As a publisher, I have to admit that I love a bit of maritime piracy. Why? Because readers love to read about it. Any publisher that keeps their eye on Google analytics will tell you a good piracy story can bring hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors to their website.<\/p>\n
As someone also in the maritime industry, I absolutely deplore piracy. Being based in Singapore since 2001, nothing makes me angrier than seeing vessels in this region attacked by pirates. Singapore is a first world nation, isn\u2019t it? The world\u2019s leading maritime centre? Surely piracy couldn\u2019t occur this close to home?<\/p>\n
Well, this isn\u2019t exactly news, but Southeast Asia has been declared the new \u2018hotspot\u2019 for piracy by ReCAAP, with 183 incidents in 2014.<\/p>\n
The maritime industry is crucial to Singapore, not to mention Malaysia, and President Jokowi\u2019s new Indonesia. Additionally, we\u2019re not only talking about piracy as a threat to the maritime industry, but by extension it is a threat to regional trade including that of oil, gas, whatever.<\/p>\n
So what is being done about it?<\/p>\n
In February we heard that Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand were discussing joint patrols. Yet, in May apparently this was still being discussed while pirates run rampant.<\/p>\n
A quick look at the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) news page shows just one entry referencing piracy during 2015. “Singapore is pleased to have participated at the 9th ReCAAP ISC Governing Council Meeting held from 17-19 March 2015.<\/p>\n
“Singapore takes a serious view on the increase in incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was in March, and sounds good of course, but since then the situation has become much worse. Everyone in shipping is talking about Southeast Asian piracy at the moment, so why isn\u2019t the government talking about it then? Why isn\u2019t anyone coming out and telling us what they are doing to help the situation?<\/p>\n
I put the question to MPA ceo, Andrew Tan, via Twitter where he\u2019s very active, asking for \u201ccomment on the current piracy situation in the region and possible action plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tan said: “Already said what I need to say previously which hasn’t changed, that is tackling the sea robberies and fuel siphoning incidents in region will require strong cooperation between regional countries. On the part of Singapore, we have beefed up our security presence in our waters\/area of operations and will continue to work with our neighbours to tackle the threat.”<\/p>\n
I put the same question to Minister of Transport, Lui Tuck Yew, who appears at most maritime events in Singapore. He must be concerned, right? I wrote to his press people, asking for comment, and efforts the MOT will make to protect vessels in the area, and unfortunately not received a reply.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the chief of Malaysia\u2019s Navy, Abdul Aziz Jaafar, might answer me. He\u2019s acting rather triumphant since the Orkim Harmony<\/em> was saved and the hijackers apprehended (by Vietnamese authorities, I should add, after Malaysia\u2019s navy saw them slip away into the night). He was tweeting everyone about his success over the weekend, surely he\u2019ll be happy to respond.<\/p>\n “Can you comment on the rise of piracy in the region and what the Malaysian Navy will be doing about it in future?\u201d<\/p>\n Nope, no reply. Seems that the issue needs to be discussed further and then perhaps more\u00a0appropriate action will be\u00a0taken.<\/p>\n Maybe this article can start that process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a publisher, I have to admit that I love a bit of maritime piracy. Why? Because readers love to read about it. Any publisher that keeps their eye on Google analytics will tell you a good piracy story can bring hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors to their website. As someone also in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":24785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ml_titleColor":"#000000","_ml_titleFont":"Roboto","_ml_titleFontSize":1.136,"_ml_titleFontWeight":"400","_ml_titleLineHeight":1.3,"_ml_metaColor":"#708090","_ml_metaFont":"Montserrat","_ml_metaFontSize":0.6785,"_ml_metaFontWeight":"400","_ml_metaLineHeight":0.92,"_ml_bodyColor":"#a9a9a9","_ml_bodyFont":"Open Sans","_ml_bodyFontSize":0.85,"_ml_bodyFontWeight":"400","_ml_bodyLineHeight":1.2,"_ml_wooPriceColor":"#666","_ml_wooPriceFont":"Open Sans","_ml_wooPriceFontSize":0.9,"_ml_wooPriceFontWeight":"400","_ml_wooPriceLineHeight":1.27,"_ml_headingColor":"#000","_ml_headingFont":"Merriweather","_ml_headingFontSize":2.02,"_ml_headingFontWeight":"700","_ml_headingLineHeight":1.47,"_mlglobal_userfontcolors":{"headingColorUser":[],"titleColorUser":[],"metaColorUser":[],"bodyColorUser":[],"wooPriceColorUser":[]},"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80,90,68,67],"tags":[103,2300],"yoast_head":"\n