Containing the menace of sea piracy

The explosion of maritime piracy in Southeast Asia and waters off Somalia remains a serious threat to international commerce and safety in modern times. Roughly 45 percent of the world's commercial shipping moves through the region's waters and the frequent attacks on commercial vessels passing through the SE Asian region can hamper international trade and lead to severe economic loss. Significantly, such attacks in the region have caused an estimated $16 billion in economic loss over the past five years. International Maritime Bureau (IMB) that tracks incidents of maritime crime throughout the world, reports the emergence in Southeast Asia of a 'new brand of piracy' in which the attacks are motivated by political agendas rather than a traditional motive to rob.

In South Asia, Bangladesh and Indian waters are also reportedly plagued with piracy. Not only that the increasing nature of the piracy attacks and the inability or unwillingness of the countries in the area to act decisively against pirates for many years is also alarming. It is a known fact that in the waters of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Malacca Strait region 103 attacks were reported in 2002 out of total worldwide attacks of 370. In 2002, a total of 32 piracy attacks, the second highest, were reported in the ports of Bangladesh. In 2001, the figure was 25 for Bangladesh while India recorded 26 attacks. In 2003 the number of attacks all over the world rose to 445 with 189 in SE Asia and Bangladesh again ranked the second with 58 attacks. There were 325 attacks on shipping in 2004 around the world with the biggest improvement in Bangladesh, having only 17 attacks, while the Indian ports registering 15 attacks. There were, however, already 14 attacks in Bangladesh waters and 12 attacks in Indian waters till 30th Sep 2005. There were no such attacks in the waters of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

While regionally Bangladesh is in the second most piracy prone zone in the world the international community reports rampant piracy in our ports of Chittagong and Mongla. These ports have been labeled as 'vulnerable and insecure' by foreign ships. This has forced foreign shipping companies to impose additional charges for discharging cargo resulting in higher costs for export and import. These figures clearly establish how far our failure to tackle the issue has rendered our territorial waters/ports unsafe for the international maritime and commercial activities.

The IMB is a part of Commercial Crime Services, the division of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), dedicated to fighting all types of commercial crime. Alarming outrage in the shipping industry prompted the IMB to set up Regional Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur in 1992. The Centre is financed by voluntary contributions from major shipping and insurance companies of Greece, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Norway, Russia, UK, Thailand and Singapore etc. Any master of commercial vessel can now directly send the piracy reports to the Centre and that makes them independent of justifying the veracity of reported incident of piracy by going through the Port Authority or any government authorised channel. As Bangladesh waters did not enjoy good image, many a time false reports have been made by the masters of vessels. In most cases our authorities were not quick to respond in correcting the misreports; as it appears there are hardly any government body with clear cut responsibility to counter those reports.

Along with this some Indian writers are also projecting Bangladesh as the most piracy prone country. They normally select many reports of so called piracy from our dailies, like the reported incident of fish worth of $50,000 hijacked near Sunderban, pirates carrying automatic weapons boarded 27 fishing trawlers near Bhola, a gang of 10 to 11 pirates boarded a passenger vessel and looted the valuables after beating the passengers and injuring twenty in the Meghna river, pirates threw 13 crew overboard near the coast of Patuakhali, police found 16 bodies of fishermen in the ice chamber of the boat FB Kausera, who died of severe cold etc. These reported incidents in our waters do not fall under the classical definition of piracy. Some of our reporters unfortunately use the word 'piracy' for any theft/crime committed in the waters of the rivers/lake/coastal waters. They tend to forget that the word 'piracy' has legal international connotation and we should be careful in reporting incidents of theft of fish or looting of cash etc happening in the water with the word 'piracy'.

Piracy became a crime under International law as seafaring became prevalent and international trade became a major part of economy of all the states. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, (UNCLOS) 1982, entered into force in 1994, defined Piracy as consists of illegal acts of violence or detention or any act of depredation, committed on the high seas, for private ends, by the crew or the passengers of a ship against another ship, persons or property on board such ship. It simply means that under the UNCLOS 1982, piratical acts are committed on the high seas i.e. beyond 200 nautical miles from the baseline/coastline of a state and the requirement that the acts be motivated for private ends restricts this definition to attacks committed with the intent to rob. All the countries of South Asia have ratified the UNCLOS 1982.

After the attack on board the Italian cruise liner 'Achille Lauro' in 1985, the UN and its International Maritime Organisation (IMO) promulgated the convention on the 'Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation' referred to herein as 'The Rome Convention 1988'. It made it unlawful to seize or take control of a ship by force or threat of force, to perform an act of violence against a person on board a ship if it is likely to endanger safe navigation of that ship, to destroy or damage a ship or its cargo if it is likely to endanger safe navigation, to place devices or substances on a ship that are likely to destroy that ship, to knowingly communicate false information to a ship that would endanger safe navigation and to injure or kill any person in connection with any of the above acts.

Unlike UNCLOS, there is no assumption that non-signatories would be bound by the terms of the Rome Convention. None of the reported incidents of piracy in the ports or coastal waters of Bangladesh can be termed as piracy according to the UNCLOS. International Chamber of Commerce/International Maritime Bureau (IMB), however, defines piracy as an act of boarding or attempting to board any ship with the intent to commit theft or any other crime and with the intent or capability to use force in the furtherance of that act. Even this definition of piracy excludes petty theft unless the thieves are armed.

However, there is no room for complacency in taking shelter under the definition of Piracy since the incidents of theft are happening in our waters of the ports. Although it is heartening to note that our maritime forces -- the Bangladesh Navy and the Coast Guard -- have earned unique distinction of reducing such thefts in our waters and the IMB has also been appreciative of our efforts in witnessing a decline in figures in the past three years. The present economic activities of Bangladesh greatly rely on the Sea Lines Of Communication (SLOC) passing through our territorial waters as well as the high seas. We have two major seaports directly involved and contributing to the significant economic development. The recent developments in the coastal waters of Bangladesh clearly demand that concerted actions from the agencies of the government are necessary to curb or stop the piratical incidents in our coastal/port areas.

India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have already ratified the 1988 Rome Convention and the UNCLOS. Where our regional allies under the SAARC have taken the matter seriously, what reasons could there be in not acting to the demands of the hour? If Bangladesh ratifies the Rome Convention as it has done with the UNCLOS, it would not only provide headway to enact adequate national laws on piracy, it would also provide all the incentives to forge a regional piracy co-operation agreement among the key countries within SAARC. We have to understand that long years of neglect have made the territorial and adjacent waters of Bangladesh somewhat unsafe for maritime navigation.

If our maritime forces/law enforcing agencies do not prove to be more effective, if the government agencies do not take measures to introduce new legislation to ensure safety of navigation within the coastal areas and if our journalist community are not careful in future, it is not very far that the persons, agencies and companies involved in international maritime seafaring and commerce would turn their back against us. So there is urgency for taking actions by Bangladesh to exercise existing enforcement powers fully in preventing and eradicating piratical activities through enacting appropriate domestic laws to further pave the way for tougher and effective enforcement mechanism.

Commodore Md. Khurshed Alam ndc, psc, BN (Retd) is former Chairman of Mongla Port Authority.