SINGAPORE, Nov 21 - The seizure this week by Somalian pirates of a giant Saudi-owned tanker in the Indian Ocean has shocked the world's merchant shipping industry and navies. The 318,000-ton Sirius Star, fully laden with oil, is the biggest tanker ever to be hijacked at sea.
Could a similar seizure happen in South-east Asian waters, where pirates have also been active in recent years? Noel Choong, head of the shipping industry's Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur, believes it will be "very difficult to copycat the Somalia situation in Asia".
Asian governments, he points out, are committed to suppressing both piracy and terrorism and have more resources to do so than Somalia, a failed state that has not had an effective government since 1991. The regional piracy-monitoring agency in Singapore says maritime attacks in Asia in the first nine months of this year dropped 11 per cent compared to last year, and 32 per cent from 2006. Most of the attacks nowadays are small-scale robberies against small vessels.
Yet, three years ago in the Malacca and Singapore straits, something akin to the attack on the Sirius Star was attempted. On April 6, 2005, a 150,000-ton Japanese tanker reported an attempted boarding by suspected pirates as the vessel neared Singapore.
In the midst of a heavy rainstorm and poor visibility, the captain of the Yohteisan sent out a radio message that he had been surrounded by seven small craft and that people from them had tried to board the tanker. They were prevented from doing so only when the captain increased speed.
Singapore's Ministry of Defence (Mindef) was so concerned about the incident that it issued a statement describing the sequence of events. As soon as the Yohteisan's distress call was received, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore alerted the Navy and Police Coast Guard and broadcast an anti-piracy warning to vessels in the region.
The attempted boarding, however, occurred in Indonesian territory. The east-bound lane of the traffic separation scheme to keep ships from colliding in the narrow Singapore Strait is in Indonesian, not Singapore, waters. All the Singapore Navy could do was to inform the Indonesian Navy, which then sent raider boats to the scene to investigate. A Singapore naval ship was also deployed on the Singapore side of the channel to render assistance if required.
A Mindef statement said: "These incidents highlight the need to find more ways by which enforcement agencies can cooperate to take action to enhance the security of regional waters, while respecting the sovereignty of the littoral states."
Singapore's concern was well-founded. 2005 was the year when the insurer Lloyds of London listed the busy Malacca and Singapore straits - the shortest way by sea between the Indian and Pacific oceans - as a danger spot for piracy, prompting some insurers to raise premiums for ships using the channel. Indonesia was regarded as the main problem area.
In 2004, the shipping industry reported 93 attacks on ships in Indonesian waters, more than a quarter of the global tally. Another 37 attacks took place in the Malacca and Singapore straits. As in Somalia, the pirates were becoming bolder and better armed.
Automatic assault rifles were being used more frequently and even some rocket-propelled grenades were reportedly brandished. The hijacking of vessels was on the rise, and so was the kidnapping of their officers and crew for ransom.
Singapore Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar said at the time that hijacking vessels for their valuable cargo and taking crew for ransom "suggest that organised elements are creeping into what was previously the domain of opportunistic thuggery. Piracy has become a high-tech international enterprise".
How did South-east Asia turn this dire situation around? The key was the arrest and punishment of pirates and organisers by Indonesia and Malaysia, and the settlement of the separatist conflict in Aceh. Maritime-related aid to Indonesia, especially from the United States, Japan and China, also helped. Singapore provided real-time surveillance information to Indonesia on shipping traffic. And both countries combined with Malaysia to intensify sea and air patrolling of the straits.
Still, the seizure of the Sirius Star shows that it is relatively easy for armed raiders to take control of even the biggest merchant ships. The risk is that terrorists may try to emulate the pirates, but use giant ships with flammable or polluting cargoes as political weapons, instead of as bargaining chips for ransom, as the Somalian pirates do. - The Straits Times
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I am an ardent follower of your news portal. I notice that your Wednesday team is on the ball! Not that the rest of week is not upto mark but I have been on this portal since day three! Once again, keep up the good work and all the very best for keeping us at home updated on events around the world as well as some really daring local pieces.
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