Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia: History, Causes and Remedies

4. Conclusions and A Way Forward

114 CONTEMPORARY MARITIME PIRACY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 4 Conclusions and A Way Forward Maritime piracy has a long, interesting, and involved history in the region, and the continuity of the roots of historical and contemporary piracy highlight the endemic nature of piracy in the region. This chapter will summarize and analyse continuities between historical and contemporary piracy already mentioned earlier, highlighting several structural underpinnings of piracy that provide the motivation and opportunity for piracy to emerge. This suggests an overall approach to addressing the roots of contemporary maritime piracy that emphasizes structural development and increased operational capacities of the littoral states. Of particular concern is Indonesia, which is responsible for securing an enormous maritime territory but is hampered by a variety of domestic and international issues. A WAY FORWARD • Contemporary maritime piracy has its roots in the maritime sociocultural matrix of the region that makes piracy a thinkable option. Weak state development, unable to cope with rapid economic and societal changes, which cannot effectively provide access to or distribute economic benefits, or effectively include maritime-oriented peoples in a national identity, has created a large group of marginalized maritime-oriented peoples facing endemic poverty, making piracy increasingly thinkable. • Gaps in the state’s political hegemony stemming from the state’s inability to control the means of its own legitimacy hamper the state’s ability to address piracy, making piracy more practicable. • Lack of state control over the technical means of carrying out piracy, particularly the state’s inability to regulate access to and to develop their own intelligence to counter the complimentary technology of pirates, and the lack of vessels, further makes piracy possible. 04 ContemMP Ch 4 3/8/07, 9:53 AM 114 4. Conclusions and A Way Forward 115 As Batongbacal has succinctly put it, “The long-term goal should be not only to suppress piracy and sea robbery when it takes place, but to create a regional environment that inherently prevents piracy and sea robbery from even being considered by anyone.”1 The deep roots of piracy in maritime Southeast Asia makes this goal overly ambitious, but its emphasis on prevention and long-term solutions mirrors the approach that has been suggested throughout this text. To this end, policy should have two main thrusts — developing policing and operational maritime security capacities, and structural development, i.e. economic and political development. Both of these are important in addressing current regional states’ inabilities to exercise control and regulate maritime peoples, secure gaps in the political hegemony, and control the tactical means of piracy. This chapter will explore policy directions based on the above analysis of contemporary piracy through historical context, first looking at the theme of international co-operation primarily as a source for funding and training, focusing on developing local capacities. It will then discuss various aspects of “policing”, emphasizing increasing domestic operational capacities. The importance of structural development in changing the environment from which piracy has emerged by addressing the roots of contemporary piracy directly will be looked at next. Following this will be a discussion on the importance of increasing the base of primary research on piracy, through both statistical and social sciencebased quantitative and qualitative methods. From this information the issues surrounding piracy in Southeast Asia can be better contextualized, developing approaches to understanding piracy, facilitating tailoring policy, and directing resources on a regional and sub-regional scale. INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION The transnational nature of piracy has become the focus of much of the security dialogue on the subject. Indeed the mobility and fluidity with which pirates operate between national borders would suggest a multilateral co-operative approach in addressing the issue. This is problematic however, as discussed earlier, particularly in the Singapore and Malacca Straits, as the issue of internationalization of security raises the spectre of regional, and/or worse, extra-regional interference in the sovereignty of the littoral states. The recent Malsindo patrols, as well as past co-operative patrols in the Straits region, suggest that Indonesia and 04 ContemMP Ch 4 3/8/07, 9:53 AM 115 116 CONTEMPORARY MARITIME PIRACY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA Malaysia are willing to share responsibility of security in this region to a point. The point where these countries can enter each other’s territorial waters for routine patrolling, or even in hot pursuit of pirates, has not been reached yet, and will not be likely in the near future. With regard to extra...