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Italian envoy responds
The coordination of the many Indonesian agencies in charge of border control could be effectively implemented through a shared use of highly sophisticated services.
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Indonesian Navy personnel from KRI Usman Harun 359 conduct a visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) procedure on Taiwanese fishing vessel Hai Chien Hsing 20 on Jan. 22, 2021. The Taiwanese fishing vessel conducted illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Indonesian waters. (Courtesy of Indonesian Navy/-)
Letter to the editor
I have read the article “When illegal fishing facilitates drug smuggling” by Mr. Yogi Putranto (The Jakarta Post, Sept. 23, 2021).
I can understand the author’s intent of supporting his opinion with facts, although maybe retrieving a 10-year-old report of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime seems rather unfair – if not inaccurate – considering the long series of successes registered by the Italian government in its fight against mafia syndicates in recent years.
But this is not the point of this letter of mine. Instead, I wanted to highlight that one of the reasons behind those successes has been the use of advanced technologies, including satellite monitoring of the territory. For quite a while, satellite technology has allowed various governmental agencies to monitor the national territory and borders with a view to countering – among others – illegal fishing and drug smuggling.
As the author rightly acknowledged, illegal fishing is often closely related to other crimes, such as drug smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, illegal waste disposal and transborder terrorism.
Therefore, the solution that the author is looking for appears quite obvious to me: the coordination of the many Indonesian agencies in charge of border control could be effectively implemented through a shared use of highly sophisticated services based on the most advanced satellite imaging technologies that Italian companies can provide.
With a relatively affordable investment, they would then be in a position to successfully fight illegal fishing, along with other border crimes.
Benedetto Latteri
Italian ambassador to Indonesia
Jakarta
