Malacca Strait free of terrorism, say experts
Malacca Strait free of terrorism, say experts
Associated Press Kuala Lumpur
Despite growing fears of a "9/11 at sea" that could cripple trade, terrorists have not yet established links with pirates in the Straits of Malacca, one of the world's most vital waterways, experts and officials said on Tuesday.
The assertions, made at a meeting of law enforcement officials, shipping executives and diplomats from 33 countries, came a week after a visit by the top U.S. commander in the Pacific to seek closer cooperation in protecting the bottleneck that carries one-third of the world's trade.
"Ensuring a safe maritime environment is a prerequisite for continued economic growth in the region," Chia Kwang Chye, Malaysia's deputy minister for internal security, said in a keynote address to the two-day meeting sponsored by the International Maritime Bureau.
The Straits of Malacca are the maritime lifeline of East Asia - including for oil from the Middle East, and goods bound for Europe - with some 50,000 ships plying the narrow waters between Malaysia and Singapore on one side and the Indonesian island of Sumatra on the other.
The straits have long been rife with piracy. Ships are attacked, robbed and sometimes seized by bandits on speedboats, especially from the Indonesian side, which has been hurt by economic crisis and separatist rebellion in the Sumatran province of Aceh in recent years.
The Kuala Lumpur-based bureau, which tracks piracy worldwide, is hosting the tri-annual meeting amid new worries that terrorists could sink a vessel in the strait to paralyze shipping, or ram and explode a hijacked ship into an industrial area to cause spectacular damage.
Andrew Linington, representative of a 19,000-member British seafarers' union, said that the real fear was that the ease of piracy would encourage terrorists that shipping was easy prey.
"We could have a 9/11 at sea," Linington said.
But experts and officials said there was no evidence yet that pirates and terrorists were working together.
Pirates are traditionally local people motivated by economic gain and share few interests with terrorists in the Malacca Straits or the Horn of Africa, another trouble spot, said Brian Jenkins, a terrorism adviser to the International Chamber of Commerce, the bureau's parent organization.
"Terrorists are determined to carry out very dramatic incidents that would in fact bring down a great deal of heat on the local population and disrupt what is a lucrative business," Jenkins said.
Piracy is a worsening problem in its own right, said P. Mukundan, director of the chamber. The number of incidents worldwide rose from 370 in 2002 to 445 last year, with some 20 percent in Indonesian waters.
Shipowners would welcome patrols by the United States or other navies - "the more patrols we have ... the better it is," Mukundan said.