Indonesian Navy Storms Ship Smuggling Illegal Timb
Jakarta, Indonesia, August 25--The Indonesian navy this week stormed a Croatian ship and detained around 25 crew after a long-running court battle, Croatia's ambassador Aleksandar Broz said, describing the move as illegal.
About 200 navy personnel stormed the ship at Surabaya port in East Java province at about 10:00 am (0300 GMT) after negotiations aimed at allowing the cargo vessel to leave Indonesian waters stalled, the ambassador told AFP.
"This morning, 200 Indonesian navy stormed the ship and took it over. They were even targeting the captain with a gun at his head asking him to sign papers," Broz said. "From our side, the complete action is illegal." Twelve armed men remained on the boat late Tuesday and he was waiting for an explanation from the foreign ministry, he said.
Navy spokesman First Admiral Malik Yusuf said only 10 sailors boarded the ship to enforce an appeal court ruling issued Monday which found the ship was involved in illegal logging and should be handed over to the Indonesian government.
Broz said the ship was first stopped by the Indonesian navy in Papua in August last year after loading logs and was found to have incorrect papers. The captain was tried and fined around 2,500 dollars in February.
"After paying the fine, the ship and the captain were freed and the navy was obliged to follow the ship into international waters," he said. "They tried to get papers for the ship to sail but found obstruction from all possible sides." The dispute widened to include allegations of illegal logging which the ambassador said should have been dealt with months ago while the captain was waiting to stand trial.
A meeting of government ministers and officials on Saturday resulted in the foreign affairs ministry proposing that the company pay 10 billion rupiah (one million dollars) until the dispute was resolved, he said. "In the meantime a navy vessel and two speedboats circled around the vessel at anchor, targeting it with artillery and machine guns for half an hour and then left," the ambassador said.
Navy spokesman Yusuf said the navy was asked to provide "assistance" to board the ship by the court and attorney-general's office. "Officials went to the ship with a copy of the appeal court ruling and asked the crew to sign the letter. They refused to do that because they wanted to wait for their lawyers and officials from the embassy to witness it," he said. No violence had taken place, he said.
While it is not clear where the ship is alleged to have been taking the timber, environmental investigators say that timber smuggling from Papua to China is the world's largest logging racket.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency has said that 300,000 cubic meters (more than 10 million cubic feet) of merbau hardwood is smuggled out of Papua every month to feed China's timber processing industry. The agency alleges that illegal logging in Papua involves Indonesian military and civilian officials, Malaysian logging gangs and multinational companies as well as brokers in Singapore and dealers in Hong Kong.
