EKLÖF Pirates in Paradise A Modern History of Southeast Asia’s Maritime Marauders Stefan Eklöf Stefan Eklöf Piracy is not dead. Since the late-twentieth century, pirates have returned to the world’s oceans with a vengeance. Many of them are IN PARADISE PIRATES just as violent and fearsome as Blackbeard and the buccaneers of old but – equipped with M16 rifles, submachine guns, grenade launchers and even bombs – they are able to inflict much more harm. Worst hit is Southeast Asia where thousands of people have lost their lives at the hands of pirates in the last 25 years. Here, oil tankers, cargo ships, passenger vessels, fishing boats and pleasure yachts all have been targets of ruthless attacks. Fears are growing of pirates and terrorists cooperating to stage a maritime-style 9/11 attack near Singapore, closing the world’s busiest seaway. But who are these modern sea robbers who continue to infest the waters of Southeast Asia? Why have they not been suppressed by the security forces of the region? How serious is the problem for interna- tional shipping, for fishermen and for governments? Rich and engrossing in its detail, this book offers profound insights into contemporary terrorism, piracy and transnational organized crime in Southeast Asia. It will be essential reading not just for shipping professionals, business people dealing with Asia and security special- ists but indeed for anyone with an interest in maritime affairs or the East Asian world. Historian Stefan Eklöf, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading experts on maritime security in Southeast Asia and lectures in Asian Studies at Sweden’s Gothenburg University. PIRATES IN PARADISE www.niaspress.dk A Modern History of Southeast Asia’s Maritime Marauders Pirates_cover-reprint.indd 1 29/10/09 14:25:06 Pirates_prelims.fm Page i Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:21 PM PIRATES IN PARADISE Pirates_prelims.fm Page ii Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:21 PM NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIAN HISTORY Series Editor: Robert Cribb, Australian National University Indonesian Politics in Crisis The Long Fall of Suharto 1996–98 Stefan Eklöf The Indonesian Miltary After the New Order Sukardi Rinakit Power and Political Culture in Suharto’s Indonesia The Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) and Decline of the New Order 1986–98 Stefan Eklöf The Thaksinization of Thailand Duncan McCargo and Ukrist Pathmanand Thaksin – The Business of Politics in Thailand Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker Pirates in Paradise A Modern History of Southeast Asia’s Maritime Marauders Stefan Eklöf Pirates_prelims.fm Page iii Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:21 PM PIRATES IN PARADISE A Modern History of Southeast Asia’s Maritime Marauders Stefan Eklöf Pirates_prelims.fm Page iv Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:21 PM First published in 2006 by NIAS Press NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Leifsgade 33, DK–2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark Tel: (+45) 3532 9501 • Fax: (+45) 3532 9549 E–mail: [email protected] • Website: www.niaspress.dk © Stefan Eklöf 2006 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Eklöf, Stefan Pirates in paradise : a modern history of Southeast Asia’s maritime marauders. - (Studies in contemporary Asian history ; 6) 1.Pirates - Asia, Southeastern - History I.Title 364.1’64 ISBN 87-91114-36-6 (cloth) ISBN 87-91114-37-3 (paper) Typesetting by NIAS Press Produced by SRM Production Berhad Sdn Printed and bound in Malaysia Pirates_prelims.fm Page v Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:21 PM Contents Preface … vii CHAPTER 1 Introduction … 1 CHAPTER 2 Piracy in Asian and World History … 5 CHAPTER 3 Terror in the Gulf of Thailand … 17 CHAPTER 4 Opportunistic Piracy … 35 CHAPTER 5 Phantom Ships and Organised Crime … 65 CHAPTER 6 The Counts and Costs of Piracy … 88 CHAPTER 7 Piracy in the Name of God 110 CHAPTER 8 Combating Piracy 127 CHAPTER 9 Conclusion … 153 Bibliography … 164 Index … 176 Pirates_prelims.fm Page vi Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:21 PM Illustrations Figures 1Actual and attempted attacks in Indonesian waters, 1995–2004 … 97 2 Piracy and armed robbery against ships in Southeast Asia, 1980–2004 … 104 3 Piracy and armed robbery against ships in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, 1980–2005 … 134 Maps 1Southeast Asia … viii 2Gulf of Thailand … 16 3Southern Philippines and eastern Malaysia … 34 4South Malacca Strait area … 45 5Malacca Strait and Sumatra … 52 6Attacks against ships underway, 2004 … 98 7Accumulated number of attacks against ships in Southeast Asia, 1980–2004 … 105 Pirates_prelims.fm Page vii Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:21 PM Preface and Acknowledgements RESEARCH FOR THE THIS BOOK was carried out as part of a post- doctoral fellowship that I held at the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies at Lund University between September 2003 and August 2005. Above all, and apart from providing me with a dynamic and stimulating research environment at the Centre, the fellowship gave me the time to conduct in-depth research into the topic of con- temporary piracy in maritime Southeast Asia. The Lund Asia Library also provided excellent facilities for conducting the research, and their dedicated staff did everything to provide me with any type of material that I required for the study. The first phase of the project was undertaken during a visiting fellowship at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copen- hagen from October 2002 to August 2003, which was made possible by a grant from Nordisk Forskerutdanningsakademi (NorFA). Like the Centre in Lund, NIAS also provided a stimulating research en- vironment and excellent library facilities and support. Together with the Centre in Lund, NIAS also financed a workshop on Piracy and Non-Traditional Threats to Maritime Security, which I coordinated in May 2004, and which proved to be of great value for the project, especially because of the international contacts it generated. I also wish to thank Crafoordska stiftelsen, Fil dr Uno Otterstedts fond för främjande av vetenskaplig undervisning och forskning, Stiftelsen Bokelunds resestipendiefond and the Swedish School of Advanced Asia-Pacific Studies (SSAAPS) for generous contributions to travel and other expenses in relation to the project. Gothenburg, April 2006 Pirates_prelims.fm Page viii Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:21 PM viii Pirates in Paradise : Southeast Asia ap 1 M Pirates_book.fm Page 1 Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:20 PM CHAPTER 1 Introduction FEW CRIMES IN HISTORY evoke as many colourful, and even romantic, associations as piracy. At least in Western popular culture, pirates, whether based on historical figures or purely fictional characters, seem to hold special fascination, not only for children but also for many adults. Who has not, for example, heard of the exploits and adventures of Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, Edward Teach (alias Blackbeard) and Bartholomew Roberts, to mention only a few of the most prominent pirates of the ‘golden age’ of European and Atlantic piracy in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries? Depicted invariably as brave, adventurous, cruel, bloodthirsty and hungry for gold and treasures, the pirates of the golden age have in one way or another stood as models for numerous fictional char- acters in adolescent and children’s stories like R. L. Stevenson’s Treasure Island and J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, as well as in action and adventure movies, especially in the 1950s but also more recently for instance in the blockbuster film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, released in 2003 and to be continued in a sequel due in 2006. For all their diversity and creative imagination, the novels and movies have one thing in common: they were all produced long after piracy ceased to be a threat to maritime traffic in the Atlantic. During the last wave of Atlantic piracy between 1716 and 1726 – the days of Blackbeard and Roberts – there were probably few seafarers who would think of pirates as romantic figures, and the major contemporary account on the subject, Captain Charles Johnson’s General History of the Pyrates, first published in 1724, is abundant Pirates_book.fm Page 2 Wednesday, May 10, 2006 3:20 PM 2 Pirates in Paradise with tales of arbitrary and often repellent violence by the pirates. In those days the Jolly Roger, the feared black or blood-red pirate flag generally featuring a skull or skeleton, fulfilled its purpose of per- suading the crews of the target ships to surrender rather than die at the hands of the pirates. Today’s pirates rarely hoist the Jolly Roger, but just like their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century counterparts they strike fear in the hearts and minds of seafarers around the world. Many of them, moreover, are just as brutal as Blackbeard and his contemporaries, and over the past decade, at least hundreds, and probably thousands, of sailors, fishermen and other seafarers have been killed by pirates and maritime terrorists. Pirates still roam the Caribbean, but in numbers the region is dwarfed by Southeast Asia, which currently accounts for close to half of all reported attacks world-wide. Pirate attacks actually seem to be more frequent in Southeast Asia today than they ever were during the golden age of Atlantic piracy. Historian Marcus Rediker has estimated that between 1716 and 1726, pirates captured and plundered an estimated 2,400 vessels, or an average of 218 per year. Between 2000 and 2004, by comparison, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which is the main source of information about contemporary piracy, recorded 920 attacks in Southeast Asia (out of a total of 1,944 world-wide), or an average of 184 per year. The IMB, however, believes that its figures only represent about half of the actual number of attacks, giving a total average of some 368 attacks per year in the region.1 This book sets out to describe the extent, distribution and character of piracy in Southeast Asia during the last 25 years and, above all, to explain why piracy, as it seems, has returned after having been all but extinct in the region – as in most of the rest of the world – for close to a century.