Amid reports of hijackings and narrow escapes by merchant vessels in the Gulf of Guinea, West African piracy has begun to capture international attention. Meanwhile, NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield and the EU’s Atalanta maintain presence with other international partners in the Gulf of Aden, securing a crucial trade route against the threat of Somali piracy. However, the waterways of Southeast Asia are now almost entirely absent from the Western media narrative regarding the threat posed by piracy to international trade. This comes as some surprise, since piracy in this part of the world is very much on the rise.
According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), 57 attacks were reported in Southeast Asia during the first six months of 2013. Of the 297 pirate attacks that took place in 2012, 81 were perpetrated in Indonesia’s coastal waters alone, surpassing the 75 attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Aden the same year. This resurgence of Southeast Asian piracy is placing significant stressupon the shipping industry, generating new expenses and placing human lives at risk.
Malaysian special forces abseil onto a vessel from a police helicopter during a counter-piracy demonstration in the Strait of Malacca (Jimin Lai / AFP)
It is little wonder that this region has become the latest hot spot for pirate activity. It is estimated that approximately one-third of global crude oil and over half of global liquefied natural gas pass through the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea each year. In fact, roughly one-third of global trade passes through the Strait of Malacca, making it one of the most vital waterways to the world economy. Yet despite its strategic significance, there have been only limited efforts to secure the flow of goods and fuel through the Strait. In 2004, an informal arrangement was established between the naval forces of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore to cooperate on counter-piracy operations. In 2006, when Indonesian authorities expressed concern that they lacked the capabilities necessary to patrol Indonesia’s own territorial waters, the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard agreed to contribute vessels and crews to counter-piracy efforts on a limited basis.
For some years, this multinational arrangement saw success in reducing both the frequency and intensity of regional piracy, particularly in the Strait of Malacca. Unfortunately, these successes, rather than motivating further security cooperation, seem to have contributed to a certain degree of complacency. In April 2011, the Chief of the Malaysian Defence Forces was quotedclaiming that the multinational collaboration had brought a complete end to piracy in the Strait. This does not mesh with the aforementioned increase in attacks over recent years.
The Singaporean anchorages, plump with potential piracy victims.
The current situation presents both a powerful motive and an opportunity for pirates to prey on shipping in the Strait of Malacca – the value and volume of shipping is considerable, and the lack of a formal counter-piracy framework in the region leaves patrolling disjointed. In place of the current multinational collaboration, an intensive counter-piracy program on the part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) might better discourage pirate activity. ASEAN, whose membership comprises ten countries, has embarked on an effort to establish a functioning political-security community by 2015. The lack of an effective ASEAN response to a conflict in the Malaysian region of Sabah during the early months of 2013 has cast some doubts as to whether the necessary level of security integration can be achieved by the 2015 deadline. But regardless of whether the ASEAN member states can fully realize their integrationist ambitions, the attendant reform process may present the perfect setting in which to adopt a shared counter-piracy strategy, exchange best practices, and commit to a plan that will see the Strait of Malacca consistently and effectively patrolled by the naval forces of ASEAN member states.
Southeast Asian governments have been striving to position their region as a major economic hub, and the success of these efforts will depend in large part on whether international audiences see ASEAN integration as credible. Piracy in the Strait of Malacca is precisely the kind of challenge ASEAN can address through collective action, demonstrating that needed credibility. Continued complacency, on the other hand, will only contribute to a deepening crisis, undermining ASEAN once again and harming prospects for regional economic growth by fueling organized crime. With an ASEAN Summit set to take place in Brunei Darussalam this October, it is imperative that piracy make it onto the agenda.
Paul Pryce is a Junior Research Fellow at the Atlantic Council of Canada. With degrees in political science from universities on both sides of the pond, he has previously worked in conflict resolution as a Research Fellow with the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and as an infantryman in the Canadian Forces. His current research interests include African security issues and NATO-Russia relations.
The winds of global piracy have shifted, as attacks by West African pirates now exceed those of their Somali counterparts. The Nigeria-based pirates may not yet inspire Hollywood films, but they have prompted regional governments to take collective action. A June 24-25 summit in Yaounde, Cameroon brought representatives from the Economic Community of West African States, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Gulf of Guinea Commission together to draft a Code of Conduct concerning the prevention of piracy, armed robbery against ships and illicit maritime activity; now signed by 22 states.
The Gulf of Guinea’s problem is not a dramatic rise in the number of attacks, but the expansion of a criminal enterprise once restricted to Nigerian waters into those of neighboring states. While support vessels operating near Nigeria’s oil fields have been pirate targets for decades, the hijacking and full-scale pilfering of oil tankers is a recent development. This modus operandi first appeared off Benin in December 2010 and has spread to the waters of Togo and Côte d’Ivoire in subsequent years. According to Risk Intelligence data, there were at least 93 tanker attacks in the Gulf of Guinea between December 2010 and May 2013, resulting in some 30 hijackings.
2013 Pirate Attacks in the Gulf of Guinea (IMB)
Tanker traffic is particularly dense in the Gulf of Guinea because Nigeria, the region’s largest oil producer, lacks the capacity to refine its own product. Crude oil is thus transported out of Nigeria, refined elsewhere, and then imported back into the country where it is sold at below market rates thanks to a government fuel subsidy. Nigerian criminal syndicates, backed by high-level political and economic patrons, are exploiting this situation by targeting specific tankers for hijacking, offloading their cargo to secondary vessels and then selling the product on the lucrative black market.
A conference of regional experts, held in preparation for the Cameroon summit, estimates that maritime crime is now bleeding the Gulf of Guinea’s states some $2-billion a year in lost port revenue, insurance premiums and security costs. West Africa has now reached a tipping point, like East Africa and South East Asia before it, where the geographic expansion of pirate activity demands a coordinated response. An examination of previous regional efforts to combat piracy thus serves as both a guide and warning for the Gulf of Guinea’s new endeavor.
Regional Counter-Piracy in Context
As a response to increased pirate attacks in the wake of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, 16 states drafted the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) in 2004, which came into effect 2006. The organization is credited with reversing the spike in piracy that coincided with the 2009 global economic downturn, as attacks against ships in the region have steadily fallen from 2010 to 2013. Notable in this success was the establishment in Singapore of an Information Sharing Center (ISC) that facilitates the collection, analysis and dissemination of piracy information among member states.
ReCAAP obligates its members to take legal measures against vessels and individuals who commit acts or robbery or piracy; to extradite such individuals at the request of another state; and to render mutual legal assistance in such cases. Donations from member states fund ReCAAP’s central budget – Singapore and Japan being the largest donors – with additional support coming from out-of-area signatories such as Norway and the Netherlands.
Concerns over state sovereignty have prevented closer cooperation with ReCAAP, as equipment procurement and counter-piracy patrols remain the responsibility of individual states, and national security forces are unable to pursue suspected pirates across maritime boundaries. ReCAAP is also hampered by the unwillingness of Malaysia and Indonesia—the two most pirate-prone states in the region—to ratify the agreement.
As Somali piracy rapidly expanded in the late 2000s, the international community hoped to replicate the success of ReCAAP through a counter-piracy agreement encompassing Eastern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Steered by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the Djibouti Code of Conduct (DCoC) was adopted by nine states in January 2009 and has since expanded to 20 signatories spanning from Jordan to South Africa.
An independent study notes that the DCoC has made significant progress in information sharing, legal reform, and the training of coastguards. At least twelve member states have introduced legal changes to cover the crime of piracy. These developments have been credited for the higher percentage of arrested pirates now being tried and prosecuted in regional courts. The DCoC’s projects are largely financed by an IMO-managed trust fund of some $14-million, funded by maritime states such as Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, and South Korea.
Heading Back West
Influenced by these previous agreements, the Gulf of Guinea’s new Code of Conduct calls on signatories to: share and report relevant information; interdict vessels suspected of engaging in illegal activities; ensure those committing such acts are apprehended and prosecuted; and facilitate the care and repatriation of seafarers subject to illegal activity.
As was done in Singapore, the West and Central African leaders aim to build a regional maritime security center, based in Cameroon, which will facilitate information sharing among governments. The center, it is hoped, will address the massive underreporting of pirate attacks that occurs in the Gulf of Guinea and improve regional maritime domain awareness. However, the examination of previous efforts reveals that regional competition and suspicion are likely to hamper this process. Malaysia refused to join ReCAAP because it viewed the ISC in Singapore as a duplicative competitor to the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center based in Kuala Lumpur. Similarly, disagreements within the DCoC resulted in the establishment of three separate information sharing centers in Yemen, Kenya and Tanzania.
PMSCs have helped curb piracy off Somalia, but they are not allowed in the Gulf of Guinea
Absent from West Africa’s new agreement was any mention of the counter-piracy role that Private Maritime Security Companies (PMSCs) might play in the Gulf of Guinea. Foreign armed guards are not allowed in the territorial waters of local nations, forcing transiting vessels to hire military personnel from regional states and embark and disembark them along route. Several PMSCs were confident that the new agreement would allow them to operate inside the territorial waters of West African states, but concerns over state sovereignty and vested interests in the current system likely prevented such an arrangement from materializing.
Nor are international naval operations likely to be the panacea to West African piracy. At the summit, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara called on the international community “to show the same firmness in the Gulf of Guinea as displayed in the Gulf of Aden, where the presence of international naval forces has helped to drastically reduce acts of piracy.” However, NATO and the EU have already begun to drawdown assets from their Horn of Africa operations, set to terminate at the end of 2014, and there does not appear to be the political will for cross-continental redeployment. Furthermore, while almost all Somali pirate attacks occur on the high seas, the vast majority of attacks in the Gulf of Guinea take place in territorial waters, primarily those of Nigeria. This serves to render foreign naval vessels both unwelcome, due to local concerns for state sovereignty, and ineffective, as they are unable to operate so close to the shore.
Live Together, Die Alone
The absence of PMSCs and international naval operations means that a counter-piracy regime for the Gulf of Guinea will have to be local and regionally owned. This is a desirable and more sustainable course of action, but it means that the new Code of Conduct must contend with the low level of maritime security capacity that permeates across the region. Nigeria is the only state in the region that possesses a frigate, corvette, or aerial surveillance capacity. However, only an estimated 28% of Abuja’s navy is operational at any given time, meaning that maritime operations usually amount to intermittent sweeps, rather than a continuous patrol presence. The other littoral nations’ “navies” are more accurately described as coastguards. Taken together, West and Central African states are estimated to have fewer than 25 large security vessels available for interdiction efforts. In terms of force multiplying, Nigeria has engaged in joint patrols with Benin since 2011, but there was little indication in the new agreement that other states will join these operations.
Togo’s tiny navy is now on the front line in fight against piracy
As was the case with the DCoC, the IMO has established a trust fund for the Gulf of Guinea that will allow donor states to offset capacity building costs, and it is advisable that the U.S, EU, Japan and others use this as a common channel to coordinate their existing security efforts in the region. Not limiting itself to carrots, the U.S is also trying to exert pressure on Nigeria by issuing a 90-day ultimatum (set to expire at the end of August) to improve port security or face the diversion of U.S-flagged shipping.
While piracy is now a regional issue for the Gulf of Guinea, this ultimatum highlights the fact that the drivers of the crime and its ultimate solution both lay in Nigeria. The country’s fuel subsidies and the lack of local refining capacity are at the root of West Africa’s petroleum black market, and endemic corruption has protected the economic and political elites suspected of profiting from it. Inequality and local grievances in the Niger Delta have been only superficially addressed by payments from a government amnesty program, leaving a massive pool of unemployed young men who see piracy and oil theft as their ticket out of poverty.
Off the coast of Somalia, international naval operations, regional agreements and private armed guards have helped to suppress and contain piracy. In the Gulf of Guinea, enhanced regional cooperation – through information sharing, capacity building, and joint patrols – should serve to roll back the geographical expansion of Nigeria’s pirate gangs. In both cases however, a permanent solution rests within the state that gave rise to regional piracy. Closer maritime coordination in the Gulf of Guinea is a welcome development, but the road to secure marine environment will ultimately have to run through Nigeria.
James Bridger is a maritime security consultant and piracy specialist at Delex Systems Inc. He can be reached at jbridger@delex.com
Given the recent tendency of many Japan watchers to focus on some of the more eyebrow-raising news from Japan – ranging from predictions of an ‘Abegeddon’ through possible constitutional changes to historical revisionism – it may be timely to shed light on one particular Japanese multilateral initiative that has seen increasing international interest. The Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) is the world’s first regional intergovernmental body designed to combat piracy and armed robbery (PAR) against ships. ReCAAP was born out of the Asia Anti-Piracy Challenge Conference held in Tokyo in 2000, which followed in the wake of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and the resulting spike in PAR incidents.
A concrete initiative to establish such a body was made by Prime Minister Koizumi during an ASEAN+3 Summit in 2001, and the ReCAAP Agreement was drafted by 16 Asian countries in 2004. It entered into force in September 2006, followed in November by the establishment of an Information Sharing Centre (ISC). This Singapore-based ISC serves as a hub for information exchange on PAR incidents between all contracting states. At present, ReCAAP has 18 such contracting parties, including four from Europe (Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK). As the first framework of its kind, the ReCAAP model has enjoyed significant success and served as a model for the creation of the Djibouti Code of Conduct (DCoC), and is now in the early stages of forming the basis for a similar information sharing mechanism in the Gulf of Guinea.
Information sharing via decorative fountains
According to the latest available figures, the number of reported piracy and armed robbery attacks against ships in Asia – most of which occur in the waters, ports and harbors of Southeast Asia – continued to decline over the course of the first five months of 2013. This year thus continues the positive trend from 2011 and 2012 when the number of incidents began to decrease for the first time since their surge in 2009. Although not the only factor to contribute to the decrease, facilitating information sharing has proven invaluable in a region crisscrossed with maritime boundaries, exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and ongoing territorial disputes. Detailing ReCAAP’s information sharing and incident reporting procedure would be beyond the scope of this post, although some of its intricacies may well be addressed in more detail in a separate piece in the future. Until then, a general overview of the reporting procedure can be found here (appendix, page 26).
Despite its relatively modest funding (all of ReCAAP’s funds are obtained through voluntary donations by contracting parties), which will amount to approximately 2.2 million USD in the fiscal year 2013, ReCAAP’s three principal tasks – information sharing, capacity building and cooperative arrangements between contracting parties – have made a tangible contribution towards reversing the rising trend in PAR incidents in the region.
After having authored a paper on PAR in Southeast Asia and the role of ReCAAP back in March, I was glad to have the opportunity to welcome a delegation from the ReCAAP ISC at a round table organized by the European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS) in Brussels on 21 June. Their visit coincided with a period of increased international interest in the Agreement and its work, as Australia is set to become the 19th contracting party this August. France and the U.S. have also expressed an interest in joining, which would increase ReCAAP’s membership to 21 and expand the range of its information sharing network from Asia into the Pacific proper. Finally, as the EU contemplates becoming a partner organization over the coming years, the role of Europe within the framework will increase even further.
As its information-sharing model sees increasing adoption in other PAR ‘hotspots’ across the globe, ReCAAP will continue to attest to the capability of Japan to engage with its neighbors in multilateral fora (both China and South Korea are contracting parties) and shape pan-Asian initiatives. With some of the recent changes in the country’s political-security milieu putting its neighbors on edge, perhaps the time is right for Japan to reaffirm this capability. The 2001 ‘Koizumi initiative’ was a success; has the time come for an ‘Abe initiative’? It could build on ReCAAP’s success or outline a new multilateral framework that would help safeguard the global commons, be it in the maritime, cyber, air or space domain. Crucially, such an initiative could assure the participation of Japan’s neighbors while giving Tokyo’s soft power a welcome boost in the process.
Miha Hribernik is Research Coordinator at the European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS) in Brussels and an analyst at the geopolitical consultancy Wikistrat. The views expressed here are entirely his own. This post appeared in its original form on the website of the Japan Foreign Policy Observatory.
Maritime security, specifically counter-piracy, has undergone an evolution. Spikes in piracy and changes in contemporary threat perception first introduced the ‘Generation One’ maritime security paradigm: the presence of armed guards and kinetic means to protect vessels, goods, and people at sea. Pushes by various groups and governments for increased regulation in this sector, however, quickly ushered ‘Generation Two’ onto the scene, marked by decreases in armed personnel along with rapid acquisition and deployment of high-tech equipment.
Increased reliance on technology increases vulnerabilities. The more components that exist in a system, the more chances the system has to break down or fail. Evaluating radio and satellite communications, vital for ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship communication creates a weak-link even in the most basic technology. Mostly unencrypted, these virtually open frequencies are susceptible to interception by hostile parties. Pirates, for example, can and do listen-in on radio communications, using gathered intelligence to plot ship courses and plan their attacks. They can wreak further havoc by interfering with communications, jamming signals, or even feeding misinformation. Thus, commercial maritime security has morphed from physical protection of assets to incorporate elements of signals intelligence, electronic, and cyber warfare.
More disturbing perhaps are reports of pirates, leveraging not only conventional communications, but Automatic Identification System (AIS) data to plan attacks. AIS, used for monitoring vessel movements, has now become an intelligence tool for pirates to locate and select targets. Unlike radar monitoring which requires sophisticated hardware and skill, AIS data is readily available online by a variety of commercial Geographic Information System (GIS) providers. Pirate planners, with standard computer and internet connection, or even just a smartphone, can view and monitor AIS connected vessels worldwide. They can then selectively evaluate potential targets, track their movements, and use gathered information to coordinate attacks. This exemplifies the double-edged sword that technology is: on one hand aiding safety and security, allowing precise positioning and geomapping of vessels to aid operators in their daily business and guide search-and-rescue teams should anything go wrong at sea. On the other hand, improvements in technology also open vulnerabilities that multiply risk, proliferating cheap hardware and valuable information to potential perpetrators.
AIS data indicating real-time vessel locations
Interestingly, pirates, just like terrorists, drug-runners, and other criminals, are simultaneously employing low-tech, low-fi solutions to overcome or circumvent high-tech defenses. They are enhancing the performance of engines and hulls; are insulating outboard motors in (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to hide from thermal-imaging cameras; and, are even observed wearing ear-muffs to mitigate effects of Long Range Acoustic Devices (better known as LRADs or Sound-cannons). Such synthesis of simple, yet outside-the-box creative tactics and low-tech equipment, which together are capable of overcoming expensive and sophisticated systems is today’s ‘Generation Three’ piracy/counter-piracy paradigm. It’s exemplified by the continuation of asymmetric threats in the maritime domain, the widening of the technological divide between attacker and defender, and the carry-over of the debate about technology’s ability to reduce risk at sea.
Although shiny kits and gizmos undoubtedly ease processes and enhance operators’ technical situation, experts must evaluate if employment of such sophisticated hardware, whether on a ship, offshore installation, or even in ports will genuinely reduce risk while operationally remaining within legal constraints. They must consider how technology can enhance security, how it can fail, how it can be defeated, and moreover how it can be exploited by potential assailants.
Maritime security planners must not only seek to develop innovative products and procedures to enhance safety in this ‘Generation Three’ paradigm, but must also apply ingenuity in fusing high and low-tech solutions to counter asymmetric maritime threats. They must consider borrowing successful land based tactics from counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and other low intensity conflict operations and find applications for their use in the maritime environment. On land, this blend of hardening assets in conventional ways, maintaining an innovative yet ‘low-tech-low-fi’ profile, and preempting perpetrators actions through better understanding the rules and tactics of their own game has proven triumphant. Replicating this strategy at sea will be a crucial key to piracy threat reduction.
Simon O. Williams is a maritime security analyst specializing in offshore installation and port security, Arctic maritime challenges, naval capabilities, and multinational cooperation. He previously worked in the American and European private sector and US government, but now contributes independent analysis to industry, media, and policymakers while pursuing an LL.M. in Law of the Sea from University of Tromsø, Norway.
Amid reports of hijackings and narrow escapes by merchant vessels in the Gulf of Guinea, West African piracy has begun to capture international attention. Meanwhile, NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield and the EU’s Atalanta maintain presence with other international partners in the Gulf of Aden, securing a crucial trade route against the threat of Somali piracy. However, the waterways of Southeast Asia are now almost entirely absent from the Western media narrative regarding the threat posed by piracy to international trade. This comes as some surprise, since piracy in this part of the world is very much on the rise.
