[In 2015, there were 178
attacks in Southeast Asia and none in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea region near
Somalia, according to the maritime bureau, after a multinational security
crackdown there. The bureau also reported that in the first half of this year,
Southeast Asia was the scene of more than one-third of the 98 attacks and
attempted attacks globally.]
By Joe Cochrane
 |
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A group of Indonesian
tugboat crew members in the Philippines in May after
their release by Abu
Sayyaf militants. Credit Office of Sulu Governor,
via Associated Press
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JAKARTA,
Indonesia — Sembara Oktafian
was in the engine room of a tugboat chugging toward the Philippines when
something didn’t sound right.
There was shouting on deck, and shots. Gunmen
had boarded, and their message was clear: Come with us, or we will kill you.
They shot one crew member and kidnapped four others.
“They were a terrible-looking group, running
around with AK-47s,” Mr. Sembara said. “I thought they were going to kill us
all, but they only took my friends.”
The April attack, in the Celebes Sea south of
the Philippines, was not isolated, or even out of the ordinary. Southeast Asia
now accounts for the majority of seafaring attacks globally, surpassing the
Horn of Africa, according to the International Maritime Bureau. And governments
in the region are scrambling to combat the problem.
“In Somalia, the attacks have gone down,”
said Noel Choong, the head of the maritime bureau’s piracy reporting center in
Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. “In Nigeria, the numbers are still
there, but not as much as in Asia.”
In 2015, there were 178 attacks in Southeast
Asia and none in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea region near Somalia, according to
the maritime bureau, after a multinational security crackdown there. The bureau
also reported that in the first half of this year, Southeast Asia was the scene
of more than one-third of the 98 attacks and attempted attacks globally.
The men who attacked the tugboat, an
Indonesian-flagged vessel that had been hauling a coal barge, were later
identified as members of Abu Sayyaf, an extremist group based in the southern
Philippines that has acted as a hostage-for-ransom gang for more than two
decades. It has also pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State.
Abu Sayyaf is responsible for most of the
kidnappings at sea in Southeast Asia, but several other criminal gangs also
operate in those waters.
Between March and August, Abu Sayyaf
kidnapped 25 Indonesian and six Malaysian seamen in attacks along vital trade
routes for coal barges in the Sulu Archipelago. The extremist group continues
to hold nine Indonesian sailors from the recent attacks.
Alarmed by the spate of kidnappings for
ransom, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines agreed in May to conduct
coordinated naval security patrols in the Sulu Archipelago, and establish a
hotline among themselves. In August, they agreed to allow “hot pursuits” of
kidnappers and armed robbers by their maritime security forces into one
another’s territory.
“The idea is for the closest patrol boat to
take the necessary action,” said Arrmanatha Nasir, an Indonesian foreign
ministry spokesman.
The Indonesian Navy thwarted the hijacking of
an oil tanker by pirates off the southwest coast of Borneo in May, and arrested
nine suspects. But attacks on oil tankers have become less frequent as global
fuel prices have dropped, according to a recent report by the Global Initiative
Against Transnational Organized Crime.
Many attackers are instead targeting ships
carrying valuable commercial cargo that can be sold on the black market, such
as crude palm oil.
“Most of the criminal gangs that hijack fuel
tankers are waiting for fuel prices to go up again, and then they will resume
hijacking them,” said Karsten von Hoesslin, a maritime piracy expert and the
host of the National Geographic Channel’s “Lawless Oceans,” who wrote the
report.
“Until then, they are attacking ships
carrying other types of cargo that is now more valuable,” he said.
Before the recent surge, Southeast Asia did
have some success battling maritime crime.
In 1993, the maritime bureau documented about
20 maritime criminal attacks and attempted attacks in Southeast Asia, but that
number steadily rose to nearly 250 by 2000.
Joint patrols by Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore and Thailand in the Strait of Malacca — one of the world’s busiest
sea lanes — drove down maritime crimes between 2006 and 2009. In 2008, there
were only 54 attempted or actual attacks in the region, according to the
maritime bureau, compared with 92 in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea region.
The recent kidnappings have alarmed the
Indonesian government in Jakarta, in particular, because Indonesian tugboats
have been the primary targets of Abu Sayyaf militants.
Indonesia orchestrated the release of 10
sailors who had been kidnapped in late March by Abu Sayyaf and held for nearly
two months by paying, according to the Indonesian news media, a ransom of more
than $1 million. Days after that attack, Abu Sayyaf attacked the T. B. Henry,
the tugboat that Mr. Sembara was on. He and five other seamen aboard —
including the man who had been shot and wounded — were left behind as four
others were taken because there was not enough room on the attackers’ speedboat.
Abu Sayyaf attacked another tugboat in June
in the Sulu Sea, taking seven Indonesian sailors hostage. Two of those
hostages, after being threatened with beheading, escaped in August by swimming
out to sea from the Philippine separatist island of Jolo, where Abu Sayyaf is
based. They were later rescued.
Some doubt that the recent security
agreements to counter the kidnappings will be effective or that the countries
will carry through on their pledges of cooperation.
Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National
War College in Washington, who specializes in Southeast Asian security issues,
said the agreements would not satisfy the Indonesian government.
“They have been trying to deal with this for
several months, and it does not match because there is such a disconnect, and a
lack of political will and capabilities,” Mr. Abuza said. “These countries are
so very guarded about their territories, but they have very little ways to
defend them, which makes them very insecure.”
That is little comfort to shipping company
bosses such as Suharjono, the operations manager of Global Trans Energy
International Jakarta, which owns the T. B. Henry.
The four sailors kidnapped from the T. B.
Henry were released after 25 days. The company said no ransom had been paid,
but the local news media speculated that ransoms had been paid for all
Indonesian and Malaysian sailors who had been released.
“My crew is still traumatized,” said Mr.
Suharjono, who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name. “And security is just
getting worse.”
Follow Joe Cochrane on Twitter
@datelinejakarta.
