better cooperation against ‘terrorist threats’ but also against criminal activities. His
Read about this subject Stéphane Sigrist, “Pavillon Noir sur l’Asie du Sud – Est”, Cols bleus, no. 2572,
12th May 2002, p.22-25.
424 Interview with the author, 30th April 2002.
425 AFP, “Broader US-Asian War Games Mooted”, The Straits Times, 8th March 2000.
423
114
desire was that this cooperation be based on various bilateral networks and above all that it
would lead to a profoundly multilateral approach426.
Manoeuvres were organised with South Korean, Singaporean, and Japanese Navies in
the autumn of 2000. The Cobra Gold exercise, a traditional war game undertaken with
Thailand was inaugurated in the same year in Singapore. Malaysia, China and Australia
were invited as observers. Firstly, only Indonesia had been excluded from ‘bilateral
training programmes’ meant for some of the maritime police of Southeast Asia. Its security
forces had in fact been considered as ‘unreliable’ by the American departments. This is
surprising given that after the massacres carried out by the Indonesian Army in East
Timor427, Washington had re-established military contacts at the highest level during which
the issue of a bilateral exercise along the lines of a cooperative and readiness afloat training
exercise of the US Navy in Southeast Asia428 had been raised. In all, there are nearly 300 joint
exercises organised annually by the United States in the region.
In October 2000, the commander of the Seventh American Fleet recalled that although
the United States did not really have to face the pirates, Washington was fully inclined to
support measures taken to fight them429. In December 2000, Vice Admiral Metzeger
proclaimed on his part that he was “very concerned” by piracy. He even expressed his
desire to be invited for the next meeting on the subject in order to represent his country430
there. In June 2001, Admiral James Loy, Commander of the American Coast Guards offered
help in his turn.
But does this anti-piracy war in which the Americans seem so eager to participate
constitute an end in itself or should it be treated as a tool of foreign policy? The new
proposal called Presence Plus, founded on the principle of forward presence could have the
objective of short-circuiting the existing forums and isolating China.
In spring 2002, the American and Indian Navy began joint military exercises. Besides,
they escorted ships in the Malacca Straits that were heading towards the Arabian Sea,
within the framework of Operation Enduring Freedom conducted against Afghanistan. It is
hardly a coincidence that Washington insisted on Malaysia being associated with the
convoy431.
As a historical maritime power, the United Kingdom plays an active political role in the
pirate issue. In 1992, the project of British intervention in Southeast Asia had triggered a
strong reaction from the Nations in this zone. But, in 2000, London crossed over a new
threshold. While the Government closely cooperated with the IMO, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs Peter Hain lobbied intensively with the nations directly capable of making the
maritime routes safer. Today contacts are established with Brazil, China, India and the
Philippines432.
Ponnudurai Parameswaran, “US Military Chief Concerned at Rising Terrorism at Sea”, AFP,
Manila,26th September 2000; Ponnudurai Parameswaran, “US Wants Better Multinational Cooperation in
Asia”, AFP, Manila, 26th September 2000.
427 These events are detailed particularly in Frédéric Durand, Timor Lorsa’e,pays carrefour de l’Asie et du
Pacific – Un atlas géo – historique, University Press of Marne – la – Vallée - IRASEC, Bangkok - Marne – la –
Vallée, 2002.
428 “US Resumes Low – Level Military Contacts With Indonesia”, consulted on www.yahoo.com on 25th
May 2000.
429 Ramola Talwar Badam, “BC – India – Piracy”, AFP, 18th October 2000.
430 “Technology Poised to Scuttle Pirates: US Navy”, AFP, 8th December 2000.
431 “Navies Cooperating to Fight Piracy”, The Straits Times, 29th April 2002.
432 ICC – IMB, January 2001, p.18.
426
115
7.4. Multilateral Initiatives
7.4.1. Initiatives of the Asean
Genesis of the Southeast Asian cooperation
The Asean was founded in 1967. Its objective as per the Bangkok declaration was to
bridge the gap between the various capitalist nations of the region against a socialist
Indochinese bloc, which was then gaining ground. But this structure, which did not impose
any restricting legal framework, remained for a long time a kind of “comfortable club of
autocratic golfers433” whose main objective was the reinforcement of each member’s
position rather than cooperation.
As suggested by the political expert Sophie Boisseau du Rocher, for a long time, external
affairs have come to the aid of Southeast Asian leaders. They justified their legitimacy by
the role that they played outside their borders. The objective of the Asean was not “to
integrate a community into the international stream” but rather to serve the Governments
of the region434.
Today, as the memories of the Cold War are fading, countries are more multilaterally
inclined. As the Malaysian Government particularly seems to desire, Asean should be able
to seize the opportunity that piracy indirectly offers in order to strongly reaffirm itself in
matters of security.
Regionalism would become “centrifugal”; nations should place themselves more at the
service of the region. Several initiatives have been launched in this direction. On the one
hand, they are founded on the Asean forum that targets security problems and on the other
hand, on the very structures of the Asean, that are in charge of the fight against
transnational crime.
The reactivation of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF)
Within the Asean, economic concerns have for a long time taken precedence over
security issues. Although Vietnam, Laos, Burma and Cambodia joined the institution
between 1992 and 1999, it was primarily to derive benefit from its economic development,
even though it was seriously impeded by the 1997 crisis.
It is within the framework of the Asean Regional Forum that the necessity for greater
concerted efforts was felt. Affirming its identity, the Forum contributed to the regional
strategic studies while offering a conducive background for dialogue.
Non-military threats – foremost among them being piracy - are at present included in
the agenda of the ARF and their possible consequences on East Asian trade are not underestimated.
In the columns of the Jakarta Post, Jusuf Wanandi, an Indonesian expert on international
relations, and a member of the formerly highly influential Centre for Strategic and
International Studies of Jakarta has highlighted the importance of multi-lateralism, while
hoping for a fresh boost to the Asean435. Likewise in October 2000, the Malaysian Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, strongly expressed his desire to enhance
co-operation in all forms, favouring a multilateral approach, notably through the Asean
and its Regional Forum. The only constraint, but an important one, was that the Malaysian
leaders insisted on the necessity of not interfering in the internal affairs of the membernations436.
We quote the terms of Alain de Sacy here, 1999, p.175.
Alain de Sacy, 1999, p.181.
435Jusuf Wanandi, “Asean’s Future is at Stake”, The Jakarta Post, 10th August 2000.
436 “Multilateral Approach Needed to Combat Piracy”, The New Straits Times, 2nd October 2000.
433
434
116
If the Asian crisis, the risks of political collapse as well as the forest fires in Indonesia
have shown the limitations of regional organisation, the anti- piracy war seems to be an
opportunity to give it a “fresh lease of life”. It is not a coincidence that while calling for the
setting up of a regional security structure in December 1999, the Malaysian Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohammed highlighted the necessity of liberating the sea routes from pirates
and hijackers437.
Similarly, the Filipino-Indonesian example is worth a mention. These two members of
the Asean claim, amongst others, the Spratly Islands. They have however chosen to
exchange information and to conduct some coordinated patrolling438. This decision was
taken in 1994 during a conference in Kuala Lumpur on maritime communication routes
and the future challenges of the Asia Pacific region. The question of confidence building
measures was also raised. This mechanism, very much in vogue in this region, consists of
launching various initiatives on the least sensitive issues in order to enhance exchanges
between competing nations on strategic issues. In this context, the anti-piracy war
frequently referred to.
Mounting insecurity on the seas could justify the military one-upmanship and increase
the defence budget as well. Since the 90s, the region is prey to an arms race, which is
quantitative (in absolute value in terms of a proportion of the Gross National Product) as
well as qualitative, since priority is given to naval weapons and projectiles. Thus, the first
Singaporean submarine reached its base in April 2000 and a second one followed in 2001.
The military budget of the island was then $ 4.4 billion. Thailand, with $ 2.0 billion
allocated to defence, already owns an aircraft carrier and is contemplating acquiring a
submarine. Indonesia, whose Government has given importance to the Navy from 1999,
despite its serious economic difficulties, should increase its military personnel in the five
years to come. In the early 90s, it acquired several vessels from the former East German
Navy.
Such an evolution risks increasing the tensions between countries that continue to fight
with each other on certain maritime zones rich in fishing and natural resources. Admiral
Dennis Blair, Commander of the American Forces in the Pacific, who seemed to dread that
transnational issues would stir up military rivalry, rather than induce regional cooperation439, shared this fear in November 2000.
ARF and the nebulous Asean
The text Vision 2020, adopted by the Asean in 1997, places the combat against trans
national crime amongst the long-term objectives of the organisation. At the 31st and the 32nd
meetings of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Asean (Asean Ministerial MeetingAMM), which took place in Manila, then in Singapore respectively in July 1998, the
participants highlighted the urgent necessity of reinforcing regional capabilities as far as
the fight against crime, maritime or otherwise, was concerned In July 2000, this priority
was confirmed during the seventh Asean Regional Forum organised in Bangkok. A
meeting was also organised in Bombay in October 2000, to discuss the problem. The coastal
countries in Southeast Asia sought to review the national measures of the fight against
maritime piracy.
The issue has clearly become pivotal, or even incantatory. Generally, a political stand
accompanies the commissions of international experts. After the Ministerial meeting on
trans-national crime (AMM on Trans-national crime-AMMTC) on 20th December 1997, a
work group charted a plan of action that would be adopted eighteen months later.
“Set Up Asian Security Structure” , The Star, 3rd December 1999.
Jimmy Yeow, “Anti – Piracy Patrols to be Strengthened”, Business Times, 3rd August 1994.
439 “US Cautions China, Russia, India over Asia Security”, Reuters, 15th November 2000.
437
438
117
During the senior officials’ meeting on transnational crime-SOMTC, the issue of
coordinated intervention with the external players in the zone was again discussed. In
2002, the second SOMTC debated the importance of harmonising laws against
transnational crime. The possibility of confiscating the wealth of the pirate organisations
and freezing their bank accounts was also raised. The AMMTC then sought to develop
relations between partners of the ARF as well as with the UNO and its specialised bureaus,
the Planning Bureau in Colombo and Interpol.
At the same time, the Governments agreed on the implementation of an Asean Centre
for Combating Transnational Crime – (ACTC) whose objective, once again quite modest, is
to promote the collection and exchange of data, to help ministers in the realisation of
activities contained in the Plan, to conduct profound analyses and to give information on
the legal measures of each country.
Amongst the difficulties faced by the Asean in rationalising its action, the excessively
closed nature of the various structures seems to be especially worrisome. Thus to the Asean
Ministerial Meetings are added the Asean Finance Ministers’ Meetings. Their deliberations
on customs regulations and the modalities of the fight against smuggling- in which
“phantom ships” are often implicated- affect the evolution of piracy. Similarly, Asean
chiefs of National Police (Aseanpol) apprehend the legal aspects of the enforcement
package without the Ministers of Foreign Affairs seeming to be consulted about it. The
Aseanpol is a part of numerous functional committees, that are different from ministerial
meetings. Ad hoc commissions were created to tackle drug trafficking, arms smuggling,
counterfeiting, economic crimes as well as extraditions440.
In March 2002, on a more operational front, Asean undertook to constitute a special
regional force with the intention of linking the various navies of Southeast Asia. The
possibility of establishing the coordination centre in Jakarta and finding a federal flag
under which the vessels of various nations could patrol together was discussed. The
European Union, which is already experienced in combined defence matters, has already
offered its assistance.
7.4.2. Japan: Possible instigator of a veritable multilateral cooperation?
Japan is directly affected by piracy in the Malay straits that constitute its ‘jugular artery’.
That is why, after the successive disappearances of the Tenyu in 1998 and the Alondra
Rainbow in 1999 and before that of the Global Mars in 2000, Japan contemplated taking up
the northern route and the Arctic Ocean, thereby fuelling the anxiety of Asian ports.
The solution hardly seems viable and the outcome of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi’s
initiative in November 1999 which sowed the seeds of a measured cooperation on an Asian
scale is keenly awaited. First of all, it was to bring together countries sensitive to the pirate
issue in order to establish institutional contact points between members of the Asean,
Japan, India, China and South Korea. Such an initiative could lead to a better coordination
as far as research and rescue operations, pursuits, interception of hijacked vessels and
setting up of legal tools are concerned441.
Thus on 7th March 2000, representatives of the Coast Guards of fifteen jurisdictions –
Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma,
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, and Laos… gathered in Singapore.
Here, Japan’s offer to send its own patrol ships to the zone to encourage an international
The 20th conference of the Asean police Chiefs took place in Burma in 2000. Here, it was insisted upon
an exchange of information, uniformity of law rights in matters of piracy as well as on the training
programmes. For press communiqués, declarations, and minutes of the meeting, consult the specific site of
the association www.asean.or.id. Also refer S. Pushpanathan, Managing Transnational Crime in Asean,
Asean, Jakarta, 1999.
441 Muzi News, “Asian Coast Guards List Contact Lines to Fight Piracy”, Lateline News,9th March 2000.
440
118
campaign against piracy was debated without much enthusiasm (Refer above). Experts
have contemplated the establishment of a communication centre, to facilitate exchange of
information between the Coast Guards442.
Another meeting of an even greater magnitude was held in Tokyo, at the end of April
2000443. As luck would have it, it began after the capture of 21 persons in Sipadan Island by
a commando of Abu Sayyaf. This incident only supported the observation of Keizo
Obuchi’s successor Yoshiro Mori, who declared in his inaugural speech that the growing
power of piracy in the East Asian Region constituted an “urgent problem444”. In response
to certain countries like Indonesia who complained about the lack of means, Tokyo
suggested offering a training program in Japan for the countries that desired it.
But the discussions came up once again against the delicate issue of involving Japanese
forces in the joint patrols even though the Japanese Coast Guard officials took care to
emphasize the non-restrictive nature of the resolution, whose application would be subject
to each one’s wish445.
The distinction between “joint patrol” (suggested by Japan) and “coordinated patrol”
(as suggested by the members of the Asean) is of importance. By “joint patrol”, one
understands in fact, that a country’s vessels can patrol alongside the vessels of another
country in its territorial waters. However, the sovereignty of nations still remains a
sensitive issue. Any in-road can set precedents leading to consequences that are difficult to
predict in a region where some boundaries are still bitterly discussed. By “coordinated
patrol” one means, on the other hand, that the Coast Guards of various countries progress
in a concerted manner, but exclusively in their respective territorial waters without
interfering in their neighbour’s territory446.
If, going by the number of its participants, the conference nurtured hopes, the “Tokyo
declaration” was once again restricted to highlighting the sacred necessity for better
exchange of information and to promising better cooperation...
However, the main issue discussed at the latest conferences in Japan and Malaysia was
neither “joint patrolling nor coordinated patrolling”, but “ neutral patrolling.” On the basis
of a proposal by Alan Chan, representative of Singapore, it would be a question of
associating Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporean, and Japanese boats under the IMO flag, so
as to pursue pirates beyond borders. Once again, the project could not be executed.
In March 2002, Tokyo brought together experts from fifteen countries yet again. But
certain senior officials of the region are beginning to get impatient, regretting the
proliferation of forums to the detriment of more concrete initiatives capable of truly
replying to the tactical and legal challenges posed by the pirates.
7.4.3. Leading role of Europe?
In July 1994, at Kuala Lumpur, a conference had brought together Chinese, Malaysian,
Indonesian, Singaporean and American experts under the aegis of the Regional Centre for
Piracy. Representatives from Hong Kong and the General Secretariat of Interpol were also
associated. The goal was to focus on issues like drug trafficking, clandestine immigration
Donald Urquhart, “Asia’s Coast Guard Officials in S’pore to Discuss Piracy”, The Shipping Times, 8th
March 2000.
443 It brought together representatives from Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, South
Korea, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, to
which was added Russian, Australian, and American observers as well as Non – Governmental
Organisations - which were mainly from Singapore and Japan.
444 Reuters, “Asian Nations Meet on Urgent Piracy Problem”, 27th April 2000.
445 Muzi News, “China Goes it Alone at Asian Anti – Piracy Conference”, Lateline News, 28th April 2000.
446 Kwan Weng Kin, 4th May 2000.
442
119
and piracy. China was then accused of manipulating pirates to their advantage447. No trace
of the European delegation.
The Delos confederation, during the glorious period of the Athenian quarter already
seems very far off. But 2500 years later, a similar attempt to study the possibility of
multilateral cooperation, which could tackle the transnational menace that piracy
represents, is being undertaken all over again.
The Transport Commission of the European Union still reiterates that these issues come
essentially under the jurisdiction of the countries in whose territorial waters the incidents
take place. The fact remains that, since 1997, during the twelfth meeting between the
Foreign Affairs Ministers of the Asean and of the European Union, several measures were
contemplated in the area of security and maritime cooperation. And in October 2000, on the
European initiative, the Governments that gathered at the ASEM Summit (Asian Europe
Meeting) in South Korea reiterated their interest in the piracy problem448.
Today the theme of prevention of transnational crime in collaboration with the Asean
Centre against transnational crime is favoured. Nevertheless, it would be hasty to sum up
the maritime relations between the two sub-regions as the victimisation of one region’s
commercial fleet by the pirates of the other region.
The “little cape of the Asian Continent”, as Paul Valéry describes Europe would take
care of a few pirates in the Malay Archipelago.
In July 1997, the Italian police discovered a rather bizarre company. Based in Rome, it
recycled amateur sailing boats into war ships equipped with missile launchers, machine
guns and sophisticated communication devices. Most of these boats were meant for Asian
associates, which is hardly surprising considering the net works and the logistical means at
the disposal of the triads449.
7.4.4. Interpol’s Arguments
Considering its status, the IOCP (International Organisation of Criminal Police),
Interpol, can claim a certain experience in the fight against transnational crime.
But criminologists know the difficulties involved in rigorously apprehending the
crimes committed at sea, which perhaps explain why the exactions that affect so many
victims are so greatly ignored450.
Captain Graham Hicks, Secretary of the NUMAST (National Union Of Marine,
Aviation and Shipping Transport Officers) even regrets that public reaction is always
stronger in the case of an attack against an aeroplane or a train rather than in the case of a
criminal incident at sea. The reason could be twofold. It is the professionals and not the
public at large who are affected; the sea is simply “out of our field of vision”, therefore,
“out of mind”451. In fact, the Batam pirate Mr. Wong’s reputation did not spread beyond
Southeast Asia even though his men captured numerous vessels.
In order to ensure that the oceans do not remain “silent partners to crime452”, Interpol
has involved itself in many forums, participating mostly in meets organised by the Asean.
Similarly, some of its national bureaus have contributed to the retrieval of lost vessels and
other “phantom ships”. Moreover thanks to Interpol assistance -accompanied it is true, by
a prize of 100,000 dollars – it was possible to trace the Anna Sierra in 1995453. More recently,
AFP, “Malaysian to Host Piracy Conference”, The Business Times, 12th July 1994.
FAP, “BC-Asia-EU-Summit-Extracts”, AP, 20th October 2000.
449 Michel Klen, “Les Coulisses du crime organizé”, Défense Nationale, March 2001, p.110.
450 Martin Gill, Crime at Sea, a Forgotten Issue in 1995, Center for Study of Public Order, Occasional Paper
no: 7, Leicester, 1995, p.25.
451 James – Holden – Rhodes and Peter Lupsha, 1993, p.212.
452 Dae H. Chang, “Aquatic Crime: New Directions Transnational Research”, in Harold E. Smith,
International Crime: Investigative Response, Smith, Chicago, 1989, p.79.
453 “Le Cargo toujours encalminé à Beihai”, Le Marin, 29th December 1995, p.7.
447
448
120
the recovery of the Global Mars was once again made possible by the cooperation between
the Interpol office in Japan and in Hong Kong454.
Further proof of the police organisation’s interest in maritime crime: The questionnaire
sent on 5th June 2000 to the member nations to launch the idea of an International
Conference on the subject. Amongst the Southeast Asian countries directly affected by
piracy, only Burma showed its “enthusiasm”. It must be mentioned that it had already
hosted a conference organised by the Asean on transnational crime earlier. Evidently, it is a
strategy of the military junta, which besides is very much involved in drug trafficking455, in
order to ensure its legitimacy within the international community.
It is too early to evaluate the impact of the various initiatives of the organisation.
However, one can note that unlike the other regional forums, Interpol possesses this
capacity to bring together without any diplomatic consideration, the various players
(private and national) who are victims of piracy.
7.4.5. A specific threat, a specific answer:
the importance of a United Nation’s framework
Pirates defy boundaries. However, the legal weapons for countering them continue to
be deeply marked by the Westphalian system of 1648, centred on the Nation. This gap
therefore impedes initiatives. Given the transnational nature of the danger, only
international cooperation seems to be capable of thwarting it.
In November 1994, a global plan of action against transnational crime had been adopted
in Naples during the World Ministerial Conference on organised transnational crime. In
March 1998, this was followed by the First Ministerial Meeting of the Asean on
transnational crime (AMMTC) in Manila, which had to be initially organised under the
aegis of the United Nations Centre for the Prevention of International Crime.
In May 2000, at Bangkok, an ad hoc meeting of the Asean on the subject of a convention
on organised transnational crime, proposed by the UNO, confirmed that better
cooperation, international as well as regional, was necessary. The signing of these
conventions took place eight months later at Palermo, in the presence of representatives
from 124 Nations.
At the same time, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) along with the
IMB and the International Shipping Federation (ISF) referred to the possibility of
constituting a maritime unit of the United Nations, “a naval force with blue helmets456”. In
a certain way this echoed the idea already expressed in October 1999, by a Japanese scholar
in the Asahi Evening News about the necessity of creating a permanent police force of the
UNO in strategic zones457.
Gradually, the debate on piracy has become essential in international forums. At the
request of the Secretary General of the IMO, the General Assembly of the United Nations
proposed that piracy and armed robbery at sea form part of the main issues discussed
during the May 2001 meeting on oceans and law of the sea. (UNICPOLOS). Various ideas
were formulated on this occasion: training programs or procedures for exchange of
information458.
AFP, “China Returns Oil Tanker to Owner, Arrests 20 Seamen”, The Shipping Times, 9th August 2000.
For further reference consult Pierre – Arnaud Chouvy and Joel Meissonnier, 2002.
456 “A Proposed UN Response Force for Piracy…”, on the site www.maritimesecurity.com , 18th January
2000.
457 Naoyoshi Ishikawa, “UN Maritime Force Crucial to Combating Piracy”, Asahi Evening News, 3rd October
1999.
458 Donald Urquhart, “Piracy Soon to Be on UN General Assembly Agenda”, The Business Times, 18th June
2001.
454
455
121
Finally what about the idea of a specific jurisdiction? We have seen earlier that the
International Penal Court had opened an interesting breach by recognising the 1998 Rome
Convention and consequently, acts of piracy that satisfy the criteria of its article 3. It
involved the setting up of a multinational force, of a second large scale project capable of
contributing to a supra-national action that would reinforce multilateral prerogatives. One
would thus in a certain way evolve towards the emergence of a modern version of the
Hanseatic League that the cities of Northern Europe had set up against pirate threats
during the Middle Ages. The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had made a reference to it
while inaugurating the International Tribunal for the law of the sea at Hamburg on 3rd July
2000. This should in fact contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes pertaining to the
Convention for the law of the sea in 1982459.
Timothy Goodman, an American lawyer and specialist in the law of the sea, on his part,
suggested a ‘piracy court’ capable of pursuing and punishing apprehended criminals. He
expressed his desire for the establishment of a ‘charter on piracy’ and of a ‘piracy
commission’, liable to judge crimes perpetrated outside the nations whose citizens460 are
the accused. It would thereby constitute a sort of ‘jurisdiction by default’.
The idea is attractive. It is in keeping with the studies concerning crimes against
humanity461. The pirate is certainly a transnational delinquent. Fighting against him
therefore necessitates a global approach.
“Secretary General Hopes More and More Parties Will Make Use of International Tribunal for Law of
the Sea”, M2Presswire, 3rd July 2000.
460 Quoted by Catherine Mitchell,1999, p.4.
461 However, we will not go to the extent of an author like Barry Hart Dubner who concluded his study on
piracy by questioning the possibility of qualifying pirates as “enemies of the entire humanity” (Barry Hart
Dubner, 1995, p.11).
459
122
Conclusion
“My name is Ellen, Eric Ellen”. The introduction does not sound quite as slick as that of
James Bond, but then the Director of the International Maritime Bureau is more along the
lines of Holmes or Poirot rather than the glamorous Pierce Brosnan or Sean Connery.
However after Le Pirate noir (1926), Le Corsaire masqué (1926), L’Aigle des mers (1940), Le
Cygne noir (1942), Jean Lafitte: le dernier corsaire (1950), Les Aventures de Mary Read (1961), Le
Fantôme de Barbe - noire (1968), one could very well imagine an episode in the famous series
of 007 titled Never say pirates again or James Bond versus Mr. Wong...
Maritime piracy, which is prevalent in Southeast Asia, could largely inspire the next
adventure of Her Gracious Majesty’s spy. And all the indispensable ingredients are found
here, beginning with the role of the villains played by Mr.Wong and the terrifying Liem
Sioe Liong, at the head of an impressive criminal organisation that resorts to trafficking of
human beings under the benevolent protection of corrupt authorities.
Then come the stakes which affect the entire planet. What is at stake here is the world
economy, which pirates threaten to hold to ransom by blocking the Malay Straits. Without
forgetting the ecological repercussions that could result from an attack on an oil tanker or a
gas carrier off the seas of Singapore.
Secret Agent 007 would never be the same without his gadgets. Q the old engineer who
perfected these unbelievable machines could have inspired the creators of this bomb proof
jacket presented at the London Dome, the inventors of the Ship loc satellite system, and
above all the designers of Seajack Alarm System. This amazing gadget makes it possible to
warn computer systems on land bases automatically about any disturbance on board. The
Nippon Foundation can also be proud of its Toronomon which works on a simple
principle. If a grapnel is thrown on to the bridge it enters into contact with a rope stretched
along the boat, which immediately triggers a loud alarm and activates blinding
searchlights462.
Next follows this exotic tinge without which the myth called James Bond would not
exist. One finds it on the Bintan Island, the Asian version of the Tortoise island in Batam, its
neighbour where joints and whorehouses thrive, as well as the deserted creeks of the island
of Penuba from where certain pirate raids could originate…
Finally, there is this sacred union of Governments facing this scourge – It is here that the
Tokyo Conference intervenes –without forgetting the informants, the traitors and of course,
the James Bond girls. One remembers this young girl of Batam, “hostess” in a bar in the
island, as charming as she was troubled on learning that her companion Mr.Wong was a
fearsome pirate, whose boat was the centre of command. On the other hand, the prostitutes
in the harbour areas use their charm to climb on to vessels and pick out places in
preparation for their next crime.
Bangsberg (P.T), “Chinese Court Affirms Death, Prison Sentences on 14 Pirates”, Journal of Commerce
online, 22nd August 2000.
462
123
When one evokes piracy, the boundary between cinema and reality is very fine. And
though, over and above these fantasies, the danger is very real, the awareness of
Governments comes slowly. It is patent today if one believes speeches of political leaders in
the region, notably in Singapore and Malaysia. Thus, Kuala Lumpur would intend using
this issue to reaffirm its ambition for a certain form of regional ideological leadership. As
for Indonesia, victim of serious internal problems from Aceh to West Papua, it tries by a
more conciliating attitude to escape from the infamy to which a multitude of pirates could
condemn it.
The job of creating awareness amongst private companies and various member nations
has been remarkable. For India and Japan, piracy represents an occasion to be part of the
strategic scene in Southeast Asia. Among others, the initiative of the Japanese Prime
Minister Keizo Obuchi, in spring 2000, served to open up a process of “considering” the
issue on a multilateral level. Even China, reticent for a long time, involves itself more in
international forums.
However, the problem is far from settled. Respect for sovereignty remains the ultimate
argument used by countries to resist the setting up of joint or multilateral intervention that
could however be adapted to the means of organised crime that have evolved. Their
defences seem to be heavy and clumsy against a very active and agile adversary.
Pax Romana, Pax Britannica and Pax Americana have successfully contributed to pacifying
the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean. When will a “Pax UNOsia” or more modestly a “Pax
Asiatica” in Southeast Asia come through? Such an initiative would prop up the theory of
the shifting of civilisations popularised mostly by the former President of the United States,
Theodore Roosevelt, at the dawn of the 20th Century463. In its turn, the region would find
itself at the heart of an issue whose stakes affect the world. Commercial activity is at
present concentrated in the Asia Pacific region and no longer in the Mediterranean or in the
Atlantic, thereby summoning the countries of the region to take on their new status as
world leaders of maritime trade….
463
Hervé Couteau-Bégarie, Géopolitique du Pacifique, IFRI – Economica, Paris, 1987, p.38.
124
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128
Index
Abu Sayyaf, 11, 23, 33, 38, 63, 64, 74, 102, 103,
106, 119
Aceh, 37, 61, 65, 68, 103, 104, 124
Afghanistan, 36, 115
Africa, 17, 20, 64, 67, 92, 96
Agriculture, 104
Anna Sierra, 59, 61, 77, 120
Arms dealing, 66
Army, 56, 57, 74, 88, 104, 115
Australia, 112, 115
Australia, 49, 55, 96
Baltic and International Maritime Council, 95
Bangladesh, 29, 30, 49, 53, 73, 119
Banks, 63
Basilan, 23, 24, 25, 38
Batam, 27, 35, 40, 41, 53, 68, 103, 104, 105, 111,
120, 123
Bay of Bengal, 80, 85, 107, 108
Bintan, 27, 30, 35, 40, 50, 68, 109, 110, 123
Borneo, 11, 22, 23, 26, 28, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40,
53, 56, 60, 62, 73, 86, 102, 110, 111, 113
Brunei, 13, 21, 22, 28, 39, 68, 118
Bugis, 33
Burma, 13, 34, 61, 108, 116, 118, 119, 121
Cambodia, 13, 29, 66, 116, 118, 119
Catholics, 34, 37
Cheung Son, 36, 44, 45, 78, 108
Chiang Mai, 25
China Sea, 13, 14, 27, 28, 38, 44, 47, 52, 56, 71, 72,
76, 78, 79, 80, 84, 87, 88, 93, 107, 110, 111
China, 10, 13, 14, 25, 26, 27, 28, 36, 38, 39, 43, 44,
47, 49, 52, 56, 59, 60, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78,
79, 80, 84, 87, 88, 93, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110,
111, 113, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 124
Chittagong, 30, 53
Choong (Noel), 30, 37, 59, 73, 91
Christians, 17, 34, 37, 40
Coastguards, 50
Cochinchina, 26
Communism, 9, 27
Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia
Pacific, 95
Crime, 27, 40, 52, 53, 55, 85, 90, 92, 93, 96, 118,
120, 121
Customs, 29, 43, 84, 88, 101, 106, 107, 108
Drugs, 21, 28
East Timor, 40, 115
Egypt, 16
Ellen (Eric), 32, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 77, 90,
123
Environment, 92, 101, 104
Europe, 9, 18, 19, 22, 40, 56, 72, 82, 91, 109, 119,
120, 122
European Union, 79, 89, 114, 118, 120
Exclusive Economic Zone, 45, 46, 101, 113
Fishing, 101
France, 17, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 81, 92, 113, 114
Gas, 80
Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, 37, 68
Global Mars, 91, 118, 121
Greece, 18
Hainan, 28, 60
Harbors, 29, 30, 51, 52, 54, 55, 60, 65, 77, 79, 85,
88, 90, 95, 101, 104, 106, 107, 114
Hong Kong, 24, 36, 39, 42, 44, 49, 56, 59, 60, 61,
72, 77, 87, 88, 93, 105, 109, 118, 119, 121
Hostage (Taking), 63
Hui, 77
India, 10, 13, 14, 29, 30, 49, 53, 61, 66, 74, 75, 79,
80, 96, 107, 108, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119,
124
Indonesia, 10, 13, 21, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 37, 38,
39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 49, 53, 54, 57, 61, 65, 68, 73,
74, 92, 94, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, 110, 111, 112,
115, 117, 118, 119, 124
International Criminal Court, 43, 85, 90, 102, 105,
115
International Maritime Bureau, 100, 102, 103,
105, 108, 109, 115, 121
International Maritime Bureau, 12, 20, 27, 28, 30,
32, 36, 37, 43, 44, 46, 49, 50, 51, 54, 58, 59, 60,
64, 65, 66, 69, 73, 74, 77, 79, 80, 82, 85, 86, 87,
90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 123
International Maritime Organization, 44, 53, 61,
74, 77, 78, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 104,
106, 109, 115, 119, 121
Interpol, 7, 68, 78, 91, 95, 118, 119, 120, 121
Iran, 80
Islam, 21, 22, 33, 35, 37, 38, 67, 68, 102, 106
Israel, 81
Japan, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 39, 42, 43, 44, 49, 66, 72,
74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 81, 85, 91, 94, 99, 100, 101,
105, 109, 118, 119, 121, 123, 124
Java, 23, 33, 41, 56, 72
Johor, 22, 27, 29, 34, 40, 101, 105, 111
Jolo, 16, 24, 33, 35, 63, 64, 65, 82, 102, 106, 111
Kalimantan, 110
Kedah, 112
Keizo Obuchi, 52, 75, 94, 118, 119, 124
Kelantan, 112
Korea, 13, 61, 67, 72, 75, 109, 112, 118, 119, 120
Lai Changxing, 60
Langkawi (Archipelago), 100, 101
Laos, 13, 34, 116, 118
Latin America, 20, 83, 86
Liem Sioe Liong, 44, 123
Macao, 28, 32, 88, 109
Malacca, 13, 22, 27, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42,
49, 53, 61, 64, 65, 68, 69, 71, 74, 75, 80, 93, 94,
97, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 110, 111, 112,
113, 114, 115
Malaysia, 7, 13, 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 37, 38, 39, 40,
42, 43, 44, 49, 53, 55, 60, 63, 65, 66, 68, 73, 74,
129
75, 76, 92, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 110,
111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 118, 119, 124
Maritime traffic, 13
Mercenaries, 96
Military exercises, 104
Mindanao, 22, 23, 44, 47, 64, 111, 114
Mines, 104
Moluccas, 22, 27, 34, 37, 54, 55
Monarchy, 107
Moro, 28, 29, 64, 106
Morocco, 17
Narathiwat, 112
Natuna (Islands), 29, 39
Navy, 20, 35, 38, 43, 50, 52, 53, 57, 65, 68, 74, 76,
80, 87, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110,
112, 113, 115, 117
Netherlands, 19, 97, 105
Nippon Foundation, 85, 94, 123
Non-Governmental Organization, 92
Oil Tankers, 66, 121
Oil, 66, 80, 94, 121
Pakistan, 10, 79
Penang, 29, 100, 110
Perak, 112
Petchem, 73
Petro Ranger, 43, 49, 59, 77, 105, 112
Philippines, 11, 13, 21, 22, 24, 25, 28, 34, 35, 36,
38, 39, 41, 44, 50, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68,
74, 93, 96, 100, 102, 105, 106, 111, 118, 119
Police, 13, 18, 35, 41, 49, 63, 86, 90, 101, 104, 106,
107, 108, 110, 111, 118, 120
Polo (Marco), 16
Portugal, 18
Russia, 76, 117
Sabah, 28, 29, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 47, 62, 63, 64,
65, 73, 74, 100, 102, 111
Satun (Thai province of), 65
Selangor, 29
Singapore, 13, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 35, 36, 39,
40, 42, 47, 49, 50, 52, 58, 59, 60, 61, 68, 72, 74,
75, 76, 79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 88, 92, 93, 94, 95,
99, 100, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 112, 113, 114,
115, 117, 118, 119, 123, 124
Smuggling, 73
South Asia, 29, 54, 68
Soviet Union, 9
Sri Lanka, 37, 53, 54, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 83, 87, 119
Suharto, 44, 57
Sukarno, 57
Sukarnoputri (Megawati), 104
Sulawesi, 22, 29
Sulu (Archipelago), 11, 22, 23, 24, 28, 33, 34, 35,
38, 42, 47, 55, 62, 63, 64, 65, 100, 106, 111, 113
Sulu (Sea), 22, 28, 42, 65, 111
Sumatra, 13, 23, 27, 29, 30, 33, 35, 37, 41, 42, 47,
58, 61, 65, 66, 68, 72, 101, 104, 105, 107, 111
Taiwan, 16, 39, 40, 45, 72, 105
Tausug, 29, 33
Tenyu, 61, 66, 94, 118
Terrorism, 115
Terrorism, 7, 28, 64, 67, 68, 69
Thailand, 13, 25, 27, 34, 44, 55, 59, 60, 65, 66, 68,
72, 73, 78, 81, 85, 101, 107, 108, 112, 115, 117,
118, 119
Tokyo conference, 79
Tolebo, 34
Tonkin, 25, 26
United Kingdom, 17, 18, 19, 97, 100, 114, 115
United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS), 45
United Nations, 20, 27, 39, 45, 49, 84, 99, 104, 108,
121, 122
United States, 38, 39, 44, 52, 68, 72, 76, 103, 105,
106, 109, 114, 115, 117, 124
Vietnam War, 38
Vietnam, 13, 25, 26, 27, 38, 39, 55, 68, 75, 79, 107,
108, 112, 116, 118, 119
VOC, 96
Wahid (Abdurrahaman), 29, 57, 104
West Papua, 37, 104, 124
Xiamen, 60, 73
Yala, 112
130

The Resurgence of Sea Piracy in Southeast Asia

Transcription

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