Indonesia to Sink More Foreign Boats Amid New Maritime Tensions with Vietnam

[misskit]

Indonesia next weekend plans to sink dozens of foreign boats that were seized after straying illegally into its waters, including many vessels from Vietnam, the fisheries minister said Monday amid fresh maritime tensions between Hanoi and Jakarta near the South China Sea.


Also on Monday, Indonesia’s foreign ministry said it summoned Hanoi’s deputy ambassador after the Indonesian navy claimed that two Vietnamese coast guard vessels had rammed one of its naval ships patrolling against illegal fishing near Indonesia’s Natuna Islands.


Indonesia on Saturday will resume its practice of sinking confiscated foreign vessels, Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said.


“On the 4th (of May) we will be sinking 51 boats, mostly from Vietnam,” Susi said Monday via Twitter.


This past Saturday, an Indonesian naval ship, the KRI TPD-381, was chasing a Vietnamese trawler suspected to be fishing illegally in the North Natuna Sea, when th Vietnamese coast guard ships engaged in dangerous maneuvers, Indonesia’s navy said.


“This morning the deputy ambassador of Vietnam was summoned to the foreign ministry,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters.


“Indonesia deeply regrets the incident involving the Vietnamese fisheries surveillance ships KN-213 and KN-264 and the Indonesian Navy KRI TPD-381 vessel,” he said.


The actions of the Vietnamese government-owned vessels endangered the safety of Indonesian naval personnel and violated international law, Arrmanatha said.


It was not the first incident involving a naval ship and Vietnam’s fisheries surveillance ships in the area.


In February, the navy also expelled two Vietnamese government-owned ships from Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) after they showed hostile intent, minister Susi said at that time.


Since 2014, when Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s government began fighting suspected marine poachers, at least 488 foreign boats accused of illegal fishing, including 276 Vietnamese-flagged vessels, have been sunk, after crewmen had been removed, according to the Ministry of Fisheries.



Incident at sea


Saturday’s clash at sea began when the crew of the naval ship was about to arrest 12 Vietnamese fishermen suspected of fishing in Indonesian territory, said Adm. Yudo Margono, Indonesia’s Navy Fleet 1 commander.


“It turned out that a vessel operated by the ‘Vietnam Fisheries Resources Surveillance’ tried to obstruct the law-enforcement process,” he said, calling the move a provocation.


He said the Vietnamese coast guard ship struck the left side of the Indonesian vessel and also hit the fishing boat, which eventually capsized.


A video released by the Navy on social media showed the Vietnamese vessel ramming into the Indonesian warship. Indonesian navy crewmen who were armed with rifles could be heard shouting expletives toward the Vietnamese boat.


Yudo said 12 crew members of the Vietnamese fishing boat were subsequently arrested.

They would face trial on charges of illegal fishing, he said.


Two other crew members jumped into the water and were rescued by one of the Vietnamese coast guard boats, he said.


Yudo called on navy personnel to exercise restraint in facing similar incidents.


“We should not be reckless,” he said, referring to the Vietnamese coast guard, as he underscored that the action taken by the Indonesian navy had been according to procedure.


Muhammad Arif, a South China Sea researcher at the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that frequent clashes involving naval patrol ships and foreign vessels the North Natuna Sea were partly due to unfinished negotiations on the maritime delimitation in the area.


“Negotiations on a few spots in the North Natuna Sea with Vietnam have not been completed,” he said.


“Such clashes are common but if this keeps happening tensions will increase and it could undermine stability in the ASEAN region,” he said.


Indonesia, meanwhile, is developing the so-called Integrated Marine and Fisheries Center in the North Natuna Sea in the far southern reaches of the South China Sea, as it seeks to assert sovereignty amid claims of overlapping rights by China.


In 2016, navy patrols confronted Chinese fishing boats in waters off the islands at least three times, as the government increased its crackdown on illegal fishing.


Indonesia accused the Chinese of fishing within Indonesia’s EEZ. China responded by calling the waters traditional fishing grounds and said there were overlapping “maritime rights and interests” in the area.


Tensions between China and its neighbors have risen as the superpower has sought to assert its control of the South China Sea in the face of competing territorial claims from countries in the region.


China claims most of the sea as its own, while Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have overlapping claims.


Indonesia is not a party to the maritime dispute but it has recently asserted its claim by unveiling in July 2017 an updated national map in which the country’s northern reaches – the area north of the Natuna Islands – had been renamed the North Natuna Sea and part of its EEZ.


That area had previously been marked in Indonesian maps as South China Sea.


In December, the Indonesian military also inaugurated an integrated unit in the Natunas to ward off illegal fishing and strengthen security.


The unit, composed of a few hundred personnel including members of army engineering corps, will be equipped with a surface-to-air missile defense systems, the military said.

Other facilities include a port, a hangar to support military aircraft and a hospital.


In the future, the unit will become part of Indonesia’s Regional Defense Joint Command and will include army, air force and navy personnel, officials said.

https://www.benarnews.org/english/ne...019163426.html

[harrybarracuda]

Exciting stuff.

[VocalNeal]

Go Susi Go

[Cujo]

I wonder when they'll start sinking Chinese boats.

[harrybarracuda]

I wonder when they'll start sinking Chinese boats.

They've done it already, and rightly so.

[SeventhSoul]

Beautful. Sink 'em.

[OhOh]

In 2016, navy patrols confronted Chinese fishing boats

They've done it already,

Published on May 22, 2015

[Latindancer]

^ Pity they didn't make you stand on the boat while they blew it up !

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Do they clean them before they sink them or do they send all the motor oil, diezel and bilge oil crap and other pollutants to the bottom of their sea?

[OhOh]

crap and other pollutants to the bottom of their sea?

I suspect all breakfast bowls, including cornflakes, sloppy rice and especially porridge, are thoroughly scrubbed. We have here at TD an example of the terrible "cold lumpy porridge curse" and the many dramatic, life changing affects the curse can deliver.

^ Pity they didn't make you stand on the boat while they blew it up !

It is rumoured, but not "generally accepted", Vice Admiral Nelson lost an eye due to a badly presented porridge dish, during a Corsican expedition breakfast aboard HMS Victory.



Eating and Drinking

"It was important that Victory’s provisions remained edible through many months at sea. Therefore the crew’s diet was limited and repetitive, made up of staples which would last well, such as salted beef and pork, biscuit, peas and oatmeal, butter and cheese. These were stored in casks or bread bags in the Hold, but inevitably some went bad as barrels leaked, were infested by maggots or eaten by rats.

There was usually only one hot meal a day so breakfast might be a dish like ‘burgoo’, an oatmeal porridge sweetened with molasses"

https://www.hms-victory.com/content/...g-and-drinking

The "official" version is given here;


Where did nelson lose his eye?


"Nelson never lost an eye. The sight in his right eye was badly impaired following damage caused by flying debris during the Siege of Calvi 1794. Three years before the amputation of most of his right arm in the battle of Santa Cruz."

https://www.answers.com/Q/Where_did_nelson_lose_his_eye

[OhOh]

I wonder when they'll start sinking Chinese boats.

I doubt the "unexceptional country squashed up into Canada's groin" would assist in destroying the Vietnamese fishing boats.

Just to keep international waters safe, of course. It might remind some of another political failure to a pygmy Asian, third world country.

[beerlaodrinker]

Australia used to regularly sink indonesian fishing boats operating illegally in australian waters. Likewise the people smuggling boats. Nice to see that the indos have learned from us

[harrybarracuda]

Australia used to regularly sink indonesian fishing boats operating illegally in australian waters. Likewise the people smuggling boats. Nice to see that the indos have learned from us

And they would jail and fine the captains.

Good work.

Ecuador did that to the chinkies, but they bought their way into Ecuador like they did in Cambodia and Laos, and now they're probably stripping every fish they can get from Galapagos waters.

[Klondyke]

Ecuador did that to the chinkies, but they bought their way into Ecuador like they did in Cambodia and Laos, and now they're probably stripping every fish they can get from Galapagos waters.

As our friend HuangLao rightly remarked:

Damn Chinks.
They're everywhere.