U.S., RI urged to boost maritime security
U.S., RI urged to boost maritime security
Reuters, Washington
The United States and Indonesia should boost intelligence and
security cooperation to stem maritime terrorism in heavily
traveled sea lanes around the vulnerable Southeast Asian
archipelago, a study published on Wednesday said.
The study sponsored by the U.S.-Indonesia Society urged
Washington to allocate US$30 million over five years to help the
Indonesian navy beef up communications, intelligence and
operations in the region, through which much of the world's trade
moves.
"The U.S. should make maritime security a priority issue in
our relations with Indonesia," said study author Bronson
Percival, a terrorism expert at the Center for Naval Analysis.
Describing the waters surrounding Indonesia as the "most
dangerous in the world", he said the piracy-plagued Strait of
Malacca, which is bordered by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore,
was particularly vulnerable to attack by light boats or mines.
"Pirates in the Strait of Malacca have proved how easy it
would be for maritime terrorists to operate there," Percival said
in a presentation in Washington of his report Indonesia and the
United States: Shared Interests in Maritime Security.
The potential economic costs of terrorism would be high, with
40 percent of world trade, 80 percent of Japan's and South
Korea's oil and gas and 80 percent of China's oil passing through
the Strait, he said.
"No one knows what those economic costs would be; certainly it
would send a shock through those neighboring economies," Percival
said.
The study recommended that to help reorganize Indonesia's
maritime security efforts, the United States should increase this
year's $1 million in foreign military financing for the navy to
$6 million a year for five years.
Percival said the Indonesian navy is "not tagged with human
rights concerns" that have hindered U.S. cooperation with the
Indonesian army, which has been accused of grave rights abuses
across the vast, multiethnic island nation.
Last month, the United States lifted a ban on sales of
nonlethal military equipment to Indonesia, but said full
normalization of military ties with the world's most populous
Muslim country required the punishment of soldiers implicated in
past human rights abuses.