“The root causes for maritime violence must be understood and addressed,” said lecturer B. A. Hamzah in an op-ed in Eurasia Review.
He said the kidnappings were a spillover of the armed struggles taking place in southern Philippines.
The main solution was the development of the impoverished region of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. “The people there must be granted self-rule,” he said. “It’s their homeland.”
Also, said Hamzah, there must be cooperation between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia to enforce law and order at sea.
He was exploring the kidnappings-for-ransom phenomenon in the op-ed.
The commentary was released by the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at the National Technological University in Singapore.
Most of the current problems on both sides of the Sulu Sea, he said, arose from domestic politics, especially in Mindanao.
He attributed this to the failure of Manila to give Muslims in the southern Philippines a real stake in national politics and the economy. “This has forced many impoverished people to take the law into their own hands,” he said. “Enforcement in certain parts of the Sulu Sea is weak or non-existent.”
The result has been many Muslims becoming bandits, kidnappers, extortionists, and gun runners. “Many jobless Muslims engage in other forms of criminal activities as well,” said Hamzah.
Lawlessness in the Sulu and Celebes Seas was not new, said Hamzah, citing James Warren, an authority on southeast Asian waters.
“The violence has existed as long as one can remember,” he said. “It dates back to even before 1521 when the Spanish colonised the Philippines.”
The local people, he said, waged a war of insurrection against the colonisers in the Sulu Archipelago for occupying their lands and interfering with their way of life as well.
Even before the Spanish came, noted Hamzah, the local chiefs in the southern Philippines were reportedly trading in slaves, and indulging in human trafficking, people smuggling, piracy, sea robberies, and kidnappings.
“It was quite common in Sulu,” he said.