Indonesia’s handling of a recent spate of hijackings of coal-laden tugboats and the kidnap of their crews could determine whether the country’s already serious problem with piracy spirals into a situation akin to that seen off the coast of East Africa in recent years, according to a maritime security expert.
The hijack of towing vessel TB Henry and capture of its four crewmembers off the southern coast of the Philippines by suspected members of the Islamic extremist network Abu Sayaff last Friday was the third such act of piracy in the Sulu Sea in the space of two weeks.
The militants, who are based in the southern Philippines and have previously pledged allegiance to Islamic State, are reportedly demanding 50 million Filipino pesos ($1.1 million) to free the Indonesians among up to 18 kidnapped crewmembers they are holding.
According to Peter King, a former Royal Marine Commando who founded maritime security consultancy firm the International Maritime Anti-Piracy Advisory Group, should their demands be met, it could trigger an explosion in hostage-focused piracy in the region like that seen off the coast of East Africa in previous years.
“If these ransom demands are met, we could see the floodgates open,” he told VICE News. “As we saw in Somalia, as soon as insurance companies paid out for the first few, land-based Somalis responded and the whole situation grew.”
King’s comments followed the suggestion on Thursday by Indonesian chief security minister Luhut Pandjaitan that piracy on the country’s sea border with the Philippines could see it become “a new Somalia,” though hijackings in the Sulu Sea, where the territorial waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines meet, have so far not approached a comparable scale or nature.