Asian antipiracy meet opens in Japan

Asian antipiracy meet opens in Japan

TOKYO (AFP): Japan convened on Thursday the first ever conference to discuss collective measures against mounting attacks on ships in Asia by organized gangs of pirates.

Coastguard officials and maritime policymakers from 16 Asian countries were meeting at a Tokyo hotel for the Regional Conference on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships.

"Piracy has been occurring frequently in Southeast Asia, and this affects the prosperity of the whole of Asia," Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said in an address opening the two-day conference.

"The need for cooperation among countries concerned is increasing," he said.

Participants include high-ranking maritime safety officials from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, which face the notoriously dangerous Malacca Strait.

Officials from Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam were also attending.

The first meeting of its kind also drew observers from the United States, Russia and Australia.

"This conference has to focus on the problem of piracy and sea robbery, especially in the Malacca Strait," Korean Maritime Agency chief Kim Jong-woo told AFP. "The heads of coastguard agencies are here to discuss how to tackle this problem."

Kim said he hoped the conference would achieve "such things as exchanges of information regarding piracy and sea robbery, and to allow joint exercises among countries."

A Japanese proposal for joint exercises and patrols by coastguards received wide backing as delegates discussed their final communique to be issued on Friday, an AFP correspondent said.

India also proposed countries use joint patrol ships for search-and-rescue missions, oil spills, anti-drugs trafficking and to protect the marine environment.

The conference was initially proposed by former prime minister Keizo Obuchi last November. Mori replaced Obuchi on April 5 after the former premier suffered a stroke.

In March, Asian coastguard and maritime agencies agreed to set up piracy information exchange centers in a joint bid to stem rising armed robbery against ships on the high seas.

While most ship crews overcome by pirates escape with their lives, there has been a series of grisly attacks which has focused attention on the growing scourge mainly affecting Asian waters.

While attacks rose last year, the number of murders dropped dramatically -- from a horrific 78 worldwide in 1998 to three in 1999.

The decline followed an outcry in the industry. Another factor was China's decision to clamp down following international criticism for doing too little.

In January it executed 13 pirates, including gang leader Weng Siliang, convicted of massacring 23 crewmen on the Hong Kong- owned Cheung Son in November 1998. Weng was said to have hooded a crewman and clubbed him to death.

Worldwide, pirate attacks surged nearly 40 percent last year from 1998 and almost tripled compared with 1991, according to the Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Center.

A total of 203 attacks, or over two-thirds of the total of 285, took place in just seven countries -- Indonesia (113), Bangladesh (23), Malaysia (18), India (14), Singapore Straits (13), Somalia (11) and Nigeria (11).

Pirate attacks almost doubled off Indonesia, the country hardest hit by the regional financial crisis which erupted in mid-1997, compared to 1998.

The most dangerous type of attack involves international syndicates operating "phantom ships," in which a ship is seized, its crew may be murdered and its appearance changed, according to the International Maritime Bureau.