THE brave and meticulously executed rescue by the Malaysian naval commandos of the hijacked Malaysian tanker MT Bunga Laurel and its 23 crew members in the Gulf of Aden must surely make all Malaysians proud of our Defence Forces.
In another rescue a day earlier, South Korean special forces stormed a freighter that had been hijacked a week before in the Arabian Sea, rescuing the ship and the 21 crew members on board.
The hijacking of ships and their crew for ransom together with the millions of dollars worth of cargo has escalated off lawless Somalia in recent years. In a bid to clamp down on the problem, international warships patrol the area now.
Following the hijacking of three other Malaysian ships in the same area previously, the Malaysian International Shipping Corporation, which operates the MT Bunga Laurel, and the Malaysian navy decided to join hands in 2009 – to escort and protect Malaysian shipping in the troubled area.
Piracy has a long history for Malaysians and it goes back several centuries. The Straits of Malacca has been beset by piracy from the distant past. There is, however, active cooperation among Asean nations and other countries using these waters to patrol the seas in order to curb the problem.
Multilateral cooperation arrangements among nations, regions, international institutions such as the United Nations and the International Maritime Organisation and other naval forces can reduce the risk of piracy attacks on ships traversing the high seas.
The systems and infrastructure being put in place to help reduce piracy off the Somali coast and the wider Indian Ocean region is based, among others, on the IMO/South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca and Singapore model. It now serves as a template for the signatories to what’s called the 2009 Djibouti Code.
More broadly, piracy should be recognised as a symptom of wider problems ashore and as such anti-piracy efforts must deal with its root causes. Even more distressing is the fact that pirates could very well join forces with extremists and terrorists and that could make the situation even more complex.
The only sustainable solution will be effective governance, the establishment of the rule of law and security institutions, and the creation of alternative livelihoods alongside inclusive and stable economic growth in countries that spawn these criminals.
As such, any long-term effort to address piracy must be complementary to the political, security, recovery and development efforts.