Maritime Indonesia Essay

4.4.2 Indonesia’s Roles and Contributions in Maritime Piracy
Under Jokowi’s presidency, Indonesia came up with a vision to be a global maritime power. One of the five main pillars of his policy is to boost Indonesia’s maritime defenses (Bandoro, 2014). In doing so, the government has planned to increase its spending on defence, particularly to strengthen and modernize its Navy (Agastia and Perwita, 2015; The Jakarta Post, 2016). This move would be essential for the country to safeguard its maritime territorial sovereignty and marine resources, which would at the same time, contribute to the maintenance of free and safe navigation for international commerce. Another pillar of Jokowi’s maritime policy is building maritime power through maritime

Indonesia has not ratified some important international agreements on piracy notably the 1979 International Convention against the Taking of Hostages and the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA) (The Jakarta Post, 2016). Both agreements were documented as a sign of the increasing awareness on the need for international community to take more preventive measures and also to control unlawful act against ships and persons on board. Under the Conventions, countries were asked to cooperate, among other things, in information sharing, in allowing other countries to obtain evidence required for proceedings, and in agreement on extradition (UN, 1979; 1988). According to Febrica (2017), Indonesia’s reluctance to come into these agreements is due to the principle of sovereignty that the country upholds the

At national level, Indonesia has produced effective law and enforcement in dealing with terrorism and illicit drug use and trafficking. The country’s role in counter-terrorism has been especially dominant in regional and international context. Indonesia’s success in combining the use of hard and soft approach and its counter-radicalization measure led other countries to regard Indonesia as an important player and example in counter-terrorism effort. In both counter-terrorism and prevention and eradication of drug use and trafficking, Indonesia has been an active regional and global player, where it forms a lot of collaborative arrangements with other countries. Having performed relatively well in the war against drug and terror, Indonesia contributes largely to achieving the regional ambition of ”drug-free ASEAN” and also to the region’s fight against terrorism. However, compared to the two crimes, Indonesia has not shown a great degree of success in dealing with sea piracy. National initiatives were not seen as adequate to reduce the threat of piracy. Besides, Indonesia has not played a significant regional and international role, as the country avoids any foreign interference in its domestic issue. This might be because Indonesia is envisioning itself to be a global maritime power; hence, it should be self-reliant and committed in upholding its national