Les pirates en Asie

Piracy on the high seas -a favourite theme of Hollywood films and comic strips- has always been a topic of interest, as far back as the stories in Homer or Julius Caesar, who was the victim of a ransom demand, or of Pompey being ordered to rid the Mediterranean of pirates.
Nowadays, the Asia-Pacific region is the main centre of maritime piracy, with aims that may be military, strategic or commercial. Éric Frécon reminds us that almost half the world’s merchant fleet sails in Asian waters and more than 15 % of international trade passes through Asian straits.
Whether the pirates are engaged in criminal activities linked to illegal immigration or stolen goods, or concerned to assert their sovereignty, or smugglers, or fishermen attacking pleasure craft, they all have access to informers and traffickers of goods and people, and even to port facilities and mobile radar systems (it’s the case, for example, of LTTE, in Sri Lanka).
Nevertheless, according to Frécon (a specialist in maritime piracy in East Asia), new and powerful networks are being established to deal with the reappearance of this problem, and they are strengthening the role of governments acting in concert with private agencies.