Piracy, Maritime Terrorism and Securing the Malacca Straits

7. Private Military and Security Companies in the Fight against Piracy in Southeast Asia

Private Military and Security Companies in the Fight against Piracy 103 7 Private Military and Security Companies in the Fight against Piracy in Southeast Asia Carolin Liss [T]he most telling effect on modern buccaneers may well come not as a result of high-sounding pontifications from international bodies. It may well result from the availability of well trained and equipped commercial marine security forces operating out of North America, Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia — driven as the pirates are by the pursuit of profit.1 Introduction We live in an increasingly privatized world. Private education, private airlines, private telephone companies, and private healthcare are only a few examples of the increasing impact of privatization on our daily lives. Designed to stay competitive in the global market, private companies promise cheaper rates and better service for the customer. Today, these companies offer services for every aspect of life, including the security and military sectors. It should, therefore, be far from surprising that so-called Private Military Companies (PMCs) and Private Security Companies (PSCs) are also employed to secure the world’s oceans. In the last ten years an 07 PMaritime Terrorism Ch 7 9/28/06, 2:24 PM 103 104 Carolin Liss increasing number of private companies surfaced and expanded, offering services ranging from maritime terrorism and piracy response training for law enforcement personnel, to recapturing hijacked vessels and rescuing kidnapped crew members. This chapter attempts to give an insight into this growing business, focusing on services offered to address modern day piracy.2 Despite the global character of the topic, this article concentrates on the Asian region, where most pirate attacks have been reported in recent years. The first part of the article gives a brief overview of piracy in Southeast Asia, including the South China Sea, based on data published by the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC). The second part looks at the rise of PMCs/PSCs in recent years, with particular focus on companies offering anti-piracy services. The following part then examines the obstacles as well as favourable conditions in the maritime world that hinder or are beneficial for the services offered by PMCs/PSCs in regard to piracy. Here, the author also discusses concerns about PMCs/PSCs and the services they offer, resulting from their internal structure, information policy and the nature of operations they conduct. The chapter concludes by suggesting that PMCs/PSCs will most likely play an increasingly important role in maritime security in general and in the fight against piracy in particular. However, it is stressed that the services they advertise and their work practices should be regarded with a certain dose of scepticism. Piracy in Southeast Asia Since the early 1970s, incidences of piracy and crime on the high seas have steadily increased in Southeast Asia and in recent years, the region has become one of the global hot spots of vessel attacks. Even though attacks on merchant ships increased in the area in the 1970s and 1980s, they were often still small in scale and rarely involved physical injuries to those who were attacked.3 This changed in the 1990s, when modern day pirates began operating on a larger scale and across regional borders. By the late 1990s, more than half of all reported attacks on vessels worldwide occurred in Southeast Asia, or more precisely in the Straits of Malacca, the South China Seas, the sea north of Java, and in the waters surrounding the Sulu Archipelago. The modern day pirates, armed with parangs or modern guns, operate in fast motorboats, and prey on fishers, barter traders, cruising yachts, and, increasingly, commercial shipping.4 07 PMaritime Terrorism Ch 7 9/28/06, 2:24 PM 104 Private Military and Security Companies in the Fight against Piracy 105 According to data from the IMB-PRC, the number of actual and attempted pirate attacks5 reported in the 1990s range from 90 attacks in 1994 to as many as 469 reported incidents in 2000. In 2001, the number slightly declined to 335 reported attacks, rising again to 370 in 2002 and 445 in 2003.6 In the first half of 2004, the number of reported attacks fell to 182, from 234 incidents reported in the same period in the previous year.7 The real number of attacks, however, may in fact be much higher.According to Noel Choong, the Regional Manager of the PRC, more than...