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nother Indonesian has fallen victim to kidnapping by armed militants off the coast of Sabah, as top officials in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines continue to discuss the technicalities regarding the implementation of a maritime accord to secure the Sulu Sea, signed during a trilateral forum in Bali last week.

The latest incident has put pressure on the three countries to speed up the implementation of the pact, which authorizes each state to encroach into the territory of another to save its citizens from pirates.

On Sunday, the Foreign Ministry confirmed that the kidnapping took place on Wednesday at 4 p.m., exactly 24 hours after defense ministers of the three countries signed the pact, which is also aimed at preventing the spread of the Islamic State (IS) movement in the region.

The third incident in the Malaysian waters follows a number of similar kidnappings of foreign nationals, not only Indonesian sailors, by the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the Sulu Sea in the southern Philippines.

Since March 24, Indonesian nationals have been taken hostage by the group in four separate kidnapping incidents, with 10 remaining in captivity. A number of Malaysians are also still being held by the group.

The Foreign Ministry is coordinating with Malaysian and Philippine authorities to seek a solution to the latest kidnapping case. The victim has been identified as Herman Manggak, who captained a Malaysian vessel with three crewmembers, one Malaysian and two Indonesians.

The three crewmembers were released by an unidentified armed group of men. The group then took Herman prisoner after their ransom demand for 10,000 ringgit (US$2,500) was not met.

The identity of the kidnappers remains unknown because the amount of ransom asked for is far from the usual demand of 20 million ringgit that characterizes Abu Sayyaf affiliated groups.

“We will provide more details later after all information on the incident has been verified,” said Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, the Foreign Ministry’s director for the protection of Indonesian citizens.

Herman and the crewmembers were brought to an island, located 12 hours from the location of the incident. The crewmembers were later released and they reported the incident to the local police.

Military defense expert Kusnanto Anggoro said the failure to swiftly execute the joint agreement to secure the maritime border areas of the three countries demonstrated that there was still disagreement among officers in the field, even though their political leaders had achieved a shared understanding on the pact.

He said while waiting for the pact to be implemented, military commanders of the three countries could have taken action to secure the release the kidnapped captain in order to show kidnappers that authorities were serious in prosecuting kidnapping crimes in the area.

The Bali pact does not yet authorize the militaries of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to launch military campaigns to release hostages because of constitutional hindrances on the Philippine side.

Kusnanto said Indonesian and Malaysian military personnel could join a military operation to release hostages in the Philippines by wearing Philippine military uniforms.

“Such an alternative action can be made by military commanders of the three countries while waiting for the Bali agreement to be implemented,” Kusnanto said.

He said the implementation of the Bali agreement could take a while as a result of technical discussions, but authorities could not let kidnappers launch their actions on and on while waiting for the pact to be implemented.

Connie Rahakundini Bakrie, president of the Indonesia Institute for Maritime Studies, encouraged the governments of the three countries to expedite the implementation of the Bali agreement.
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