6 - Terrorist and Guerrilla Movements

Summary

[A]nd it is of course true that happy, content people seldom, if ever, throw bombs.

Walter Laqueur

INTRODUCTION

On 18 July 2006, Indonesian authorities arrested three former members of the GAM for their alleged involvement in a string of pirate attacks in the northern Malacca Strait, including an attack on a vessel carrying aid for tsunami victims. The three pirates were not arrested at sea, but captured in Lhokseumawe, a city in northern Aceh (Map 2.2 in Chapter 2). These arrests show that people associated with politically motivated groups, such as the GAM, are believed to be responsible for some pirate attacks. However, the involvement of politically motivated groups in pirate attacks is contested, with leaders of these groups often denying their movement's participation in these criminal activities.

This chapter explores the involvement and links between piracy and politically motivated groups in Southeast Asia. In this region, two different types of politically motivated groups, namely terrorists and guerrillas, are potentially involved in piracy in two different ways. Firstly, members of some of these organizations conduct pirate attacks to finance their group and its operations. In Southeast Asia, three politically motivated groups were believed to be actively involved in piracy between 1992 and 2006, namely, the GAM in Aceh, and the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF in the southern Philippines. Secondly, pirates may cooperate directly with, or be of assistance to, terrorist organizations. Terrorist groups discussed in this regard include the internationally operating al-Qaeda and the Indonesia based JI. This chapter examines the actual and possible involvement of these guerrilla and terrorist groups in piracy, and explains why these and similar politically motivated groups pose a threat to national, regional, and international security well beyond pirate attacks.

TERRORISTS AND GUERRILLAS

Distinguishing Types of (Political) Violence

Defining terrorism is a difficult task. Part of the problem, as Walter Laqueur points out, is that terrorism is not an ideology but an insurrectional strategy, which can be used by people of very different political convictions.