Monitoring the border: Indonesian port security and the role of private actors.

• Author: Sciascia, Alban
• Position: Case study

In the early to mid-2000s, the waters of Southeast Asia were considered the most pirate-infested in the world. Although the number of pirate attacks has declined in recent years, particularly in the Straits of Malacca, (1) a wide range of problems, such as illegal fishing and smuggling, continue to pose a threat to regional maritime security. In Southeast Asia many see government agencies as responsible for combating these threats by increasing the security of the region's waters and ports. Indeed, Southeast Asian states have developed unilateral and cooperative responses to counter many maritime security risks; such efforts have achieved noteworthy success in the past few years, such as the Malacca Straits Patrols. (2) However, states are no longer the only actors providing security in maritime Southeast Asia: more and more, responses to maritime security threats are being outsourced to for-profit security providers. As a result of this privatization process, private or semi-private contractors are increasingly involved in security governance in the region.

This paper explores the involvement of a range of for-profit actors in providing port and border security in the region, using the port of Belawan in Medan, Indonesia, as a case study. This case study is based on the author's fieldwork conducted in Belawan and demonstrates the critical, albeit controversial, role that private security providers today play in security governance in Indonesia. The first section of this article concentrates on port security, particularly the notion of ports as borders--that is, as entry and exit points for people and goods into a country. The second part focuses on the case study, the security of Belawan, and briefly describes the port and its governance before discussing the diverse state and non-state actors involved in providing for port security. Particular attention is paid to the role of for-profit actors in the port. It will be suggested that the involvement of diverse types of for-profit actors in Belawan requires us to rethink what constitutes a private actor in security governance and to recognize that the nature of these actors can vary greatly. The final section discusses the relationship between the state and for-profit actors in Belawan and argues that the involvement of so many different types of state and non-state agencies has failed to increase security at that port. It explains how the presence of this mixture of actors compromises both border and port security as it creates areas of overlapping responsibilities and includes actors which are themselves involved in criminal activities.

Ports and Border Security: Who is Responsible?

Border security is the responsibility of the state. This notion is perhaps influenced by the concept of jura regalia (kingly functions, which includes the rights relating to the exercise of sovereignty), (3) used to distinguish waters and waterways that belong to the crown or the government from those belonging to private entities. However, rising concern over new maritime risks have led governments to outsource some responsibility for security--including maritime border protection--to private actors. An additional driver of the privatization process has been "the redefinition of security away from an exclusive focus on military defense and regime survival". (4) This has prompted security sector reform in many countries. As a result, new government agencies such as coast guards and marine police forces have been established, with some military and security services handed over to a new kind of actor: private businesses that offer a wide range of security services. Indeed, a large number of private security actors are active today, ranging from security guards working at shopping malls to former special operation specialists employed to protect merchant vessels in the Gulf of Aden. The involvement of these new actors has raised questions regarding their identities, roles and operations. These questions are particularly relevant because the public perception of private security companies is often shaped by the at times controversial operations of mercenary Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) such as the US-based firm formerly known as Blackwater. (5)

Some of these private security providers are also employed to protect national borders, (6) with some operating in ports. Before examining the role and operations of for-profit actors in providing security at Belawan, it is important to briefly discuss the concept of ports as borders. The idea that ports can be seen as part of the border can be problematic and even contested under some legal frameworks relevant to the maritime domain. For example, according to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a state's territorial sea extends 12 nautical miles from its coastline (or in some cases straight baselines), (7) which means that ports are located inside sovereign territory and are consequently not on the actual border of a state. However, throughout history, ports have been defined and used as entry points for goods and people into a country (or at least the land-based part of a country). This role of ports is even more significant today, in an increasingly globalized world that more than ever depends on maritime trade and seaports. (8) Therefore, even if ports are entry points within the sovereign territory of a state, according to UNCLOS they are considered as physical borders, with all the elements of border protection present. (9) For example, government agencies such as immigration, police and customs are present and exercise their duties within the port facilities. Goods and people arriving at and leaving the port are controlled, as with every other kind of national border. As well as state agencies, port authorities --public, semi-private or private--also monitor and control the port like a national border.

Belawan Port: A Border to Secure

This case study focuses on the port of Belawan, located on the Indonesian side of the Straits of Malacca in Sumatera Utara (North Sumatra) Province. Belawan is situated 26 kilometres from Medan, one of the principal cities in Indonesia (see Map 1).

Belawan can trace its origins to the emergence of the tobacco industry in northern Sumatra in the mid-nineteenth century. (10) In line with the intensification and diversification of the plantation industry, the port was modernized in 1907 to accommodate the export of other plantation goods such as rubber, palm oil, tea and coffee. In 1938, Belawan was considered the most important port in the Dutch West Indies by cargo volume and the third largest port by cargo tonnage. After a period of stagnation during the Second World War, and a shift in policies following Indonesia's independence," Belawan entered the global containerized economy in the mid-1980s and today has one international and one domestic terminal. The port of Belawan remains as it has been throughout its history: mostly a feeder port for the higher-order ports of Penang and Port Klang (Malaysia) and Singapore. Through these ports it has "direct access to a global container-transport network". (12)

Even though the port of Belawan remains the most important port facility in Sumatra, and is Indonesia's busiest port outside Java, it is not considered to be the most strategically important in the archipelago. The ports of Tanjung Priok (Jakarta), Surabaya and Semarang--all located on the island of Java--are regarded as more important in terms of traffic. As a result, the central government tends to limit its attention and policies to the ports located in Java, thus neglecting ports such as Belawan. One example of the Indonesian government's focus on Javanese ports is its 2009 review of port strategy, (13) which concentrated on those ports despite the general decentralization efforts pushed by Indonesian policymakers following the end of the Soeharto regime in 1998. In the eyes of some observers, including diplomats, local and foreign businessmen and researchers, this is a peculiar decision. All Java's ports are located at a considerable distance from the main sea lines of communication (SLOC), (14) while the Indonesian ports along the Straits of Malacca are in a strategically significant area and should consequently receive more attention from the Indonesian government. Moreover, in the Straits of Malacca, Belawan clearly has to compete with the major ports of neighbouring countries. In fact, none of the Indonesian ports located along the Straits (including the ports of Aceh, Belawan and Dumai) has the capacity to rival either of the Malaysian ports in the vicinity let alone the port facilities in Singapore. (15)

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In addition to the central government, local authorities are increasingly responsible for maritime and port security. Indeed, following the decentralization law of 1999 (Law 22/1999), Indonesia introduced further regulations that distribute the responsibilities for maritime issues, such as maritime transport, the management of resources, and the safety and security of people, to various local communities and governments. According to these regulations, the responsibility for coastal areas, including ports, are distributed in the following way: (16) (1) Between 0 and 200 nautical miles, the central government is responsible; (2) between 0 and 12 nautical miles, the provinces (provinsi) are responsible; (3) between 0 and 4 nautical miles, the districts (kabupaten) are responsible. Even though these regulations aim to promote the responsibilities of local communities and political entities, they nonetheless generate two significant problems. First, some inequality occurs, as the resources and priorities of local communities vary significantly. Second, despite the allocation of responsibilities, there is considerable overlap of responsibilities of different actors, resulting in competition between institutions...