All on board for maritime security

The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

Malaysia's agreement with Singapore last week to work more closely together to enhance maritime security and fight terrorism is another piece of good news, after naval vessels from the two countries and Indonesia began their first coordinated patrols in the Strait of Malacca.

Indeed, greater cooperation in the Malacca and Singapore straits is likely to go beyond the coordinated patrols. Just how will be known after security and defense officials from the two countries meet soon. These moves have far-reaching implications. Every year, 50,000 ships carry half the world's oil supply and a third of global trade through the Malacca Strait.

Yet, the area is one of the most dangerous, as figures from the mercantile trade's International Maritime Bureau (IMB) show. Not only did pirate attacks in the Malacca and Singapore straits go up from 15 to 27 in the first six months of the year, but the rise was put in alarming perspective by the decline of such attacks elsewhere in the world.

The latest moves by the three countries send out a clear signal to pirates that they are up against a combined will to combat a common threat. What is receding is the acrimony that bruised feelings among the neighbors when the possibility of United States forces helping to patrol the waters was broached.

The next step would be to move from coordinated patrols, in which each navy patrols its own territorial waters in coordination with its counterparts, to joint patrols. The key point is whether hot pursuit into territorial waters would be permitted to apprehend pirates.

It is not a small detail that IMB figures show there were 50 attacks within Indonesian waters, and these accounted for more than a quarter of 182 attacks worldwide. Joint patrols would help the littoral countries to tackle such problems. The issue of sovereignty, however, appears to be blocking the way. Arguing that territorial integrity must be respected, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak has ruled out joint patrols for the time being.

But this does not mean that coordinated patrols cannot evolve into something even more substantive. The Malaysian navy chief, for example, has mooted the idea of a "convoy protection scheme" to escort vulnerable merchant vessels along the 900km-long waterway. That could be a start.

In any case, what should drive cooperation forward is the changing nature of piracy. In September last year, the IMB released a report warning that gangs of heavily-armed pirates using fishing and speed boats were targeting small oil tankers in the Malacca Strait. What was disturbing was that the attacks were following a pattern set by Acehnese rebels.

Unlike criminals who attacked ships purely for the money, what was occurring was "political piracy" carried out by rebels seeking to fund their cause by holding hostages for ransom. "Political piracy threatens to rewrite the rules of engagement," Captain Pottengal Mukundan of the IMB commented then. He noted that politically-motivated pirates were prepared to take greater risks to further their cause. The IMB asked the authorities to recognize the motives behind these crimes and adopt new methods of deterring them.

Unfortunately, the problem persists, as is seen in the eight serious incidents that took place in the northern Malacca Strait within 12 days from June 4. The consequences would be catastrophic if terrorists were to team up with politically- driven pirates. Preventing it is a common regional responsibility.