Oceans of Crime: Maritime Piracy and Transnational Security in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh

6. Terrorist and Guerrilla Movements

220 Oceans of Crime 6 TERRORIST AND GUERRILLA MOVEMENTS [A]nd it is of course tr ue that happy, content people seldom, if ever , throw bombs. Walter Laqueur1 INTRODUCTION On 18 July 2006, Indonesian authorities arrested three former members of the GAM for their alleged involvement in a string of pirate attacks in the northern Malacca Strait, including an attack on a vessel carrying aid for tsunami victims. The three pirates were not arrested at sea, but captured in Lhokseumawe, a city in northern Aceh (Map 2.2 in Chapter 2). 2 These arrests show that people associated with politically motivated gr oups, such as the GAM, ar e believed to be r esponsible for some pirate attacks. However, the involvement of politically motivated gr oups in pirate attacks is contested, with leaders of these groups often denying their movement’s participation in these criminal activities. This chapter explores the involvement and links between piracy and politically motivated groups in SoutheastAsia.3 In this region, two different types of politically motivated groups, namely terrorists and guerrillas, are potentially involved in piracy in two dif ferent ways. Firstly, members of 06 Oceans_Crime 12/14/10, 2:53 PM 220 Terrorist and Guerrilla Movements 221 some of these organizations conduct pirate attacks to finance their gr oup and its operations. In Southeast Asia, three politically motivated groups were believed to be actively involved in piracy between 1992 and 2006, namely, the GAM in Aceh, and the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF in the southern Philippines. Secondly, pirates may cooperate directly with, or be of assistance to, terrorist organizations. Terrorist groups discussed in this regard include the internationally operating al-Qaeda and the Indonesiabased JI. This chapter examines the actual and possible involvement of these guerrilla and terrorist groups in piracy, and explains why these and similar politically motivated gr oups pose a thr eat to national, r egional, and international security well beyond pirate attacks. TERRORISTS AND GUERRILLAS Distinguishing Types of (Political) Violence Defining terrorism is a difficult task. Part of the pr oblem, as Walter Laqueur points out, is that terrorism is not an ideology but an insurr ectional strategy, which can be used by people of very dif ferent political convictions. Moreover, the meaning and usage of the wor d terrorism changed from the time of the Fr ench Revolution, when the term first came into common political usage, to accommodate the ideological vernacular and discourse of subsequent eras. The natur e of terrorism also varies fr om country to country as a r esult of cultural traditions, social str uctures, and political relationships. The search for a satisfactory definition is further complicated by the fact that many so-called terr orists do not consider themselves terrorists, but rather pr efer other terms, such as fr eedom fighters or militants.4 Acknowledging these semantic, albeit political-cultural, difficulties, Hoffman suggests that: We may … attempt to define terr orism as the deliberate cr eation and exploitation of fear thr ough violence or the thr eat of violence in the pursuit of political change.All terrorist acts involve violence or the threat of violence. T errorism is specifically designed to have far -reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate victim(s) or object of the terrorist attack. It is meant to instil fear within, and thereby intimidate, a wider ‘target audience’ that might include a rival ethnic or r eligious group, an entir e country, a national government or political party , or public opinion in general. Terrorism is designed to cr eate power where 06 Oceans_Crime 12/14/10, 2:53 PM 221 222 Oceans of Crime there is none or to consolidate power where there is very little. Through the publicity generated by the violence, terr orists seek to obtain the leverage, influence and power they otherwise lack to ef fect political change on either a local or an international scale. 5 By defining terrorism in this manner it is possible to distinguish it fr om other types of politically motivated violence, such as guerrilla warfar e. Hoffman points out that even though guerrilla gr oups might use similar tactics, they differ considerably from terrorist organizations. Guerrilla, he argues, usually refers to a: numerically larger group of armed individuals, who operate as a military unit, attack enemy military forces, and seize and hold territory , […] while also exercising some form of sover eignty or contr ol over a defined geographical area...