Joint Piracy Operations for Australia and Indonesia

Australia and Indonesia will from a partnership to combat regional maritime piracy. It will begin later this year and includes training, criminal intelligence exchanges and joint patrols. The primary goal is to not only curb piracy, but to deal with drugs and aquatic poaching.

The countries also launched a maritime enforcement training program at the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation, which is jointly managed by Australian Federal Police and Indonesian National Police. It is the center of their partnership for maritime operations as well as counter-terrorism projects.

Since his October 2014 inauguration, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has sought to make the nation a global shipping hub and has placed an emphasis on protecting territorial waters. On August 25, Indonesia announced that it formed a rapid deployment force with Malaysia to combat piracy as well. There have been 106 reported incidents of piracy in Southeast Asia this year.

On August 17, Indonesia’s navy publicly sank 70 vessels which were captured poaching in its waters. Widodo instituted the “Sink The Vessels” policy after his election, saying Jakarta would no longer tolerate the invasion of more than 5,000 ships illegally operating in its waters.