Maritime Security

[updated: 07092008 / 01:08] Many believe pirates exist only in movie. Many of them can’t accept the fact in less than 10 days after the first hijack the second ship was seized in Gulf of Aden. Bunga Melati Dua with 39 crews was hijacked on August 20 and Bunga Melati 5 with 41 crew’s – 36 Malaysian and 5 Filipino, was hijacked in the same water on 29 August 2008. Gulf of Aden, lies in the Arabian Sea between Yemen on the South Coast of the Arabian Peninsula and the north coast of Somalia. The water off Somalia is the most pirated-infested in the world with 19 attacks out of 24 reported by International Maritime Bureau between April and June this year.

Bunga Melati Dua was carrying palm oil and Bunga Melati Lima was full with 30,000 metric tonnes of petrochemicals. Wondering whether the pirate’s have capability to produce any type of bomb’s from this two chemical liquids? May be, Osama have the capability and he willing to buy from the hijackers.

Since the pirates have seized the vessels in international waters, then the international community especially United Nations must take a pro-active role to prevent any untoward incidents from occurring again in future. More warships need to be placed in high risk water. The use of security satellite will be very helpful.

From strategic perspective, I do believe, the vessel’s owner should take the responsibility to safeguard their vessel's and crew's. It’s illogical to transfer the burden of security totally to the United Nations. Vessel’s company must have their own security officers, trained in commando's environment. They shall be placed on board whenever the vessel’s need to go through the red alert zone. It’s a high time now to put maritime security as a high preference’s agenda in international security platform. Without any drastic pre-emptive actions, it’s impossible to prevent the piracy.