Foreign sand smugglers to face RI justice

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia will carry out further investigations into the seven cargo vessels the Navy captured last week for trying to smuggle goods into Singapore, says a Navy official.

"The smuggling case involving the seven ships, currently being held by the Navy on Batam Island, will be handed over to the minister of maritime development to be dealt with according to the law," Rear Admiral Djoko Sumaryono, chief of the Navy's Western Fleet, said during his field tour of the naval base on the island on Friday.

During the tour, Djoko also questioned the crew members of the vessels, including several Russians and Koreans, with questions centering on the foiled sand smuggling.

The seven vessels --TB Olivia-V, TB Jasmine V, MV Prof. Garjunov, MV Samsung Apollo, Vasco Da Gama, MV Lange Wapper and MV Alexander Van Humbold-- were captured by several Indonesian warships in a series of routine operations in Indonesian waters on the strait since they failed to produce the necessary documents to transport the thousands of tons of sand out of the province.

Djoko said further that in line with President Megawati Soekarnoputri's recent instruction, the Navy would fight all forms of crime along the Malacca Straits, including those that caused losses to the state.

Djoko had no comment when asked about the businessmen or syndicates behind the smuggling.

Col. Adyaman A. S., chief of the Batam naval base, said the Navy was monitoring seven other vessels which were allegedly loading sand on the Riau archipelago without a permit from the Indonesian government.

"Our ships are still lying in wait for the seven ships. The ships are still loading sand and the will face the same fate as the previous seven ships," he said.

Adyaman acknowledged that the Riau archipelago was quite prone to sand theft since Singapore is in need of sand for its reclamation project along its coast.

"Of a total 70 dredgers in the world, 54 are running operations in the Malacca Straits. This means that Riau is the largest sand quarrying operation in the world," Antara quoted him as saying.

The beefing up of security by the Navy of security in Riau waters is apparently in response to allegations that the military has backed the rampant sand theft.

The central government has taken over the authority from the provincial administration on the issuance of sand quarrying licenses to local exporters due to the province's inability to curb the illegal sand mining.

A number of environmental organizations have urged the government to stop sand exports to Singapore because besides the low price of sand on the Singapore market, it has damaged the environment and given no benefit to locals.

Adyaman said the Navy would also crack down on the syndicates behind the sand smuggling and would arrest all those who backed the syndicates even though they were servicemen or state officials.

"It is a good lesson and a warning for local businessmen not to abuse their close relations with the military and government officials to back their illegal activities," he said.