Are we hunting for sea pirates or robbers?

Are we hunting for sea pirates or robbers?

Hanys Salmi, Kuala Lumpur

When Adm. Thomas B. Fargo presented to Congress his argument
on the need to secure sea lanes in Southeast Asia, the message
that reached Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta was rather alarming. So
high-profile was the move that many circles thought Washington
was aiming to hide behind the notion of stamping out al-Qaeda-
linked terrorists to pursue other ambitions.

In Kuala Lumpur, senior intelligence officials swiftly
declared that based on their investigations, there were no
indications of terrorists having plied the Malacca Strait. In
Jakarta, newspapers ran analyses warning against what was
presumed to be a U.S. ambition to increase its military presence,
which could threaten the sovereignty of countries in the region
in spite of the noble idea of crushing terror.

There are three different issues to be proportionally analyzed
to determine the motives of the American maneuvers as promulgated
by the commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

First is the need to trace al-Qaeda's subsystems in Southeast
Asia. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi told the BBC on
July 25 that Southeast Asia would win the war against terror
provided that Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) could be uprooted. But he
doesn't know how, neither do Indonesian and other ASEAN leaders.

The fight against terror is the hardest bone to crack because
it has to do with divergent perceptions. Why has America found it
hard to win the hearts of the Muslim majority in such countries
as Indonesia and Malaysia on this particular issue? Insensitive
political terminologies are to blame for this. The terminologies
CIA has been using all along are not pleasing to Muslims' ears
even though they support the idea of combating terror. Had the
CIA created a more "Muslim-friendly" code-name to replace JI,
perhaps Washington would have been able to gather sufficient
support from community leaders in this region.

The second issue Admiral Fargo has raised is piracy. This is
where another big misunderstanding has occurred. According to
Article 15 and 16 of the April 1958 Geneva Convention on High
Seas, piracy does not occur within sovereign nations' territorial
waters.

It only occurs in what the Convention defined as "high seas."
The term "high seas" refers to the international waters that
begin after the 12 nautical mile range from a country's coast.

Under this definition, cases of bandits robbing merchant ships
within the 12 mile range of Indonesian or Malaysian waters, or
within sovereign territorial waters elsewhere should be
categorized as "sea robbery" instead of "sea piracy". And "sea
robbery" is a crime the concerned countries' naval forces should
tackle without having to call for a superpower intervention;
because robbers do not use missiles or those stupid weapons of
mass destruction.

The Geneva Convention on this issue reads as follows:

"ARTICLE 15:

Piracy consists of any of the following acts:

(1) Any illegal acts of violence, detention or any act of
depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the
passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:

(a) On the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or
against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;

(b) Against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place
outside the jurisdiction of any state;

(2) Any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a
ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate
ship or aircraft;

(3) Any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an
act described in sub-paragraph 1 or sub-paragraph 2 of this
article."

This explains why the Indonesian Navy and its Malaysian
counterpart keep rejecting as untrue the allegations that "sea
piracy" has become so rampant in Malacca Strait that a mighty
American naval presence would be needed to wipe it out.

According to reports by the Kuala Lumpur-based International
Maritime Bureau (IMB), which has a branch in London, in the first
half of 2003, up to 234 incidents were reported as against 171 in
the same period in 2002 and 165 in the same period in 2001. In
total, 445 acts of piracy were reported in 2003. In the first
half of 2004 there were 182 cases. "Indonesia remains the country
worst afflicted by piracy," IMB said. This is a dangerous
assessment that tarnishes Indonesia's image, because it does not
make any distinction between sea piracy and sea robbery.

Since the waters of Riau province near Singapore comprise the
bulk of the Malacca Strait, and given its common maritime
boundary with Vietnam in the South China Sea, Indonesia needs to
clarify its sovereign position to prevent external interventions.

Jakarta must state clearly that based on international law of
the sea, the bulk of the issue to be tackled is the need to
eradicate "sea robbery" within Indonesian waters, and not "sea
piracy" because piracy happens only in the high seas which do not
fall under Indonesian jurisdiction. And the question of combating
sea robbery is an internal Indonesian affair of which prompt
settlement should not wait for external prodding.

The IMB tabulation began when Jakarta was trying to put down
renewed armed rebellion in Aceh. There is the temptation to
assume that much of the robbery has probably involved the
separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) trying to generate funds for
its struggle.

Before President Megawati Soekarnoputri ordered troop
deployment into Aceh, the number cases of sea robbery in Malacca
Strait increased to 445 (in 2003) from 192 the previous year. So
it is safe to assume that this crime has nothing to do with al-
Qaeda-linked terrorism, unless proven otherwise with hard
evidence.

But a big puzzle has emerged -- a recent discovery in Central
Sulawesi by the Indonesian police, of VCDs containing Osama bin
Laden's provocative sermons.

Shall we say that Admiral Fargo may eventually be found right
and that what he was aiming to do may not necessarily run counter
to Southeast Asia's own interests? Or shall we say that the
distortion in the usage of the term "sea piracy" and "sea
robbery" was a strategy to weaken the sovereignty of countries
sharing the Malacca Strait?

Indonesia and neighbors should not try to block American
maneuvers, because no country can do so. With the U.S. Congress
having approved a $416 billion budget for the Pentagon, America's
overseas engagements would surely be stepped up across the globe.

Southeast Asian countries can only enhance cooperation among
themselves and with the U.S. for "coordinated patrols" across the
region -- and not just in the Malacca Strait -- in the sense that
warships would ply the waters outside the coordinates of
sovereign countries' maritime borders as a form of shock therapy
against all kinds of crime and terror.

The writer is a researcher at a Kuala Lumpur-based company. He
can be reached at hanyssalmi@malaysia.com