When we think of piracy, Somalia and the 2013 Hollywood movie
Captain Phillips comes to mind. It's the story about the
hijacking of the Maersk Alabama in 2009 and the capture of its
American Captain. What many fail to know is that the West Indian
Ocean is not the world's most dangerous seas. In 2014, the
United Nations declared Southeast Asia seas as perilous. Piracy has
always been endemic in Southeast Asia and it is showing no sign of
abating.
Southeast Asia is home to vital shipping lanes such as the South
China Sea and the Malacca Straits and in fact approximately one
third of the global trade passes through one of the world's
"most important and strategic choke point". With its
complex coastlines, it is one of the world's busiest trade
routes. The waterways between Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia
have long been prone to piracy and piracy is now in the ascendant
in Southeast Asia.
