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

1. Pirate Attacks on Merchant Vessels in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh, 1980-2006

Pirate Attacks on Merchant Vessels in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh 21 1 PIRATE ATTACKS ON MERCHANT VESSELS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND BANGLADESH, 1980–2006 I heard something from outside the mess r oom, then I open the door . In front of me there were pirates. So I move my hands up. Yoeli Janto, Master of the hijacked MT Selayang1 INTRODUCTION On 23 Febr uary 2000 the Japanese-owned tanker MT Global Mars was attacked in the Malacca Strait by a gang of twenty pirates, who appr oached the tanker in a fishing vessel and climbed on boar d unnoticed. Once on board, the pirates, masked and armed with guns and knives, overpower ed the eighteen-man crew and took control of the vessel. The following day, the crew was transferred to the fishing boat and held on board, while the pirates repainted the tanker , renamed it Bulawan, and r eplaced its Panamanian flag with the colours of Honduras.After the change of identity was completed, the pirates sailed the Bulawan to an unidentified port where the cargo was sold. After thirteen days of captivity, the crew was moved to a smaller fishing boat and set adrift. After days at sea, the crew reached the island of Surin in Thailand, and called for help. The sear ch for the crew and vessel had, however , already begun. The IMB had been notified of the attack shortly after the hijacking and a reward was offered for information r egarding the location of the vessel. The Bulawan was 01a Oceans_Crime Ch 1 12/14/10, 2:48 PM 21 22 Oceans of Crime eventually found in Chinese waters and the local authorities, acting on information from the IMB, seized the ship and arr ested the “crew” on board on 30 May. The detained crew, eleven Filipinos and nine Burmese, denied they were pirates, claiming instead to be seamen hir ed to sail the Bulawan to South Korea. They were released a short time later.2 Pirate attacks occurring in SoutheastAsia and Bangladesh at present range from hijackings of vessels, such as the Global Mars, to simple hitand -run robberies conducted by opportunistic thieves. This chapter of fers an overview of pirate attacks on merchant vessels in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh from the early 1980s to 2006, with particular emphasis on attacks occurring after 1992. However , the objective here is not to provide an analysis of the underlying pr oblems and causes of contemporary piracy in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh, as this will be presented in the following parts. PIRACY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA IN THE 1980s3 In the early 1980s, the IMB began the first systematic collection and publication of reports of pirate attacks. Throughout the 1980s, two regions received particular attention in these IMB r eports, namely West Africa, where in the early years most attacks wer e reported, and the Singapor e Area, encompassing the Phillip Channel and the Malacca Strait. Piracy in the Singapore Area remained rather unsophisticated in nature during the 1980s. Most attacks were simple hit-and-run robberies conducted by two to five men armed withparang (machetes) or knives. The attacks invariably occurred at night, were usually brief affairs, and in many instances, were only noticed once the culprits had left the tar get vessel. The level of violence of these attacks remained low, injuries were the exception, and no crew was reported killed by pirates in this ar ea.4 While opportunistic attacks on mer chant vessels also took place in other parts of Southeast Asia, some waters in the region were subjected to more serious maritime crime, including hijackings — the theft of entir e merchant vessels. Pirates working for criminal syndicates hijacked vessels either to deliver them to a thir d party, or because they were hired by the owner of the ship for insurance fraud. In other instances, the hijacked vessel was used by the criminal syndicate to transport illegal goods or for cargo fraud operations. In all cases, the vessel’s original car go was disposed of and the original crew either killed, thrown overboard, or put into small craft and left to their own devices. The ship was then r egistered under a 01a Oceans_Crime Ch 1 12/14/10, 2:48 PM 22 Pirate Attacks on Merchant Vessels in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh 23 different name and turned into a “phantom ship”. Equipped with its new identity, the vessel was then...