The Sulu Arms Market: National Responses to a Regional Problem 9789814311120

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The Sulu Arms Market

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organization in 1968. It is a regional centre dedicated to the study of socio-political, security and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic and economic environment. The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). ISEAS Publishing, an established academic press, has issued more than 2,000 books and journals. It is the largest scholarly publisher of research about Southeast Asia from within the region. ISEAS Publishing works with many other academic and trade publishers and distributors to disseminate important research and analyses from and about Southeast Asia to the rest of the world.

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The Sulu Arms Market National Responses to a Regional Problem

Lino Miani

INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES Singapore

First published in Singapore in 2011 by ISEAS Publishing Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 119614 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © 2011 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore The findings and recommendations contained in this book are those of the author and in no way represent the policies of the George and Carol Olmsted Foundation, the American Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, the United States Army, or any other part of the United States Government, nor do they necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the publisher or its supporters. ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Miani, Lino. The Sulu arms market : national responses to a regional problem. 1. Arms transfers—Philippines—Sulu Sea Region. 2. Arms transfers—Southeast Asia—Prevention. 3. Firearms industry and trade—Southeast Asia. I. Title. HD9743 P53S9M61 2011 ISBN 978-981-4311-11-3 Typeset by Superskill Graphics Pte Ltd Printed in Singapore by

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank my beautiful wife Yoko for convincing me to seize the opportunity offered by the late Major General George Olmsted whose vision and generosity allowed us to lead a wonderful and interesting life so briefly in Malaysia. I can only hope that my experiences there will empower me to give back half as much as I have received. My thanks to James Clad, without whose confidence and encouragement, this work would have remained unpublished; Brigadier General Anthony A. Smith, whose unwavering interest in my experiences motivated me to keep learning; and Dr Rohan Gunaratna, whose vast experience in the region provided a vital context to my work. My thanks also to the faculty of the Department of International and Strategic Studies at the University of Malaya, especially Associate Professor Jatswan Singh Sidhu, for his guidance and high standards throughout this process, but perhaps more importantly, for the hours of good discussion and his belief that my work is worth printing. I would also like to thank (in no particular order): Colonel Rick Thomas and Chief Bill Moore at SOCPAC; Colonel Kevin Clark, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Riker, and Commander Greg St. Pierre at JUSMAG-Philippines; Police Senior Superintendant Napoleon R. Estilles at the PNP Maritime Group; Dante Orate at the Department of Homeland Security-Immigration and Customs Enforcement;

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Acknowledgements

Special Agents Tim Teal, Paul Griffith, Derek Odney, and Kent Marchant of DEA; Special Agent Neil Kelly of ATF, Special Agents Qasim Majied and David Lobb of NCIS; Jake Wohlman, Chris Wood and Paul Watzlavick at the US Embassy in Manila; Commodore Jason Donovan at the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur; Dr Zachary Abuza at Simmons College; Jolene Anne Jerard of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore; Colonel David Maxwell at USASOC; Mior Roslan of PDRM (Ret.); Dzirhan Mahadzir and Tony Davis at Jane’s; Captain (Ret.) Mat Taib bin Yasin of TLDM; Jennifer Santiago Oreta at Ateneo de Manila University; Chief Keith Pang and Lieutenant Eric Hu at JIATF-W; Colonel Luis Fernando Velez-Zapata of the Army of the Republic of Colombia; Major Tom Stevenson, USA at the Malaysian Army Staff College; Harris Couch of Glock USA; Major Lino M. Miani, USAF (Ret.) (my father and editor); and several anonymous special operators, intelligence officers, and military and police professionals. This research would not have been completed without your efforts.

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Contents Acknowledgments

v

Table of Contents

vii

List of Figures

ix

List of Tables

xi

List of Common Abbreviations and Acronyms

xiii

Glossary of Terms

xvii

1.

Introduction The Importance of the Sulu Arms Market Significance of this Research Limitations

2.

The Illicit Arms Market: Analysis of a System 19 Shades of Grey 20 Components of the Arms Market 22 The Global Geography of Guns 27

3.

The Sulu Arms Market: The Players Colonial History The Communists The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) The Criminals



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1 1 7 14

60 60 63 65 70 73 78

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viii

Contents

4. Supply and Demand in the Sulu Arms Market 93 The Demand Side: Routes 93 The Demand Side: Smuggling Principles and   Practices 101 The Supply Side: Sulu as a Source 108 5.

Regional Counter-Trafficking Policies Multilateral Cooperative Initiatives Bilateral Initiatives United States Brokered Multilateralism in   the Sulu Arms Market Philippine National Efforts Malaysian National Efforts

118 120 126 130 139 142

Conclusion The Current State of the Sulu Arms Market The Way Ahead

153 154 157

Bibliography

169

Index

201

About the Author

215

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List of Figures Figure 2.1 Components of the Arms Market Figure 2.2 Regional Market Complexes Figure 2.3 The Southeast Asian Regional Market Complex and its Sub-Complexes Figure 3.1 MILF’s Black Market Suppliers Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

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4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

The The The The The

Geography of the Sulu Arms Market Maluku Route Cluster Palawan Route Cluster Sulu Route Cluster (Sabah) Sulu Route Cluster (Mindanao)

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List of Tables Table 2.1 Types of Arms Markets and Their Characteristics Table 2.2 Licensed Production of Western European Small Arms Table 5.1 Cooperative Initiatives Affecting the Sulu Arms Market

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19 36 129

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List of Common Abbreviations and Acronyms ACTC

ASEAN Centre for Combating Transnational Crime AFP Armed Forces of the Philippines AMDA Anglo-Malayan Defense Arrangement ARMM Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (Philippines) ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASG Abu Sayyaf Group (Philippines) ATF Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (United States, Bureau of) BAKORKAMLA Badan Kooperasi Keamanan Laut/ Indonesian Maritime Security Coordinating Board (IMSCB) BFAR Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (Philippines) BID Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (Philippines) BUCUS Bureau of Customs (Philippines) CARAT Cooperation Afloat, Readiness, and Training CWS Coast Watch South (Philippines) DAMCOR Danao Arms Corporation (Philippines) DEA Drug Enforcement Agency (United States)

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xiv

DENR EADS EEZ ELN FARC FPDA GBC GIA GWOT HuM IADS ILEA IMU ISI ISPS JI JIACG JIATF-W

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List of Common Abbreviations and Acronyms

Department of Environment and Natural Resources (Philippines) European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company Exclusive Economic Zone Ejército de Liberación Nacional/ National Liberation Army (Colombia) Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia/Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Five Power Defence Arrangement General Border Committee Groupe Islamique Armée/Armed Islamic Group (Algeria) Global War on Terrorism (Pakistan) Harakat ul-Mujahedin/Sword of the Mujahedin (Pakistan) Integrated Area Defense System International Law Enforcement Academy Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (Pakistan) International Ship and Port Facility Security Code Jemaah Islamiya (Indonesia) Joint Interagency Coordination Group (United States) Joint Interagency Task Force–West (United States)

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List of Common Abbreviations and Acronyms

JTF JUSMAG KMM LTTE MARINA MILF MMEA MNLF MNSTC-I MOF NATO NDFB NSCN NORINCO NPA ODC OEF-P OIC PACOM

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xv

Joint Task Force Joint United States Military Assistance Group Kumpulan Mujahedin Malaysia/ Malaysian Mujahedin Group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Sri Lanka) Maritime Industry Authority (Philippines) Moro Islamic Liberation Front Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency Moro National Liberation Front (Philippines) Multi-National Security Transition Corps-Iraq Marine Operations Force (Malaysia) North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Democratic Front for Bodoland (India) National Socialist Council of Nagaland (India) China North Industries Corporation New Peoples’ Army (Philippines) Office of Defense Cooperation (United States) Operation Enduring Freedom– Philippines Organisation of the Islamic Conference Pacific Command (United States)

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xvi

List of Common Abbreviations and Acronyms

PCTC

Philippine Center for Transnational Crime PFLP Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PLO Palestinian Liberation Organization PNP Philippine National Police PoA Plan of Action ReCAAP Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia SEACAT Southeast Asia Cooperation Against Terrorism SATI Southeast Asia Tri-Border Initiative S/CRS State Department Office for the Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization (United States) SOG Special Operations Group (MILF, Philippines) SSTR Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction TSCP Theater Security Cooperation Plan TTEG Tripartite Technical Experts Group UAE United Arab Emirates ULFA United Liberation Front of Assam (India) UNCLOS United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea WESTMINCOM Western Mindanao Command (Philippines) WORLD-MPC Workers’ League of Danao MultiPurpose Cooperative (Philippines)

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Glossary of Terms (In order of relevance)

Arms: Any weapon wielded by Man. Includes weapons of mass destruction, planes, tanks, and capital ships; demolitions, ammunition, and any individual or crewserved weapons. Ammunition: All projectiles, such as bullets and shot, that can be fired from guns or otherwise propelled.1 Demolitions: A term used to describe explosives and the firing systems and detonators used to detonate them. The firing systems in particular can be everyday-use items such as cell phones and two-way radios and will not be considered “demolitions” until they are paired with explosives and detonators into a complete system. Small Arms: A term generally understood to refer to small caliber weapons including revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, and light machine guns. Small arms are a category of light weapons.2 Light Weapons: A term generally used to denote weapons of a weight and size such that they are either man-portable or crew-portable. Includes light mortars, grenade launchers,

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Glossary of Terms

light anti-armour rockets, and medium and heavy machine guns. This term is often used in conjunction with, and sometimes as a synonym for, small arms.3 Guns: A term usually used to describe a weapon that uses expanding gases caused by an explosion in a chamber to propel a projectile. This book will use this term interchangeably with “small arms” and “light weapons” but will not use it to describe heavy artillery, which is outside the scope of this research. Firearms: This term is a synonym for “guns”. Munitions: This term includes firearms and the ammunition used by those arms. Arms Transfers: This term describes any process of handing over arms from a source to an end-user. Transfers can be legal or illegal, licit or illicit, and can be the result of a purchase, a trade, or a diversion such as theft. Arms Trade: Refers to the overall system of arms transfers, methods of payment, and supply of arms. Arms Trafficking: Refers to the organized illegal transfer of arms. Illegal: Prohibited by law or official rules.4 In the context of the arms trade, this term can refer to the manufacturing or transfer of arms, the legal status of banned weapons or materials, or to the status of end users that are under sanction by national or international laws.

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Glossary of Terms

xix

Illicit: Not accepted by society at large. In the context of the arms trade, this term can refer to the manufacturing or transfer of arms, the legal status of banned weapons or materials, or to end-users that are of disputed or uncertain legal status. For example, an arms transfer from a factory in the United Kingdom via a transit point in Turkey to a Sudanese end-user banned by the British Government, may be considered a violation of British laws but is perfectly legitimate in the view of Turkey and Sudan. Outside observers would properly identify such a transfer as illicit. Combined Operations: Military operations that include elements from the armed services of two or more countries. For example, a patrol conducted by naval vessels from the Philippines and Malaysia is a combined patrol. Joint Operations: Military Operations that include elements of two or more services from the same country. For example, a patrol conducted by Navy boats and Air Force helicopters is a joint patrol. Paramilitary: Of, relating to, or being a group of civilians organized in a military fashion.5 This term is used interchangeably with “law enforcement”. The Sulu Zone: Refers to the area that encompasses north and east Sabah, the Sulu Archipelago, southern Palawan, western Mindanao, and the northern part of the Celebes Sea. “The Sulu Zone” is a synonym for the “tri-border area” and the “Sulu Sea region”.6

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xx

Glossary of Terms

Notes 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

The American Heritage College Dictionary, 3rd Ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), p. 44. Tulliu, Steve and Thomas Schmalberger, Coming to Terms with Security: A Lexicon for Arms Control, Disarmament and Confidence-Building, UNIDIR/2003/22 (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2004), p. 36. Ibid. The American Heritage College Dictionary, 3rd Ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), p. 676. Ibid., p. 990. James Francis Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768–1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981), p. 103.

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1 Introduction

Firearms are tied to the security and identity of governments, communities, and non-state actors in a way that few other commodities are. Within the anarchy of the international state system (and even within the borders of some countries), lifestyles are ultimately made and maintained by men with guns. Unfortunately, lifestyles guaranteed by men with guns can also be destroyed by tougher men with bigger guns. Reflecting this reality, almost every country in the world exerts some degree of control over the supply of firearms, yet small arms proliferation remains a problem of disputed importance. While some may differ on the reasons and the degree to which arms are necessary to maintain the international state system, none actually question their necessity. The Importance of the Sulu Arms Market There are an estimated 875 million firearms in existence today.1 This number, while not disputed, seems to be the only thing nations agree on in the counter-proliferation debate. With strong differences of opinion about every aspect of small arms policy, the world’s governments have shown

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The Sulu Arms Market

themselves to be incapable of making progress towards any viable control measures. Over 600 arms manufacturers in ninety-five countries around the world pump their products into world markets at a steady rate. Without international consensus on controlling the supply, it is a virtual certainty that stockpiles will continue to grow. Most countries that have arms manufacturing industries consider them strategic assets, meaning few are willing to close them down. Indeed, some states take extra steps to guarantee the profitability of these enterprises. Meanwhile, the impact of small arms availability continues to undermine security in much of the world. An estimated half million people die each year from gunshot wounds; sixty per cent of whom are victims of armed conflicts in the developing world while the other forty per cent die as a result of homicide or suicide in industrialized countries.2 Although only a small percentage of the victims of gun violence are women and children, six per cent according to one credible study, the mostly unarmed female half of society is often a symbolic target.3 In this way, the terrible lethality of guns alters the dynamics of traditional societies involved in conflicts. The simplicity of firearms allows children to join the fighting force and the durability of guns ensures that conflicts can continue to rage for years as each generation of warriors passes its guns to the next. Credible studies claim that availability of firearms correlates positively with homicide and suicide rates and negatively with human development.4 This link suggests that gun violence effects underdeveloped societies disproportionately, locking them into an unbreakable cycle of violence and poverty.

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Introduction



Guns have always had an inflated political importance, but only in the last fifteen to twenty years has their subnational impact drawn attention as an international problem. Before the end of the Cold War, most research devoted to the arms trade focused on arms transfers as a political tool of states. Since then, expanding concepts of security and a shift from interstate to intrastate warfare has broadened awareness of small arms as a security issue. Ironically, the globalization of information makes it possible for insecurity in remote, gun-ravaged societies to affect more stable communities elsewhere. One factor that brought these otherwise academic issues to the attention of political leaders was the expansion of peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations during the 1990s. Designed to separate warring factions and maintain stability, these highprofile missions attract a disproportionately high amount of scrutiny as it was politically fashionable for leaders in the 1990s to highlight the less violent uses of their professional standing militaries. Limited in authorized weaponry, commanders of peace operations found themselves unable to match the growing arsenals of the non-state actors they were sent to control.5 These commanders and their bosses in the United Nations or other international organizations watched helplessly as communal bloodshed continued or even intensified on their watch. Despite the scope of the killing and the increasing attention it receives, small arms proliferation remains an issue of secondary importance at the international level. By electing to address the management of small arms proliferation with a non-binding “plan of action” rather than with a more muscular treaty, the United Nations has

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The Sulu Arms Market

carefully avoided any perception that it is undermining the right of states to formulate small arms policy. The tri-border area of Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines neatly reflects the global problem of small arms proliferation with all its aspects and complexities. There are an estimated 1.5 million firearms in the Philippines alone, of which roughly a third are unregistered or “loose”.6 The southern states of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago are the poorest and most violence-wracked parts of the Philippines. With the most obvious manifestation of “gun culture”, these areas are at the epicenter of violence in the region. All the negative effects of firearms availability can be found there: gun violence associated with insurgency, terrorism, and criminality; disrupted human security and development; and unsuccessful international attempts to control the arms traffic. Prolonged conflict and an entrenched gun culture undergirds the Sulu Arms Market. Local despots, colonial rivals, post-colonial territorial disputes, communist and ethnic insurgency, Cold War superpower competition, organized crime, and Islamic extremists have all shaped the market through the centuries. Guns from Sulu supply conflicts and crime from Japan to Sri Lanka to Papua New Guinea and beyond, and in turn the world pours guns and ammunition into Mindanao, the Maluku (Moluccas), and to a lesser extent, Malaysia and the rest of the Philippines. Reflecting a growing preoccupation with the security of the tri-border area, the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines are all party to several bilateral and multilateral initiatives aimed at eliminating the traffic in illicit goods, the arms trade, and transnational crime in general. All three have independently accepted delivery of

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Introduction



state-of-the-art coastal radar and command centre systems from the United States that should help coordinate responses. Their littoral security forces participate in numerous limited bilateral exercises and operations, and all three are in the process of restructuring those security services by creating national coastguards and establishing military joint task forces in the Sulu region. The list of counter-trafficking measures is long and impressive yet it seems to have little effect against the arms trade or as a set of confidence building measures between neighbours. In addition to serious disputes over territory, immigration, and logging with Indonesia, Malaysia is involved in an ongoing quarrel with the Philippines and the defunct Sultanate of Sulu over Sabah, Malaysia’s newest and most remote outpost. Located just yards from the volatile and weakly-governed southern reaches of the Philippines, the status of Sabah affects the centuries-old question of Moro (Philippine Muslim) autonomy in Mindanao, and is the source of great animosity and suspicion between Manila and Kuala Lumpur. In the past, both sides used the issue as a pretext for covert military and political intervention in the internal affairs of the other so it is little surprise that all sides continue to point fingers of blame at one another since the Philippine Supreme Court rejected the 2008 peace agreement between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Since 11 September 2001, the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has linked the region’s gun running industry and the Moro struggle in Mindanao to much larger geopolitical issues. In the last eight years alone, various armed actors in Mindanao have reportedly completed firearms transactions

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The Sulu Arms Market

with no fewer than twenty-one different governments (or elements thereof), nine Islamic terrorist organizations, four violent rebel factions in neighbouring states, and criminal syndicates from seven different countries.7 Al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiya (JI), the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Hamas, the Taliban, Viktor Bout, and others, have all had a hand in Sulu’s arms trade. At one point, the immense scale of the trafficking left the Philippine Army outgunned by Moro rebels.8 Mutual recriminations over the arms trade degrade the scope and effectiveness of bilateral anti-smuggling efforts in the region and prevent governments from seeking or implementing multilateral solutions. At worst, mutual distrust could reignite open warfare in Mindanao causing a serious setback for regional counter-trafficking efforts. It is difficult to overstate the impact of such a regression on the security of the Philippines and the region, yet most outside observers ignored the smuggling problem until the GWOT began to shed some light on Al Qaeda’s global network in late 2001. Investigations revealed that several insurgent and terrorist groups from Malaysia, Mindanao, the Maluku, and even Singapore were among Osama bin Laden’s most troubling associates. These groups took advantage of lax enforcement in the Sulu region to move people and arms to conflict zones all over Asia. Alarmed regional governments scurried to head off any threat posed by these groups and subsequently rounded up many of the most dangerous operatives in anti-terror dragnets. Enabled by this new vigour, the United States reasserted itself in the region. As the GWOT gathered momentum, the unique dynamics of the Sulu Arms Market took on a global

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Introduction



importance. The anti-terror offensive began in earnest in the Philippines where President Arroyo’s government along with the Bush administration wanted to use American ground combat troops to destroy the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG). Although the combat role of American troops was eliminated before it even began, Mindanao remains the only place in Southeast Asia where the U.S. military is directly and overtly involved in assisting in the hunt for terrorists. Ongoing since early 2002, the American campaign in Mindanao, known as Operation Enduring FreedomPhilippines (OEF-P), runs hand in hand with a number of Filipino operations and shows no real signs of coming to a close. American advisors have steadily increased the capability of their Filipino counterparts through training programmes, equipment upgrades, and intelligence sharing; an effort that is having a positive effect on security.9 JI has been severely attrited across the region due in part to intelligence gathered in the Philippines. So has the ASG, which lost its stronghold on Basilan Island to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). By accomplishing all this without the murderous heavy-handedness the AFP was so notorious for in the past, OEF-P helped set the conditions for the Philippine Government to come (nearly) to a peace agreement with the MILF in 2008. Now, two years on, with the peace agreement in tatters and the GWOT under fire from all sides, the situation remains tenuous. Significance of this Research The proliferation of guns in the Sulu Arms Market is absolutely central to regional security yet there is a notable

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The Sulu Arms Market

lack of previous study on the topic. There are only a handful of scholarly works devoted specifically to the arms trade, and those focused on this region delve no deeper than the broader Southeast Asian market.10 The same is true for press coverage of the issue. For the most part, the majority of journalists and academics who comment on the arms trade ignore the workings of the market itself and instead view it as just one aspect of the political and social upheavals which create demand for guns in the first place. The situation is no different within the law enforcement community. Malaysian authorities show very little concern for the problem of gun-running apart from the activities of some small but violent criminal gangs in peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak. For political reasons, they dismiss any stories of guns in Sabah as exaggerations or as the isolated antics of a few neighbourhood bullies, petty criminals, or unscrupulous hunters. Their nonchalance must be viewed with some scepticism, however, as Malaysian officials can be extremely creative in their efforts to prevent their country’s internal problems from coming to the attention of outsiders. For their part, American officials are similarly unconcerned but for reasons that have more to do with competing priorities than with transparency. Conversations with officials from ten different U.S. military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies reveal that few of them consider arms trafficking in Sulu a priority intelligence target and none have a detailed picture of the Sulu Arms Market.11 Gun control advocates claim that this is an irresponsible oversight. Some go as far as accusing regional governments of negligence or even complicity, but there are strong counterarguments for why waging a “war” on arms trafficking

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Introduction



would be futile without addressing the underlying social and political issues, particularly in the Sulu Sea region. The area is painfully remote and has extremely porous borders. The coastguards and navies of Indonesia and the Philippines are hard pressed to provide even basic coverage of their vast archipelagic states and are often pitted against one another in disputes over territory. In Malaysia and the Philippines, the agencies responsible for littoral security are locked in vicious bureaucratic competition. Adding to the problem is a general acceptance of trafficking in the region where many residents consider smuggling a traditional business. The clans of eastern Sabah and the Sulu archipelago are related by blood and can remember a time when there was no border between them. To them, the semantic difference between trafficking and trade is an artificiality imposed one by an outsider from London, Madrid, Washington, Kuala Lumpur, or Manila. In their view, such a distinction should be ignored, even resisted. The security threat this represents is at the heart of this book and is addressed in part by existing literature. As noted earlier, academic coverage of the Southeast Asian arms market is tangential to the market in Sulu and approaches the issue in three different ways: historically, as a legacy of colonialism; structurally as an aspect of the larger phenomenon of global illicit arms; and geographically as a problem faced by Southeast Asian states. All three approaches are useful for shaping a more focused study on the Sulu Arms Market, yet they are also fatally limited in one way or another. The historical roots of the Sulu Arms Market are well documented by a number of exquisitely detailed histories of

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10

The Sulu Arms Market

the British and, to a lesser degree, the American experience in the region during the waning years of colonial rule.12 While it is safe to assume that there are excellent accounts of Spanish and Dutch exploits in the region, the British and American volumes are superior in terms of availability and relevance to the post–World War II order. These works show the political complexity of the British decision to establish an illicit arms market in Sulu, and give an indication of the difficulties involved with managing it. Even with their two-century-old context, historical works of this type shine a light on the interplay of political, economic, and social factors that influence illicit markets right up until the present time. Existing historical accounts of American and British administration in the Sulu Zone are truly important but they are not about the arms trade. Information about the Sulu Arms Market must be gleaned from the text, filtered from endless details of correspondence between legions of faceless and long-dead diplomats. Focused on the minutiae of colonial rivalries hundreds of years ago, the monotony of these types of works saps the motivation of the researcher to hunt for scraps of information and relegates these works to a mere background source. Structural studies of the modern Sulu Arms Market follow a formula established by a small group of activist researchers associated with the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers or with the Small Arms Survey, a project of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.13 Their research properly distinguishes between legal, illicit, and illegal arms and then identifies four components common to illicit arms markets everywhere,

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Introduction

11

specifically: sources, brokers, transporters, and consumers. These works are unique in that they are the first to be dedicated entirely to the study of the illicit arms trade and also because they devote significant attention to the political, legal, and social conditions most pertinent to the study of small arms issues. However, the limitations of the structural approach are numerous. Firstly, this type of research has only emerged in the last decade and has yet to include a directed study of any Southeast Asian arms markets outside of Thailand and Cambodia. Secondly, these works tend to focus on the four structural components of illicit arms markets and ignore the relationships that bind these components together. The result is a collection of discrete windows into disconnected pieces of the global whole rather than a smooth treatise on global arms markets. Geographically organized studies of the Southeast Asian arms market are rare indeed and there are none at all on the Sulu Arms Market specifically. Apart from journalistic works, which do cover the markets in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Aceh, and Cambodia, academic studies are focused only on Papua New Guinea, the Pacific island states, and the broader Southeast Asian arms market.14 The few works in this category are all outstanding overviews of the modern Southeast Asian arms market and as such are invaluable for any research into the Sulu Arms Market. Dr David Capie’s seminal treatise on the Southeast Asian arms market for example, creates a functional structure for studying the phenomenon in a given area. In it, he first covers the legal industry in the region, providing details of the companies involved, the types of weapons systems manufactured,

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12

The Sulu Arms Market

quantities produced, and a brief description of export activity. He then does a similar analysis for the illicit arms market before going into great detail in his fourth chapter about the arms market of each country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Capie’s final chapter is devoted to policy recommendations for what he calls the “small arms challenge” in Southeast Asia. Capie’s detailed coverage of each country in ASEAN provides an excellent picture of the legal and illegal flows of arms in the region but his work, and other state-centric studies, are limited in two ways. First, they rely heavily on national news services for their information. In Malaysia and the Philippines these services are highly subservient to their respective governments and do not include politically sensitive information on arms. While this does not necessarily degrade the value of the research, the sources for each fact warrant deeper investigation. Secondly, research organized by country rather than by market prevents proper consideration of arms transfers to and from countries outside the region. In the case of ASEAN, the significant impacts these external transfers have on Southeast Asian arms markets should not be ignored. Seeking to avoid the shortcomings of existing research, I use a geographical approach organized by market rather than by state. The book seeks to describe the structure of the Sulu Arms Market and the mechanisms that make it function, and to evaluate the national and regional countermeasures against it. To this end, I will address three primary questions. First, who are the players in the Sulu Arms Market? This book will examine the history, background, and where

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Introduction

13

applicable, the ideology of the individuals and organizations involved in the supply, brokerage, transport, and purchase of firearms in the Sulu Zone. Secondly, what are the principal logistics systems of the Sulu Arms Market? This book will document the routes and techniques used by gun-runners and will explore Sulu’s potential as a source of firearms to the region. Lastly, what are the governmental responses to the threat posed by the Sulu Arms Market and what are the challenges they face? This book will examine the multilateral, bilateral, and unilateral policies that affect the Sulu Arms Market. This book uses a qualitative approach to analyse the Sulu Arms Market and does not rely on a theoretical framework. As such, it is heavily dependent upon empirical data obtained from books, monographs, and occasional papers; articles; theses and dissertations; newspapers and press releases; reports and official documents; Internet resources; and, perhaps most importantly, interviews with policymakers and security practitioners. The book focuses primarily on the Philippines and Malaysia, but will address the smaller, Indonesian aspects of the issue only where they are impossible to separate from the larger topic. This book is divided into six chapters. Chapter One (this chapter) introduces the topic and explains the background of the Sulu Arms Market and its importance within the regional security context. Chapter Two will examine the structure of the global arms market, its components, where they are situated, who makes them work, and how all the parts relate to one another. The chapter provides a framework for analysis of the Sulu Arms Market and a context for understanding its connection to global security

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14

The Sulu Arms Market

concerns. The following two chapters will then discuss the Sulu Arms Market specifically. Chapter Three examines the players in the trade and Chapter Four details their routes and techniques and Sulu’s potential as a source. Chapter Five is an examination of the effectiveness and limitations of relevant counter-trafficking efforts. Lastly, Chapter Six will describe the way ahead and alert the reader to the risks of allowing the status quo to continue. Limitations The murky world of illicit trafficking is not an easy thing to collect information about. The problem is aggravated when the illicit commodity in question is firearms. The political connotations associated with guns make their use, manufacture, and transfer a universally sensitive subject, not just for governments but also for the non-state actors involved in the trade. This alone is a formidable challenge for any researcher studying outside his home country but is made worse by the odd paradox of my identity as an officer of the United States Army. While my profession allows me to access virtually the entire body of knowledge built up by the United States in more than a century of activity in the region, the vast majority of that information is classified and therefore unusable. Meanwhile, the famously tight-lipped Malaysian security services are doubly wary of sharing even unclassified information on this sensitive subject with an American officer. In this regard, personal contacts have proven far more valuable than official ones. These, however, are used sparingly in the interest of avoiding damage to the reputations

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Introduction

15

and careers of people who contributed to this research. While Filipino officers are more amenable to discussion than their Malaysian counterparts, there are enormous bureaucratic hurdles that make it extremely difficult to access those officers in Manila and impossible to do so in Mindanao. Again, personal contacts have succeeded where official ones have failed. And while it should go without saying that the criminal element involved in the Sulu Arms Market is strictly off-limits to me, opportunities have arisen but were eventually rejected by the gun-runners themselves who saw no benefit in sharing tales of their exploits with an American officer. In the end, the triple obstacle of official secrecy, bureaucratic resistance, and criminal paranoia have subjected this interesting and exciting research to the tyranny of open sources. Notes   1. Aaron Karp, “Completing the Count: Civilian Firearms,” in Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City (Cambridge: Small Arms Survey and Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 41 and 47.   2. Robin Coupland, et al., “Caught in the Crossfire: The Humanitarian Impacts of Small Arms,” in Small Arms Survey 2002: Counting the Human Cost (Oxford: Small Arms Survey and Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 155.   3. Robert Muggah, “After the Smoke Clears: Assessing the Effects of Small Arms Availability,” in Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem, edited by Peter Batchelor and Keith Krause (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 203, 204, and 213. There is a significant misperception that gun violence disproportionately affects women and

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16

  4.   5.

  6.

  7.

The Sulu Arms Market

children. For example, the programme brochure for the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, published in 2001, makes the unfounded claim that 80 per cent of the victims of gun violence are women and children. Despite the sensationalism that often colours the proliferation debate, the six per cent estimate by the Small Arms Survey, limited as it is to the example of Brazil, is a reasonable one given that the vast majority of gun-toting aggressors (and their targets) are male and that Brazil is known for high levels of firearms related fatalities. This point is not to detract from the serious impact that female fatalities have on traditional societies, rather it is to clarify the role of firearms in the processes that damage those societies. Ibid., pp. 208–209 and 229–34. Resolution 1769, S/RES/1769 (New York: United Nations Security Council, 2007), p. 4. The establishment of the United Nations/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) is a recent example of a peacekeeping mission that is limited in its size, mandate, and authorized weaponry. Felipe L. Rojas, PCTC Paper on Terrorism (Manila: Philippine Center for Transnational Crime [PCTC], 1999), available online at (accessed 11 August 2008), p. 3. In 1999 the Philippine Center for Transnational Crime estimated that there were 963,592 firearms in the Philippines, of which roughly a third were unregistered or “loose”. With a reported annual increase of 65,802, one can extrapolate a 2008 estimate of 1,555,810 total firearms. This method is undoubtedly imprecise but accurate enough to illustrate the current scale of the problem. See David Capie, Small Arms Production and Transfers in Southeast Asia (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies

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Introduction

  8.   9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

01 SuluArmsMkt.indd 17

17

Centre, Australian National University, 2002), p. 75; Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror (New Delhi: Viva Books, 2005), p. 90; Christina Wille, How Many Weapons are there in Cambodia? (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2006), p. 28; and Rojas, PCTC Paper on Terrorism, p. 5. Capie, Small Arms, p. 75. Author’s conversation with an American military officer, 12 January 2009. Robert E. Bedeski, Andrew Andersen, and Santo Darmosumarto, Small Arms Trade and Proliferation in East Asia: Southeast Asia and the Russian Far East (Vancouver: Institute of International Relations, University of British Colombia, 1998), p. 8. Author’s conversations with numerous American officials between July 2008 and April 2009. See Nicholas Tarling, Sulu and Sabah: A Study of British Policy Towards the Philippines and North Borneo from the Late Eighteenth Century (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1978); and Thayil Jacob Sony George, Revolt in Mindanao: The Rise of Islam in Philippine Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). See Lora Lumpe, ed., Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms (London: Zed Books, 2000); Rachel Stohl, Matt Schroeder, and Dan Smith, The Small Arms Trade: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007); and Peter Batchelor and Keith Krause, eds., Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). The Small Arms Survey is actually a series of annual yearbooks but the 2001 edition provides the basic structure for study of the illicit arms trade. Its chapters provide an excellent outline for any introductory study into the arms trade: Products and Producers; Stockpiles; Brokers

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18

The Sulu Arms Market

and Transporters; Legal Transfers; Illicit Transfers; Effects; and lastly, Measures and Initiatives. 14. See David Capie, Small Arms Production and Transfers in Southeast Asia (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2002); Philip Alpers, Gun-Running in Papua New Guinea: From Arrows to Assault Weapons in the Southern Highlands (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2005); and Capie, Under the Gun: The Small Arms Challenge in the Pacific (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2004).

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2 The Illicit Arms Market: Analysis of a System

The global trade in weaponry is a phenomenon as complex as any other commodity market. It is sensitive to differences in every imaginable social condition contained within national borders that are the primary shapers of the market. The market is dynamic, changing over time, bending with the political winds, and reacting to events. Despite its complexity, the global arms market consists of three types, namely white, grey, and black1 (see Table 2.1), and has four components, specifically sources, consumers, brokers,

Table 2.1 Types of Arms Markets and Their Characteristics

Black

Legal Illegal • Government Involvement Non-State Actor Involvement • Covert • Overt

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Grey

White

• • • • • •

• • •

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20

The Sulu Arms Market

and transporters.2 All this can be roughly packaged into six regional market complexes. What sets the arms market apart from the global trade in gold, frozen orange juice, or narcotics is the potential direct political impact of the guns themselves. Shades of Grey Small arms provide states and non-state actors a real ability to defend their interests and assault those of their rivals. Within the international state system the obvious centrality of a state’s right to self defence means there is a corresponding legal international trade in arms to support it. This segment of the market is commonly called the “white” market. Encompassing only government to government transfers (or those from licensed dealer to licensed buyer), white market transfers will not be covered by this book except as an eventual source for illegal or illicit markets. “Grey” markets are those that “exploit loopholes or circumvent national and/or international laws or policy”.3 Typically, grey market transfers involve a government or licensed dealer that supplies weaponry to non-state actors, embargoed governments, or both. This definition is very broad and virtually guarantees that the overwhelming majority of arms transfers in the world today can be considered grey. Furthermore, the sheer variety of national laws and interpretations of the status of questionable actors ensures that the illegality of such transfers will be widely disputed and/or denied. Sudan, for example, is sanctioned by most Western states but continues to import weapons

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The Illicit Arms Market: Analysis of a System

21

from China and six other countries.4 Perhaps the only truly defining characteristic of a grey market transfer is that one or more participants may be able to mount a legal defence of it on some level if necessary. “Black” markets are fully illegal markets. R.T. Naylor defines black market transfers as those which use “covert methods of intermediating between supply and demand — weapons moving one way and money back the other”.5 Naylor’s definition partly overlaps with the definition of grey market transfers that sometimes also rely on covertness to achieve a desired political effect. A more precise definition is called for because “covert” does not always mean “illegal”. The Small Arms Survey defines black markets as those operated “in clear violation of national and/or international laws and policies, and without official government consent or control”.6 However, some governments, North Korea and Myanmar for example, have clearly participated in black arms markets, in some cases purely for profit.7 Since governments are political organizations, their involvement in for-profit arms transfers is exceedingly rare but distinct enough to require a combined definition. Therefore: Black market transfers are: covertly intermediated transfers conducted in clear violation of national and/ or international laws without government consent or control, or those used by governments as an instrument of profit without political conditions.

It is important to note that the three types of arms markets are not closed systems; there is significant cross-

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22

The Sulu Arms Market

pollination of arms between them. In a process very similar to money laundering, white market guns can be “cleaned” and injected into the grey and black markets through a number of techniques including diversion, leakage from legal stocks, theft, or loss. The reverse is also true, as some governments, including that of the Philippines, maintain policies of reissuing useable confiscated firearms to government officers.8 Components of the Arms Market There are four entities that make up every arms deal whether simple or complex, overt or covert, black, grey, or white. There is always a source of guns (seller), a consumer (buyer) of the product, a broker to bring them together, and a transporter to move the guns from the source to the consumer. On occasion, one person or organization can fill multiple roles in this structure. A case in point is Viktor Bout,9 who was arrested brokering a deal to sell weapons to be delivered by a transportation company he owned.10 This simple four-part formula can become extremely complex when transactions are disguised for legal or political reasons. When this happens, arms traders employ all the time-tested methods used by spies and smugglers to deliver their goods and to receive payment for them. The use of social networks with multiple cutouts and middlemen at every step of the operation dramatically increases the number of people involved in a deal and complicates enforcement efforts.

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23

The Source Sources come in either primary or secondary forms. Primary sources are those which directly or indirectly supply arms markets of all types. There is no flow of second-hand guns back to these sources and they tend to be located in the developed world, outside the combat zones where their weapons are ultimately used. Primary sources, which include licensed arms manufacturers and government agencies, account for most of the world’s legal small arms stockpiles.11 At the same time, these sources also account for most of the world’s illicit stockpiles through covert support for insurgencies, leakage from armed services, or blatant profiteering.12 Fortunately, much of the world’s stocks remain controlled by governments or by armed factions that exert strong control of their arsenals, leaving less than half available for transfer on the black market.13 Secondary sources are dual-directional, meaning they are simultaneously sources and destinations for black market guns. Typically, secondary sources are located in areas of ongoing conflict or recent large-scale conventional warfare that remain weakly-governed despite the end of hostilities. For example, captured or abandoned stockpiles in Afghanistan, Cambodia, and for a time, Vietnam, supplied for decades nearly every conflict in South and Southeast Asia with second-hand guns.14 There was some hope that the Asian black market would shrink after Vietnam abandoned support for communist irredentism in 1989 and more recently the flow of weaponry from Cambodian stockpiles began to taper off, but a push for military modernization

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24

The Sulu Arms Market

following the first Gulf War and corresponding sales pressure from massive arms manufacturers in the United States, European Union, Russia, China, Brazil, and to a lesser degree, Israel and Singapore, suggest the Southeast Asian black market is not in danger of running out of guns anytime soon. The Consumer The main consumers in the global black arms market are criminals, pirates, rebels, and drug cartels, all of whom depend on illegal guns to enable their activities. Together they make up a staggering percentage of the share of the trade with only a tiny handful of gun enthusiasts to account for the rest. Sadly, peaceful gun collectors that have non-violent uses for their guns are unique among black marketeers. The others are all outlaws in some way and belong to organizations for which violence is a means to an end. Through these outlaws, the black arms market directly feeds violent crime in a way that more benign smuggled commodities do not.15 Consumers tend to have ingrained preferences for a particular source or type of weapon, a reflection of a cultural tendency that derives from the familiarity of fighters with particular weapons and their associated tactics. Often this is inherited from a previous colonial master or a Cold War–era sponsor. Rebels are usually dependant on their enemy for weapons supplies and for this reason rebel preferences very closely reflect those of the government they are combating. The enormous expense and temporary loss of proficiency associated with changing one’s source make black market consumers extremely loyal to proven suppliers and familiar

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25

technology. For this reason, arms markets are terribly difficult for new players to penetrate, making black markets an attractive option for those seeking a covert way to influence the politics of another country. The Broker When someone describes a “stereotypical” arms dealer, they usually refer to the broker. Films and books glorify the broker’s lifestyle. One of the most recent is the Hollywood film Lord of War, which is based partly on the exploits of Viktor Bout.16 While gun running does proliferate in exotic and dangerous locales and sometimes involves intrigue and large amounts of money as the film suggests, the reality is a bit more mundane. The broker must bring together suppliers and buyers that are often from radically different, even competing backgrounds.17 He must understand clandestine finance and have an ability to facilitate it. If the broker is not also a transporter, he must be able to conduct a similar interaction with those that are. The broker must of course have a working knowledge of the technical aspects of the business, but perhaps more importantly he must be able to understand the psychology of clients18 that are invariably well-armed and under stress. For these reasons, brokers tend to have backgrounds in the military or intelligence fields and will often specialize in a particular geographical region or certain type of deal. For this reason also, they often moonlight as agents for one government or another.19 The Transporter Those who transport guns across the globe come in several different guises and are usually not smugglers in the

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26

The Sulu Arms Market

fundamental sense. In this context, transporters are not the flight crews or the truck drivers who physically move the goods, nor are they the amateurish “mules” favoured by drug cartels and gold traders. Rather, the transporters referred to here are the higher-level organizers who employ these pawns. Transporters are sometimes legitimate logisticians that own fleets of trucks, ships, and planes used to move a mixture of legal and illegal cargo, but more often they are simply coordinators. They are masters of concealment or of the administrative sleight of hand required to make illegal cargo look legitimate. Sometimes they are both.20 Transporters of illicit arms must master an enormous body of knowledge regarding routes and regulations, customs and immigration procedures, licensing requirements, fees, and enforcement capabilities in source, transit, and destination countries. They must be skilled in producing false or misleading paperwork, the use of clandestine delivery methods, and in influencing officials. Transporters are the most critical link in the chain which is why they often double as the broker. The ant-trader is one variation on the transporter that warrants mention. This individual small-time smuggler usually hails from a frontier area and has links to both sides through familial or business connections. He has discovered that he can buy a gun or ammunition on one side and sell it on the other for twice the price. His few-guns-at-a-time operation, which may be the most common form of small arms transfer globally, is known as the ant trade and it thrives over short distances in border areas where one country has a legal market and the other does not. While the ant trade is useful for the transfer of small arms, ammunition is its primary cargo.21 The ant trade is unique in that its brokers

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27

are stationary; they set up shop in under-governed areas and wait for the suppliers and consumers to come to them.22 They are retailers in the most basic sense, simultaneously connecting myriad sources to countless consumers. The Global Geography of Guns The structure of the global arms market is sometimes hierarchical and sometimes anarchic. At least one credible study was done describing it as a social network with a nodal structure not unlike most other logistical supply chains.23 The global arms market is not smoothly distributed, it is concentrated in some regions and dispersed in others. Borrowing from Buzan’s concept of security complexes, it is possible to detect the presence of similarly constructed “market complexes” that are defined by some very real, but subjective factors. Among them are proximity, cultural geography, ease of transport, mutual interaction, and the ingrained preferences that drive consumer demand for guns.24 A market complex is a relatively self-contained supply and demand system that must include at least one primary source and a number of secondary sources that form the basis for mutual interaction in the small arms trade. There are six regional market complexes: the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and Southeast Asia (see Figure 2.2). The American Market Complex The American market complex is dominated by the firearms industry of the United States which supports not only the

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28

The Sulu Arms Market

most powerful military machine in the world, but also a pool of 270 million privately owned firearms; a staggering percentage of the estimated 875 million total firearms in existence worldwide.26 Reflecting the strength of the American state, however, relatively few American guns make a significant political impact south of the border. Instead, conflicts in the region are mostly carried out using cheaper Soviet equipment, like the AK-47, with which both Cold War antagonists preferred to supply their Latin American proxies. The U.S. Government supported a number of anticommunist groups like the Nicaraguan Contras until political scandals in the 1980s made this practice controversial. Hobbled by partisan infighting, Washington left its grey market activity to a number of concerned private citizens who brokered deals with an eclectic mix of benefactors including anti-Castro Cubans, Asian governments, anticommunist organizations, and American capitalists. The brokers then channeled this funding to Eastern European and Middle Eastern counterparts who secured the weapons and transferred them directly to Latin American consumers.27 The Communist supply chain was a bit shorter, with Cuban forces serving as representatives of the Soviets in the region. The Cubans managed supply lines and played direct roles at every level, including combat. Twenty years on, it is clear that a new pattern is developing with the escalating drug war in Latin America the primary reason for a widening distribution of U.S. guns since the Cold War. Since President Nixon declared a “War on Drugs” in 1971, the United States has committed massive amounts of aid to besieged governments in Latin

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29

America, especially those of Colombia and Brazil.28 Black market traffic by the cartels directly counters these white market transfers by drawing upon secondary markets that are fed partly by leakage of Western-designed guns from the military and police in Colombia and Mexico,29 and partly by the enormous secondary market in the United States itself.30 Russian models flow in even larger numbers through the vast trafficking network of the Colombian FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) which moves them into Colombia through every country in the northern half of South America.31 While there is no definitive documentation in the public domain to prove that the FARC is the beneficiary of grey market transfers from neighbouring countries, enough anecdotal evidence exists of black market activity involving government officials to make it a possibility.32 Weapons proliferation in the northern half of the continent is only part of the problem in South America where all but three countries are thought to manufacture small arms.33 Brazil is now the world’s fourth largest small arms manufacturer, a fact reflected in the brutality of its crime-ridden cities where from 1990 to 1999, 74.1 per cent of confiscated firearms were made in Brazil.34 Neighbouring Argentina is also a prolific weapons producer with a statesupported industry that dates back to the 1930s. While neither country is implicated in grey market activity, the scope of production in both countries is troubling because their borders with Paraguay make up two sides of the notorious Iguazu triangle, a lawless borderland home to the trafficking and fundraising activities of some of the world’s worst criminal organizations, including FARC, ELN (National Liberation

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The Sulu Arms Market

Army), Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path), Chinese Triads, and the Russian Mafia.35 The European Market Complex The European market complex is home to two of the world’s largest primary sources, namely the former Warsaw Pact countries and the Western European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Over 200 small-arms producing companies are located there, representing one third of the world’s total, including eight of the world’s top thirteen producers.36 This market complex also contains massive secondary sources in the Balkans and, increasingly, the Caucuses. More than just a source, however, Europe is also a brokerage and transportation hub. Brokers from Russia, Serbia, Italy, and Transdnistria employ a flexible transport network with hubs in Belgium, Cyprus, and Moldova.37 Surprisingly, Europe is also a major destination for black market guns and, as recently as 1999, was second only to Africa in numbers of active insurgents under arms.38 The former Warsaw Pact countries are by far the most prolific sources within the European market complex. During the Cold War, factories in Eastern Bloc countries churned out Soviet-designed weaponry for their own massive arsenals and those of their proxies. Western governments also preferred Soviet weaponry because it was inexpensive, reliable, and deniable. The result was a saturation of Cold War battlefields in Africa, Latin America, and Asia with Soviet guns. The undisputed star of the show was, and still is, the AK-47. It is the most widely manufactured assault rifle in history, eclipsing the production runs of its rivals by

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31

a factor of 10.39 Since its introduction in 1947, an estimated 70–100 million have been produced in more than 160 variants in the former Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland, East Germany, Albania, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, China, North Korea, Egypt, Finland, and Iraq.40 The AK’s durability and reliability make it a favourite among insurgent groups worldwide whose supply lines were established during the Cold War and maintained afterward by cash-strapped regimes and corrupt officials. Despite the massive numbers, it was not until the breakup of the former Yugoslavia that the enormity of the European market became a political concern. The war in the Balkans (1991–2001) was the result of decades of pressure built up between the many nations forced to live within a unified Yugoslav state. As the country fractured into its component parts, the arsenals and ammunition dumps of the Yugoslav Army came under the control of sectarian communities. Weapons and ammunition flowed into the black market as Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo all plunged into sectarian civil war and Albania and Macedonia were drawn in by large expatriate enclaves with ties to the combatants. Initially, weapons and fighters poured into the Balkans to fuel the spreading violence, but as United Nations and NATO peacekeepers moved in, and factional leaders made political accommodations, the direction of flow reversed. Former Yugoslavian leaders needed money to continue their struggles and they had plenty of guns to trade. Highly organized, state-sponsored smuggling rackets began to ship huge quantities of small arms to insurgents and embargoed governments in the Middle East, Africa, and Central and Southeast Asia, a process that culminated in enormous Pentagon-sponsored white market transfers

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The Sulu Arms Market

from Balkan governments to the Iraqi Security Forces in 2004.41 Widespread looting of government storehouses and arms factories that followed the collapse of a large pyramid trading scheme in Albania in 1997 illustrates the scale of Balkan stockpiles. Almost overnight, 600,000 weapons, including 110,000 AK-47s, flowed into the black markets in Macedonia, Serbia, and Kosovo.42 This pattern of national fragmentation, conflict, and armssmuggling is being repeated today in the Black Sea region and the Caucuses. Interestingly, nearly all these conflicts feature Russian military intervention — Transdnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Chechnya, Dagestan, and Abkhazia — to name a few. Chechnya provides a particularly egregious example of careless grey market transfers and creative black market activity. After the Russian Army pulled out of the newly-independent Chechnya in 1992, the Russian Defence Minister, Pavel Grachev, ordered the handover of half of all Russian armaments there to General Dzhokhar Dudayev’s Chechen “government”, which in 1992 was just one of the many factions vying for control of the new country. It is unknown how much of the other half of the Russian stockpile was actually removed from the war-torn country but it is widely accepted to be a paltry amount. Estimates of the number of small arms that eventually fell into Dudayev’s hands range from 40,000 to 60,000 firearms and 200,000 hand grenades.43 Shortly afterward, the Russians changed sides and began backing other Chechen factions before invading the small country in November 1994. Dudayev’s military commander, Shamil Basayev, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, responded

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33

by declaring a jihad on the Russians. The Islamization of the conflict attracted volunteers and grey arms transfers from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iran, Turkey, and the Taliban.44 This Islamic arms pipeline expanded after the Russian withdrawal and, by the time of the second Russian invasion in 1999, the trade involved the grey pipelines described above as well as black transfers from the Russian and Ukrainian mafias and Al Qaeda.45 Arms producers in the European countries of NATO benefitted from the near collapse of their Warsaw Pact competitors after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The smaller, more efficient Western companies were able to adapt more quickly to the changing situation in the early to mid1990s and, by 2006, thirty-four Western European producers accounted for 29.2 per cent of global arms sales.46 Western European guns, which feature more expensive composite materials and construction methods than their Eastern European rivals, are less likely to be distributed directly to cash-strapped and politically-risky rebel groups. Instead, Western European models make their way into the black market indirectly by production licensing agreements with unscrupulous or unregulated foreign manufacturers, or through white market transfers to governments that subsequently leak. Ten of the largest Western European producers have licensing agreements with manufacturers in at least twentytwo countries (see Table 2.2).47 Guns from these factories are overwhelmingly destined for customers outside Western Europe, an arrangement that allows those guns to bypass strict European Union export regulations and effectively insulates Europe from the effects of its products.48

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02 SuluArmsMkt.indd 34

United States† Australia, Malaysia‡ Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela Turkey, United States France, Greece, Iran, Italy, Mexico, Myanmar, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom Greece, Iran, Italy, Pakistan, Portugal, Spain, Turkey Brazil, Egypt, France Chile, France, Portugal Canada, India

Austria Glock Steyr-Mannlicher Belgium FN Herstal France Giat Industries Germany Heckler & Koch Rheinmetall Italy Beretta Switzerland SIG Arms United Kingdom Sterling Armaments

†

Until 2009, Glock Incorporated manufactured roughly 51 per cent of each pistol assembled at its plant in Smyrna, Georgia, USA. Only the slides and barrels were imported from Austria. In 2009 they transitioned to 100 per cent local manufacture under license from their parent company.50 ‡ Malaysia ceased production in 2001 but still maintains the ability to produce components.

Licensee

Original Producer Manufacturer

Table 2.2 Licensed Production of Western European Small Arms49 34 The Sulu Arms Market

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35

The African Market Complex The African market complex is the most studied and best documented in the world.51 The social chaos unleashed by the introduction of the AK-47 into tribally violent societies there causes misery and death on an enormous scale. The proliferation of conflict since World War II spans the entire continent and has continued without respite for over six decades. Newly independent countries of Africa such as Angola and Zaire were frontline battlegrounds during the Cold War. The primary sources for the African market complex are overwhelmingly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as both sides of the Cold War contest found it economical to outfit their proxies with less expensive Soviet weaponry. The transporters of guns destined for African battlefields congregate in ports of convenience, that is, those with relaxed export regulations. The biggest of these are Ostend in Belgium and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).52 Ostend has been a haven for Western European smugglers for decades, whereas Sharjah provided a more Slavic-friendly headquarters for newly-capitalist arms merchants like Viktor Bout and Tomislav Damnjanovic.53 From bases in Ostend and Sharjah, these transporters inject guns directly into the African distribution network. Unlike the transporters, the brokers behind the African deals usually hail from the country that previously claimed colonial suzerainty over the consumer. As Tim Green points out, French brokers supply former French colonies, and English brokers supply former English colonies.54 There are exceptions to this rule as Soviet brokers were obviously not guided by a colonial past but by their

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communist ideology. Abetted by African leaders willing to play East off West in pursuit of relative gains, Soviet gunrunners brought in their communist allies from all over the world; the Cubans, North Koreans, Yugoslavs, and Chinese all received a small part to play in the African market during the Cold War. The Chinese have risen to the top since then, arming allies from Khartoum to Katanga in exchange for mineral rights.55 They bring basic infrastructure with them wherever they go: roads, telecommunications, electricity, and occasionally less essential projects like football stadiums.56 To the Chinese, these structural incentives are the basic tools required for extracting resource concessions from Africa and providing for their defence. When it comes to sheer ubiquity, however, none can match the South Africans. From the diamond mines of Sierra Leone to the battlefields of Angola to the desert wastes of Darfur, if there are guns to be bought, sold, brokered, or transported, the deal often involves a South African with an (untraceable) history of service with his country’s Apartheid-era special forces.57 Nominal outlaws after the fall of Apartheid, these special operators found tacit shelter in executing the covert security agenda of their country’s still powerful business leadership and its new government. It is not surprising that this agenda is often intertwined with gun running. Through some accident of geography, South Africa is second to Angola as the main gateway for guns entering the continent, but is far and away the top location for extra-continental export as well as distribution within Africa.58

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The Middle Eastern Market Complex Guns flow into and out of the Middle Eastern market complex in a pattern that reflects three geo-strategic conditions: Israel/anti-Israel, the Sunni-Shia divide, and geographic centrality. Supporters on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict pour guns into that war-torn area. At one time or another during the Cold War, the Soviets backed a number of Israel’s enemies including Syria, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The leftist wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), also received some military aid from the Soviets but could not disassociate itself from its radical supporters, making way for the Fatah-led wing to emerge as the political voice of the Palestinian people.59 The PLO under Fatah attracted a wide range of suppliers who saw the conflict either as an arena for superpower competition, a religious conflict, an ethnic squabble, or some combination of all three. At the end of the Cold War, the Palestinians lost their Soviet backers and now rely more on fellow Arab and Muslim supporters. On the other side of the conflict, Israel and the two Arab countries that recognize it receive massive amounts of military aid from the United States. In a striking display of realpolitik, the United States also provides a comparable volume of military aid to its Arab allies that are hostile to Israel.60 This careful manipulation of the balance of power through white market transfers augments the already substantial domestic production within the region and makes for a sizeable grey and black market.

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Since the end of World War II, changes in Iranian leadership caused a tragic comedy of shifting superpower allegiance with both the United States and Soviet Union playing both sides of the Shia-Sunni divide during the 1970s and 1980s, although not simultaneously. The Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) featured the bizarre scenario of an Americanbacked, Soviet-equipped Iraq fighting a Soviet-backed, American-equipped Iran. After the Cold War, Iraq fell out with all its Sunni neighbours as well as the United States before being occupied and converted into a Shia-dominated democracy in 2003. Today the front lines of the Sunni-Shia divide have moved west of the Iranian border and are now closer to their origins in Karbala, Iraq. Consequently, the arms pipeline that supports the conflict has evolved from white during the Cold War, to grey at present. Iraq’s Shia neighbours, Iran and Syria,61 keep their Iraqi champions well supplied with small arms, sophisticated demolitions, training, and direct support while the country’s Sunni neighbours do the same for their proxies. Shia largesse is not limited to Iraq however. Shortly after the Iranian revolution, the Khomeini regime began backing Amal and Hezbollah in Lebanon and has since extended its support to Hamas. American backing of both the Lebanese Government and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is thus perceived more as an American counter to Iranian influence than as a Sunni-Shia issue, although all sides still generally maintain sectarian boundaries. With its geographic centrality inherent in its name, it is no surprise that the Middle East has been the crossroads of empires and trade routes for centuries. Indeed, its arms market is intimately connected to the markets of Africa,

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South and Central Asia, Europe, and to a lesser degree, Southeast Asia. The Emirates of the Arabian Peninsula in particular have for centuries been ports of convenience for a bustling illicit trade in everything from spices to gold, and guns to vitamin B; in fact, their modern tax and vessel registration regulations are designed to maintain this merchant tradition.62 Iraq is also a crossroads for illicit arms although for different reasons. The 2003 invasion of Iraq unleashed cultural tensions in the region that were temporarily dormant since the end of the Iran-Iraq War. Suddenly, communities within Iraq that had been suppressed by Saddam Hussein were free to pursue ancient agendas through the force of arms. Iraqi Kurds, Shias, and Sunni Arabs closed ranks and armed themselves for conflict with each other. For ammunition they did not need to look far from home. Saddam’s massive arsenal lay unguarded and its modern security systems bombed to rubble. Arms and ammunition at over 100 major sites were scattered haphazardly across thousands of square kilometres of previously restricted areas.63 Lacking the manpower to secure the sites, the overstretched Coalition focused its efforts on protecting the safety of innocents rather than on a more manpower intensive attempt to prevent pilferage of the unguarded munitions.64 Although the dispersal of these munitions made systematic looting difficult, the ant trade succeeded where organized pilferage could not; for years, munitions from these “ammo dumps” flowed steadily onto the black market.65 Ammunition is only half the problem. As of 2006, the United States had provided an estimated 713,000 firearms of all varieties to the Iraqi Army and Police.66 In May 2004,

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an estimated 600,000–700,000 tons of “loose” weaponry circulated in Iraq. By November 2004, the U.S. Military had accounted for approximately 400,000 tons of it but a steady stream of replacement guns from Iran, Syria, and, ironically, the United States, continues to offset the achievement.67 Since 2004, the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I, renamed U.S. Forces–Iraq on 1 January 2010), responsible for training and equipping Iraqi security forces, has lost accountability for 751 assault rifles, 99 machine guns, and 13,000 Glock pistols.68 The losses are overwhelmingly due to the initially high rate of desertion among the nascent Iraqi Police, but MNSTC-I’s failure to record the serial numbers of 360,010 of the firearms certainly has not helped them deal with the problem.69 More recently, the original supply of Soviet assault rifles for the Iraqi Army is being replaced by the US-manufactured M16, leaving the existing stockpiles vulnerable to leakage. As the Iraqi Army and Police continue to have problems with internal sectarian division and infiltration by agents of communal militias, it is a virtual certainty that missing weapons will continue to contribute to violence within Iraq. The South and Central Asian Market Complex The South and Central Asian market complex is a remnant of the final proxy confrontation of the Cold War. From 1979 to 1992, the United States and Soviet Union dumped an enormous amount of Soviet weaponry on both sides of the conflict in Afghanistan. On the anti-communist side, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) administered grey market supplies provided to the mujahidin

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by the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and others.70 The ISI has since admitted to losing accountability of approximately 2.1 million of the remaining firearms.71 This massive oversight is only half the story as there are no known records or reliable estimates of how many guns were “lost” by the communist regime in Kabul. Allegedly, these guns are now a grey market asset for the Government of Pakistan and a black market bonanza for Al Qaeda and any number of other jihadi organizations. In addition, small arms stockpiles originally meant for the anti-Soviet mujahidin have ended up in the hands of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka; Kashmiri terrorist groups like Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HuM); Chechen separatists; Northeast Indian insurgents such as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), and the National Democratic Front for Bodoland (NDFB); Moro fighters such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG); and of course the Taliban.72 Despite the enormity of the existing stockpile, guns continue to flow into the region. The end of the Cold War and the onset of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) fractured an array of regional combatants that were once superficially united by their support for, or opposition to, Soviet designs in Central Asia. With these combatants now scrambling for independent supply chains, the handcrafting of guns in the region has exploded. Today, the quality and volume of handmade firearms in remote areas of the Pakistan-Afghan frontier is very high.73 A similar but less developed cottage industry is growing in India and is responsive to a diverse

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criminal community there. While these inexpensive Indian counterfeits support the overwhelming majority of violent crime in New Delhi, the more affluent Indian gangsters have a growing appetite for more sophisticated Chinese and Italian models.74 The burgeoning problem of Chinese guns is also being felt in Afghanistan where the Afghans and their allies increasingly find new Chinese weaponry in the hands of resurgent Taliban. This weaponary includes heavy anti-aircraft machine-guns, landmines, RPGs, and HN-5 surface-to-air missiles.75 In the same vein, cooling U.S.-Russian relations may have future effects on the supply of guns to the South and Central Asian market complex. The Southeast Asian Market Complex Fed by primary sources in Russia, China, and the United States, the Southeast Asian market complex is actually two sub-complexes in one. It is split neatly in two at the Strait of Malacca where Malaysian and Indonesian political alignments and enforcement priorities act as a filter against guns from non-Muslim sources west of Singapore. To the west lies the Andaman sub-regional market complex, and to the east, the Spratly sub-regional market complex (see Figure 2.3). Stockpiles of mostly Chinese arms in Cambodia and Myanmar supply conflict zones across the Andaman subcomplex — Aceh, Sri Lanka, Southern Thailand, Northeast India, and the Thai-Myanmar frontier. After the Vietnam War in 1975, there were also some left over stockpiles of American weaponry in Thailand but today this source

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is largely depleted. The majority of American guns that now enter the Andaman complex are leaked from the Thai armed forces.76 Whether this is due simply to corruption, or occurs in support of covert policy, is a matter of debate and probably varies by region. The cause notwithstanding, these secondary sources pump arms through the Thai ports of Ranong and Phuket, and Bangladesh’s port of Cox’s Bazaar enroute mostly to myriad Burmese rebel groups fighting the Yangon regime, but also to an unlikely blend of communists, islamists, and Bengali nationalists in eastern India, and until recently, the LTTE and Acehnese separatists in northern Sumatra.77 Interestingly, Singapore has been a primary source for the Government of Myanmar and a secondary source for the LTTE and insurgents in Northeast India.78 In the Spratly sub-regional complex, and the Sulu Arms Market in particular, most of the guns are American models diverted or leaked from the armed forces of the Philippines, Malaysia, or Indonesia, or transferred from captured stocks in southern Vietnam.79 Communist rebels and criminal enterprises in Luzon are known to import Eastern Bloc guns from criminal groups and the North Korean intelligence services, specifically the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, the Korean Worker’s Party, and a unit called Bureau 39.80 Additional sources of munitions for the Sulu Market were Muslim sponsors from the Middle East, and South and Central Asia that supported the Moros from the 1970s through the 1990s. According to one observer, Muslim support continued deep into the current decade.81 These sponsors provided a mix of Soviet and Western European weaponry that remains in evidence despite the erosion of

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their sponsorship through political accommodation, war, and social change. Observations on Northeast Asia The industrialized countries of Northeast Asia command a significant portion of global small arms production capacity.82 China, with an estimated 5.6 per cent share of the global arms market, ranks among the top five producers globally along with the United States (63.5 per cent), the United Kingdom (11.8 per cent), France (6.2 per cent), and the transEuropean Aeronautic Defense and Space company (EADS) (4.0 per cent). Taiwan and South Korea are moderately-sized producers by themselves and Japan is not far behind.83 Despite the volume of small arms produced in these countries, the region falls short of the definition of a market complex because of its fractured cultural geography and lack of mutual interaction. The atmosphere of multilateral mistrust developed between communists and non-communists during the Cold War, and between Japan and everyone else during the Pacific War, persists to this day. Profound cultural and political differences between all the countries of Northeast Asia stifle mutual interaction in the arms market. Governments in the region tightly control civilian gun ownership and their populations are relatively well policed, leaving very little room for illicit arms markets. There are very few secondary sources in the region and only one (in Taiwan) that is fed primarily from a regional neighbour (China). The majority of small arms produced in Northeast Asia are meant for domestic military and paramilitary use.

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The major exception to this are guns produced by the Chinese companies, Poly Technologies, and China North Industries Corporation (Norinco), which increasingly make their way into markets and conflict zones in Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Africa, and elsewhere, including North America where they account for 15 per cent of all small arms imports to the United States.84 Notes   1. Maria Haug, “Crime, Conflict, Corruption: Global Illicit Small Arms Transfers”, in Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem, edited by Peter Batchelor and Keith Krause (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 165.   2. Brian Wood and Johan Peleman, “Making the Deal and Moving the Goods: The Role of Brokers and Shippers”, in Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms, edited by Lora Lumpe (London: Zed Books, 2000), p. 129. Wood and Peleman include financiers and insurers as components of the illicit arms market. This book considers financiers and insurers to be outside the scope of the study because, unlike brokers, transporters, buyers and sellers, the arms trade would still thrive without external financiers or insurance.   3. Maria Haug, “A Thriving Trade: Global Legal Small Arms Transfers”, in Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem, edited by Peter Batchelor and Keith Krause (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 141.   4. See Cesar Chelala, “Chinese Arms Fueling Sudanese Conflict”, Japan Times Online, 24 March 2008 (accessed 25 March 2009); and “China Defends Arms Sales to Sudan”,

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  5.

  6.   7.

  8.

  9.

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BBC News Online, 22 February 2008 (accessed 25 March 2009). R.T. Naylor, “The Structure and Operation of the Modern Arms Black Market”, in Lethal Commerce: The Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, edited by Jeffrey Boutwell, Michael T. Klare, and Laura W. Reed (Cambridge, MA: Committee on International Security Studies, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995), p. 45. Haug, “A Thriving Trade”, p. 141. See Alan Dupont, “Transnational Violence in the Asia Pacific: An Overview of Current Trends”, in Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability, edited by Paul J. Smith (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2005), pp. 8, 13–14; and Raphael Perl and Dick K. Nanto, North Korean Crime-for-Profit Activities, CRS Report for Congress, RL33885 (Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, February 2007), p. 1. Republic of the Philippines 2008 Integrated National Report on the Implementation of the International Tracing Instrument and of the Small Arms and Light Weapons Program of Action (Manila: Government of the Republic of the Philippines, 2008) (accessed 11 August 2008), p. 12. The Philippines only destroys those captured firearms that are beyond economical repair. All others are reissued to the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines pursuant to section 896 of the Revised Administrative Code (RAC) of the Philippines on the Basic Firearms Law. See Douglas Farah and Stephan Braun, “The Merchant of Death”, Foreign Policy, No. 157, November/December

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2006, p. 40; “Who is Victor Bout?” Sharjah, UAE: Air Cess Aviation, 2006 (accessed 26 March 2009); Deborah Berlinck and Spyros Demetriou, “Fuelling the Flames: Brokers and Transport Agents in the Illicit Arms Trade”, in Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem, edited by Peter Batchelor and Keith Krause (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 114; Bertil Lintner, “Is this Man a Lord of War?” Far Eastern Economic Review Online, 6 March 2009 (accessed 8 April 2009); and Letter from the Congress of the United States to Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand Requesting Extradition of Viktor Bout, 23 July 2008. Much of Viktor Bout’s life is shrouded in mystery. Depending on the source, Bout was born in 1967 in either Dushanbe in what is now Tajikistan, or in Ashgabat in what is now Turkmenistan. What is known is that Bout graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow in the late 1980s. Until 1991, he served as an interpreter in the now disbanded military transport aviation regiment in Vitsebsk, Belarus where he presumably developed his love of aviation. At some point, he became associated with the Soviet Bureau of State Security (KGB). After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Bout went abroad and set up several air transport businesses, first in Belgium, then in Swaziland, and finally in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates which he allegedly used to traffic guns to dozens of embargoed states and non-state actors. He was arrested on 6 March 2008 in a combined U.S.-Thai sting operation in Bangkok where he is currently fighting a second extradition request by the United States for “conspiring to provide weapons to a terrorist organization”. 10. See United States of America vs. Viktor Bout and Andrew

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11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

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Smulian: Sealed Complaint for Violations of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2339B & 3238, United States, Southern District of New York, 2008, p. 11; and “Who is Victor Bout?” Sharjah, UAE: Air Cess Aviation, 2006 (accessed 26 March 2009). Haug, “A Thriving Trade”, p. 141. See Aaron Karp, “Completing the Count: Civilian Firearms”, in Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City (Cambridge: Small Arms Survey and Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 60–61; and Haug, “A Thriving Trade”, p. 167. Karp, “Completing the Count”, pp. 40, 47, and 50. Karp estimates that 650 million of the estimated total of 875 million existing firearms are in civilian hands and therefore outside the direct control of political entities. Of these “civilian” guns, 79 million are registered with the authorities and another 291 million belong to owners in the United States, Iraq, and Yemen which have no registration laws, making these guns technically legal. This leaves 359 million guns, 41 per cent of the total, available for illegal transfer. Andy Webb-Vidal and Anthony Davis, “Lords of War: Running the Arms Trafficking Industry”, Jane’s Intelligence Review 20, no. 5, May 2008. See Aaron Karp, “Half a Billion and Still Counting…Global Firearms Stockpiles”, in Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem, edited by Peter Batchelor and Keith Krause (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 78; and Kim Cragin and Bruce Hoffman, Arms Trafficking and Colombia, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003, pp. 53–54. See Lintner, “Is this Man a Lord of War?”; and Farah and Braun, “The Merchant of Death”, p. 47. Wood and Peleman, “Making the Deal”, p. 129. Timothy Green, The Smugglers: An Investigation into the

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19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

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49

World of the Contemporary Smuggler (New York: Pocket Books, 1970), p. 115. Ibid., pp. 113 and 115. Wood and Peleman, “Making the Deal”, p. 129. Mike Bourne and Ilhan Berkol, “Deadly Diversions: Illicit Transfers of Ammunition for Small Arms and Light Weapons”, in Targeting Ammunition: A Primer, edited by Stéphanie Pézard and Holger Anders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 105 and 111. Ibid., p. 106. David Kinsella, “The Black Market in Small Arms: Examining a Social Network”, Contemporary Security Policy 27, no. 1 (April 2006): 100–101. Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (2nd Ed.) (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991), pp. 190–94. See Wendy Cukier and Steve Shropshire, “Domestic Gun Markets: The Licit-Illicit Links”, in Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms, edited by Lora Lumpe (London: Zed Books, 2000), p. 110; Rachel Stohl, Matt Schroeder, and Dan Smith, The Small Arms Trade: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007), p. 15; Peter Batchelor, “Small Arms, Big Business: Products and Producers”, in Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem, edited by Peter Batchelor and Keith Krause (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 30–31; Michael T. Klare, “The Subterranean Arms Trade: Black-Market Sales, Covert Operations and Ethnic Warfare”, in Cascade of Arms: Managing Conventional Weapons Proliferation, edited by Andrew J. Pierre (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997), p. 60; Hugh Griffiths and Adrian Wilkinson, Guns, Planes and Ships: Identification and Disruption of

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26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

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Clandestine Arms Transfers (Belgrade: South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons [SEESAC], 2007), pp. iv–vi; Karp, “Half a Billion”, p. 79; Karp, “Completing the Count”, p. 41 and 47; Buzan, People, States, and Fear, pp. 190–94; and Kinsella, “The Black Market” pp. 100–101. Karp, “Completing the Count,” pp. 41 and 47. John K. Singlaub, Hazardous Duty: An American Soldier in the Twentieth Century (New York: Summit Books, 1991), pp. 471–78. Historical Facts Book 2007 (n.p.: United States Department of Defense, Defense Security Cooperation Agency [DSCA], 2007), p. 22. Foreign Military Sales Deliveries to Western hemisphere countries in Fiscal Year 2007 were approximately US$231 billion to Colombia and US$62 billion to Brazil. The next closest recipients were Chile with US$24 billion and Argentina with US$8 billion. The same spending patterns have remained roughly unchanged since 1950. Cragin and Hoffman, Arms Trafficking, p. 45. Cukier and Shropshire, “Domestic Gun Markets”, p. 110. See Cragin and Hoffman, Arms Trafficking, p. 45; and Stohl, Schroeder, and Smith, The Small Arms Trade, p. 45. Cragin and Hoffman, Arms Trafficking, pp. 28–29 and 39. Batchelor, “Small Arms”, p. 28. See Anne-Kathrin Glatz and Lora Lumpe, “Probing the Grey Area: Irresponsible Small Arms Transfers”, in Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City (Cambridge: Small Arms Survey and Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 74; and Batchelor, “Small Arms”, p. 22. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed — and How to Stop It (Chicago: Bonus Books, 2005), p. 56 and 146.

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36. Batchelor, “Small Arms”, pp. 30–31. 37. See Suzette R. Grillot, Small Arms Control in the Black Sea Region: A Regional Assessment of Small Arms Control Initiatives (London: International Alert, Security and Peacebuilding Programme, 2003), p. 19; Griffiths and Wilkinson, Guns, Planes and Ships, pp. iv–vi; and Klare, “The Subterranean Arms Trade”, p. 60. 38. Karp, “Half a Billion”, p. 79. 39. Ibid., p. 63. 40. Ibid., p. 63. 41. See Glatz and Lumpe, “Probing the Grey Area”, pp. 84–85; and Griffiths and Wilkinson, Guns, Planes, and Ships, pp. iv–vi. 42. See Mike O’Connor, “Albanian Village finds Boom in Gun-Running”, New York Times Online, 24 April 1997, (accessed 18 November 2008); and Haug, “Crime”, p. 176. 43. Haug, “Crime”, pp. 178–79. 44. See Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (2nd Ed.) (London: Hurst, 2003), pp. 134–35; and Haug, “Crime”, p. 179. 45. Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, p. 135. 46. Sam Perlo-Freeman and Elisabeth Sköns, “Arms Production”, in SIPRI Yearbook 2008: Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security (Oxford: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 256. The total, which includes big ticket items such as planes and ships, is not optimal for measuring small arms production but it does give an indication of the important role of Western European producers in the world market.

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47. See Pete Abel, “Manufacturing Trends: Globalising the Source”, in Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms, edited by Lora Lumpe (London: Zed Books, 2000), pp. 88–96; and Batchelor, “Small Arms”, p. 20. 48. Abel, “Manufacturing Trends”, p. 88 and 93. A perfect example of this is when licensed manufacturers in Turkey provided Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns to the Indonesian armed forces in 1999 despite EU-sanctions. 49. See Abel, “Manufacturing Trends”, pp. 88–96; and Batchelor, “Small Arms”, p. 20. 50. Author’s conversation with Harris Couch of Glock USA, 15 December 2008. 51. See Guns Out of Control: The Continuing Threat of Small Arms (United Nations: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Integrated Regional Information Network [IRIN], 2006), pp. 10–32; and “Country Case Studies” (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2009) (accessed 27 March 2009). A section in the report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, responsible for documenting and combating the destructive effects of the global illicit arms trade, is dedicated to case studies of some of the world’s worst-hit areas and is illustrative of the preoccupation of researchers and government agencies with the African arms market complex. The section, titled “Frontlines” includes fourteen case studies, nine of which are of African nations. Similarly, the Small Arms Survey has links to 122 case studies on its “Country Case Studies” web page, thirty-five per cent of which are devoted to African countries alone. 52. See Brian Johnson-Thomas, “Anatomy of a Shady Deal”, in Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms, edited by Lora Lumpe (London: Zed Books, 2000),

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53.

54. 55. 56.

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pp. 17–18; Green, The Smugglers, p. 116; and Griffiths and Wilkinson, Guns, Planes, and Ships, p. vii. Griffiths and Wilkinson, Guns, Planes, and Ships, pp. iv–v and vii. A Serbian national, Damnjanovic worked in the United Arab Emirates for Yugoslav Airlines before United Nations sanctions grounded many of the airline’s operations in 1992. Refusing to return to his then war-torn country, Damnjanovic took up employment with a man named Igor Avdeev at Jet Line International in Sharjah, UAE. Avdeev and his business partners, who were all former senior officers in the Soviet intelligence service, KGB, reportedly introduced Damnjanovic to Viktor Bout and the world of illicit trafficking. Cashing in on connections to Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbian secret police, Damnjanovic made his fortune flying fuel, currency, and arms to Serbian proxies in Bosnia and Croatia. When the flow of Balkan weapons reversed later in the decade, Damnjanovic supplied some of the world’s most notorious warlords, including Charles Taylor, Saddam Hussein, Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union, and even the Burmese military junta. Green, The Smugglers, p. 115. Griffiths and Wilkinson, Guns, Planes, and Ships, p. vii. Author’s conversation with an American special operations officer, ca. June 2005. The officer described the Chinese practice of “donating” infrastructure projects in exchange for rights to the mineral wealth of the building site. The particular example he used of a football stadium referred to a country which must remain nameless. Also, author’s conversation with a team of Chinese engineers, ca. August 2005. The engineers were responsible for setting up the sensitive components of the towers for a new mobile network that would service the capital city and the virtually unpopulated lake region of Chad. Housed communally in a

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57.

58. 59.

60.

61.

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tiny apartment next to their build site, the engineers almost never went out because their eighteen hours a day, seven days a week work schedule left them with little energy for social activities. One of the engineers was on his second tour in Africa, having come directly from a similar mission in Tunisia. Also, author’s conversation with a security official from EnCana Corporation, ca. July 2005. A number of Western oil companies suspected that the Lake Chad region held significant oil reserves and one Canadian company, EnCana, continued exploratory drilling and road building there. Based on these conversations, it is reasonable to assume that the Chinese-built cellular network in the Lake Chad region was designed, at least in part, to support future oil extraction operations. Author’s conversation with a former South African special forces logistician, ca. August 2005. Many South African special operators avoided the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and were therefore ineligible for the amnesty they offered. These men need their records “purged” of their service with these special units to avoid possible prosecution for acts committed in service to their country under the Apartheid government. Kinsella, “The Black Market”, p. 114. Richard H. Shultz Jr., The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Warfare: Principles, Practices, and Regional Comparisons (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1988), pp. 79–81 and 85–87. Historical Facts Book 2007, pp. 1–4. In the ten-year period from 1997 to 2007, U.S. foreign military sales to Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia were between US$10.5 and US$11.8 billion each. All other U.S. allies in the region received a combined total of US$12 billion. Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: Norton, 2007), p. 92. Nasr

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62. 63.

64.

65.

66. 67. 68.

69. 70.

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points out that the Asad regime in Syria sought a fatwa from Ayatollah Khomeini that declared his Alawi sect as Shia. Green, The Smugglers, p. 200. George Zahaczewsky, “Destroying the ‘Mother of All Arsenals’: Captured Enemy Ammunition Operations in Iraq”, Journal of Mine Action 9, no. 2, February 2006 (accessed 26 March 2009). In April 2006, the author was given responsibility to create a plan to secure just five sites in northern and western Iraq in order to prevent ammunition from leaking into the hands of the insurgency. The idea was abandoned after a thorough analysis revealed that the task was impossible given available resources. Certain other Coalition units did have a responsibility to patrol the sites but only to prevent Iraqis from being injured by munitions made terribly unstable by the bombing that had scattered them about in the first place. When the author left Iraq in July 2006, there was no indication that Coalition efforts were having any effect on the pilferage of ammunition from these sites. Four years later, there is no reason to think that the issue has moved up in priority. Glatz and Lumpe, “Probing the Grey Area”, p. 85. Stohl, Schroeder, and Smith, The Small Arms Trade, p. 31. Stuart W. Bowen Jr., Inspector General, Iraqi Security Forces: Weapons Provided by the U.S. Department of Defense Using the Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund, SIGIR-06-033 (Arlington, VA: Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, 2006), p. 9. Ibid. MNSTC-I did not record the serial numbers on 97.3 per cent of one batch of 370,000 firearms. MNSTC-I disputes the requirement to record the serial numbers. See The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the

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56

71.

72. 73. 74.

75.

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National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: Norton, 2004), p. 56; George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of our Times (New York: Grove Press, 2003), pp. 132 and 201; and Haug, “Crime”, p. 180. Interestingly, Israel was an important link in the arms supply of the Afghan mujahedin. “International Arms Smuggling Fuelling Conflicts in Indonesia”, Jakarta Post, 10 July 2002 (accessed 5 July 2008). See Peter Chalk, “Light Arms Trading in SE Asia”, Jane’s Intelligence Review, 1 March 2001; Haug, “Crime”, p. 179 and 181–82; and Ehrendfeld, Funding Evil, p. 167. Author’s conversation with Dr Zachary Abuza, 28 July 2008. Rahul Tripathi, “Kattas to Colts: Blame the Spiralling Crime Graph on Unlicensed Arms”, Times of India Online, 2 July 2008 (accessed 4 July 2008). According to Tripathi, it is the aim of every Indian criminal to “eventually procure a factory-made pistol”, but with the price difference between a European weapon and the handcrafted Desi Kattas ranging in the millions of rupees, most criminals cannot afford foreign weapons. Tripathi’s unwritten suggestion is that that the Western-made guns are valued as status symbols rather purely for their functionality. Author’s conversation with Nepalese military officer, 18 July

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76. 77. 78. 79.

80.

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2008; see also Webb-Vidal and Davis, “Lords of War”, n.p. See “Thai Writer Links”, Bangkok Post, 28 January 2004; and Webb-Vidal and Davis, “Lords of War”, n.p. Webb-Vidal and Davis, “Lords of War”, n.p. Haug, “Crime”, p. 182. See Robert E. Bedeski, Andrew Andersen, and Santo Darmosumarto, Small Arms Trade and Proliferation in East Asia: Southeast Asia and the Russian Far East (Vancouver: Institute of International Relations, University of British Colombia, 1998), pp. 7, 8, 10, and 25; Merliza M. Makinano and Alfredo Lubang, Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration: The Mindanao Experience (Ottawa: International Security Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada, 2001), p. 13; David Capie, “Trading the Tools of Terror: Armed Groups and Light Weapons Proliferation in Southeast Asia”, in Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability, edited by Paul J. Smith (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2005), p. 193; and David Capie, Small Arms Production and Transfers in Southeast Asia (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2002), pp. 100–101. American weaponry that originally belonged to the Republic of South Vietnam has turned up in markets in Southeast Asia and South America as recently as 2001. Since then it is unknown whether captured stocks of American guns are entering the market from Vietnam itself or simply continue to circulate through secondary markets. See “DPRK Said to Smuggle Weapons into Southeast Asian Countries”, Tong-A-Ilbo, 11 September 1996, p. 1; Felipe L. Rojas, PCTC Paper on Terrorism (Manila: Philippine Center for Transnational Crime [PCTC], 1999)

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(accessed 11 August 2008), p. 5; Dupont, “Transnational Violence”, p. 14; Perl and Nanto, North Korean Crime, p. 1; and “International arms smuggling fuelling conflicts in Indonesia”, 10 July 2002. 81. Abuza, Militant Islam, p. 95. 82. Perlo-Freeman and Sköns, “Arms Production”, p. 255 n2 and 256. The percentage of global arms production in Northeast Asia is difficult to gauge due to state secrecy in China and North Korea but a fair estimate based on this source suggests that the total may be around 10 per cent. This number is significant because among the world’s top producing regions, only North America and Western Europe are known to command more than 10 per cent of the global market (63.6 per cent and 29.2 per cent respectively). The rest of the world combined commands only 7.2 per cent. Perlo-Freeman and Sköns exclude China and North Korea from their main calculations but do provide the 10 per cent estimate without attempting to surmise from which region the added market share is coming. 83. See Batchelor, “Small Arms”, p. 16; and Perlo-Freeman and Sköns, “Arms Production”, p. 256. There is some disagreement between Batchelor and Perlo-Freeman and Sköns regarding the rankings of the Northeast Asian producers. The numbers cited here are from Perlo-Freeman and Sköns but it is important to note that these statistics account for overall arms sales, not just small arms. Batchelor’s rankings refer only to small arms and ammunition production but do not provide statistics. He classifies Taiwan and South Korea as moderate producers and Japan as a small producer while Perlo-Freeman and Sköns list Japan ahead of both. Also, Perlo-Freeman and Sköns list France ahead of their estimates for China whereas Batchelor ranks

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France as a smaller producer than both China and Russia. Nevertheless, there is no disagreement that China ranks among the top five producers of small arms globally. 84. Batchelor, “Small Arms”, p. 44.

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3 The Sulu Arms Market: The Players

The Sulu Sea region, long a remote buffer zone between competing political entities, exhibits all the characteristics of the kind of “ungoverned territory” in which trafficking thrives.1 The Sulu Arms Market’s unique longevity stretches back to colonial times, but like most other illicit arms markets, it is both a source and a destination for grey and black market arms. Like most black arms pipelines around the world, the Sulu Arms Market is intertwined with piracy, terrorism, and the traffic of other illicit commodities. Moro independence groups, communists, Islamic militants, and criminal gangs are all major players in the market. Four bilateral anti-smuggling agreements between Malaysia and the Philippines, and a number of regional multilateral initiatives since the formation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967 reflect the fact that the Sulu Arms Market is a potential security problem for Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, and Singapore. Colonial History The Sulu archipelago connects the Philippine island of Mindanao to Borneo, both culturally and geographically.

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Traders have plied its warm waters for centuries, moving goods back and forth using familial networks in what was once a borderless society. The Spanish were the first to draw an administrative line between Mindanao and Borneo, a delineation they enforced only intermittently depending on their political and military fortunes in the rest of the Philippines. The ebb and flow of Spanish sovereignty in the area inevitably invited the attention of other colonial powers. Caught between the competing interests of the Spanish, Germans, and British, the leaders of Sulu depended upon intrigue to protect its sovereignty from rival tribes and the Europeans. The sultans of Sulu struck a delicate balance between the heavy-handed Spanish and their European rivals based in Sabah. Spanish failure to come to an understanding with Sulu led to intermittent warfare that severely affected English and German trade in the area. Responding to the threat to their interests, European merchants like William C. Cowie, manager of the Labuan Trading Company, and Captain H. Schück, a German trader, became adept at running thin Spanish blockades. The two traders began arming Sultan Jamal-ul-Azam2 in the late nineteenth century while Britain and Germany attempted through political means to keep Spain from expanding its rule westward into Borneo.3 To this day, the principal conduits for guns entering Sulu are smuggling routes developed by these two men.4 Spain’s counter-trafficking efforts faced an even larger and older problem than the two corporate gun-runners. As early as 1827, Philippine officials expressed concerns about Moro fighters receiving arms from foreigners. In 1836, reacting to leakage from Spanish military stocks, the governor in Manila banned the sale of gunpowder and

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firearms in neighbouring, non-Spanish controlled territories.5 By 1870, it was an open secret that Sultan Jamal-ulAzam was importing firearms from Singapore, leading to accusations that German merchants in that city, and English traders in Sandakan were the source. The involvement of Singapore suggested a governmental hand, leading the Spanish to accuse Britain and Germany. Their subsequent protests and denials only heightened Spanish suspicions that the black market in Sulu had in fact become grey.6 American ascendancy in the Philippines after the SpanishAmerican War (1898) brought a temporary halt to the arms trade. Trusted by the British and Germans to facilitate free trade between Sulu and Borneo, the Americans were able to negotiate an agreed-upon border for the first time in history in 1907.7 With the cooperation of the Sultan of Sulu and the British in Sabah, the American Government in Manila shut down the Sulu Arms Market entirely and completely disarmed the Moro population by 1913 — a feat that has yet to be duplicated.8 American control seemed complete when, in a surprising twist, the previously factionalized Moros made a united appeal directly to the U.S. Congress to refrain from placing them under the administration of “Christian” Manila. The signatories to the Moro “Declaration of Rights and Purposes”, a group of datu from Sulu and Mindanao, preferred instead to remain under American suzerainty. They highlighted their demands by threatening to declare an independent constitutional sultanate called the “Moro Nation”.9 By the early 1920s, hundreds of years of anticolonial struggles culminated in this more or less unified, albeit contrived, Moro identity that forms the basis of the consumer component of the modern Sulu Arms Market.

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The Communists During World War II, the Allies revived the Sulu Arms Market to combat the Japanese. General Douglas MacArthur’s forces, relegated for a time to supporting guerrilla warfare in Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and elsewhere, perfected clandestine delivery techniques. Old routes were used and new ones created. When adopted by gun-runners, new techniques such as aerial and submarine delivery complicated enforcement efforts for years after the Japanese surrender.10 In addition, the chaotic political environment of the post-war Philippines encouraged the growth of a large scale commercial aspect of the arms market where before there was only inter-governmental intrigue. The grey market was once again mostly black. The Cold War introduced new sponsors, new weaponry, and renewed vigour to grey market gun-running. Worldwide, a great number of experienced, ideologically reliable, and recently unemployed intelligence operatives and special operators dominated the arms trade. These enterprising individuals seized opportunities to make themselves available to the superpowers as they consolidated the new world order. Power vacuums left by withdrawing armies were filled by myriad independence movements, communist insurgencies, nationalist militias, political brownshirts, and in some areas, Islamic militants, all of which had a need for guns. Eager to supply such reliable customers, statesponsored gun-runners around the Pacific theatre rushed to tap into enormous stockpiles of captured, abandoned, or cached weapons. By the mid-1960’s the Sulu Arms Market had again become decisively grey.

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Initially, the communists benefited most from this arrangement. Organized, trained, and equipped by the Allies to fight the Japanese, the Malayan Communist Party and the Hukbalahaps in the Philippines, both turned their considerable skills against their respective governments after the Japanese surrender. Although many of these Maoist insurgent groups drew direct support from communist China, the Soviet Union, and eventually Vietnam and North Korea, they still controlled weapons caches and maintained smuggling networks used during the war.11 As the Cold War heated up, the grey market pipeline to leftists in the Philippines paralleled similar efforts to supply other communists throughout Asia, including the Khmer Rouge, Pathet Lao, the communist parties of Indonesia and Thailand, and some Nepalese and Indian groups. As the successors to the Huks and the New People’s Army (NPA) migrated south under pressure, they took their arms pipeline with them. The NPA was a particular favourite of Asian communists and Middle Eastern regimes. The cash strapped government in Hanoi, flush with an immense hoard of captured American weapons, happily provided tons of arms and ammunition to their Filipino comrades during the 1980s. Accusations that the Vietnamese distributed stockpiles of captured American weaponry in the Philippines also surfaced in 1992 and 1994.12 China, long suspected of arming communist insurgents throughout Southeast Asia, was the NPA’s source for an estimated 1,600 weapons obtained from Cambodian stockpiles.13 The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was suspected of arming the NPA in the 1980s,14 as was Libya, which was known to provide the NPA with training and weapons, including surface to air missiles.15 North

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Korea employed a variation of the Vietnamese model of generating cash through arms sales, sending guns to the NPA in exchange for information on American military facilities in the Philippines.16 Not surprisingly, the arms traffic to Moro separatists underwent a similar development but for very different reasons. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) The Moro National Liberation Front’s (MNLF) rise to power was truly an accident of history. Led by Nur Misuari,17 an ethnic Tausug from Sulu, the MNLF’s worldview is rooted in Sulu’s ancient struggle to maintain its sovereignty vis-àvis outside powers. Considered an outside power by most Moros, the government in Manila did nothing to counter this impression in the 1950s and early 1960s as it offered Christian settlers and surrendered Hukbalahap communists a new beginning in the predominantly Muslim southern island of Mindanao.18 As Muslim missionaries from Arabia, Egypt, and Indonesia flocked to the islands in the post-war years, Moro nationalism gained a more Islamic flavour. The ruling class of tribal leaders, the datu, capitalized on this socio-religious revival. As their warlording became fused with Islam, so did their gun-running. Having set aside their struggle for autonomy during World War II, Moro datu used the black market to rearm after the Japanese surrender. Their progress was initially slow because the communists had greater access both to leftover stockpiles and to the growing influx of grey market guns, but Moro fortunes would turn with the rise of Nur Misuari. By the mid 1970s, the Moros had rearmed themselves through

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spillover from the enormous grey market managed by the communists in Sulu in the late 1960s. In the aftermath of World War II, the British began seeking creative ways to shed their empire. They considered the establishment of the Malaysian Federation a solution to a number of tricky security problems in Southeast Asia. The newly independent Philippines, however, considered Muslim administration of Sabah, its “southern backdoor”, to be a direct threat to the stability of the southern Filipino frontier. Caught between restless Mindanao and an expanding Malaysian Federation, President Diosdado Macapagal thought the time was right in 1962 to press the country’s claim to Sabah. His efforts came too late, however, and Malaysia became a reality in September 1963, ushering in several years of antagonism between the two countries that played out through the Moros and the Sulu Arms Market. After three years of tension, a spirit of mutual cooperation began influencing foreign policy in Southeast Asia. When President Ferdinand Marcos came to power in 1966, he restored bilateral relations with Malaysia and signed an antismuggling treaty with the specific intention of reducing illicit trafficking between Sabah and the southern Philippines.19 The treaty, which benefited Manila, had a negative effect on Filipino Muslims and their influential datu who were deeply dependent on cross-border trade. This increased Moro resentment and set the conditions for the start of an armed rebellion the following year. Despite the thaw in relations with Malaysia, President Marcos continued to hedge his bets with regard to Sabah. He ordered the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to recruit and train a covert force of Moro guerillas to be infiltrated into

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Sabah. The AFP secretly trained this unit, by some accounts for several years, on Tawi-Tawi in Sulu before moving their operation to Corregidor Island in Manila Bay. In March 1968, something happened to cause the recruits and their trainers to turn on each other. The predictable result of what later became known as the Jabidah Massacre was that between fourteen and sixty-four Muslim volunteers were killed by the Philippine Army. While accounts of what caused the incident differ, there was no disputing the negative effect it had on Manila’s relations with its Muslim south and the Malaysian Government.20 Fearing a new “Confrontation”,21 Malaysia began its own covert Moro training programme in 1969. Following a promise of support from Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, the datu sent ninety Moros to Pangkor Island in Malaysia where they received training and weapons for guerilla warfare against the Philippines.22 This was the first of sixteen classes to train at Pangkor while dozens more trained at similar camps in Sabah. That state’s ethnically Tausug Chief Minister, Tun Mustafa, was instrumental in arranging these courses and later became the broker for the Moros’ first grey market supply line in a century. On Tun Mustafa’s watch, Moro smuggling operations achieved an unprecedented scale. Using a fleet of a hundred speedboats augmented by Malaysian naval vessels, they imported significant amounts of modern individual and crew-served weapons, ammunition, grenades, and demolitions.23 A member of the first class trained at Pangkor, Nur Misuari returned to Mindanao in 1970 amid rising violence between Muslims and non-Muslims. Together with fellow trainees Hashim Salamat and Abdul Khayer Alonto,24 Misuari

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created the MNLF while still training at Pangkor and later directed it in guerilla campaigns against Filipino forces.25 Tasting success, the ambitious Misuari quickly recognized the need to free the MNLF from the clutches of the corrupt datu funding its operation. In need of sponsors, he turned once again to Malaysia and Tun Mustafa and they did not disappoint. When President Marcos declared martial law in 1971, Tunku Abdul Rahman manoeuvred to place the plight of the Moros, represented by the MNLF, on the agenda of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).26 Despite extreme sensitivity about the status of Sabah and the still recent victory over its own vicious communist insurgency, Malaysia found itself in the odd position of backing a Moro separatist movement led by a former leftist agitator and Sulu nationalist; an ironic twist they would eventually rectify.27 With political legitimacy granted by Malaysia and the OIC, it was not long before Misuari developed direct ties to a number of powerful Arab sponsors, including Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi. In 1971, Khadaffi spontaneously placed the Moro issue before the United Nations Subcommittee for Human Rights, accused the Philippines of genocide, and threatened to support the Moros with arms and money; accusations and threats he reiterated in June 1972.28 In 1973 he co-sponsored Malaysia’s bid in the OIC to investigate the Moro issue, and even though Malaysia and Indonesia moderated Khadaffi’s extreme position on the matter, he emerged as the Moros’ greatest champion.29 Despite the diplomatic facade, substantial evidence existed that Libya had in fact supplied the MNLF with arms and training since at least 1971.30 That year, Khadaffi brokered a deal with Pakistani President Yahya Khan to

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deliver weapons to the Moros by air through Sabah; an arrangement that necessarily involved Tun Mustafa.31 The shipment was only one part of a larger pipeline of supplies donated by “two Persian Gulf Sheikdoms” in addition to those from Malaysia and Tun Mustafa. Once in Sabah, the MNLF ferried the guns from Sandakan to Mindanao. Broken down and delivered by a fleet of small boats (with Malaysian Navy assistance), the traffic was easily disguised as ant trading and therefore ignored.32 By most accounts, this traffic continued unabated until 1976 when the removal of Tun Mustafa and the signing of the Tripoli peace agreement signaled the end of covert support from Malaysia.33 But the precedent was set. During this five-year period, Libya and the OIC had collectively contributed about US$35 million dollars to the MNLF, much of which was delivered via Sabah.34 Malaysia may have pulled back material support for the MNLF in 1976, but the country continued to provide political cover to the Moros. In 1977, Kuala Lumpur sponsored the MNLF’s unprecedented inclusion in the OIC as a permanent observer. This was the first time a non-state actor had achieved this status and by some interpretations it was a violation of the organization’s charter.35 The motion passed but this marked the high water mark for Misuari’s group. Internal divisions began to tear apart the MNLF’s central committee prompting its Middle Eastern supporters to back different factions in accordance with their own inter-Arab squabbles.36 The organization splintered into competing groups; the most significant of which was the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) under Hashim Salamat.37 Reflecting this turbulence, external support (including arms)

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decreased to the point that in early 1978, President Marcos declared that the flow of guns had not been significant for “some time”.38 As Hashim’s religion-centric MILF began to overshadow its parent organization, direct support to Misuari’s more secular MNLF dwindled. Membership in the OIC was now vital; throughout the 1980s and 1990s, any remaining support given to Misuari’s group was a direct result of its status in the OIC rather than of any political or military credibility on the part of the MNLF.39 After years of political and military decline, Misuari began negotiating with the Government of the Philippines for autonomy in 1992. The eventual agreement, signed in 1996 and still in force despite a brief 2001 rebellion led by Misuari, made official what had been apparent for years: the MNLF’s days of insurgent glory were over. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) From their exile in Lahore, Pakistan, Hashim Salamat and a core of disgruntled MNLF officers founded the “MNLFNew Leadership” in 1977. To avoid confusion they changed the group’s name to MILF in 1984. With the anti-Soviet jihad reaching a climax just across the Afghan border, those were heady times in Pakistan. It is little wonder the MILF regards its combat experience there as central to its development. The 500 to 700 fighters it sent to Afghanistan from 1980 to 1989 eventually formed the hardcore of the MILF’s military wing, valued not just for their experience in fighting a well-armed, ruthless, and modern enemy, but also for their more “complete understanding of Islam”.40 The mujahidin’s victory over the Soviets added the weight

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of success to Islamic causes around the world and, with the MILF’s Islamic credentials sufficiently strengthened, the Moro cause drew powerful new sponsors. Among them was a rich Saudi named Osama bin Laden who found the religious MILF more worthy of support than the secular MNLF. The MILF’s connections to Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda and other jihadi groups were critical in the face of waning support from Muslim governments. Bin Laden’s brotherin-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, actively facilitated arms shipments to the Moros as early as 1988. Like his infamous brother-in-law, Khalifa grew disillusioned with the MNLF’s secular vision and peace talks with Manila. The growing portion of Al Qaeda support (mostly in arms and training) destined for the MILF and Abu Sayyaf Group,41 both of which used Khalifa’s money to import weapons from Sabah, reflected a growing indifference of religious militants towards the MNLF.42 During the 1990s, guns poured into Mindanao from every corner of the globe. In 1992, the scale of black arms shipments to the Moros attracted the world’s foremost arms smugglers, including the infamous Viktor Bout, who reportedly delivered at least one shipment of Libyan arms to Mindanao.43 The market was so big that even Colombian drug lords sent guns there.44 MILF armaments came from Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Cambodia, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Libya, North Korea, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia (Sabah) with additional transit points in Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Myanmar (Figure 3.1).45 By the time Nur Misuari and the MNLF reached a peace agreement with Manila in 1996, Hashim

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and the MILF felt secure enough to continue fighting alone. With 11,000 to 12,000 men under arms, they sat atop an enormous black arms trade and controlled roughly ten per cent of Mindanao and large parts of the Sulu archipelago.46 Control of territory allowed large arms shipments to become routine. In 1999 alone, ten such shipments reached Mindanao’s shores from Sabah.47 Fighting between Manila and the MILF stagnated for five years in a cycle of stalemate, ceasefire, reconciliation, abrogation, and renewed fighting. The MILF used this time to build its capabilities through joint training with regional and global jihadi groups. MILF fighters attended training camps in Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere while numerous foreigners (mostly Arabs and Indonesians) served as guest instructors at MILF camps in Mindanao.48 These outsiders brought unconventional skills to the previously conventional Moro fighters. Surveillance, counter-surveillance, document forgery, and bomb-making were all taught at the MILF’s Abu Bakar camp complex.49 Seeking to take advantage of their new abilities, the MILF established a terrorist arm, the Special Operations Group (SOG) in 1999.50 SOG’s terrorist actions were partly responsible for convincing President Joseph Estrada’s Philippine Government to press the offensive against the MILF in 2000. The subsequent loss of the Abu Bakar complex splintered the MILF’s security, temporarily disrupted the demand side of the Sulu Arms Market, and strained the smuggling links to Sabah.51 Estrada’s ouster in May 2001 brought a change of policy and an immediate end to the fighting in Mindanao. An official ceasefire, later known as the Tripoli agreement (not to be confused with the Philippines-MNLF Tripoli

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agreement of 1976), followed in July of that year. Splintered and exhausted, the MILF turned towards political means to achieve their objectives, entering into peace talks with Manila and unity talks with Misuari.52 Despite suspicion that the MILF was again using the respite to rearm, there is evidence that demand for firearms generally decreased throughout the region after the Tripoli agreement was signed.53 Whatever the real intentions of the MILF, it is certain that the situation in Mindanao stabilized somewhat from 2001 until July of 2008. Every gun-runner knows that peace is bad for business. Fortunately for them, the MILF was not the last Moro rebel group left standing. The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) In the early 1980s, a young Moro fighter by the name of Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani made his way to Afghanistan where he befriended Osama bin Laden. A graduate of Islamic universities in Syria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia, Janjalani and his younger brother Khaddafy were natural leaders among Moro recruits training for jihad in Pakistan. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, Janjalani committed himself to waging jihad in his home country. To that end he formed the Al Harakat Al Islamiya, which he later renamed the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in honour of one of his trainers. Janjalani’s association with Bin Laden made the Basilan native a natural point of contact for Khalifa when he travelled to Mindanao to establish a foothold for Al Qaeda.54 Khalifa gave the ASG large amounts of money and provided them with additional training. He supplied the

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group with weaponry and connected Janjalani with men like Ramzi Yousef and Wali Khan Amin Shah, elites among Al Qaeda’s terrorist cadre. Small in number and heavily populated with Afghan veterans, the ASG went into action within months. Between 1991 and 1996, they conducted sixty-seven terrorist attacks in the Philippines and played supporting roles in separate Al Qaeda plots to bomb eleven U.S. airliners over the Pacific and to assassinate Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton.55 Appealing to the global network of criminals and Islamic terrorists in a way that the more politically-minded MILF did not, the ASG gained in notoriety. In addition to direct support from the governments of Iraq and Iran, the Abu Sayyaf also benefited from the largesse of Hamas, Jemaah Islamiya (JI), the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HuM), Kumpulan Mujahedin Malaysia (KMM), Egyptian and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Chechen Islamists, a number of Thai Islamist groups, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the Islamic Army of Aden, and the 14K Triad from Hong Kong.56 The ASG’s ability to attract this diverse and dangerous group of benefactors presented a threat beyond the relatively small number of fighters Janjalani could actually mobilize.57 By the year 2000, the ASG’s arsenal had an estimated value of US$2 million;58 at roughly US$5,000 per fighter, this rivals the armaments of the world’s most elite special operations forces. Unfortunately for the ASG, their success in terrorism is also the reason for their decline. In response to ASG atrocities, the AFP and the Philippine National Police (PNP) launched a concerted offensive that resulted in the killing

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of Abdurajak Janjalani in 1998. From that day, the Abu Sayyaf Group seemed to lose its earlier ideological focus on waging jihad in favour of profit-driven criminality. They entered into a period of pure gangsterism characterized by protection rackets, extortion, drug dealing, and, most notably, kidnapping for ransom. In April 2000, they famously invaded Malaysian waters and kidnapped twenty-five tourists, mostly westerners, from a dive resort on Sipadan Island. The backlash this drew from all sides was as surprising as it was significant. It motivated the governments of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia to take concrete steps to cooperate against transnational crime, particularly arms trafficking. What hurt the ASG even more, however, was that the Sipadan raid finally drove away any remaining Muslim supporters that backed the group when it still had religious aspirations.59 As damaging as this was, the ASG did not seem to realize its mistake. Poised to expand following a ransom deal for the Sipadan hostages (successfully brokered by none other than Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi), the ASG could not seem to capitalize on its new found wealth; the group’s membership rapidly dwindled to 200–400 regulars.60 While there were some initial reports from the black arms market that ASG’s new wealth was driving up prices, most of the estimated US$15–US$20 million they received in ransom payments had mysteriously disappeared.61 Although accusations against Malaysia and Libya continue to come from various quarters, there is a general consensus that by 2001 there was very little evidence of external support for the ASG. Despite this decline, the United States continued with its plans to deploy advisers to Mindanao to assist the AFP to defeat the Abu Sayyaf.

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With their reputation destroyed and their erstwhile allies the MILF and the MNLF observing separate peace agreements with Manila, the thoroughly depleted ASG was left alone to fight the combined weight of the AFP, the PNP, and the American 1st Special Forces Group. The ASG was caught in a perfect storm. The Sulu Arms Market they depended upon was atrophied by six years of relative peace between other Moro groups and Manila. In addition, the ASG’s criminal antics courted the scorn of their Islamic benefactors and the wrath of regional governments. Worse yet, Abu Sayyaf had attracted the ire of America, which deployed the very same commandos that had so recently hunted down the ASG’s Al Qaeda heroes in Afghanistan. The efforts of the American Green Berets began to pay off rather quickly, increasing the professionalism of the AFP and their ability to combine operations with their American counterparts. It seemed the end was near for the Abu Sayyaf but this otherwise positive outcome had an unexpected consequence: the capture or killing of so many of the ASG’s factional leaders in 2002 enabled Khaddafy Janjalani to consolidate his control over the group. He brought the ASG back to its Islamic roots and by 2004, had combined forces with JI in a new wave of terrorist violence62 that culminated in the worst terrorist attack in maritime history; the bombing of Superferry 14 in the Manila Bay.63 The response was predictable. The AFP led a series of assaults against the ASG that coincided with a corresponding push in several neighbouring countries against JI. An ongoing AFP offensive, Operation Ultimatum, claimed the lives of Khaddafy Janjalani and other ASG notables in 2007, further weakening the organization. Lacking effective leadership

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and logistics, the ASG had no choice but to melt away into the population. This time-tested insurgent defence technique has brought the pursuing AFP into increasing contact with MILF garrisons in Muslim towns. These clashes, the result of an increasing amalgamation of the MILF, ASG, MNLF, and other Moro groups, threaten to unravel the Tripoli agreement and ongoing peace talks with Manila.64 With the ASG on the ropes, and frustration with the peace process growing within the ranks of the MILF, terrorism is gaining in importance in the violence wracked Philippines. Accordingly, a rising demand for explosives suggests the Moro struggle is transcending its traditional preference for firearms. Although there seems to be little evidence that advances in terrorist bomb-making and tactics developed in fighting elsewhere are reaching Mindanao, the technology and tactics are improving and the potential certainly exists. The proliferation of such tactics and technologies from Afghanistan does indeed affect the nearby insurgency in southern Thailand, long thought to be a factor in the Sulu Arms Market.65 Should those advances migrate to Mindanao, the Sulu Arms Market will certainly be ready to meet the demand. In addition to a demonstrated ability of terrorists to secure large quantities of explosives from sources in nearby Cebu (JI terrorist Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi acquired 1,000 kilogrammes of TNT there in 2000),66 new sources are emerging from some surprising sectors. Responding to rising food and oil prices in September 2008, the Arroyo administration announced a programme of subsidies for petrochemical fertilizers manufactured and sold in the Visayas.67 Subsidized markets notorious for attracting opportunistic buyers with pure profit motives will almost certainly result

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in an even wider distribution of these explosive precursor chemicals on the black market in the southern Philippines. Leakage of military grade high explosives from the AFP is also a problem. In April 2008, two bombs fashioned from 60 mm and 81 mm mortar shells exploded outside a church and a cafe in Zamboanga City.68 Their use is especially troubling because mortar shells can be used as medium range indirect fire weapons in accordance with their design. The problem is not confined to the Philippines. Demolitions from Malaysian military stocks in Sabah have been leaking in small quantities for years.69 This source, which is not known to support anything more malevolent than local dynamite fishing, is nevertheless troubling when one considers the great advantage in effectiveness terrorists could achieve by using high-powered blasting caps rather than improvised detonators. Lastly, there are reports of detonators and explosives coming from sources in India.70 While Indian-made detonators have long been in common use in the region, explosives from that country are a new phenomenon. The presence of weaponry from a non-Muslim country west of Singapore is a new trend in the modern Sulu Arms Market. In the past, Malaysian and Indonesian political alignments acted as a filter for non-Muslim sourced weaponry transiting the Strait of Malacca. If the Indian source is a reality, it suggests a previously absent criminal or governmental element. The Criminals The criminal element makes up a significant part of the Sulu Arms Market. There are three categories of criminal

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involved in the market: the ant traders, local gangsters and politicians, and transnational syndicates. The Ant Traders Ant traders are both suppliers and consumers. They are overwhelmingly Sulu or Sabah natives whose families have exchanged trade of all sorts for centuries. They see no significance to the border apart from the modest profits they can make by buying a gun on one side and selling it for twice the price on the other. While the ant trade is useful for the transfer of small arms, ammunition is its primary cargo.71 In the Sulu Market, much of the ammunition is acquired and trafficked through ant trading from Malaysia where licensed Sabahan purchasers will sell a portion of their personal allocation of bullets onto the black market for a profit. Simple control measures enacted by the Malaysian Government made this more difficult but failed to eliminate it.72 Local Gangsters and Politicians Influential Filipino businessmen and politicians play a much more visible role in the Sulu Arms Market than the ant traders. They are primarily arms consumers, stockpiling enormous arsenals which do more for their prestige than their security. The myth of Filipino gun culture offers them increased status for increased firepower and protects them from weak laws designed to regulate gun ownership. This win-win scenario creates overwhelming temptation for the rich to display standing armies with enormous

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arsenals.73 When these politicians and businessmen also identify themselves as either leftist, Moro, or Christian, the lines between criminality, politics, and terrorism become extremely blurred. This not-so-uniquely Filipino tendency is more noticeable during election season when tribe-centric politicians, mostly in Mindanao, the Visayas, and Central Luzon are busy consolidating their base; an activity which in the Philippines is synonymous with kidnapping, assassination, and disappearances.74 This armed influence peddling invites the involvement of unaffiliated gangs like the Al Khobar and Pentagon Gangs which can provide a deniable result to politicians for the right price. Staffed with “former” MILF, MNLF, or ASG fighters, these gangs provide combat experience and continuity with the ongoing insurgency; a fact that amplifies the threat posed by their relatively small numbers.75 The problem has become so disruptive that the government now enforces a total ban on carrying firearms during election periods.76 Organized Crime Syndicates Organized crime represents the final category of criminal group involved in the Sulu Arms Market. Syndicates like Inagawa-Kai Yakuza from Tokyo/Yokohama, 14K Triad from Hong Kong, and some Taiwanese gangs all play a unique role in the Sulu traffic.77 Unlike the ant traders, who are in it for the profit, or the politicians, who do it for the power, agents of these syndicates are primarily logisticians for their bosses in the Far East. For them, the Sulu Market is (mostly) a source. The ant trade cannot assure them the volume and

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quality of merchandise required for their activities. Neither can bulk deliveries because such deliveries require control of large secure areas. Instead, gangsters prefer moderatelysized shipments that can be camouflaged physically or through bureaucratic sleight of hand. In one typical example of a gangland transfer in 1999, a PNP general diverted to a friend’s dealership seventy-two guns intended for the Philippine Marine Corps. Only fourteen of the missing guns were recovered; six of which were captured at sea enroute to Taiwan. Charges were eventually filed against the officer but not before he was given a substantial promotion.78 The Taiwanese and Japanese gangs overwhelmingly prefer guns made in illegal factories in Danao City and Mandaue on the island of Cebu. These guns, known locally as paltik, are mostly counterfeits of proven western models. Reflecting a Japanese demand for quality, some paltiks from Cebu are so good they cannot be easily distinguished from the real thing. So great is the Yakuza thirst for these knockoffs that they have actually transferred noted paltik craftsmen to Japan to service their arsenals. Japan considers the problem serious enough to warrant significant efforts at bilateral cooperation with Filipino police.79 Although neither Taiwanese nor Japanese gangs contribute directly to the Sulu Market per se (both use more northerly air and sea smuggling routes),80 the paltik industry which they support certainly does.81 While all of these syndicates come from countries which are effectively policed, especially with regard to firearms, the similarities end there. The arms traffic from the 14K Triad actually flows in the opposite direction. It is suspected that 14K has supplied weapons to the ASG in exchange for

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shabu, a Southeast Asian methamphetamine.82 The ability of a Chinese gang to provide a useful supply of firearms to a gun-hungry organization like the ASG is atypical to say the least. Without a ready supply, the profit margins on smuggled guns are just too low to make them commercially viable. In fact, this possibility is so hard to imagine, that it is not unreasonable to assume that 14K has external support from either of two possible suspects: China or North Korea. There is no hard evidence linking either China or North Korea directly to the 14K Triad, but the gang is the common thread in a string of dubious coincidences that occurred in the late 1990s. Between 1996 and 1999, Taiwanese authorities seized between 9,000 and 12,000 firearms, a truly staggering number, with an overwhelming percentage of these manufactured in mainland China. Taiwanese intelligence suspects that in an effort to destabilize Taiwan, China supplies these firearms to local triads, including 14K, by an indirect routing through Malaysia and the southern Philippines. This accusation coincided closely with the first appearance of Sabahan guns in Taiwan and followed a 1995 crackdown by Chinese authorities that pushed a lot of arms trafficking from their southern provinces to 14K’s hometown, Hong Kong.83 For its part, cash-strapped North Korea has long used front companies in Hong Kong to make black arms sales that supplement its intelligence operations with either cash or information.84 Notes   1. Angel Rabasa et al., eds., Ungoverned Territories: Understanding and Reducing Terrorism Risks (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2007), pp. xvi–xviii.

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  2 “Kiram Sultan’s Genealogy”, n.p.: Royal Hashemite Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo/Sabah, 2006 (accessed 26 March 2009). Sultan Jamal-ul-Azam is also known as Sultan Jamalul Ahlam and Sultan Jamal-ul-Azam Kiram.   3. Nicholas Tarling, Sulu and Sabah: A Study of British Policy Towards the Philippines and North Borneo from the Late Eighteenth Century (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 108, 119, and 129.   4. See Steven Ching, “So Much More to Sandakan”, The Star, 30 August 2008; and Tarling, Sulu and Sabah, pp. 131, 137, and 140. The smuggling routes were developed separately by the men in response to a Spanish blockade of Sulu imposed in 1873 and based on a trade restriction announced in 1860. Schück had a trading base in Sandakan and an exclusive monopoly on rotan trading there given to him by the Sultan of Sulu in 1873. His existing trade routes through Sulu became the basis for a cluster of smuggling routes after imposition of the blockade. Cowie’s route cluster emanated from Labuan initially and later from Sandakan as he too received trading concessions from the Sultan. The governments of Great Britain and Germany supported Cowie and Schück’s actions because continuing trade with Sulu challenged Spanish claims of sovereignty over the archipelago and North Borneo.   5. Tarling, Sulu and Sabah, p. 52.   6. Ibid., pp. 119 and 158.   7. See After Activity Report of the 3rd Multilateral Maritime Security Conference Held in Cebu, Republic of the Philippines on 27–29 August 2007 (Honolulu, HI: Asia Pacific Security Forum [APSF] Inc., 2007), p. 12; and Tarling, Sulu and Sabah, pp. 298–99. The 1907 Treaty between the United States and Sulu was endorsed by the British Foreign

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84

  8.   9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

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Office. The agreement was a lasting one; to this day it is recognized by Malaysia as the basis for their border with the Philippines. Charles A. Byler, “Pacifying the Moros: American Military Government in the Southern Philippines, 1899–1913”, Military Review 85, no. 3 (May–June 2005): 44. Thayil Jacob Sony George, Revolt in Mindanao: The Rise of Islam in Philippine Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 66–67. Ibid., p. 231. See Noel Barber, The War of the Running Dogs (London: Cassell Military Paperbacks, 2004), pp. 68–71; and George, Revolt in Mindanao, pp. 137–38. See David Capie, Small Arms Production and Transfers in Southeast Asia (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2002), pp. 100–101; David Capie, “Trading the Tools of Terror: Armed Groups and Light Weapons Proliferation in Southeast Asia”, in Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability, edited by Paul J. Smith (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2005), p. 193; and Robert E. Bedeski, Andrew Andersen, and Santo Darmosumarto, Small Arms Trade and Proliferation in East Asia: Southeast Asia and the Russian Far East (Vancouver: Institute of International Relations, University of British Colombia, 1998), p. 8. Christina Wille, How Many Weapons are there in Cambodia? (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2006), p. 28. Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror (New Delhi: Viva Books, 2005), p. 90. Felipe L. Rojas, PCTC Paper on Terrorism (Manila: Philippine Center for Transnational Crime [PCTC], 1999)

(accessed 11 August 2008), p. 5.

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16. Ibid. 17. See Lela Gardner Noble, “The Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines”, Pacific Affairs 49, no. 3 (Autumn 1976): 413; and George, Revolt in Mindanao, pp. 196–98. A Tausug from Sulu, Misuari began his political career as a student activist at the University of the Philippines in Manila where he became an influential leader among Moro students. His early political convictions were drawn from Marxism and he was in fact a founding member of the Kabataang Makabayang, a group associated with the NPA. By 1966, however, a falling out with fellow Marxists led Misuari to focus his energies on the plight of Muslims in particular rather than on the more general distress of the oppressed proletariat. His timely transformation allowed him to take advantage of an Islamization of the Moro struggle in the 1970s. 18. Noble, “The MNLF”, pp. 406–407. 19. Ibid., p. 408. 20. See Wan Kadir Che Man, Muslim Separatism: The Moros of Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 74–75; Ricardo A. David, Jr., “The Causes and Prospect of the Southern Philippines Secessionist Movement”, M.Arts Thesis (Monterey, CA: United States Naval Postgraduate School, 2003), pp. 61–62; and George, Revolt in Mindanao, p. 123. 21. The term “Confrontation” used here refers to the Indonesian military intervention directed against the newly formed Malaysian state in its eastern territories on the island of Borneo. Known by its Indonesian name, Konfrontasi, the conflict raged from 1963 to 1965 before a coup in Indonesia brought an end to the policy. 22. See Moshe Yegar, Between Integration and Secession: The Muslim Communities of the Southern Philippines, Southern

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86

23.

24.

25. 26. 27.

28.

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Thailand, and Western Burma/Myanmar (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002), pp. 253–54; and Che Man, Muslim Separatism, pp. 138–39. See Correspondent, “Philippines: Who’s Backing the Muslim Rebels?” Far Eastern Economic Review 8, no. 12, 25 March 1974, p. 12; Lela Gardner Noble, “Ethnicity and PhilippineMalaysian Relations”, Asian Survey 15, no. 5, May 1975, p. 464; and Che Man, Muslim Separatism, pp. 138–40. See Noble, “The MNLF”, p. 413; and George, Revolt in Mindanao, pp. 227–28. A Maguindanao from Cotabato, Salamat was the scion of a politically powerful family and represented a link for Misuari to the political structures of southwestern Mindanao. Together with Abdul Khayer Alonto, a similarly connected Maranao from Lanao del Sur, the three represented a union of the three major Muslim tribal groups in western Mindanao and Sulu. This development became a security problem for the Philippines after the three received guerilla warfare training in Malaysia. George, Revolt in Mindanao, pp. 200–201. Yegar, Between Integration, p. 281. See George, Revolt in Mindanao, pp. 199–200. Misuari’s early Marxist leanings continued to manifest themselves in his policies despite the fact that he denounced communism while still in university. As for his Sulu nationalism, as recently as 24 May 2008, Misuari joined with the Sultan of Sulu to threaten a war of “self defense” against Malaysia if Sabah is not returned. His speech at a rally in Davao City, Mindanao is publicized on the Sultan’s website at, “Support of the MNLF”, Royal Hashemite Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo/Sabah, 2006 (accessed 31 March 2009). See Yegar, Between Integration, p. 255; and Noble, “Ethnicity”, p. 458.

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29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45.

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87

Yegar, Between Integration, pp. 281–82. Noble, “The MNLF”, pp. 410–11. Yegar, Between Integration, p. 256. George, Revolt in Mindanao, pp. 235–36. Yegar, Between Integration, p. 271. Che Man, Muslim Separatism, p. 140. The Organization of Islamic Conferences, Final Declaration of the Eighth Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers, 1997 (accessed 7 July 2008). George, Revolt in Mindanao, p. 262. Abuza, Militant Islam, p. 115 n3. George, Revolt in Mindanao, p. 260. This is significant because the OIC is typically averse to supporting the irredentist ambitions of minority groups within the Muslim world. This stems from the fact that many of the OIC’s member states have longstanding difficulties with their own minorities and do not wish to set a precedent of OIC intervention. Thus, the organization’s support for the MNLF is less likely to include significant amounts of arms than similar support given directly by member states. Abuza, Militant Islam, pp. 90–91. Ibid., pp. 91–94. Peter Chalk, “Al Qaeda and its Links to Terrorist Groups in Asia”, in The New Terrorism: Anatomy, Trends, and CounterStrategies, edited by Andrew Tan and Kumar Ramakrishna (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2002), p. 114. Abuza, Militant Islam, p. 101. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed — and How to Stop It (Chicago: Bonus Books, 2005), p. 157. See Zachary Abuza, “Funding Terrorism in Southeast Asia: The Financial Network of Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah”,

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88

46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

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NBR Analysis 14, no. 5 (December 2003): 52; Anthony Davis, “Philippine Security Threatened by Small Arms Proliferation”, Jane’s Intelligence Review 15, no. 8 (August 2003); Marco Garrido, “Philippines: Crazy about Guns”, Asia Times Online, 21 January 2003 (accessed 4 July 2008); Peter Chalk, “Light Arms Trading in SE Asia”, Jane’s Intelligence Review, 1 March 2001; Merliza M. Makinano and Alfredo Lubang, Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration: The Mindanao Experience (Ottawa: International Security Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada, 2001), p. 19; Andy WebbVidal and Anthony Davis, “Lords of War: Running the Arms Trafficking Industry”, Jane’s Intelligence Review 20, no. 5 (May 2008); Abuza, Militant Islam, p. 90; Capie, Small Arms, p. 75; and Wille, How Many Weapons?, p. 28. Abuza, Militant Islam, pp. 44–46. Alberto Rama Olario, “Current Situation of Transnational Organized Crime in the Philippines”, in Work Product of the 108th International Seminar: Current Problems in the Combat of Organized Transnational Crime (Tokyo: United Nations Asia and Far East Institute (UNAFEI) for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, 1998), p. 174. Ken Conboy, The Second Front: Inside Asia’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Network (Jakarta: Equinox Publishing, 2006), pp. 68–69. See Abuza, Militant Islam, p. 138; and Conboy, The Second Front, pp. 69 and 79–80. Abuza, Militant Islam, p. 100. Conboy, The Second Front, p. 79. Abuza, Militant Islam, pp. 46–47. See Zachary Abuza, “The Philippine Peace Process: Too

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54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66.

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89

Soon to Claim a Settlement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front?” The Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies Research Briefing Series 3, no. 3 (February 2008): 7; and Webb-Vidal and Davis, “Lords of War”, n.p. Abuza, Militant Islam, pp. 99–101. See Zachary Abuza, “Al-Qaeda Comes to Southeast Asia”, in Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability, edited by Paul J. Smith (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2005), p. 52; Chalk, “Al Qaeda Links”, p. 113; Abuza, Militant Islam, pp. 100– 101; and Rojas, PCTC Paper on Terrorism, p. 9. See Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil, pp. 167–68; and Rojas, PCTC Paper on Terrorism, p. 10. Chalk, “Al Qaeda Links”, p. 107. Abuza, Militant Islam, pp. 113–14. Ibid., pp. 111–13. Capie, Small Arms, p. 78. Abuza, Militant Islam, pp. 113–14. Zachary Abuza, “The Demise of the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Southern Philippines”, CTC Sentinel 1, no. 7 (June 2008): 10. Michael D. Greenberg et al., eds., Maritime Terrorism: Risk and Liability (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2006), p. 22. Abuza, “Demise of ASG”, p. 10. Joseph Chinyong Liow, Muslim Resistance in Southern Thailand and Southern Philippines: Religion, Ideology, and Politics (Washington DC: East-West Center Washington, 2006), p. 46. See Paul A. Rodell, “The Philippines and the Challenge of International Terrorism”, in Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability, edited by Paul J. Smith (Armonk, NY:

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90

67.

68. 69. 70. 71.

72.

73. 74.

The Sulu Arms Market

Sharpe, 2005), p. 135; Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (2nd Ed.) (London: Hurst, 2003), p. 192; and Abuza, Militant Islam, p. 137. “D.A. Working to Meet Palay Target This Wet Crop in Support of PGMA’s SONA Goal to Hike Rice Output” (Cebu: Department of Agriculture, 1 September 2008) (accessed 22 October 2008). Abuza, “Demise of ASG”, p. 11. Author’s conversation with a regional intelligence official, ca. September 2008. Author’s conversation with Police Senior Superintendant Napoleon R. Estilles, Chief of the Directorial Staff, PNP Maritime Group, 13 January 2009. Mike Bourne and Ilhan Berkol, “Deadly Diversions: Illicit Transfers of Ammunition for Small Arms and Light Weapons”, in Targeting Ammunition: A Primer, edited by Stéphanie Pézard and Holger Anders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 105 and 111. Author’s conversation with a regional intelligence officer, ca. September 2008. See also Bong Garcia, “Military Intercepts Firearm Shipment in Zambo Wharf”, Sun.Star Zamboanga Online, 15 March 2007 (accessed 4 July 2008). There is constant evidence in regional newspapers of ant trading in firearms. This anecdote is particularly informative because it gives an indication of scope and methods. George, Revolt in Mindanao, p. 137. See “Illegal Guns Flourish in the Trigger-Happy Philippines”, Taipei Times Online, 8 December 2003 (accessed 4 July 2008);

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75.

76.

77.

78.

79.

03 SuluArmsMkt.indd 91

91

George, Revolt in Mindanao, pp. 138–40; and Garrido, “Crazy About Guns”. See Zachary Abuza, “Criminal Gangs in the Southern Philippines”, Jane’s Intelligence Digest, 10 April 2008

(accessed 31 March 2009); and Davis, “Philippine Security”, n.p. Republic of the Philippines 2008 Integrated National Report on the Implementation of the International Tracing Instrument and of the Small Arms and Light Weapons Program of Action (Manila: Government of the Republic of the Philippines, 2008) (accessed 11 August 2008), p. 6. See “High-Level Yakuza Held on Suspicion of GunSmuggling”, Japan Times Online, 22 August 2006 (accessed 4 July 2008); “Illegal Guns”, Taipei Times Online, 8 December 2003; and Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil, p. 168. See Romie A. Evangelista, “Documents: PNP Officers Work with Gun Smugglers”, Manila Standard Today Online, 5 March 2007 (accessed 4 July 2008); Romie A. Evangelista, “RP, Japan Cops Tackle Gun Smuggling”, Manila Standard Today Online, 12 March 2007 (accessed 4 July 2008); and “Sandigan Orders Arrest of Ex-Marines Chief, 7 Others over Case of Missing Firearms”, GMA News.TV, 7 February 2008 (accessed 29 July 2008). Evangelista, “RP, Japan Cops”.

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80. See Illicit Trafficking and Manufacturing of Firearms: Philippine Context (Manila: Philippine Center on Transnational Crime [PCTC], n.d.) (accessed 2 August 2008), pp. 6–7; and “Filipino Gunsmiths Are Making a Killing”, Taipei Times Online, 7 May 2005 (accessed 4 July 2008). 81. Makinano and Lubang, Disarmament, p. 14. 82. Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil, p. 168. 83. Elli Kytömäki and Valerie Yankey-Wayne, Five Years of Implementing the United Nations Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons: Regional Analysis of National Reports, UNIDIR/2006/6 (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2006), pp. 99–100. 84. “DPRK Said to Smuggle Weapons into Southeast Asian Countries”, Tong-A-Ilbo, 11 September 1996.

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4 Supply and Demand in the Sulu Arms Market

Illegal arms pipelines around the world tend to be dualdirectional, meaning they are both a source and a destination for guns from other markets. The Sulu Arms Market is no different. Its ratio of exports to imports ebbs and flows with political events in conflict zones like Mindanao, but while the balance of trade is traditionally (and currently) in favour of imports, it is not immutable. During several years of relative peace between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the early part of this decade for instance, exports actually gained ground on imports. Exports from the Sulu market to other parts of Southeast Asia as well as to niche markets in Northeast Asia went up as increasing numbers of Moro fighters occupied themselves with more peaceful pursuits.1 The Demand Side: Routes On the whole, the Sulu Arms Market is a net importer and always has been. Illicit commodities of every variety flow into its dark markets through countless clandestine supply lines. Its rugged and remote coastlines, hidden coves,

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mangrove swamps, and coastal shanty towns provide endless shelters for rogues of every ilk: pirates, terrorists, drug smugglers, slave traders, kidnappers, bird’s nest poachers, and of course gun-runners. Sulu is a remote area; it does not lend itself easily to the large scale, organized smuggling operations common in places like Hong Kong or Miami. In Sulu, one finds a more diffuse and therefore intractable form of trafficking enabled by centuries of entrenched smuggling “culture”. The word “smuggling” implies movement of goods across a boundary in contravention of laws or established norms. In the Western mind, and that of the recognized governments in the region, the very existence of the state is dependent on the inviolability of these lines on the map. Most Sulu traffickers, ant traders mostly, have never fully recognized the boundaries imposed upon them by outsiders nor do they see any moral argument for or against their activities. In their minds there is little reason to make a distinction between themselves and their relatives and friends on either side of an arbitrary line, especially when that distinction threatens their ability to make a living. They do not see any wrongdoing in smuggling so they view coastguards and police as nothing more than obstacles to be bypassed. The smuggling “culture” is important because of the ubiquity it brings to the movement of illicit and illegal goods. With virtually everyone in a given community transporting goods and avoiding customs, it is a certainty that a great deal of those goods will pass undetected. Evidence of this can be seen on a map of known ports of entry for arms in the Sulu region (see Figure 4.1). Their spatial distribution spans the

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entire perimeter of Mindanao, Palawan, every major island in the Sulu archipelago, and the east and west coasts of Sabah.2 Tellingly, the Sabahan ports coincide closely with large communities of illegal Filipino immigrants. Gun-running routes between ports are diverse and flexible; when one is blocked, another will emerge. In the Sulu region, innumerable beaches, coves, caves, and islands make it impossible to list or label the individual routes. It is therefore preferable to group the specific routes into three generalized route clusters. These route clusters are inherently dual-directional. For reasons of clarity, however, diagrams and descriptions of arms flows in this study generally depict traffic in only one direction. The Maluku Route Cluster The Maluku route cluster offers the most direct connection between Mindanao and points south (see Figure 4.2). For this reason it is the primary gateway through which Filipino weapons reach conflicts in East and West Timor, Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya, and perhaps also Micronesia.3 The route begins in Davao, Digos, or General Santos City in the southern reaches of Mindanao and passes across the Celebes Sea with stops at Sangihe or Talaud Islands before it terminates in Manado in North Sulawesi, or Ambon or Ternate in the Maluku.4 This route, used mostly as an export line to communal conflicts in Sulawesi and the Maluku, is the least active because the distances involved make it inaccessible to ant traders. The long transit forces transporters to use a larger proportion of available cargo space for fuel and water

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and tempts them to make larger, more easily detectable shipments to cover much smaller profit margins. The intensity of the communal conflict there, and the money involved, underscore that the Maluku route is only viable for larger-scale operations. Reflecting this, the Indonesian Navy complained in 2000 that arms fueling the conflict were being shipped from Mindanao to Ambon by large ships and even helicopters.5 The Palawan Route Cluster The Palawan route cluster is primarily used to connect Sabah’s northern reaches directly to Manila and points north (see Figure 4.3). There are anecdotes of smuggled guns crossing the Sulu Sea between Palawan’s east coast and Mindanao, but the same factors that limit volume in the Maluku route also limit direct traffic from Palawan. Most traffic through Palawan starts in Labuan or Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, where guns and shabu are shipped to a transporter in Kudat on the extreme northeastern-most point of Borneo. From there goods are moved by a small fleet of ferries and fishing boats to North Mangsee Island, South Mangsee Island, Sibugo, or Balabac for onward shipment to Rio Tuba or other ports on the Palawan coast.6 The many stops correspond to the spheres of influence of the personalities involved. The facilitator in Kudat, a man by the name of Haji Andres, connects consumers and suppliers in Malaysia to distribution networks managed by the Mayor of Balabac (and known MILF supporter), Shuaiv Astami, who pushes the goods on to Manila through a string of associates.7

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Mayor Astami provides a typical profile of a broker in the Sulu Arms Market. In July 2008, he received a shipment of twenty paltik revolvers from Danao City, Cebu, through Rio Tuba, Palawan. The guns were then hidden in an ice chest and transported by local banca boat to Balabac before moving to a residence owned by Astami on Mangsee Island. The final destination of the guns is unknown but Astami’s relationships in Sabah suggest that that is where they were headed.8 The Sulu Route Cluster The Sulu route cluster is the natural link between Sabah and Mindanao and carries the vast majority of trade between the two. The diversity of routes, markets, and transporters has some important effects on the market as a whole. Firstly, the geography of the Sulu archipelago enables smuggling by a series of short trips rather than requiring one long one. With small markets available at every stop, the movement of commodities on the Sulu route can be carried out by an army of small-time transporters. The lack of a centre of gravity or any identifiable concentrations in the supply chain means the disruption of one transporter will not significantly affect the overall supply. Secondly, the absence of bottlenecks in the system cushions the market from fluctuations that plague more centrally managed logistics chains. These facts, which traffickers have exploited for centuries, complicate an already difficult enforcement task. In colonial times smugglers were able to avoid Spanish enforcement units by using a very simple system of runners and visual signals. When the Spanish blockaded Jolo for example, signalers used fires to divert deliveries to Maimbung on the other side

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of the island.9 If the Spanish found themselves incapable of keeping pace with the simple communications of the smugglers two hundred years ago, it stands to reason that enforcement has only grown more complicated in the age of cellular telephones. The location of the Sulu archipelago makes it a critical gateway for guns entering the Sulu Arms Market. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Malaysia has in the past acted as a filter for guns transiting the Strait of Malacca. Few guns from west of Singapore can reach Sulu’s arms bazaars without some accommodation with either the Malaysian Government or relevant non-state actors in Sabah. This predetermines that guns entering Sulu from west of the strait will be distributed in partial accordance with the political interests and social tendencies of Kuala Lumpur. While this does not prove official Malaysian complicity in the arms trade, it follows a global pattern of cultural sameness in arms trading where cultural connections are critical for closing deals.10 In Sulu, Muslim brokers supply Moro fighters. Routes in the Sulu cluster emanate almost exclusively from Sandakan and its surrounding areas (see Figure 4.4). This is somewhat counterintuitive as Sandakan is actually farther from the Sulu archipelago than other Sabahan ports like Tawau, but there are some important reasons why the vast majority of illicit traffic through Sulu comes from Sandakan. The most important is that Sandakan was the administrative centre of the Sulu Sultanate in Sabah. The Sultanate’s territory, which was the result of encroachment on the Sultanate of Brunei, did not encompass the southern part of modern-day Sabah.11 In fact, the areas around Tawau and Lahad Datu had stronger familial and trading ties with

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another sultanate in eastern Kalimantan than with Sulu. This reality carried over into the colonial era when William Cowie and Captain H. Schück established the modern smuggling routes. Even today, road networks in Sabah are designed in such a way that Sandakan cannot be left out of any supply chain connecting Sulu with the wider world. In a very real sense, all roads do indeed lead to Sandakan. This is the reason that any illicit journey through the Sulu route cluster must be completed in three distinct stages: from the outside world to Sandakan, from Sandakan through the Sulus, and finally distribution within Mindanao. The most active route from the outside world to Sandakan is from Indonesia. Guns and people destined for the battlefields or training camps of Mindanao will typically begin the long journey from either of two frontier islands, Sebatik or Nunukan. The proximity of the islands to the international border — no more than twenty minutes by ferry — forms a comfortable sanctuary for smugglers to await any fleeting opportunity to make the crossing. Once across, the Malaysian town of Tawau has no shortage of transient Indonesians with whom newcomers can easily blend in. The divided landmass of Sebatik presents a particularly hopeless enforcement situation as the border that runs through it is a straight line, drawn without regard for the natural contours of the terrain. The artificial split creates a thousand hiding places that would not exist with a more practical demarcation. At night, the roads connecting Sandakan to Tawau in the south and Kota Kinabalu in the north become a lawless melee of logging trucks, overcrowded long-haul buses, and smugglers hurrying to move goods to or from Sandakan

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before daybreak. The small city’s harbour and airport also have excellent infrastructure for the direct import of bulk shipments from abroad. Facilitators of Indonesian or Filipino origin hidden in the anonymous shelter of Sandakan’s immigrant ghettos, Buli Sim Sim and Pelabuhan Baru, partly manage the network of transporters that keeps the region stocked with guns.12 Compounding the enforcement problem for the police is the fact that one of the world’s largest mangrove swamps surrounds Sandakan. Fed by the Kinabatangan River and a thousand tributaries, the swamp is a labyrinth of quiet hideouts and dark escape routes. The streams and inlets that give gun-runners access to Sabah’s interior also separate the jurisdiction of the Malaysian Police Marine Operations Force (MOF)13 from that of their land-based counterparts, making it harder for either to apprehend fleeing criminals. Illustrating the difficulty posed by this terrain, in March 1964, the weeks-old Marine Branch of the Royal Malaysian Police fought a three-week battle with eleven “Sulu raiders” in and around the mangroves and islets of the Sandakan/Labuk Bay area. The fighting tied up eighteen police vessels — over half the entire strength of the MOF in Sabah.14 Using a combination of modern speedboats and motorized perahus, an armada of ant traders transports the arms from Sandakan to any one of several hubs in the Sulus before continuing on to Mindanao. Intermediate stops in Berhala and Taganak near Sandakan; Sitangkai Island; Bongao and Balambangan in Tawi-Tawi; Jolo and Maimbung in Sulu; and numerous ports in Basilan are more than just convenient rest and refueling stops for smugglers, they are also miniature arms markets themselves.15 This hyper-efficient logistics

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system, an offshoot of the traditional redistributive economy of the Sulu archipelago,16 can function without requiring any single transporter to make a long transit. It spreads inventory across the entire archipelago, enables shortages at any point to be instantly filled by surpluses in neighbouring islands, and is structurally predisposed for operational security: each link in the chain contains natural cutouts between suppliers, brokers, transporters, and consumers. Transporters can easily reach a number of ports in Mindanao from any point in the Sulu archipelago (see Figure 4.5). The busiest are Zamboanga, Cotabato, and General Santos City, but other hubs exist at Matanog and Sultan Kudarat in Shariff Kabunsuan; Agusan in Misamis Oriental; Surigao in Surigao del Norte; Digos and Davao City in Davao; Lebak and Palimbang in Sultan Kudarat; Malabang, Marawi City and Kapatagan in Lanao del Sur; Iligan City in Lanao del Norte; and Manukan in Zamboanga del Norte.17 These are gateways to end users in every corner of Mindanao, but once there transportation by road carries its own set of risks. Land routes in Mindanao offer some of the same advantages of ubiquity as the sea lanes in the Sulus, but are more vulnerable to observation and interdiction. The Demand Side: Principles and Practices The confusing matrix of routes that crisscross the Sulu Sea is a natural highway for the movement of small amounts of contraband materials. The proximity of international borders and the ubiquity of routes, ports, markets, and hiding spots certainly creates a daunting enforcement task but it is not a “sure thing” for the transporters. The challenges posed by

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law enforcement in the Sulu Sea region force traffickers there to depend on a repertoire of ingenious techniques to ensure success in their never ending quest for profits. The forces arrayed against the modern trafficker are impressive. Customs officials, border patrols, various types of police, and more recently, coastguards, armies, navies, and air forces have all joined the battle of wits against the illicit transporter. The enforcers use time-tested methods of investigation backed up by trackers, dogs, spies, and a bewildering array of high-tech tools that were science fiction just a few short years ago. The stakes are high. Uncontrolled flows of men and material represent potential threats to the health, security, and economy of the state. In response, arms traffickers employ countless methods to move their products without interference by relevant authorities. It would be impossible to describe all their secret techniques, but there are certain basic principles that the transporters of illegal commodities must follow in order to be successful. Avoidance The first principle of smuggling and most desirable technique is avoidance of authorities. Smugglers accomplish this by maintaining physical distance from prying eyes, by using speed, or with stealth. Often, a combination of the three methods is superior to using only one, but distance is the easiest to use. Transporters in the Sulu Arms Market will deliver their goods to remote locations off the beaten path or will transfer them while still at sea.18 They will often use long, meandering routes that give wide berth to population centres and police patrols. Transporters with more skill

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will drop floating packages in steady ocean currents to be anonymously recovered by someone else at a pre-calculated time and distance from the drop point.19 Those who effectively employ distance can risk larger, more regularly scheduled deliveries. Speed is another easily employed method of avoidance and is simply defined as the ability to outrun a pursuer. Coastguard officers in the tri-border countries all complain of their lack of speed relative to some transporters they encounter in the region.20 On the occasions when police boats are physically faster than their targets, wily traffickers will slip quickly across borders or into international waters. Combining speed and distance, larger freighters carrying illicit cargoes are known to transfer their cargoes to speed boats off the Sarangani Coast between Cotabato and General Santos City. The loaded speed boats quickly dash to the shore where they can easily unload onto vehicles waiting on the coastal highway. The transfers are completed in seconds.21 Using speed has some notable disadvantages however. Speedboats are not known for their cargo capacity and while the criminals seem to always have the edge in terms of speed, there is not a boat made that can outrun a police radio signal. Furthermore, the use of speed betrays nefarious intentions and alerts the paranoid instincts of the authorities; something guaranteed to negate any other efforts at avoidance. Stealth is the final, but least desired method of avoidance because it requires special skill and equipment and is notoriously dependant upon factors such as luck beyond the control of the transporter. Despite the difficulties, stealth is absolutely vital at times, especially in the last few

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hundred metres of a transit when neither distance nor speed are available options. There are anecdotes of gun-runners in the region going to extremes to achieve stealth. In 1971 a submarine reportedly delivered a shipment of arms to a beach near Iligan City.22 If true, this was almost certainly a grey market transfer but the event demonstrates that the benefits of a secure arms pipeline can indeed justify the costs of stealth. Camouflage The second principle of successful smuggling is camouflage. The word camouflage has a double meaning when used in this context; it can be accomplished through concealment or by deception. Concealment is the simple act of hiding contraband. Goods can be concealed from detection altogether or dressed up to prevent their being noticed. The small size and durability of small arms allows them to be hidden in countless places on any small vessel. Guns can be disassembled and packed with ease into gunwales, ballast tanks, and fuel bladders. In 2007, Filipino police confiscated a sack of charcoal that contained an M16 rifle.23 Whether this was concealment or deception is a matter of semantics but the fact remains that this technique has worked in the past and will work again. One concealment technique, well-suited to the crystal-clear and relatively shallow waters of the Sulu archipelago, is to place the contraband in a wooden box or frame which has been soaked long enough to make it sink. This box is then dragged behind the boat with fishing wire. If the boat is intercepted by authorities the wire is cut and the cargo sinks unobserved for possible recovery later.24

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The other method of camouflage is deception. Deception can be administrative or physical. Administrative deception is very important for large transfers where avoidance is not a reliable option. Professional transportation operations, whether on land, sea, or air, are meticulously documented for accountability and tracking purposes, yet it is this small mountain of paperwork that provides opportunities for deception. To avoid scrutiny, containers filled with guns are sometimes mislabeled as machine parts or farm equipment.25 End user certificates are forged or falsified, claiming the guns are destined for a non-existent government officer rather than the rebels that will be the true recipients of the shipment.26 Flight plans are incomplete or fictional; hiding diversions over remote drop zones or additional, unrecorded stops at rebel held airstrips.27 Pilots using this technique always seem to report being delayed by bad weather along the way. Underreporting is a particularly useful technique for diverting large shipments of ammunition. If a transporter is hired to ship twenty million rounds of white market bullets to the Philippine Army, few customs inspectors will notice the shipment actually contains twenty-two million. Once the shipment is cleared to enter the country, it is a relatively simple matter to quietly unload two million bullets onto a waiting truck. The ultimate last resort in administrative deception is to take advantage of the confusing mess of maritime and aviation law. For example, it is unclear who should be responsible for prosecuting a smuggler captured in Malaysian waters (or airspace) while piloting a Norwegian-owned vessel registered under a Liberian flag with a Burmese crew and a Chinese cargo that is insured by a British company and

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destined for a Filipino buyer. When all attempts at avoidance and camouflage fail to keep the law at arm’s length, captured transporters are often allowed to keep their freedom and their ships — if not their illicit cargo — for the simple reason that local authorities are not equipped to handle the international legal mess that can arise in such cases. Administrative deception is not very common in the Sulu Arms Market because most black arms transfers there are uncoordinated ant trades. Ant traders use no cargo manifests, bills of lading, flags of convenience, or end user certificates that can be manipulated to deceive a customs inspector. Small-time smugglers prefer instead to rely on avoidance to get by and in that regard physical deception is actually a form of stealth. Physical deception in the Sulu archipelago often takes the form of gun-running craft that double as fishing boats or small passenger vessels. Among the thousands of native perahus that ply the waters of the Sulu zone, it is nearly impossible to distinguish between those carrying fish or passengers and those running guns. Gun-runners using this method will go to great lengths to engage in some form of legitimate trade to disguise the real source of their profits.28 They will surely set up market stalls, haul nets, and move passengers, but only enough to disguise the deadly cargo hidden under mountains of stinking fish. Corruption The third and final principle of successful smuggling is the utility of corruption. Put another way, it is always

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preferable for gun-runners to work with enforcement agencies rather than against them. A government officer on the take, or better yet, a co-conspirator in the right place, can completely eliminate the need for costly and time-consuming avoidance or camouflage techniques. Corruption is so vital to arms smuggling that one gun-runner commented that “gunrunning rolls on the ball bearings of bribery”.29 While bribery, or at least the ability to bribe, is vital to the trade, it is risky and can backfire. Bribery is often reactive, necessary to get through unlucky encounters with police patrols or overeager customs inspectors. This type of bribe is unplanned and works best on those in the lower levels of the enforcement hierarchy. Bribes of higherlevel officials require more preparation and more capital. Preplanned, proactive bribery of this type is preferable, allowing smugglers to buy falsified paperwork, unmolested smuggling routes, or even “official” escorts coordinated well in advance of their actual shipping dates. The problem is that when bribery of an official becomes routine or expected, it begins to resemble blackmail and can become increasingly expensive. For this reason, reliance entirely on bribery is inferior to having an “inside man”. Having a co-conspirator embedded in a key position of authority or with access to critical information is the ultimate goal of smugglers that hope to benefit from corruption. An inside man is part of the smuggler’s organization rather than a disinterested gatekeeper whose fee may be out of proportion to the value of his services. The inside man can be trusted to deliver results whenever it is possible to do so rather than whenever he

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feels inclined. Costs for his services never increase except perhaps in direct correlation with rising profits. If in the right place, he can greatly improve reliability and volume and can significantly lower costs associated with bribery, lost cargoes, lengthy diversions, and other camouflage and avoidance measures. Wise transporters will balance their use of all three principles of successful smuggling. Any over-reliance on one typically results in failure as conditions change unexpectedly. The battle of wits continues without end because enforcement officers constantly change their tactics, cutting off reliable routes or discovering previously foolproof hiding spots.30 They develop technologies to defeat the most ingenious camouflage and learn quickly how not to be deceived. Even corruption is vulnerable as the law men can detect and turn reliable partners into deadly spies. No matter how much the techniques change, one thing will always remain the same, this game has been played for centuries in the Sulu Arms Market and it is likely to continue for centuries more as long as there is money to be made by crossing a border. The Supply Side: Sulu as a Source This book has so far focused almost exclusively on Sulu as a destination for illegal weapons for the very simple reason that demand in the region, especially in the Philippines, is always greater than supply. However, with regional armies in the process of upgrading their arsenals, the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in serious decline, and a possibility of peace with the MILF, the balance of arms trading in the region could very easily tip in favour of export.31 There are three sources

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of firearms that could eventually fuel conflicts outside the region: stockpiles of obsolete or surplus insurgent and criminal weaponry in the Philippines, regional production, and military and paramilitary arsenals. Taken together, these sources represent an enormous potential reservoir of black market weaponry. Insurgent Stockpiles Insurgents in the Philippines have not suffered from a lack of firearms since 1913. In fact there are numerous instances where Filipino insurgents were a source of weapons for similar groups in the region. These consumers were overwhelmingly MILF associates that trained at Camp Abu Bakar, but Moro guns have also ended up in the hands of separatists in Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya, and East Timor, as well as those of black marketeers and religious militias in the Maluku.32 Evidence of the Moro surplus is reflected in the haul from government-sponsored gun buy-back programmes. The few guns that the Moros turn in are typically obsolete or non-functional leading to suspicions that some are simply trading their old guns for new ones.33 The miniscule surplus created when the Moros upgrade their weaponry will pale in comparison with the volume of guns that could flood the market if the MILF concludes a meaningful peace with Manila. In that event it is hard to imagine that former MILF fighters could ignore the long-term profit potential of black arms exports that can carry a 3000 per cent markup.34 The same money-driven opportunism that led the ASG back to kidnapping for ransom could turn Mindanao into a for-profit insurgent gun store.

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Regional Production Local production of firearms is another major source of black market guns in Sulu. Legal production of rifles, machine guns, and ammunition is ongoing in Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia while Malaysia produces ammunition but no guns.35 These otherwise legal weapons enter the black markets through intentional overproduction, diversion, theft, or loss. Export controls and transport regulations vary widely between member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). For example, it is possible to get a licence for an automatic rifle in the Philippines but not in Malaysia.36 The variance creates cost pressures for those who wish to avoid import duties, sales taxes, or licensing fees. As Timothy Green put it, “impose high duty or controls, and the smugglers come flocking like homing pigeons”.37 In the regional context, the term “production” includes both the legal and illegal manufacture of weapons. Overproduction on otherwise legal manufacturing runs occurs in China and Indonesia; the latter is rumoured to make unmarked guns specifically for the black market.38 Handcrafted weapons are completely outside the regulatory reach of the states in which they are produced and are therefore very attractive to the worst criminal elements in those societies. Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines all have known illegal manufacturing operations although neither Malaysian nor Indonesian production have ever achieved the enormous scale of the industry in the Philippines.39 In an effort to control this dangerous cottage industry, the Philippine Government created licensed manufacturers

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DAMCOR (Danao Arms Corporation) and WORLD-MPC (Workers’ League of Danao Multi-Purpose Cooperative). Located near Danao on the island of Cebu, the intent behind these companies was to lure paltik craftsmen into legitimate employment in the new factories. However well intentioned, one must question the wisdom of locating industrial scale arms factories right in the heart of paltik country and limiting their production runs to 6,000 units per year.40 These are ideal conditions for development of parts-smuggling rackets that feed the very paltik industry DAMCOR and WORLDMPC were designed to destroy. Needless to say, the move has had no noticeable effect on paltik production there. Besides, the paltik problem is not limited to Cebu. Leyte and Negros provinces have paltik industries, as does Mindanao. The MILF has its own manufacturing capability but due to government harassment, their paltik factories never achieved the quality or volume of production seen in Cebu.41 Government Arsenals A basic assumption made by insurgents everywhere is that without foreign sponsorship they will be dependant upon their enemy for arms and ammunition. This is clearly the case in the Philippines. A quick glance at Moro weaponry shows a predominance of the same American models used by the AFP.42 For this reason, the Moros generally shunned the ubiquitous AK-47 despite its easy availability in nearby Cambodia. Leakage from the Philippine military and police is famously commonplace and with the armies of Malaysia and the Philippines receiving around 45,000 M16-variant rifles from the United States in 2009,43 pilferage from existing

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stocks may become a quick way for cash-strapped soldiers to mitigate the effects of rising food prices. Leakage of M16s from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is an obvious source for the Sulu Market, but the Malaysian stockpile is perhaps even larger. The Malaysian Army’s Steyr-AUG rifles fire the same round as the M16 destined to replace them, and can thus be easily integrated into the arsenals of Filipino insurgents. The Malaysian Army has one of the highest ratios of guns per soldier in the world; at 1.6 guns per soldier, this reflects a 45 per cent surplus.44 Such an arsenal is excruciatingly expensive to secure and maintain, and given the unsuitability of the Steyr to the tropical environment,45 it is reasonable to assume that the Malaysians may eventually try to reduce their stockpile through arms sales. Notes   1. Anthony Davis, “Philippine Security Threatened by Small Arms Proliferation”, Jane’s Intelligence Review 15, no. 8, August 2003.   2. See David Capie, Small Arms Production and Transfers in Southeast Asia (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2002), p. 73; Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror (New Delhi: Viva Books, 2005), pp. 116 n31 and 138; PCTC, Illicit Trafficking and Manufacturing of Firearms: Philippine Context (Manila: Philippine Center on Transnational Crime [PCTC], n.d.) (accessed 2 August 2008), p. 8; Angel Rabasa et al., eds., Ungoverned Territories: Understanding and Reducing Terrorism Risks

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  3.

  4.

  5.   6.   7.   8.   9. 10. 11.

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(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2007), p. 111; Correspondent, “Philippines: Who’s Backing the Muslim Rebels?” Far Eastern Economic Review 83, no. 12, 25 March 1974, p. 12; Thayil Jacob Sony George, Revolt in Mindanao: The Rise of Islam in Philippine Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 231; and James Francis Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768–1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981), p. 131. See Philip Alpers, Gun-Running in Papua New Guinea: From Arrows to Assault Weapons in the Southern Highlands (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2005), pp. 58 and 78; and Capie, Small Arms, pp. 43 and 46. See David Capie, “Trading the Tools of Terror: Armed Groups and Light Weapons Proliferation in Southeast Asia”, in Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability, edited by Paul J. Smith (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2005), p. 193; and Abuza, Militant Islam, p. 138. Capie, Small Arms, p. 43. “Palawan Political Figure Facilitates a Weapons Shipment to Mangsee Island”, declassified U.S. intelligence report, 9 July 2008. See “Information on Sibogoh Island as a Smuggling Waypoint”, declassified U.S. intelligence report, 11 July 2008; and “Palawan Political Figure”, 9 July 2008. “Palawan Political Figure”, 9 July 2008. Warren, The Sulu Zone, pp. 117–18. Timothy Green, The Smugglers: An Investigation into the World of the Contemporary Smuggler (New York: Pocket Books, 1970), p. 115. Warren, The Sulu Zone, p. 77.

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12. Author’s conversation with a regional intelligence official, ca. September 2008. 13. Author’s conversation with a senior MOF officer, 30 March 2009. Originally known as the Marine Branch at its creation in 1964, the unit was eventually renamed the Marine Police. This was again changed on 6 February 2009 to Marine Operations Force. 14. R.A. Ruegg, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Officer Commanding Marine Branch, Sabah (Sandakan), Police Marine Annual Report 1964 (Sabah) (Kuala Lumpur: Royal Malaysian Police, 4 January 1965), p. 3, and Appendix C. 15. Author’s conversation with Jolene Anne Jerard, 28 October 2008; Cragin et al., eds., Sharing the Dragon’s Teeth, p. 43; Islamic Insurgency in the Philippines Primer, pp. 167–68; Rahman Daud, “Police Suspect Rice Smugglers”, New Straits Times, 11 September 2003; “Indonesia, Philippine Leaders Agree”, Agence France Presse, 22 August 2001; and Warren, The Sulu Zone, p. 131. 16. Warren, The Sulu Zone, p. 3. 17. See National Report by the Government of Indonesia on the Implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action, p. 1; Mogato, “MILF Rebels Deny”, BusinessWorld Online, 3 August 2004; George, Revolt in Mindanao, p. 231; Correspondent, “Who’s Backing?” p. 12; Rabasa et al., eds., Ungoverned Territories, p. 111; PCTC, Illicit Trafficking, p. 8; Capie, Small Arms, p. 73; Cragin et al., eds., Sharing the Dragon’s Teeth, p. 43; Davis, “Philippine Security”, n.p.; and Abuza, Militant Islam, pp. 116 n31 and 138. 18. Royal Malaysian Police Annual Report 2005 (Kuala Lumpur: Royal Malaysian Police, 2005), p. 61. 19. Green, The Smugglers, p. 18. 20. Author’s conversation with an American naval intelligence officer, 23 December 2008. The officer discussed his

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21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

115

experience working with the ill-equipped Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. Author’s conversation with Special Agent Qasim Majied of the Department of Defense Force Protection Detachment in the Philippines, 12 January 2009. George, Revolt in Mindanao, p. 231. Bong Garcia, “Military Intercepts Firearm Shipment in Zambo Wharf”, Sun.Star Zamboanga Online, 15 March 2007 (accessed 4 July 2008). Author’s conversation with an American special operations officer, 18 November 2008. Green, The Smugglers, p. 114. Ibid., pp. 116–17. See Johnson-Thomas, Brian, “Anatomy of a Shady Deal”, in Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms, edited by Lora Lumpe (London: Zed Books, 2000), p. 20; and United States of America vs. Viktor Bout and Andrew Smulian: Sealed Complaint for Violations of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2339B & 3238 (United States, Southern District of New York, 2008), p. 11. Author’s conversation with a senior MOF officer, 30 March 2009. Green, The Smugglers, p. 114. Author’s conversation with a senior MOF officer, 30 March 2009. Davis, “Philippine Security”. See Alpers, Gun-Running, p. 58; and Capie, Small Arms, pp. 43 and 46. Merliza M. Makinano and Alfredo Lubang, Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration: The Mindanao Experience (Ottawa: International Security Bureau, Department of

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34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43.

44.

45.

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Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada, 2001), pp. 32–33. Author’s conversation with Senior Superintendant Napoleon R. Estilles, 13 January 2009. The figure cited here refers to price differentials between the Philippines and Taiwan. Capie, Small Arms, pp. 6–8. Katherine Kramer, Legal Controls on Small Arms and Light Weapons in Southeast Asia (Geneva: Small Arms Survey 2001), p. 9. Green, The Smugglers, p. 5. Author’s conversation with Dr Zachary Abuza, 28 July 2008. See also Bedeski, Andersen, and Darmosumarto, Small Arms Trade, p. 6. Edgardo P. Legaspi, East Asia in Action on Arms: Assessing Regional Compliance to the UN PoA on Small Arms and Light Weapons (Manila: Southeast Asia Forum on Armed Violence [FAV], 2005), p. 21. PCTC, Illicit Trafficking, p. 9. See Capie, Small Arms, p. 74; and PCTC, Illicit Trafficking, p. 7. “Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces”, Perajurit 13, no. 9 (September 2006): 50–51. See “Malaysia Replaces Steyr Assault Rifle with Colt M4 Carbine”, Bernama, 27 April 2006 (accessed 16 January 2009); and Capie, “Trading the Tools”, p. 202. Aaron Karp, “A Semi-Automatic Process? Identifying and Destroying Military Surplus”, in Small Arms Survey 2008: Risk and Resilience (Geneva: Small Arms Survey and Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 89. This observation comes from the author’s personal experience with Malaysian Army Steyrs. Among other problems, the Malaysian Steyrs are equipped with a non-removable

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magnified sight and fixed iron sights as a backup. The magnified sights, which are of questionable utility in the close quarters of the Malaysian jungles to begin with, quickly become unusable due to the build-up of condensation and mold growth inside the tubular structure of the sight.

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5 Regional Counter-Trafficking Policies

In almost every capital around the globe, piracy, terrorism, poaching, illegal immigration, pollution, and trafficking of every kind are slowly climbing in priority as government security experts become increasingly concerned with threats of a transnational nature. In areas affected by the Sulu Arms Market, ongoing territorial disputes, shifting political alignments, and an extremely dynamic social fabric make multilateral initiatives slow to form and difficult to implement.1 For this reason, the trend in cooperative countertrafficking policy clearly favours bilateral agreements, although regional and global politics lend growing impetus to multilateralism. Since the end of World War II, there have been eight bilateral agreements between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines that affect the Sulu Arms Market in some way. By contrast, there are only five similar multilateral agreements and of those, only two include concrete measures that can make a direct impact on traffickers. The regional politics that confound multilateralism in Southeast Asia suggest that making progress will require strong leadership. Regional bodies like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and powerful neighbours

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Australia and the United States, can influence initiatives against transnational threats in the region but within ASEAN there is no single, paternalistic national power that can assume this role. Instead, member states share responsibility in a uniquely Southeast Asian system of rotating leadership. The “ASEAN way” as it is commonly known, is slow and patient and demonstrates a preference for letting states come to consensus over time rather than subjecting them to direct persuasion by others. There is little doubt that the ASEAN way has been very positive for the region up to this point but it has not yet been tested by conflict between member states.2 In the eyes of most external observers, transnational crime has a tremendous head start on the plodding Southeast Asian policy machine; ASEAN, they say, must take action now to avoid pain in the future. That the proactive approach upsets the ASEAN way is a given, but there is merit in advocating urgency and it is having a positive effect. The United States, Australia, the European Union, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and others all play a positive role in influencing ASEAN’s transnational crime policy. Given the nature of the threat, these allied powers find they make the greatest inroads with the peaceful use of military power. Some of the most promising advances in multilateral cooperation are achieved through training and combined exercises.3 Other methods include humanitarian assistance, intelligence sharing, and foreign military sales. At the national level, Malaysia and the Philippines have made progress to establish littoral enforcement units that unify the capability and authority of the myriad agencies that currently have jurisdiction over maritime issues in

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their territorial waters.4 For the Philippines, the security situation in Sulu requires a more heavily armed force than the Philippine Coast Guard could provide. Their solution was the creation of Coast Watch South (CWS), a militarized version of the Coast Guard that has the added advantage of being connected directly to the intelligence and logistics systems of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).5 Still under development, CWS serves as the national point of contact for transnational crime issues in the tri-border area. Its Malaysian counterpart, the newly established Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), has some different challenges to overcome. Established in 2004, the nascent organization immediately found itself in a bureaucratic struggle over resources and jurisdictions carved from the traditional spheres of the Malaysian Navy and the Malaysian Police Marine Operations Force (MOF).6 To make matters worse, MMEA had to compete with a parallel military effort to unify the security structures of eastern Sabah under a single, military joint headquarters. Multilateral Cooperative Initiatives Since the end of World War II, ASEAN member countries have concluded numerous cooperative agreements that form the basis for combined military operations and common counter-trafficking policies (see Table 5.1). Most of these agreements are bilateral as there are significant obstacles to multilateralism in the tri-border region. Of the thirteen agreements listed in Table 5.1, only five are multilateral, and only two of those, the ASEAN Plan of Action (PoA) to Combat Transnational Crime and the 2002 Agreement on

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Agreement



Philippines

Malaysia

Indonesia

Brunei

Australia

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•

•

• • • •

•

•

ASEAN

2005 • • 2005 • • • • 2005 • •

2002

1963 • • 1967 • • 1967 • • 1967 • • 1971 • • 1975 • • 1975 • • 1994 • • 1995 • •

Year

Singapore

Revised Agreement on Direct Liaison and   Coordinated Patrol Ops Agreement on Border Security Agreement on Anti-Smuggling Cooperation First Protocol: Anti-Smuggling Agreement Five Power Defence Arrangements Agreement on Border Crossing Agreement on Border Patrol Defense Cooperation MOU Second Protocol: Anti-Smuggling Agreement Agreement on Information Exchange and   Establishment of Communications Procedures Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating   Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia ASEAN PoA to Combat Transnational Crime The Batam Agreement

Country



Table 5.1 Cooperative Initiatives Affecting the Sulu Arms Market Regional Counter-Trafficking Policies 121

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Information Exchange and Establishment of Communications Procedures, join all three tri-border countries. Territorial disputes and historical mistrust between them undergirds the hesitation to enter into multilateral arrangements. For example, Indonesia and Malaysia solved their disputes over Sipadan and Ligitan but still quarrel over a resourcerich bit of continental shelf known as Ambalat. In 1925, Dutch-occupied Indonesia and the American-occupied Philippines resolved their quarrel over Palmas Island, but the racial basis for that amicable settlement is a fluid one that could be subject to renegotiation. Perhaps the most salient territorial dispute affecting the Sulu Arms Market is between the Philippines and Malaysia over Sabah. Prior to a flare up of tensions over Ambalat in 2009, these disputes simmered at a low level and did not rise beyond the level of a diplomatic annoyance, but their dampening effect on effective cooperation was significant. The after-activity report of a 2007 maritime security conference held in Cebu illustrates the point as follows:7 Below the radar, varying threat perceptions persisted throughout the conference and stood in the way of making substantial progress in the working group discussions, particularly among the senior leaders.

Multilateralism is growing despite the diplomatic inertia. The ASEAN PoA to Combat Transnational Crime and the 2002 Agreement on Information Exchange and Establishment of Communications Procedures have already been mentioned but there are other multilateral measures. The Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), the Batam Agreement, and the Regional Cooperation Agreement on

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Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) also have potential to affect the arms trade in the tri-border area. The Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) The only viable multilateral arrangement with an operational history in the region, FPDA has a successful history of strengthening interoperability and addressing policy challenges by linking the militaries of Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Singapore.8 The FPDA was a replacement for the defunct AngloMalayan Defense Arrangement (AMDA) of 1957 created as a temporary means of security for the otherwise defenceless Federation of Malaya. Unable to leave the region with a dangerous power vacuum, Great Britain convinced Malaysia and Singapore to replace AMDA with a mutual defence arrangement that included Australia and New Zealand. The FPDA includes a joint decision-making procedure and an Integrated Area Defence System (IADS) critical to the integration of air and naval space in the Strait of Malacca and South China Sea.9 Since the end of the Cold War and the coming into force of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), FPDA devotes an increasing amount of attention to combating transnational crime.10 The 2002 Agreement on Information Exchange and Establishment of Communications Procedures The 2002 Agreement on Information Exchange and Establishment of Communications Procedures is a resolution

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by the tri-border countries to prevent the use of their land, sea, or air territories for terrorism, money laundering, smuggling, piracy, hijacking, intrusion, illegal entry, drug trafficking, theft of marine resources, marine pollution, or illegal trafficking in arms.11 The agreement includes a legal framework for prosecution, notification, and funding, and mandates the establishment of a joint committee, national offices, and a dedicated communications network to facilitate information flow and coordinate actions between the signatories. In principle, the agreement should serve as the political basis for future international efforts against the Sulu Arms Market but in reality much of it is yet to be implemented.12 Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) The ReCAAP agreement, signed in 2005, aimed to coordinate the policies of all the member states of ASEAN as well as those of India, China, Japan, Korea, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh against piracy and armed robbery against ships. Intended to broaden the scope of cooperation in the region, the refusal of Indonesia and Malaysia to sign the agreement limited ReCAAP. Despite the setback, ReCAAP established an information sharing centre in Singapore that gathers and analyses information about incidents and transnational criminal organizations active in the territorial waters of member states and issues alerts about potential threats to shipping. The centre serves as a communications hub for enforcement and rescue operations as well as for cross-border investigative assistance and extradition requests.

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The agreement even has a provision for the coordination of capacity building through training and technical assistance.13 Although focused only on piracy and armed robbery at sea, the roles played by ReCAAP and the information it gathers are also useful against arms smuggling. The Batam Agreement The Batam Joint Statement of the 4th Tripartite Ministerial Meeting of the Littoral States on the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, or Batam Agreement, is a diplomatic declaration by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore intended to highlight the importance of cooperation on littoral security issues. Signed in August 2005, the Batam Agreement contains very few specific initiatives but does set some important priorities. First, it proposes support for the ReCAAP despite the fact that neither Indonesia nor Malaysia are signatories to that agreement.14 Secondly, it expands the definition of security threats in the region to include arms trafficking and acknowledges a role for the military in combating it.15 The only concrete measure taken by the Batam Agreement was to establish the Tripartite Technical Experts Group (TTEG) on Maritime Security, an extension of the existing TTEG on Safety of Navigation.16 This last measure links arms smuggling to economic security in a manner that has never been done before. ASEAN’s Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime Unlike the Batam Agreement, the ASEAN Plan of Action (PoA) to Combat Transnational Crime is not a

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joint declaration in the diplomatic sense. As its name suggests rather, it is an actual plan to build a multinational coalition against transnational crime. It contains numerous concrete initiatives that can have a direct impact on the Sulu Arms Market. The first and most important of those initiatives is the establishment of the ASEAN Centre for Combating Transnational Crime, or ACTC,17 that functions as an intelligence sharing mechanism and coordinating body for combined operations.18 The ASEAN PoA also prescribes an exchange of police attachés to supplement the intelligence sharing function of the ACTC.19 Lastly, the PoA establishes a biannual ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime20 and an annual Senior Officials’ Meeting on Transnational Crime to coordinate technical assistance from allies and international organizations.21 It is unclear, however, how many of these initiatives have actually been implemented. Bilateral Initiatives In the Sulu region, bilateral agreements are more common and more forceful than multilateral ones. This reflects a preference within ASEAN for carefully managed bilateral arrangements that inhibit transparency and prevent any possibility of interference by one state in the internal affairs of another.22 The same historical mistrust that poisons multilateral initiatives in the region also causes friction within bilateral frameworks. An unwillingness to work together trickles down from the governmental level and mitigates the effects of cooperation across the entire hierarchy of transnational crime fighting. As one student

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at the Malaysian Army Staff College commented about a class visit to a General Border Committee (GBC) office in Borneo:23 Our reception by the Indonesian border guards was like ice. They were clearly not getting along well with the Malaysians.

While the major source of stress between Malaysia and Indonesia in Borneo is illegal logging and not arms trafficking, there is unlikely to be a difference in attitudes between the forces responsible for protecting the land borders and those that protect the borders at sea where most arms trafficking occurs. The problem is not limited to mutual perceptions. Participants at the 2007 Cebu conference pointed out that existing cooperative agreements are mostly military to military in nature and ignore the police; a great limitation in combating what is essentially a criminal problem. They also raised concerns that the framework of agreements allows for cooperation only at established border-crossing sites and lacks specified standards for border-crossing cards designed to streamline legitimate commerce between nations. The lack of standards leaves the cards vulnerable to forgery and subject to the interpretation of individual immigration and customs officers.24 A quick review of existing bilateral agreements between the tri-border countries reveals that the agreements are mostly designed to allow signatory states to safeguard their internal security from transient communities of immigrants from neighbouring states. Given the critical role immigrant communities play in arms trafficking, the

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effects of regional cooperation appear limited. On the whole, regional cooperative relationships are still largely uncoordinated, redundant, and shallow, but represent the most functional set of tools currently available to control the Sulu Arms Market. Bilateral Initiatives: Philippines and Indonesia The Revised Agreement on Direct Liaison and Coordinated Patrol Operations, signed in 1963, is the basis for two later agreements on Border Patrol and Border Crossing between Indonesia and the Philippines. The latter agreements, signed in 1975, were a necessary clarification after the fall of Sukarno in 1965 and are still in force today. The Agreement on Border Patrol establishes a framework for combined patrols under a single commander selected for the occasion by a joint committee. The patrols can be authorized for a specific purpose or for a period of time. The agreement also allows for direct coordination of separate patrols on a continuous basis. The Agreement on Border Crossing establishes a border zone within which its residents can travel freely using a special identity card created for the purpose. The programme is managed by six border crossing stations in Mindanao and Sulu and three in Sulawesi and Maluku. The stations, jointly manned by naval personnel from both countries, are a useful way of monitoring the activities of border communities.25 Bilateral Initiatives: Philippines and Malaysia The 1967 Anti-Smuggling Treaty is the basis for all bilateral counter-trafficking measures between the Philippines and

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Malaysia. The treaty established Filipino customs stations at Sandakan, Kota Kinabalu, and Semporna in Sabah as well as a direct communications network for use by customs, military, and police forces of both countries.26 The one-sided placement of the stations is an indication that the preponderance of illicit traffic targeted by this agreement flowed from Malaysia into the Philippines and not the other way around. Borrowing from the 1963 “Direct Liaison” agreement between the Philippines and Indonesia, the “First Protocol” to the 1967 Anti-Smuggling Treaty defines border areas and establishes a Border Crossing Pass for use by people residing in those areas.27 It was not until the “Second Protocol” was signed in 1995 that a Joint Committee on Border Cooperation was established and its mandate expanded to include provisions to combat drug trafficking, hijacking, illegal entry, piracy, smuggling, theft of marine resources, and marine pollution. That same year, the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Defense Cooperation that establishes a combined committee tasked to coordinate information and personnel exchange, combined training and exercises, and use of facilities.28 Bilateral Initiatives: Malaysia and Indonesia Currently, the 1967 Agreement on Border Security is the only bilateral, cooperative agreement between Malaysia and Indonesia that is relevant to the Sulu Zone. The agreement established the GBC and procedures for combined patrols.29 It was updated in 1984 and augmented by numerous technical agreements like one in November 2008 that formalized combined air patrols.30 Military-to-military cooperation received a limited boost after the 2009 Ambalat incidents

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provoked a flurry of concrete bilateral measures designed to prevent further miscommunications. At the 38th meeting of the GBC, the Defence Ministers of Malaysia and Indonesia announced agreements to establish rules of engagement for forces at sea, upgrade existing combined ground exercises to include joint and interagency events, and increase manning of five joint border posts on Borneo.31 Cooperation remains limited despite obvious cultural similarities between the two countries and their ongoing communication. The legacy of the Konfrontasi, a limited military campaign directed by Jakarta against Malaysia in Borneo, is still a sensitive issue on an island with a vast, ill-defined border. The Ambalat dispute certainly adds fuel to the fire but at the heart of the issue is the disinterest (or inability) of the Indonesian security services to tightly police their land and especially maritime borders. United States–Brokered Multilateralism in the Sulu Arms Market The United States is one of the prime movers of multilateral cooperative measures against transnational crime in Southeast Asia and is reasserting itself in a broad way that was not possible during the Cold War. Recognizing that latent intraregional squabbles are a serious inhibitor to collective action against transnational crime within ASEAN, U.S. policy since late 2001 has been to pursue its security agenda through independent, bilateral initiatives with every state in the region, a policy that might be described as “multilateral bilateralism”. For now, the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) guides the agenda

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which focuses squarely on Jemaah Islamiya (JI), its allies, and the hotspots in which they thrive. Contrary to popular perception, however, the GWOT in Southeast Asia is not, for the most part, an overt or even covert counter-insurgency campaign against Islamic extremists. Rather, it is a wholeof-government approach to encourage good governance, effective enforcement, and transnational cooperation on matters of policing and intelligence sharing in the affected states. This approach will remain viable even as the GWOT diminishes in importance. As noted earlier, the United States does not view foreign policy the same way ASEAN does. Where the “ASEAN way” relies on patience and accommodation, the American way relies on activity. For this reason, much of the American effort to bring about multilateral cooperation is actually in the hands of the U.S. Military. A 2005 U.S. Department of Defense Directive titled, “Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations” outlines the military’s role in this whole-of-government approach. Among other things, this directive defines a broad role for the U.S. Military in an interagency process focused on building institutions rather than on traditional military tasks of simply applying force. The goals of SSTR operations are:32 [T]o help establish order that advances US interests and values … to provide the local populace with security, restore essential services, and meet humanitarian needs … [and] to help develop indigenous capacity for securing essential services, a viable market economy, rule of law, democratic institutions, and a robust civil society.

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The goals of the policy aim unerringly at many of the factors that lead to the proliferation of violence, extremism, conflict, and arms smuggling in the Sulu Sea region.33 As demonstrated in Aceh after the 2004 tsunami, regional militaries are uniquely qualified to address shortcomings in security, essential services, rule of law, and democratic institutions; common threads in violence-wracked areas of the Sulu Zone. But the Sulu Sea region is nothing like Aceh in December 2004. The governments of the tri-border countries are relatively well represented in those areas and the infrastructure there is intact and functional. Sovereignty is maintained even if perfect law and order is not. Given this, the United States approaches the problem in partnership with the nations involved and attempts, through common training, intelligence sharing, capacity building, and interoperable infrastructure, to nudge them individually in the same direction. The U.S. achieves this through a number of programmes managed jointly by the U.S. Departments of Defense, State, Justice, Homeland Security, and others. The most significant are the Maritime Security Conferences, the Theater Security Cooperation Plan, the Southeast Asia Tri-Border Initiative, and the International Law Enforcement Academy. Maritime Security Conferences Recognizing the need for a security dialogue specific to the tri-border area, the Joint Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG) at U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) in Honolulu, Hawaii initiated the first annual Multilateral Maritime

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Security Conference in 2005. The second meeting was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2006, and the third in Cebu, Republic of the Philippines in August 2007. In keeping with the interagency goals of the JIACG, and based on recommendations from the third conference, the Defense and State Departments teamed up to broaden future meetings to include more policymakers and representatives of law enforcement agencies.34 The result was the Tri-Border Interagency Security Conference held in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia in May 2008. The list of conference attendees includes a broad range of participants from the myriad organizations that shape tri-border security policy. One valuable insight gained from the conferences is the difficulty of establishing a “single point-of-contact” for maritime security. Even if MMEA in Malaysia, CWS in the Philippines, and the Indonesian Maritime Security Coordinating Board (IMSCB), or BAKORKAMLA, sought to claim such a role, the reality both on the water and at the policy level is murkier. The most established among these organizations, the MMEA, is only six years old and it remains to be seen how these organizations will develop into the complex roles required of them. Among the recommendations made at the third interagency conference were: expediting implementation of the 2002 Agreement on Information Exchange and Establishment of Communications Procedures, updating existing border agreements to reflect non-traditional threats, establishing regional training standards, and an innovative idea to commission an economic impact assessment of the costs of not improving multilateral cooperation.35

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The Theater Security Cooperation Plan (TSCP) The Theater Security Cooperation Plan (TSCP) is another PACOM-managed programme that unifies broad, interagency participation through combined training programmes and exercises focused on building military or paramilitary capability. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2005, the PACOM commander described the TSCP as:36 [O]ne of the primary means through which we extend US influence, develop access, and promote competence among potential coalition partners … [TSCP] activities help build competent partners among friends and allies to fight terrorism, and at the same time, establish an environment that contributes to our long-term [War on Terror] campaign.

The TSCP is responsive to the needs of the United States and host nation militaries, as well as the Departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Security, and involves a broad range of operations with the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and a number of law enforcement agencies. Some aspects of the TSCP are focused entirely on the bilateral relationships between the United States and its allies, while other aspects fall into the category of “multilateral bilateralism”. Two of the most important “multilateral-bilateral” programmes are the 1206 Radar Program, and the annual Cooperation Afloat, Readiness, and Training (CARAT) exercises. The 1206 Radar Program, named for Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act from which the programme derives its funding, is an attempt by the

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United States to create an interoperable network of coastal surveillance radars around the Sulu and Celebes Seas to assist local enforcement agencies with the detection and management of maritime traffic in their littoral areas. The programme is unified under PACOM’s Security Assistance and International Logistics Division (J45) but managed separately by the Offices of Defense Cooperation (ODC) in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, and the Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group–Philippines (JUSMAG-Phil) in Manila. The scale of the measure is enormous, with allocations between fiscal years (FY) 2006 and 2008 of US$12.9 million for the Philippines, US$25.1 million for Malaysia, and US$44.3 million for Indonesia. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the programme includes additional provisions of US$7.6 million and US$13.1 million respectively for construction of modern command and control centres that will allow development and distribution of a common operating picture.37 If PACOM achieves its vision for the programme, it will be able to provide a common and comprehensive radar picture of the entire Sulu Zone to all three national points of contact for maritime enforcement, effectively bypassing the need for a multilateral intelligence sharing framework. There are challenges of course. It is unknown at this time if the United States will be granted access to the radar data or whether it would be allowed to share such data. Without that data, PACOM would be unable to create a common operating picture. There are also troubles at a more basic level. One official mentioned that the Filipinos are independently considering purchasing more than one type of radar.38 With corruption in the procurement process the likely culprit, it

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stands to reason that there may be compatibility issues not only between the Philippine radars and their Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts, but also between radars within the Philippines itself. Cooperation Afloat, Readiness, and Training, or CARAT, is “an annual series of bilateral maritime training exercises between the United States and six Southeast Asian nations designed to build relationships and enhance the operational readiness of the participating forces”.39 Begun in 1995, the combined training exercise gives the United States Navy an opportunity to develop contacts, increase interoperability, and share intelligence and best practices with the navies of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Focused primarily on maritime interdiction, amphibious operations, and diving and salvage,40 CARAT is also used to further GWOT objectives where appropriate through humanitarian assistance and civic action programmes. In 2002, PACOM decided the time was right to experiment with multilateral exercises using CARAT as a basis. The result was the first Southeast Asia Cooperation Against Terrorism (SEACAT) exercise. The weeklong scenario-driven exercise focuses on intercepting and boarding of suspicious contacts on the high seas. 41 Conducted immediately after the annual CARAT, SEACAT is operationally distinct from the larger series of bilateral exercises. The idea of U.S.-led multilateralism in the region is a controversial one, with internal security implications for Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, as well as foreign policy implications for FPDA. For now, the small exercise, which takes place entirely at sea, has avoided becoming politicized.

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The Southeast Asia Tri-Border Initiative (SATI) Initiated in 2007, the Southeast Asia Tri-Border Initiative (SATI) is the interagency plan to “expand economic development in the region as well as improve responsiveness of regional military and law enforcement forces”.42 SATI is a mix of Department of State and Department of Defense efforts funded by Section 1207 of the National Defense Authorization Act. Intended to increase the Department of State’s ability to fulfil its statutory responsibility for reconstruction, stabilization, and security activities in foreign countries, Section 1207 mandates the transfer of US$100 million dollars from the Pentagon’s annual operations budget to fund the transfer of defence articles, services, training, or other support in response to State Department requests.43 The US$100 million allocation was authorized for FY 2007, extended in 2008, reduced slightly in 2009, and doubled in 2010.44 The funding is considered a temporary measure until the new State Department Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) is adequately resourced.45 Since the creation of Section 1207 in 2006, the State Department has spent US$304.5 million in sixteen countries and regions around the world with US$16.9 million of it earmarked for SATI and an additional US$14 million for the Philippines alone.46 Because the Department of Defense is the ultimate authority for the disbursement of funds, it is no surprise that SATI expenditures are in general alignment with the objectives of the TSCP. In fact, SATI focuses squarely against terrorism and transnational crime by developing host-nation paramilitary capabilities,47 an area that is sometimes made off-limits to PACOM’s military

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trainers by either U.S. or host nation law. Interestingly, most 1207 requests made by U.S. Embassies in support of SATI are implemented by the Joint Interagency Task Force–West (JIATF-W), an interagency organization commanded by a U.S. Coast Guard admiral, staffed heavily with active or retired military officers, and organized and operated like a military headquarters. JIATF–W’s interagency nature and its access to both 1206 and 1207 funding, give it the legal flexibility to engage a broad range of foreign military and paramilitary forces and serve as the primary enabler for the development of interagency capability and a whole-ofgovernment approach in host nation forces. In Malaysia for example, 1207 funds are used to upgrade the capabilities of the MMEA through training, equipment transfers, and semimonthly combined exercises with the U.S. Coast Guard.48 Meanwhile, 1206 funds are spent on naval infrastructure, like the 1206 radars that are available for MMEA use, and the conduct of joint exercises involving the military, MMEA, and the MOF. The International Law Enforcement Academy– Bangkok (ILEA) The International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) opened its doors in 1999 in Bangkok, Thailand with the goals of supporting “criminal justice institutionbuilding in Asia, with an emphasis on rule of law and strengthening partnerships and cooperation amongst the law enforcement communities of Asia”.49 In pursuit of those goals, the academy runs over thirty classes a year covering several topics relevant to counter-smuggling

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operations, including post-blast investigation, fraudulent travel documents training, basic intelligence collection and analysis, seaport border enforcement, cargo targeting and risk management, the police executive’s role in combating terrorism, trafficking in persons, and firearms smuggling recognition.50 Through this type of instruction, ILEA directly addresses the region’s lack of multilateral police training and standard operating procedures identified during the 2007 Cebu conference as a weakness of the region’s existing framework of multilateral agreements.51 In keeping with the strategy of multilateral gains through bilateral initiatives, ILEA is a combined project of the governments of Thailand and the United States that aims to unify the transnational crime-fighting capabilities and agendas of Southeast Asian countries. With that goal in mind, the United States, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, the People’s Republic of China, and Hong Kong all participated in the drafting of the curriculum, taught mostly by officers of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), both components of the Department of Justice. The student body at ILEA is drawn from middle-ranking law enforcement professionals from nearly every country in ASEAN, making ILEA a valuable facilitator of networking among the region’s law enforcement community.52 Philippine National Efforts For nearly forty years, the Government of the Philippines has regarded the troubles in its southern islands as a military

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problem. As the Moro political struggle evolved in the late 1990s to include aspects of transnational crime and terrorism, Manila continued to seek military solutions. A similar view towards terrorism by the United States after 2001 resulted in the start of Operation Enduring Freedom–Philippines (OEF-P), the combined U.S. military operation with the AFP and Philippine National Police (PNP) against the Abu Sayyaf Group and other terrorist organizations in Mindanao. Originally envisioned by the United States and the Arroyo administration of the Philippines as a combined combat operation, political realities and Filipino constitutional law prevented American troops from being used in a combat role. Instead, the United States sent specialized troops of the U.S. Special Operations Command to increase the combat capabilities of Filipino forces through training and intelligence sharing. There is no single Philippine operation paired with OEF-P, instead it is paralleled by a number of Filipino operations such as Operation Balikatan and Operation Ultimatum. The Philippine operations have come and gone but OEF-P has continued uninterrupted and virtually unchanged since 2002. Combining civic action, humanitarian assistance, and some direct action operations by the AFP and PNP, Philippine operations supported by OEF-P are credited with driving the Abu Sayyaf from its stronghold on Basilan Island in Sulu. These operations are necessarily broad in scope, joining air and naval operations with those on the ground.53 The naval operations in particular are the result of aggressive efforts by the United States and its allies to increase Filipino counter-trafficking capabilities. As many as thirty-one agencies are involved in the maritime counter-

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trafficking fight in the Sulu Zone.54 On the civilian side are the Philippine Coast Guard, the PNP Maritime Group, the Bureau of Customs (BUCUS), the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID), and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Maritime Industry Authority, or MARINA for short.55 From the military, the Naval Forces component of Western Mindanao Command (WESTMINCOM) exercises operational control of Coast Watch South, a flexible unit built around core elements from Naval Task Forces 61 and 62, and Naval Special Operations Units 1 and 6, with regular augmentation by the Strike Companies of the Marine Force Reconnaissance Battalion, and air assets from Naval Air Group Islander and others.56 CWS is the primary “customer” for intelligence derived from the existing 1206 radar systems operated by WESTMINCOM, and is therefore seen as the “single point-of-contact” for interaction with its Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts.57 To outside observers, Philippine counter-trafficking efforts appear very robust but there are problems. The activities of the civilian and military agencies are entirely independent and uncoordinated; at the moment, there are no standard mechanisms to integrate the two.58 In this respect, CWS has a number of advantages. First, it has the logistics and firepower necessary for security and success in what is occasionally a combat zone. By contrast, the lightly armed Philippine Coast Guard often has difficulty finding enough diesel just to leave the pier.59 Secondly, Coast Watch South has direct access to the substantial

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intelligence capability of the AFP and the U.S. Military assets involved in OEF-P. Fortunately, Philippine enforcement agencies have largely avoided bureaucratic competition caused by overlapping jurisdiction and competition over scarce resources. Recognizing the reality of the security situation in Sulu, the civilian agencies are focusing their efforts on less violent parts of the Philippines like Palawan and southern Mindanao and leaving most of the responsibility for Sulu to CWS,60 but this can only be a temporary solution. Long-term stability demands that civilian law enforcement, not the military, play the central role against trafficking. Encouraged by the United States, a transformation of CWS into an interagency organization is reportedly awaiting signature at the highest levels of the Philippine Government.61 Interestingly, across the Sulu Sea in Malaysia, the situation exhibits many of the same bureaucratic challenges. Malaysian National Efforts For nearly forty-five years, Malaysian littoral security has been left largely in the capable hands of the maritime wing of the Royal Malaysian Police, but like so many other things, this arrangement began to change after the terror attacks of 11 September 2001. In 2004, passage of the MMEA Act was seen as the national response to the growing global threats of terrorism and piracy. Pressure to create a coastguard came from several sources: realization after the 11 September attacks that transportation systems could be used as terrorist weapons; passage of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) that came into force in July 2004; and

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lastly, from a perception that the United States and Japan intended to intervene against piracy in the Strait of Malacca if the littoral states could not curb the threat themselves.62 The MMEA Act, which came into force on 2 February 2005, did not include the details necessary to deconflict the jurisdictions of the new agency it created (MMEA) and those of the eleven other departments and agencies that previously had, and still have, a stake in Malaysian littoral security.63 The detrimental result of this lack of detail is a bureaucratic struggle for dominance between the MMEA, the MOF, the Navy, and others over personnel, equipment, jurisdiction, and funding. The initial statement of requirements for the MMEA called for a fleet of thirty-nine vessels including: ten helicopter-capable patrol ships (80–85 m length); ten medium patrol boats (55–60 m length); fifteen high-speed patrol boats (35 kt, 35–40 m length); and four existing 26 m Bintang Class patrol boats.64 Most of these vessels were to be drawn from the existing fleets of the Navy and other agencies with new purchases to fill shortfalls, particularly in the patrol ship class. Supplying the MMEA in this manner however presented two very serious challenges. For one, the range of equipment and systems involved were not always designed to work together and would not fulfil the capability requirements of the MMEA. Secondly, eightyeight per cent of the ships likely to be inherited by the new agency were over twenty years old, an age where it becomes more costly to maintain some ships than it does to simply purchase new vessels.65 Manning of the MMEA also continues to be a challenge. Like the ships, initial manning for the new agency was to

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come from existing ranks of other maritime enforcement agencies and those former members of the armed forces that had retired early. If the required number of personnel with the right rank and skills decline to make the switch, however, there is no provision for the MMEA to forcibly recruit its members from those other agencies. In that event, the Malaysian military has the authority to “second” its personnel to the MMEA but it is not clear if other agencies such as the MOF can do the same. Even if officers on secondment fill the MMEA’s personnel numbers, there is no guarantee that the new agency would not become a dumping ground for the Navy’s misfits. With no clear guidelines on what authority governs the discipline of seconded officers, the MMEA is hesitant to draw from personnel chosen by the Navy.66 Lastly, as the MMEA’s highest officers approach mandatory retirement, the rapid turnover of senior leadership presents an additional challenge, even as the beleaguered organization slowly works through its other issues. Aside from its own internal challenges, the MMEA is beset by bureaucratic competition from numerous directions. The well-established MOF competes directly with the MMEA for funding, manning, and jurisdiction. Despite a 2008 decision to concentrate the MOF’s efforts to Malaysia’s rivers and up to four miles out to sea,67 it has not yet withdrawn to within these limits because MMEA still lacks the manpower and skills to independently conduct criminal investigations, manage crime scenes, handle evidence at sea, or to follow up with the prosecution of suspects.68 Until the MMEA develops these skills, it will continue to be dependent upon the police for assistance. The MOF is MMEA’s most obvious rival but the Navy and Air Force also claim a part

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of its mission set, specifically hot pursuit beyond Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and search and rescue operations respectively. Lacking adequate aircraft or the patrol-ship-class vessels with adequate range and durability to patrol the entire EEZ, the MMEA is hard-pressed to challenge the military’s jurisdiction in these areas.69 Yet no one is waiting for the MMEA to reach its intended potential. In 2006, the Malaysian Ministry of Defence ordered the creation of a joint headquarters to coordinate the actions of the Army, Navy, and Air Force operating in the areas around the east coast of Sabah. The creation of Joint Task Force 2 (JTF 2) in Tawau is as much an expression of Malaysia’s desire to develop a joint capability70 as it is a deterrent to terrorism like the Abu Sayyaf Group’s raid on Sipadan Island in 2002. Seeking to enhance interagency cooperation, the JTF included liaison officers from both MMEA and the police, but leadership of an interagency process is problematic for the military which has no authority over the country’s law enforcement agencies. It is also problematic for the United States, which supports the JTF for counter-terrorism purposes, but is extremely wary of encouraging Southast Asian militaries to engage in domestic law enforcement. As the lines between piracy, terrorism, and transnational crime become blurry in eastern Sabah, the United States finds itself in the uncomfortable position of promoting the beleaguered MMEA as the best option for littoral security while simultaneously providing competing agencies in the Malaysian military with many of the capabilities and roles that should reside in the MMEA and the police. The success of Malaysia’s paramilitary enforcement agencies, which

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present a less menacing appearance to Malaysia’s neighbours than its Navy, could result in lowered tensions, ignite a wave of effective multilateral cooperation, and have a significant impact on the future of the Sulu Arms Market. Notes   1. Joon Num Mak, “The ‘ASEAN Way’ and Transparency in South-East Asia”, in Arms Transparency and Security in South-East Asia, edited by Bates Gill and J.N. Mak (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 38–39.   2. Ibid., p. 42.   3. Combined operations are those which include elements from the armed services of two or more countries. For example, a patrol conducted by naval vessels from the Philippines and Malaysia is a combined patrol.   4. Indonesia also created a maritime enforcement agency (BAKORKAMLA) but the Indonesian efforts are in their infancy and fall largely outside the scope of this book.   5. Author’s conversation with Special Agent Qasim Majied, 12 January 2009.   6. Irwin Ui Joo Ooi, “The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency Act 2004: Malaysia’s Legal Response to the Threat of Maritime Terrorism”, Australian and New Zealand Maritime Law Journal 21, no. 1 (2007): 90.   7. After Activity Report of the 3rd Multilateral Maritime Security Conference Held in Cebu, Republic of the Philippines on 27–29 August 2007 (Honolulu, HI: Asia Pacific Security Forum [APSF] Inc., 2007), p. 44.   8. Kate Boswood, “Engaging Our Interests: The Five Power Defence Arrangement and Its Contribution to Regional Security”, Defence Magazine, issue 9, 2007–2008, p. 36.   9. Ibid.

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10. Ibid. 11. Agreement on Information Exchange and Establishment of Communications Procedures between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines (Putrajaya, Malaysia: Government of Malaysia, 7 May 2002), pp. 2–4. 12. Author’s Conversation with Jason A. Donovan, Coordinator of the Department of State’s Southeast Asia Regional Strategic Initiative, 21 January 2009. 13. “Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia, 11 November 2004”, in Treaties and International Agreements Registered or Filed or Reported With the Secretariat of the United Nations 2396, no. 43302 (New York: United Nations Treaty Series, 2006), pp. 5, 7 and 8. 14. Batam Joint Statement of the 4th Tripartite Ministerial Meeting of the Littoral States on the Straits of Malacca and Singapore (Batam, Indonesia: Government of the Republic of Indonesia, 2 August 2005), para 9. 15. Ibid., para 10 and 11. 16. Ibid., para 12. 17. ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime (Jakarta: Secretariat, Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN]) (accessed 23 January 2009), Section C.20. 18. Ibid., Section A.(b).2 19. Ibid., Section C.13. 20. Ibid., Section D.(a).1–5. 21. Ibid., Section D.(b).1–7. 22. Joon Num Mak, “The ASEAN Way”, pp. 38–39 and 41. 23. Author’s conversation with Major Thomas Stevenson, USA, 18 January 2009. 24. APSF, After Activity Report, p. 26. 25. Philippine Supplementary Report (2nd Report) on Actions

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26.

27. 28. 29. 30.

31.

32. 33.

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and Initiatives against Domestic and International Terrorism: A Report to the Security Council Counterterrorism Committee in Compliance with Paragraph 6 of UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001), S/2002/785 (New York: United Nations Security Council, 2002), pp. 12 and 13. “Philippines and Malaysia: Agreement on Anti-Smuggling Cooperation, 1 September 1967”, in Treaties and International Agreements Registered or Filed or Reported with the Secretariat of the United Nations 608, no. 8810 (New York: United Nations Treaty Series, 1967), para 8 and 9(a). Ibid., Protocol, Article I. APSF, After Activity Report, p. 25. Ibid., p. 26. See Amitav Acharya, “Defense Cooperation and Transparency in South-East Asia”, in Arms Transparency and Security in South-East Asia, edited by Bates Gill and J.N. Mak (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 51; and “Indonesia, Malaysia Agree on Procedure for Border Patrols”, Antara News Online, 23 November 2008 (accessed 18 January 2009). “Malaysia, Indonesia Agree on Rules of Engagement at Sea”, Bernama, 18 February 2010 (accessed 6 March 2010). Directive #3000-05, Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2005), p. 2. Mufor Atanga et al., eds., “Obstructing Development: The Effects of Small Arms on Human Development”, in Small Arms Survey 2003: Development Denied (Geneva: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 128.

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34. Author’s Conversation with Jason A. Donovan, 21 January 2009. 35. Ibid. 36. Admiral William J. Fallon, United States Navy, Commander, US Pacific Command, “Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on U.S. Pacific Command posture”, 8 March 2005. 37. Nina M. Serafino, Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2006: A Fact Sheet on Department of Defense Authority to Train and Equip Foreign Military Forces, CRS Report for Congress, RS22855 (Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, July 2009), pp. 10–11. 38. Author’s conversation with a U.S. Military official, 12 January 2009. 39. United States Department of the Navy, “Cooperation Afloat, Readiness, and Training”, Singapore: COMLOG WestPac, 2006 (accessed 24 January 2009). 40. United States Department of the Navy, “Cooperation Afloat, Readiness, and Training, Frequently Asked Questions” (Singapore: COMLOG WestPac, 2006) (accessed 24 January 2009). 41. United States Department of the Navy, “Southeast Asia Cooperation against Terrorism 2007” (Singapore: COMLOG WestPac, 2007) (accessed 24 January 2009). 42. Admiral Timothy J. Keating, United States Navy, Commander, US Pacific Command, “Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on U.S. Pacific Command posture”, 12 March 2008. 43. Nina M. Serafino, Department of Defense “Section 1207”

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44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50.

51. 52.

53.

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Security and Stabilization Assistance: A Fact Sheet, CRS Report for Congress, RS22871 (Washington DC: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, May 2008), p. 1. See Nina M. Serafino, Department of Defense “Section 1207” Security and Stabilization Assistance: Background and Congressional Concerns, CRS Report for Congress, RS22871 (Washington DC: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, June 2009), pp. 3 and 7; and Robert M. Perito, Integrated Security Assistance: The 1207 Program, Special Report 207 (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace [USIP], 2008), pp. 2 and 9. Perito, p. 3. Serafino, 1207 Background, p. 7. “Testimony of Admiral Keating”, 12 March 2008. Author’s conversation with an official from JIATF-W, 29 January 2009. “About Us” (Bangkok: International Law Enforcement Academy-Bangkok [ILEA], 2009) (accessed 24 January 2009). “Course Year 2009” (Bangkok: International Law Enforcement Academy-Bangkok [ILEA], 2009) (accessed 24 January 2009). APSF, After Activity Report, p. 26. See “Background” (Bangkok: International Law Enforcement Academy-Bangkok [ILEA], 2009) (accessed 24 January 2009); and author’s conversation with Special Agent Neil P. Kelly, ATF, Deputy Program Director, ILEA-Bangkok, ca. September 2008. Author’s conversation with an American military officer, 12 January 2009.

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54. Author’s conversation with Commander Greg St. Pierre, USN, JUSMAG-Philippines, 28 January 2009. 55. “Press Release Operation PHIMAL 13B” (Kuala Lumpur: Philippines Malaysia Border Patrol Coordinating Group, National Security Council, Prime Minister Department, 2007), p. 2. 56. Author’s conversation with Commander Greg St. Pierre, USN, JUSMAG-Philippines, 28 January 2009. 57. Author’s conversation with Jason A. Donovan, 21 January 2009. 58. Author’s conversation with Commander Greg St. Pierre, USN, JUSMAG-Philippines, 28 January 2009. 59. Author’s conversation with Dante Orate, Assistant ICE Attaché, Department of Homeland Security-Immigration and Customs Enforcement, US Embassy, Manila, 12 January 2009. 60. Author’s conversation with Commander Greg St. Pierre, USN, JUSMAG-Philippines, 28 January 2009. 61. Author’s conversation with an American military officer, 12 January 2009. 62. See Mat Taib bin Yasin and Azahar Hakim Herriman, “Force Structure Planning for the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency”. Paper prepared for the Lima Maritime 2003 Conference “Smart Partnership in Managing Future Maritime Security Challenges”, 29 September 2003 (Kuala Lumpur: Maritime Institute of Malaysia [MIMA], 2003), p. 7 n16; and Ooi, “The MMEA Act”, p. 70 and 73. 63. Ooi, “The MMEA Act”, pp. 75 and 90. 64. Mat Taib and Azahar, “Force Structure Planning”, p. 5. 65. Ibid. 66. Ooi, “The MMEA Act”, p. 76. 67. The extent of the MOF’s jurisdiction from the high tide mark is a matter of interpretation. The original boundary was set at twelve nautical miles but in a speech at a combined U.S.

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Navy-MOF exercise that the author attended in Penang in March 2008, the head of the MOF, Senior Assistant Commissioner II Isa bin Munir, stated that beginning in July 2008, the MOF would concentrate its efforts between four nautical miles off the coast and one mile inland. In a conversation with the author in Kuala Lumpur on 26 March 2009, an American official confirmed that there is still uncertainty over the de facto extent of the MOF’s geographical jurisdiction. 68. Author’s conversation with a senior MOF officer, 30 March 2009. 69. Ibid. 70. Joint operations are those which include elements of two or more services from the same country. For example, a patrol conducted by Navy boats and Air Force helicopters is a joint patrol.

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Conclusion

Small arms, and the global trade in them, have greater political implications than perhaps any other commodity. The black market in guns is the lifeblood of modern piracy, terrorism, insurgency, and the violent forms of organized crime. Aside from the direct impact of these destructive social ills, the trade has a more subtle but perhaps more dangerous secondary effect — the corruption inherent in gunrunning erodes the integrity of the state. As one of its practitioners put it, “gunrunning rolls on the ball bearings of bribery”.1 There can be few things more damaging to the security of a state than the loss of effective control of such a politically dangerous commodity, yet states flirt with this very thing every day through grey market arms transfers that so often end up supplying the black market. Whether they conduct these transfers actively through their intelligence agencies, or passively by allowing licensed dealers or manufacturers to do it, governments are ultimately involved. They must weigh the costs and benefits of these activities against the stability of the international state system which all governments support and depend upon to some degree. This system demands that states have a monopoly on the use of force within their sovereign borders. For this they require firearms, yet not all governments have the capacity to

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produce these weapons. This is the raison d’être of the white market and why it is absolutely vital to the state system. It is also the reason states cannot reach consensus on how to regulate arms transfers of any shade of grey. The Current State of the Sulu Arms Market The three-year period following the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States marked a watershed for the Sulu Arms Market. Aside from the obvious global repercussions of that horrible event, there was a convergence of regional developments, some related to 11 September, some not, that also affected the trade. These events had two principal effects on the Sulu Arms Market as a destination for guns. Demand for weaponry in the Sulu Arms Market has been reduced. The ouster of President Estrada of the Philippines ushered in a promising period of confidence building measures between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Manila. The reduction of tension has proceeded slowly, haltingly, and certainly not steadily, but it has progressed. Until the collapse of the peace agreement in 2008, fighting between the MILF and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) was on the decline and even now there is a sense that the two sides can regain the common ground they had just a few short months ago. A corresponding push to destroy terrorist infrastructure in the region reinforced this spirit of détente. Security forces in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand tracked down and destroyed Jemaah Islamiya (JI) wherever they found it. Malaysia effectively ended its relationship with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) when it deported

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the fugitive Nur Misuari to face justice in the Philippines. In Mindanao, Operation Enduring Freedom–Philippines (OEF-P) increased the AFP’s effectiveness while reducing its negative impact on the population. Since then, the AFP and PNP have attrited the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) to a shadow of its former stature. The waning conflict between Manila and the Moros, coupled with the partial destruction of the intransigent ASG and JI, occurred at a time when global events were also lining up against the supply side of the Sulu Arms Market. The supply of weapons to the Sulu Arms Market has been disrupted. The drama of the Sipadan incident and the first Bali bombing brought home to the countries of the Sulu Zone the sheer gravity of the threat posed by wellarmed, well-trained terrorists in their remote areas. The two events fit neatly into the context of global terrorism and lent impetus to a cooperative multilateral effort to eliminate the Sulu Arms Market and its associated drug and human trafficking operations. All three countries joined in a multilateral information-sharing agreement and are now working with allies (particularly the United States) to beef up enforcement efforts. Malaysia and the Philippines created coastguards and military joint task forces dedicated to the task of interdiction. Malaysia, seeking to boost its credibility as a mediator in the MILF-Philippine peace talks, halted small arms production in 2001. Further afield, traditional sources of weaponry for the Sulu Arms Market are drying up. Cambodia is running out of guns and those that remain are coming increasingly under government control. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have destroyed Al Qaeda safe havens and diverted jihadi attention

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away from the Moros; those jihadi terrorists who are not fighting to survive are more worried about events in Kabul than in Cotabato. As China and Russia build up their own militaries, neither has the energy or resources to support proxies to the degree seen during the Cold War, especially in the Sulu Sea region where they lack any obvious ideological allies. The effects are being seen on the battlefield; after the collapse of the MILF-Philippine peace agreement in July 2008, fighting between the AFP and “lost commands” of the MILF faded out after only three weeks because of a lack of ammunition on both sides.2 Yet the Sulu Arms Market persists. In his seminal work on the world of illicit trafficking, Timothy Green estimated that over ninety per cent of smuggled commodities go undetected by the authorities, a figure confirmed by countertraffickers with experience in the Sulu Zone.3 This suggests there is still a considerable volume of trade in the Sulu Arms Market. Mindanao is still awash with guns and so are the AFP and the Malaysian Army, which will be vulnerable to leakage if the Moros seek to upgrade their arsenals. As all sides continue to hedge their bets against the possibility of a further breakdown in the peace process, the ant trade continues to move guns and ammunition between Mindanao and Borneo. Those ASG members that survived the AFPU.S. onslaught did so by joining the MILF, the MNLF, or both. “Lost commands” and “unaffiliated” criminal gangs continue to provoke the AFP, bringing it into increasing conflict with the “peaceful” MILF. Angered by Malaysia’s betrayal, Nur Misuari has yet again changed his stripes, reinventing himself as a Sulu nationalist and putting himself and the MNLF firmly in the sights of both Kuala Lumpur

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and Manila; a step he would not take unless he was relatively confident of receiving tacit support from the MILF. And with every day that passes, the economic engine which is so vital to suppressing the arms trade loses momentum in Sulu. The Sulu Arms Market is at a crossroads. If escalating tension in the region boils over into renewed fighting, the market will remain a destination for weaponry from a variety of sources. However, if the fragile peace holds in Mindanao and the economic crisis deepens, guns from the tri-border area will flow increasingly outward. The implications are not good for simmering conflicts in the wider region. Solutions to the problem are found at both ends of the cooperative spectrum with effective counter-trafficking at one end and multilateral policymaking at the other. Tensions between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines dictate that those solutions should come from law enforcement rather than the military. When operating in sensitive border areas, lightly-armed police forces tend to be less provocative than military units. An effective enforcement regime based on law enforcement rather than the military will inspire similar efforts across the region and further reduce the anxiety that hinders cooperation. It is with this goal in mind that the way ahead begins to take shape. The Way Ahead The battle to control the Sulu Arms market is one that requires difficult decisions regarding enforcement structure and priorities from the leaders of the tri-border countries as well as the United States. Malaysia and the Philippines in particular require major structural adjustments in their

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littoral enforcement agencies and their regional cooperative agendas in order to achieve success. Fortunately, the benefits of cooperation and the methods required to achieve it have been demonstrated not far away in the Strait of Malacca. Malaysia must elevate the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) to take the lead against transnational crime in its portion of the Sulu Zone. This will require a realignment of priorities for manning, equipping, training, and jurisdiction to favour the MMEA over the Navy and the Marine Operations Force (MOF). With regard to manning, Malaysia must waive mandatory retirement for all MMEA officers — not just the Director General — that have either come out of retirement or transitioned from other agencies. This policy should remain in effect until such time that the MMEA can draw its senior leadership from within its own ranks. The agency should be given priority for recruiting and increased funding for recruitment. Eventually, the MMEA will require its own training infrastructure or at least a guaranteed place in the training systems of either the Navy or the MOF as appropriate. With regard to equipment and training, the MMEA must obtain the patrol class ships capable of operating at the extent of Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and beyond. These ships can operate in heavy weather and are capable of supporting helicopter operations that will enhance the agency’s surveillance capability and are required for fulfilment of its responsibility for search and rescue.4 Secondly, the MMEA currently lacks the essential ability to conduct high speed interception of fleeing vessels. The recruitment and training of the skilled personnel required

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for this capability cannot even commence until the MMEA acquires enough rigid-inflatable and fast troop-carrying boats necessary for the job. A motion to provide the equipment for a core of this capability has been approved under the Southeast Asia Tri-Border Initiative (SATI) but the MMEA must make expansion of this capability its number two acquisition priority.5 With regard to jurisdiction, the MMEA must eventually assume responsibility for counter-terrorism and countertrafficking in eastern Sabah from Joint Task Force 2 (JTF 2). There are many challenges to this as Malaysia cannot ignore the primary role of the military in the physical defence of eastern Sabah, or the dependence of maritime enforcement upon the success of land and riverine operations of the Malaysian Police. The solution is not to replace JTF 2 but to expand it into a unified, interagency organization led by the MMEA and supported by operational elements of the military, the police, and other relevant law enforcement agencies. The MMEA must be given primacy for search and rescue and hot pursuit beyond the EEZ during times of peace. Jurisdictions must be defined by a legal separation of military and law enforcement powers and organized functionally rather than geographically. In a country that created and solidified its military and police forces in response to a vicious forty-year communist insurgency, creating this separation is a deeply political decision and may be the greatest challenge of all. Like Malaysia, the Philippines must unify its fractured maritime enforcement efforts under a single, interagency organization. Because the situation in the Philippines involves a higher degree of violence and an autonomous

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region with a more or less legitimate government, Coast Watch South (CWS) should remain the lead agency for maritime enforcement in the Philippine portion of the Sulu Zone. The primacy of CWS should not preclude it from evolving into an interagency organization. On the contrary, it must increase its interoperability with the Philippine Coast Guard, the Philippine National Police (PNP) Maritime Group, the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA), and other relevant security agencies to leverage their unique capabilities. However, the military and political realities surrounding the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) dictate that CWS be organized geographically rather than functionally as in the Malaysian model. The AFP should continue to dominate CWS operations in Sulu but allow a combination of the Philippine Coast Guard and the PNP Maritime Group to predominate in areas that are not part of the ARMM and are not violence prone; areas such as southern Palawan, Balabac, Sarangani, and General Santos City. The benefits of unifying these organizations under a single command linked closely to the AFP certainly outweigh the drawbacks, but only if CWS is given the right tools for the job. First and foremost, a political decision must be made in Manila to force military and civilian agencies to work together. Only then will the various commanders set aside their parochial interests and submit to the operational control of the military. Secondly, the Philippines must give CWS an independent funding stream for operations and maintenance, supply, and procurement. The latter is absolutely critical to address disparities in capability and to link non-military

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units to the intelligence and command and control systems of Western Mindanao Command (WESTMINCOM). Once that has been accomplished, the operations and maintenance and supply budgets will keep those units focused on their operational responsibilities to CWS over competing pressures from their parent headquarters. For this reason, non-AFP units assigned to Coast Watch South must not be rotated or replaced unless they leave their upgraded equipment for use by follow-on units. Eventually, if Mindanao and Sulu ever achieve political stability, CWS must cease to be a military organization. Coast Watch South must today plant the seeds of transformation from a military to a paramilitary structure and nurture them through joint military and police operations. The transnational nature of arms smuggling in the triborder area requires a multinational solution. The countries of the region must work simultaneously to formulate compatible policy that will enable combined enforcement efforts to ultimately eradicate the Sulu Arms Market. Up to this point, bilateral and multilateral agreements have focused on operational details such as information-sharing agreements and standard operating procedures. While these arrangements are critical for combined enforcement, they represent a case of trying to run before learning to walk. Even the most effective combined patrols will be rendered useless if the participants cannot agree on the legality or seriousness of any smuggling they manage to observe. Creation of a multinational legal framework that governs maritime commerce in the tri-border area, and the strengthening of existing cooperative agreements are two steps necessary to fix this oversight.

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Whether the tri-border countries pursue creation of a common legal framework tri-laterally or through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a political decision outside the scope of this book, but whatever path they choose, they must first focus their attention on turning illicit trade into illegal trade, a principal that cannot be limited only to firearms. As noted in Chapter 1, the difference between illicit and illegal commerce lies in the conditional legality of a smuggled item depending upon which side of the border it is on. The prevalence of government subsidies in the Sulu Zone ensures that traditional trade in a wide variety of common-use items can be considered illicit. The smuggling of such mundane commodities contributes directly to arms trafficking because the ant traders who stay busy moving low grade contraband like subsidized diesel will find few reasons to limit their cargoes to a single illicit commodity if presented with the opportunity to transport more lucrative goods like guns. Because illicit trade in everyday-use items is only profitable when taxation or subsidies create artificial market pressures, the tri-border countries must equalize their pricing regimes for commonly smuggled items such as cooking oil, rice, and cigarettes. This will greatly reduce incentives to engage in the ant trade and will consolidate illicit supply lines into more conspicuous illegal transportation networks that are easier to target and prosecute. Secondly, any multilateral legal framework must include agreed upon definitions of which commodities are illegal. In the Philippines, this will require nothing short of an honest assessment of the negative economic impacts of that country’s permissive gun culture. Addressing the gun culture

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is difficult and controversial, and while it is safe to say that gun laws in the Philippines and Malaysia will probably never intersect, steps can be taken to decrease the disparity and to improve control over gun transfers. The very simple administrative step of implementing geographically-based registration for guns in Sulu will prevent their legal transfer from island to island along the archipelago and eventually across international borders. This will ease investigations and disrupt the redistributive system of firearms logistics in Sulu. Thirdly, the tri-border nations must bring penalties for arms smuggling into common alignment. This goes beyond standard sentencing for violations, because agreement on punishment is predicated on a measure of transparency in the justice systems of the concerned states. For example, if a Malaysian smuggler is arrested in the Philippines, the Malaysian Government must be assured that he will face an agreed upon sentence, receive a trial of the same credibility and fairness that he would receive in Malaysia, and if convicted that he will be incarcerated under acceptable physical conditions. Likewise, if Malaysia requests extradition, the Philippines must be confident that that same smuggler will not simply be given a slap on the wrist by the Malaysian courts and subsequently released to smuggle again. Without this mutual trust and transparency within the justice system, standard sentencing will be meaningless and cooperation avoided. The countries of the tri-border region should postpone updating and strengthening the operational details of their existing bilateral and multilateral anti-smuggling agreements until they make significant progress toward a workable

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common legal framework for regulating illicit commerce between them. Better still, they should avoid including operational details into such agreements altogether and instead give on-the-scene commanders enough authority to work out those details at their level instead of waiting for it to be done, rather inadequately, by politicians. This framework will enable their enforcement agencies to coordinate their actions in a meaningful way instead of in the superficially symbolic ways of today. At present, bilateral operations under existing agreements are not truly combined, they are merely coordinated. Furthermore, they only occur four times a year between the Philippines and Indonesia and only twice between Malaysia and the Philippines; hardly often enough to make an impact.6 Updated agreements must also include provisions for hot pursuit across boundaries and for direct intelligence sharing between the single-points-of-contact in each country. The ultimate expression of these improvements will be the execution of truly combined monthly patrolling based on shared intelligence. The United States should continue its current policy of multilateral bilateralism, that is, the accomplishment of multilateral objectives through a series of bilateral initiatives. With regard to counter-trafficking efforts in the tri-border area, the Theater Security Cooperation Plan (TSCP), SATI, and the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) are setting the conditions for true multilateral cooperation in the region. That being said, the United States must intensify its efforts to build the capability of regional law enforcement agencies. All the recommendations made in the preceding paragraphs of this chapter depend entirely on the ability of

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the tri-border states to effectively enforce the laws in their own territory, without that ability, any bilateral or multilateral initiatives against trafficking will surely fail. For the United States to succeed in this endeavour, it must balance competing interests within its own security community and make some hard decisions about which units to support and which ones to ignore. The gaps in coverage caused by such decisions can be mitigated by coordinating U.S. efforts with its allies, particularly Australia and Japan, which also maintain robust security relationships in the region. In Malaysia, the U.S. effort should focus on the MMEA, and in the Philippines, on Coast Watch South. As the capabilities of these organizations increase, the limitations of Malaysian and Philippine law to support them will become apparent and will help drive political efforts to create compatible policies that will lead eventually to multilateralism. The best way to influence this process is to give the Department of State more tools to affect policymaking by increasing Section 1207 funding for SATI from US$16.9 million to US$40 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2011.7 This represents a 3.1 per cent increase in SATI’s share of the global Section 1207 authorization (up from 16.9 per cent of US$100 million in FY 2008 to 20 per cent of US$200 million in FY 2011) and will be necessary to build the foundations of MMEA, CWS, and the Indonesian Maritime Security Coordinating Board (BAKORKAMLA) to a point where those organizations can focus on enhancing capabilities rather than simply acquiring them. The United States must continue to help develop the whole-of-government approach to counter-trafficking. The decisive point for this is wherever military and law enforcement objectives intersect. In the tri-border area this

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occurs at JTF 2 and WESTMINCOM. The United States must nurture the growth of an interagency mindset in these otherwise military units while simultaneously encouraging the governments of Malaysia and the Philippines to codify a separation of powers between their military and domestic law enforcement agencies. The United States must leverage the significant intelligence, operational, and command and control capabilities of JTF 2 and WESTMINCOM to support interagency objectives with the ultimate goal of relinquishing control of the interagency process to the MMEA and a law enforcement-heavy CWS. One of the biggest obstacles to this is the internal debate within the U.S. security community over the proper role of the military in fighting terrorism and transnational crime. In the tri-border area, where illicit trafficking, particularly in arms, straddles this nexus, it will be up to the managers of the TSCP and SATI to find common ground and create solutions that work for the host nation. Notes 1. 2. 3.

4.

Timothy Green, The Smugglers: An Investigation into the World of the Contemporary Smuggler (New York: Pocket Books, 1970), p. 114. Author’s conversation with Special Agent Qasim Majied, 12 January 2009. See Green, The Smugglers, p. 18; author’s conversation with Dante Orate, Assistant ICE Attaché, Department of Homeland Security-Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Embassy, Manila, 12 January 2009. Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency Act, 2004 (Act 633), Part III, Para 6.1(b).

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Author’s conversation with an official from JIATF-W, 29 January 2009. Ian Storey, “Securing Southeast Asia’s Sea Lanes: A Work in Progress”, Asia Policy 6 (July 2008): 119–20. Perito, Integrated Security Assistance, p. 6. Allocations from the FY 2009 budget should have been decided in October 2008 but it is doubtful that that this has been done given that most of SATI’s FY 2008 budget had yet to be obligated as late as April 2008 (more than halfway through FY2009). There is no reason to think that a similar delay did not take place in FY 2009 and FY2010.

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Mak, Joon Num. “The ‘ASEAN Way’ and Transparency in SouthEast Asia”. In Arms Transparency and Security in South-East Asia, edited by Bates Gill and J.N. Mak. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 38–48. Makarenko, Tamara. “Terrorism and Transnational Organized Crime: Tracing the Crime-Terror Nexus in Southeast Asia”. In Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability, edited by Paul J. Smith. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2005, pp. 169–87. “Manila’s Misery”. Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 June 1975, p. 21. Muggah, Robert. “After the Smoke Clears: Assessing the Effects of Small Arms Availability”. In Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem, edited by Peter Batchelor and Keith Krause. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 196–249. Naylor, R.T. “The Structure and Operation of the Modern Arms Black Market”. In Lethal Commerce: The Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, edited by Jeffrey Boutwell, Michael T. Klare and Laura W. Reed. Cambridge, MA: Committee on International Security Studies, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995, pp. 44–57. Noble, Lela Gardner. “Ethnicity and Philippine-Malaysian Relations”. Asian Survey 15, no. 5 (May 1975): 453–72. ———. “The Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines”. Pacific Affairs 49, no. 3 (Autumn 1976): 405–24. Ooi, Irwin Ui Joo. “The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency Act 2004: Malaysia’s Legal Response to the Threat of Maritime Terrorism”. Australian & New Zealand Maritime Law Journal 21, no. 1 (2007): 70–91. Paridah Abd. Samad and Darusalam Abu Bakar. “MalaysiaPhilippines Relations: The Issue of Sabah”. Asian Survey 32, no. 6 (June 1992): 554–67. Perlo-Freeman, Sam, and Elisabeth Sköns. “Arms Production”.

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In SIPRI Yearbook 2008: Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security. Oxford: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 255–77. Ramakrishnan, Mageswary. “Guns and Money”. Time Online, 11 February 2002, (accessed 7 July 2008). Rodell, Paul A. “The Philippines and the Challenge of International Terrorism”. In Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability, edited by Paul J. Smith. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2005, pp. 122–44. Smith, Paul J. “Border Security and Transnational Violence in Southeast Asia”. In Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability, edited by Paul J. Smith. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2005, pp. 211–26. Storey, Ian. “Securing Southeast Asia’s Sea Lanes: A Work in Progress”. Asia Policy 6 (July 2008): 95–127. Tan, Andrew. “The Singapore Experience”. In Terrorism in the Asia-Pacific: Threat and Response, edited by Rohan Gunaratna. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2003, pp. 222–47. Webb-Vidal, Andy and Anthony Davis. “Lords of War: Running the Arms Trafficking Industry”. Jane’s Intelligence Review 20, no. 5 (May 2008: 8–17. Wood, Brian and Johan Peleman. “Making the Deal and Moving the Goods: The Role of Brokers and Shippers”. In Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms, edited by Lora Lumpe. London: Zed Books, 2000, pp. 129–54. Zahaczewsky, George. “Destroying the ‘Mother of All Arsenals’: Captured Enemy Ammunition Operations in Iraq”. Journal of Mine Action 9, no. 2 (February 2006) (accessed 26 March 2009).

Theses Caculitan, Ariel R., Major. “Negotiating Peace With the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Southern Philippines”. M. Arts Thesis, Monterey, CA: United States Naval Postgraduate School, 2005. David, Ricardo A., Jr., Colonel. “The Causes and Prospect [sic] of the Southern Philippines Secessionist Movement”. M. Arts Thesis, Monterey, CA: United States Naval Postgraduate School, 2003. Luga, Alan R., Lieutenant Colonel. “Muslim Insurgency in Mindanao, Philippines”. M. Arts Thesis, Ft. Leavenworth, KS: United States Army Command and General Staff College, 2002. Manalo, Eusaquito P., Colonel. “The Philippine Response to Terrorism: The Abu Sayyaf Group”. M. Arts Thesis, Monterey, CA: United States Naval Postgraduate School 2004.

Newspapers, News Agencies, and Press Releases “Abu Sayyaf Weapons Capabilities, Foreign Supporters Listed”. Philippine Daily Inquirer, 31 July 1994. Aljani, Nuhman, and Arlie Calalo. “2 Soldiers Caught Stealing Weapons”. Manila Standard Today Online, 23 June 2006 (accessed 29 July 2008). Aragon, Chito O. “High Powered Firearms Seized”. Cebu Daily News Online, 18 March 2008 (accessed 30 July 2008). Araneta, Macon Ramos. “Missing Guns? Tell it to the Marines”. Manila Standard Today Online, 27 March 2008 (accessed 29 July 2008). Arquiza, Rey and Cecille Suerte Felipe. “Guns Seized By NAIA Customs”. Philippine Star Online, 12 April 2002

(accessed 2 August 2008). “ASEAN Must Solve Arms Trafficking”. Jakarta Post, 19 May 2001 (accessed 7 July 2008). “Brothers Nabbed in Antipas for Manufacturing Bombs”. MindaNews Online, 29 June 2008 (accessed 2 August 2008). Charles, Lourdes. “Gun Ring Busted”. The Star, 2 March 2006. “Chasing Out the Illegals: Big Operation, Better Security to Keep Sabah Free of Outsiders”. The Star, 26 June 2008. Chelala, Cesar. “Chinese Arms Fueling Sudanese Conflict”. Japan Times Online, 24 March 2008 (accessed 25 March 2009). “China Defends Arms Sales to Sudan”. BBC News Online, 22 February 2008 (accessed 25 March 2009). Ching, Steven. “So Much More to Sandakan”. The Star, 30 August 2008. “DPRK Said to Smuggle Weapons into Southeast Asian Countries”. Tong-A-Ilbo, 11 September 1996.

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Dursin, Kanis. “Worried Governments Target Small Arms Trade”. Asia Times Online, 12 May 2000 (accessed 23 August 2008). Evangelista, Romie A. “Documents: PNP Officers Work with Gun Smugglers”. Manila Standard Today Online, 5 March 2007 (accessed 4 July 2008). ———. “RP, Japan Cops Tackle Gun Smuggling”. Manila Standard Today Online, 12 March 2007 (accessed 4 July 2008). Falconer, Bruce. “Viktor Bout’s Last Deal”. Mother Jones Magazine Online, 18 March 2008 (accessed 28 August 2008). Felipe, Cecille Suerte. “Gun Ban Nets 493 Illegal Firearms”. ABS-CBN News Online, 19 February 2007 (accessed 29 July 2008). “Filipino Gunsmiths Are Making a Killing”. Taipei Times Online, 7 May 2005 (accessed 4 July 2008). Garcia, Bong. “Military Intercepts Firearm Shipment in Zambo Wharf”. Sun.Star Zamboanga Online, 15 March 2007 (accessed 4 July 2008). Garrido, Marco. “Philippines: Crazy about Guns”. Asia Times Online, 21 January 2003 (accessed 4 July 2008). “Gun Smuggling: Three Arrested”. Bernama, 25 July 2005 (accessed 7 July 2008). “High-Level Yakuza Held on Suspicion of Gun-Smuggling”. Japan Times Online, 22 August 2006 (accessed 4 July 2008). “Highest Number of Firearms Seized in Sarawak”. Bernama, 16 May 2005 (accessed 5 July 2008). Ilagan, Aris R. “Cops to Hunt Gun Syndicates”. Manila Bulletin Online, 13 July 2007 (accessed 2 August 2008). “Illegal Guns Flourish in the Trigger-Happy Philippines”. Taipei Times Online, 8 December 2003 (accessed 4 July 2008). “Indonesia, Malaysia Agree on Procedure for Border Patrols”. Antara News Online, 23 November 2008 (accessed 18 January 2009). “Indonesia, Philippine Leaders Agree To Fight Gun-Running”. Agence France Presse, 22 August 2001 (accessed 7 July 2008). “International Arms Smuggling Fuelling Conflicts in Indonesia”. Jakarta Post, 10 July 2002 (accessed 5 July 2008). Lawder, David. “U.S. Treasury Cites 3 Saudis Over Aid to Abu Sayyaf”. Reuters Online, 10 October 2007 (accessed 30 July 2008). “Malaysia, Indonesia Agree on Rules of Engagement at Sea”. Bernama, 18 February 2010 (accessed 6 March 2010). “Malaysia Replaces Steyr Assault Rifle With Colt M4 Carbine”. Bernama, 27 April 2006 (accessed 16 January 2009). “Malaysia to Step Up Border Security to Curb Arms Smuggling”. Agence France Presse, 26 July 2002 (accessed 5 July 2008). Mogato, Manny. “Interview: Manila Wants Super-Agency to Police Porous Borders”. Reuters Online, 1 September 2007 (accessed 30 July 2008). ———. “MILF Rebels Deny Filipino Officials’ Claim on Receipt of Large Arms Shipment”. BusinessWorld Online, 3 August 2004 (accessed 6 November 2008). ———. “U.S. Pours $15.5 Million to Tighten Philippine Borders”. Reuters Online, 3 June 2008 (accessed 30 July 2008). “More Than 15,000 Firearms Used in Crimes—PNP”. Philippine Star Online, 19 May 2005 (accessed 30 July 2008). Ng, Freddie. “Two Gun-Runners Shot Dead”. New Straits Times, 24 July 2002. O’Connor, Mike. “Albanian Village finds Boom in Gun-Running”. New York Times Online, 24 April 1997 (accessed 18  November 2008). “Ops in Line with UN Conventions”. The Star, 29 June 2008. Otero, Rex C. “CIDG Arrest Firearms Manufacturer”. Sun.Star Network Online, 2 May 2004 (accessed 29 July 2008). “Philippine Hostage-Takers Believed to Be Gun-Running Gang”. People’s Daily Online, 27 May 2005 (accessed 4 July 2008). “Philippine Muslim Rebels Await Afghan Arms Shipment”. Agence France Presse, 7 July 1999 (accessed 7 July 2008). “Philippines Police ‘Pawned Guns’ ”. BBC News Online, 29 June 2006 (accessed 29 July 2008). “Press Release Operation PHIMAL 13B”. Kuala Lumpur: Philippines Malaysia Border Patrol Coordinating Group, National Security Council, Prime Minister Department, 2007.

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Rahman Daud. “Police Suspect Rice Smugglers May Be Bringing in Weapons”. New Straits Times, 11 September 2003. Ramos, Marlon. “2 Nabbed For Gunrunning; Guns, Ammo Seized”. Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, 7 June 2008 (accessed 4 July 2008). “Rebels Raid Philippine Police Station, Seize Guns”. Reuters Online, 24 September 2007 (accessed 4 August 2008). Sagayam, Andrew. “Most Wanted Behind Bars”. The Star, 25 September 2008. “Sandigan Orders Arrest of Ex-Marines Chief, 7 Others over Case of Missing Firearms”. GMA News.TV, 7 February 2008 (accessed 29 July 2008). “Senior JI Member Jailed for Seven Years for Illegal Explosives and Weapons”. Agence France Presse, 11 May 2004 (accessed 5 July 2008). “Thai Writer Links Problems in South with Gun-Running, Aceh Rebels”. Bangkok Post, 28 January 2004 (accessed 7 July 2008). Then, Stephen. “Firearms for Crimes ‘Supplied’ By Smugglers”. The Star, 19 October 2003. Tripathi, Rahul. “Kattas to Colts: Blame the Spiralling Crime Graph on Unlicensed Arms”. Times of India Online, 2 July 2008 (accessed 4 July 2008). “Two Cops Held for Gun Smuggling”. The Star, 2 January, 2005. Tzu-Li Wan Pao. “PRC Said Supplying Arms to Taiwan’s Criminal Syndicates”. Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers, Black Market Archive, 2 March 1999 (accessed 7 July 2008). “Victor ‘The Devil’ Infante Charged with Weapons Exportation and Methamphetamine Distribution — Arrested in the Philippines”. Washington, DC: United States Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 6 November 2003.

Reports and Official Documents The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: Norton, 2004. After Activity Report of the 3rd Multilateral Maritime Security Conference Held in Cebu, Republic of the Philippines on 27–29 August 2007. Honolulu, HI: Asia Pacific Security Forum (APSF) Inc., 2007. Agreement on Information Exchange and Establishment of Communications Procedures between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Putrajaya, Malaysia: Government of Malaysia, 7 May 2002. ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime. Jakarta: Secretariat, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (accessed 23 January 2009).

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Batam Joint Statement of the 4th Tripartite Ministerial Meeting of the Littoral States on the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. Batam, Indonesia: Government of the Republic of Indonesia, 2 August 2005. Bowen, Stuart W., Jr. Inspector General. Iraqi Security Forces: Weapons Provided by the U.S. Department of Defense Using the Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund, SIGIR-06–033. Arlington, VA: Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, 2006. Carlos, Clarita R. “Coping with Terrorism and Other Transnational Threats: The view from the Philippines”. Paper presented to Pacific Symposium 2002. “Addressing Transnational Threats in the Asia-Pacific Region”, Institute for National Strategic Studies, 20–21 February 2002 (accessed 27 July 2008). “D.A. Working to Meet Palay Target this Wet Crop in Support of PGMA’s SONA Goal to Hike Rice Output”. Cebu: Department of Agriculture, 1 September 2008 (accessed 22 October 2008). Directive #3000–05, Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2005. Fallon, William J., Admiral. United States Navy, Commander, US Pacific Command. “Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on U.S. Pacific Command posture”. 8 March 2005. Finkenauer, James O. and Ko Lin Chin. Asian Transnational Organized Crime and its Impact on the United States: Developing a Transnational Crime Research Agenda. Washington, DC: United States Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 2004. Illicit Trafficking and Manufacturing of Firearms: Philippine

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Context. Manila: Philippine Center on Transnational Crime (PCTC), n.d. (accessed 2 August 2008). “Information on Sibogoh Island as a Smuggling Waypoint”. declassified US intelligence report, 11 July 2008. Islamic Insurgency in the Philippines Primer. Pearl Harbor, HI: Virtual Information Center, United States Commander-inChief Pacific (USCINCPAC), 2000. Keating, Timothy J., Admiral, United States Navy, Commander, US Pacific Command. “Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on U.S. Pacific Command Posture”. 12 March 2008. Letter from the Congress of the United States to Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand Requesting Extradition of Viktor Bout, 23 July 2008. Makinano, Merliza M. and Alfredo Lubang. Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration: The Mindanao Experience. Ottawa: International Security Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada, 2001. Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency Act, 2004 (Act 633). Mat Taib bin Yasin, Captain, RMN (Ret.) and Azahar Hakim Herriman. “Force Structure Planning for the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency”. Paper prepared for the Lima Maritime 2003 Conference “Smart Partnership in Managing Future Maritime Security Challenges”, 29 September 2003. Kuala Lumpur: Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA), 2003. National Report by the Government of Indonesia on the Implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. Jakarta: Government of the Republic of Indonesia, 2005 (accessed 30 September 2008). Olario, Alberto Rama. “Current Situation of Transnational Organized Crime in the Philippines”. In Work Product of the 108th International Seminar: Current Problems in the Combat of Organized Transnational Crime. Tokyo: United Nations Asia and Far East Institute (UNAFEI) for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, 1998, pp. 171–80. Organization of Islamic Conferences. Final Declaration of the Eighth Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers, 1997 (accessed 7 July 2008). “Palawan Political Figure Facilitates a Weapons Shipment to Mangsee Island”. Declassified U.S. intelligence report, 9 July 2008. Perl, Raphael and Dick K. Nanto. North Korean Crime-for-Profit Activities, CRS Report for Congress, RL33885. Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, February 2007. Philippine Supplementary Report (2nd Report) on Actions and Initiatives against Domestic and International Terrorism: A Report to the Security Council Counterterrorism Committee in Compliance with Paragraph 6 of UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001), S/2002/785. New York: United Nations Security Council, 2002. “Philippines and Malaysia: Agreement on Anti-Smuggling Cooperation, 1 September 1967”. In Treaties and International Agreements Registered or Filed or Reported with the Secretariat of the United Nations 608, no. 8810. New York: United Nations Treaty Series, 1967. “Program Brochure for the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects”. United Nations, 2001 (accessed 9 December 2008). “Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia, 11 November 2004”. In Treaties and International Agreements Registered or Filed or Reported with the Secretariat of the United Nations 2396, no. 43302. New York: United Nations Treaty Series, 2006. Report on Malaysia’s Implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in all its Aspects for the Year 2008. Kuala Lumpur: Government of Malaysia, 2008 (accessed 11 August 2008). Republic of the Philippines 2008 Integrated National Report on the Implementation of the International Tracing Instrument and of the Small Arms and Light Weapons Program of Action. Manila: Government of the Republic of the Philippines, 2008 (accessed 11 August 2008). Resolution 1769, S/RES/1769. New York: United Nations Security Council, 2007. Rojas, Felipe L. PCTC Paper on Terrorism. Manila: Philippine Center for Transnational Crime (PCTC), 1999 (accessed 11 August 2008). Royal Malaysian Police Annual Report 1998. Kuala Lumpur: Royal Malaysian Police, 1998. Royal Malaysian Police Annual Report 1999. Kuala Lumpur: Royal Malaysian Police, 1999. Royal Malaysian Police Annual Report 2005. Kuala Lumpur: Royal Malaysian Police, 2005.

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Ruegg, R.A., Deputy Superintendent of Police, Officer Commanding Marine Branch, Sabah (Sandakan). Police Marine Annual Report 1964 (Sabah). Kuala Lumpur: Royal Malaysian Police, 4 January 1965. Serafino, Nina M. Department of Defense “Section 1207” Security and Stabilization Assistance: A Fact Sheet, CRS Report for Congress, RS22871. Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, May 2008. ———. Department of Defense “Section 1207” Security and Stabilization Assistance: Background and Congressional Concerns, CRS Report for Congress, RS22871. Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, June 2009. ———. Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2006: A Fact Sheet on Department of Defense Authority to Train and Equip Foreign Military Forces, CRS Report for Congress, RS22855. Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, July 2009. United States of America vs. Viktor Bout and Andrew Smulian: Sealed Complaint for Violations of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2339B and 3238, United States, Southern District of New York, 2008.

Internet Resources “About Us”. Bangkok: International Law Enforcement Academy– Bangkok (ILEA), 2009 (accessed 24 January 2009). “Background”. Bangkok: International Law Enforcement Academy–Bangkok (ILEA), 2009 (accessed 24 January 2009).

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“Country Case Studies”. Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2009 (accessed 27 March 2009). “Course Year 2009”. Bangkok: International Law Enforcement Academy–Bangkok (ILEA), 2009 (accessed 24 January 2009). “Kiram Sultan’s Genealogy”. N.P.: Royal Hashemite Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo/Sabah, 2006 (accessed 26 March 2009). “Support of the MNLF”. N.P.: Royal Hashemite Sultanate of Sulu & North Borneo/Sabah, 2006 (accessed 31 March 2009). United States Department of the Navy. “Cooperation Afloat, Readiness, and Training”. Singapore: COMLOG WestPac, 2006 (accessed 24 January 2009). United States Department of the Navy. “Cooperation Afloat, Readiness, and Training, Frequently Asked Questions”. Singapore: COMLOG WestPac, 2006 (accessed 24 January 2009). United States Department of the Navy. “Southeast Asia Cooperation against Terrorism 2007”. Singapore: COMLOG WestPac, 2007 (accessed 24 January 2009). “Who is Victor Bout?” Sharjah. UAE: Air Cess Aviation, 2006 (accessed 26 March 2009).

Interviews Abuza, Zachary: Dr Abuza is Professor of Political Science at Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts and the author

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Bibliography

195

of several books and monographs on Southeast Asian politics and security issues. Interview conducted by email, 28 July 2008. American military officer (anon): The officer interacts regularly with the Philippine military. Interview conducted at the United States Embassy in Manila, Republic of the Philippines, 12 January 2009. American naval intelligence officer (anon): The officer interacts regularly with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. Interview conducted at the headquarters of COMLOG WestPAC, Sembawang Wharves, Singapore, 23 December 2008. American official (anon): The official is knowledgeable about the geographical jurisdiction of the Royal Malaysian Marine Police. Interview conducted at an unspecified location in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 26 March 2009. American official from JIATF-W (anon): The official is a senior executive at the Joint Interagency Task Force–West (JIATFW) and formerly with the Joint Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG) at U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) where he helped develop PACOM’s current engagement strategy for Southeast Asia. Interview conducted at the United States Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 29 January 2009. American special operations officer (anon): The officer was part of an operation in Africa. Interview conducted at the headquarters of U.S. Special Operations Command Europe at Patch Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany, ca. June 2005. American special operations officer (anon): The officer was part of an operation in Indonesia. Interview conducted by email, 18 November 2008. Chinese telecommunication engineers (anon): The engineers were setting up the sensitive parts of a new mobile network in the capital city and Lake Chad region of Chad. Interviews conducted on several occasions at the Hong Kong Restaurant

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in N’Djamena, Chad, and once en route to Kousseri, Cameroon, ca. August 2005. Couch, Harris: Mr Couch is a senior executive at Glock USA in Smyrna, Georgia. Interview conducted by telephone, 15 December 2008. Davis, Anthony: Mr Davis is the Asia Security Correspondent at Jane’s Intelligence Review. Interview conducted by email, 24 July 2008. Donovan, Jason A: Mr Donovan is the Coordinator of the Department of State’s Southeast Asia Regional Strategic Initiative. Interview conducted at the United States Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on several occasions between July 2008 and January 2009. Estilles, Napoleon R: Police Senior Superintendant Estilles is the Chief of the Directorial Staff of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Maritime Group and the former Deputy Commander of the PNP Firearms and Explosives Division. Interview conducted at the headquarters of the PNP Maritime Group at Camp Crame, Quezon City, Republic of the Philippines, 13 January 2009. Griffith, Paul, Special Agent, Drug Enforcement Agency (U.S.): Special Agent Griffith is the Assistant DEA Country Attaché in Malaysia. Interview conducted at the United States Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on several occasions between July and December 2008. Jerard, Jolene Anne: Ms Jerard is the manager of the Indonesia Desk at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Interview conducted at the ICPVTR, 28 October 2008. Kelly, Neil P., Special Agent, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (US): Special Agent Kelly is the Deputy

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Bibliography

197

Program Director at the International Law Enforcement Agency–Bangkok. Interview conducted by telephone, ca. September 2008. Majied, Qasim: Special Agent Majied is the Assistant Attaché of the Department of Defense Force Protection Detachment in the Philippines. Interview conducted at the United States Embassy in Manila, Republic of the Philippines, 12 January 2009 and by telephone on 3 April 2009. Malaysian police officer (anon): The officer is a senior member of the Royal Malaysian Police Marine Operations Force. Interview conducted at a restaurant in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, 30 March 2009. Nepalese military officer (anon): The officer is the commander of a large Nepalese military unit and has contacts within both the People’s Liberation Army (China) and the Afghan Army. Interview conducted at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 18 July 2008. Odney, Derek, Special Agent, Drug Enforcement Agency (U.S.): Special Agent Odney is assigned to the DEA Bangkok Country Office at the United States Embassy in Bangkok where he handles the process for extradition of Viktor Bout to the United States. Interviews conducted by email between September and October 2008, and by telephone on 26 September 2008. Orate, Dante: Mr Orate is the Assistant Attaché at the Department of Homeland Security-Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in the Philippines. Interview conducted at the United States Embassy in Manila, Republic of the Philippines, 12 January 2009. Oreta, Jennifer Santiago: Ms Oreta is the National Coordinator of the Philippine Action Network on Small Arms (PhilANSA), and a researcher at Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City, Republic of the Philippines where she specializes in

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women’s perceptions of small arms violence. Interviews conducted by email between July 2008 and January 2009, and at a restaurant in Makati, Republic of the Philippines, 12 January 2009. Regional intelligence official (anon): The official served with his country’s security services in the Sulu Sea region from 1999–2006. Interview conducted at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ca. September 2008. Security official from EnCana Corporation (anon): The official was head of security for EnCana’s Chadian operations. Interview conducted in N’Djamena, Chad, ca. July 2005. South African special forces logistician (anon): The logistician was a mid-level officer in an Apartheid-era special operations unit. Interview conducted in N’Djamena, Chad, ca. August 2005. St. Pierre, Greg, Commander USN: Commander St. Pierre is the Chief of Navy Programs at the Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group–Philippines. Interview conducted by email, 28 January 2009. Stevenson, Thomas, Major, USA: Major Stevenson is a student at the Malaysian Army Staff College. Interview conducted at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 18 January 2009. Teal, Timothy C., Special Agent, Drug Enforcement Agency (U.S.): Special Agent Teal is the DEA Country Attaché in the Philippines. Interview conducted at the United States Embassy in Manila, Republic of the Philippines, 12 January 2009. Velez-Zapata, Luis Fernando, Colonel, Army of the Republic of Colombia: Colonel Velez is the commander of an infantry brigade. Interview conducted by email, 12 November 2008. Watzlavick, Paul: Mr Watzlavick is the Chief of Political-Military Affairs at the United States Embassy in the Philippines.

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Bibliography

199

Interview conducted at the United States Embassy in Manila, Republic of the Philippines, 12 January 2009. Wohlman, Jake: Mr Wohlman is the Counselor for Security Affairs at the United States Embassy in the Philippines. Interview conducted at the United States Embassy in Manila, Republic of the Philippines, 13 January 2009.

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Index 1206 Radar Program, 134 14K Triad, 80 linkage to China and North Korea, 82 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), 76 A Abdul Khayer Alonto, 86 Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, 73, 75 Abkhazia, 32 Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), 7, 41, 73–78 dwindling support, 75 raid on Sipadan, 145 Aceh, 42 Afghanistan, 40 abandoned stockpiles of guns, 23 African Market Complex, 35–37 Agreement on Border Crossing, Philippines and Indonesia, 128

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 201

Agreement on Border Security (1967), Malaysia and Indonesia, 129 Agreement on Information Exchange and Establishment of Communication Procedures (2002), 122–24, 133 AK-47, 28, 30, 111 durability and reliability, 31 introduction into tribally violent societies, 35 Al Harakat Al Islamiya, 73 Al Khobar gang, 80 Al Qaeda, 6, 30 arms from Afghanistan conflict, 41 black arms transfers from, 33 Albania, 31–32 Ambalat dispute, 130 American Market Complex, 27–30

1/18/11 1:23:52 PM

202

“ammo dumps”, 39 Andaman sub-regional market complex, 42 Anglo-Malayan Defense Arrangement (AMDA), 123 Angola, 35 Ant traders, 26, 79 anti-communist groups, U.S. supported, 28 anti-smuggling agreements, bilateral, 60 Anti-Smuggling Treaty (1967), 128–29 apartheid, fall of, South Africa, 36 Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), 7 leakage of military grade explosives, 78 leakage of M16s, 112 recruitment and training of covert force of Moro guerrillas, 66 Armed Islamic Group (GIA), 74 arms manufacturers, numbers, 2 arms market black, 21 broker, 25 components, 22–27 consumer, 24–25

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 202

Index

grey, 20 secondary sources, 23 source, 23–24 transporter, 25–27 types, 19–20 white, 20 ASEAN Centre for Combating Transnational Crime (ACTC), 126 ASEAN Plan of Action (PoA) to Combat Transnational Crime, 120, 122, 125–26 ASEAN Way, 119 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) export controls variations, 110 formation of, 60 Astami, Shuaiv, 96 profile of a broker, 97 Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), 160 Maritime Industry Authority, 141 Avdeev, Igor, 53 aviation law, 105 B Balkans, war, 31 Basilan Island, 7, 140

1/18/11 1:23:53 PM

Index

Batam Agreement, 122, 125 Batchelor’s rankings, 58 Belgium, 30 Ostend, 35 Beretta, 34 bilateral agreements, effect on Sulu arms market, 118 bilateral anti-smuggling agreements, 60 bilateral initiatives, 126–30 Malaysia and Indonesia, 129–30 Philippines and Indonesia, 128 Philippines and Malaysia, 128–29 Bintang Class patrol boats, 143 Borneo, 60 Bout, Viktor, 25, 35, 53 delivery of Libyan arms to Mindanao, 71 Brazil, arms manufacturer, 29 brokers, military backgrounds, 25 Buli Sim Sim, 100 Bureau 39, 43 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), 139 Bureau of Customs (BUCUS), 141

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 203

203

Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), 141 Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID), 141 C Cambodia abandoned stockpiles of guns, 23 Chinese arms, 42 Camp Abu Bakar, 109 Caucuses, national fragmentation, 32 Cebu, 77 maritime security conference (2007), 122 paltiks from, 81 Central Asian Market Complex, 40–42 Chechen separatists, 41 Chechnya, 32 China, production capacity, 44 China North Industries Corporation (Norinco), 45 Chinese Triads, 30 Coast Watch South (CWS), 120, 160 coastal radar, 5 Cold War, new sponsors, 63

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204

Colombia Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), 29 leakage of guns from military and police, 29 command centre systems, 5 Communists, 64 concealment, hiding of contraband, 104 Confrontation, 85 contraband, concealment, 104 Cooperation Afloat, Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercises, 134, 136 cooperative agreements, ASEAN member countries, 120 Corregidor Island, 67 corruption, 106–8 counter-proliferation debate, 1 counter-trafficking measures, 5 regional, 118–52 Cowie, William C., 61, 99 Cox’s Bazaar, 43 criminal gangs, Malaysia, gun-running activities, 8 Cuba, 28

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 204

Index

culture, of smuggling, 94 Cyprus, 30 D Dagestan, 32 DAMCOR (Danao Arms Corporation), 111 Damnjanovic, Tomislav, 35 Davao City, 86 illegal gun factories, 81 Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), 141 drop zones, remote, 105 Dudayev, Dzhokhar, 32 E European Aeronautic Defense and Space company (EADS), 44 European Market Complex, 30–34 European Union, export regulations, 33 F facilitators, Indonesian or Filipino origin, 100 Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, 77 firearms availability, relationship to homicide and suicide rates, 2 numbers in existence, 1

1/18/11 1:23:54 PM

Index

Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), 122–23 flight plans, fictional, 105 FN Herstal, 34 G gangsters, Philippines, 79 Giat Industries, 34 Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), 5, 41, 130 Glock, 34 Glock pistols, 40 Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 10 Green Berets, 76 Green, Timothy, 35, 110, 156 gun collectors, peaceful, 24 gun control advocates, 8 gun-running routes, 95 guns, shipped to Kudat, 86 gunshot wounds, death from, 2 H Haji Andres, as facilitator in Kudat, 96 Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HuM), 41, 74 Hashim Salamat, 69–70 Heckler & Koch, 34

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 205

205

Hezbollah, 30 Hong Kong, organized crime syndicates, 80 Hukbalahaps, 64–65 I Iligan City, 104 illicit arms market components, 10–11 global trade, 19–50 illegal logging, 127 Inagawa-Kai Yakuza, 80 Indian gangsters, 42 Indonesian Maritime Security Coordinating Board (IMSCB), 133, 165 insurgent stockpiles, 110 Integrated Area Defence System (IADS), 123 International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), Bangkok, 132, 138–39, 164 International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS), 142 Iran changes in leadership, 38 grey arms transfers from, 33 Iran-Iraq War, 38 Iraq, 39 Iraqi Army, U.S.-supplied firearms, 39

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206

Iraqi Security Forces, 32 Islamic Army of Aden, 74 Islamic militants, need for guns, 63 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), 74 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 37 Italy, 30 J Jabidah Massacre, 67 Jamal-ul-Azam (Sultan), 61 import of firearms from Singapore, 62 Japanese gangs, preference for Danao guns, 81 Jemaah Islamiya (JI), 6, 74 destruction of network, 154 focus of Global War on Terrorism, 131 Joint Committee on Border Cooperation, 129 Joint Interagency Coordination group (JIACG), U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), 132 Joint Interagency Task Force–West (JIATF-W), 138

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 206

Index

Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group– Philippines (JUSMAGPhil), 135 Jolo, Spanish blockade, 97 K Kabataang Makabayang, 85 Kabul, 41 Karbala, Iraq, 38 Khadaffi, Muammar, 68 deal for Sipadan hostages, 75 Khaddafy Janjalani, 76 Khmer Rouge, 64 Kinabatangan River, 100 Konfrontasi, 85 legacy of, 130 Korean Worker’s Party, 43 Kudat, facilitator present in, 96 Kumpulan Mujahedin Malaysia (KMM), 74 Kurds, Iraq, 39 L Labuan, 83 Labuan Trading Company, 61 Lahad Datu, 98 Lebanon, grey arms transfers from, 33

1/18/11 1:23:55 PM

Index

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 6, 41, 74 Libya, contribution to MNLF, 69 Ligitan, 122 M M16s Iraqi Army, 40 Macapagal, Diosdado, 66 MacArthur, Douglas (General), clandestine delivery techniques, 63 Macedonia, 31 Mafia, Russia see Russian Mafia Maimbung, deliveries diverted to, 97 Malayan Communist Party, 63 Malaysia agencies responsible over littoral security, 9 credibility booster, MILFPhilippines peace talks, 155 establishment of littoral enforcement units, 119 Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), 145 gun-running problem, 8

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 207

207

MMEA’s jurisdiction, 158 Joint Task Force 2, 145 Marine Operations Force, 100, 120, 143 competing with MMEA for funding, 144 jurisdiction, 151 national efforts, 142–46 security services, secrecy, 14 strained relations with Philippines, Sabah, 5 Malaysian Army, vulnerable to leakage, 156 Malaysian Army Staff College, visit to Indonesian General Border Committee office, 127 Malaysian Federation, establishment of, 66 Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), 120 Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) Act, 143 Maluku see Moluccas Maluku route cluster, 95–96 Mandaue, 81 Manila Bay, 67

1/18/11 1:23:55 PM

208

Maoist insurgent groups, 64 Marcos, Ferdinand, 66 declaration of martial law (1971), 68 Marine Force Reconnaissance Battalion, 141 maritime law, 105 Maritime Security Conferences, 132–33 Mayor of Balabac, 96 Memorandum of Understanding on Defense Cooperation, 129 Methamphetamine, 82 Mexico, leakage from military and police, 29 Middle East, sponsors from, 43 Middle Eastern Market Complex, 37–40 Mindanao, 60 ammunition into, 4 high number of guns, 156 Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, 43 Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, 71 Moldova, 30 Moluccas, ammunition into, 4 Moro, Declaration of Rights and Purposes, 62

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 208

Index

Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 5, 41, 69–73 confidence building measures with Manila, 154 garrisons in Muslim towns, 77 relative peace with Manila, 93 training camps, 72 Moro nation, 62 Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), 41, 65–70 end of relations with Malaysia, 154 negotiation for autonomy, 70 Multi-National Security Transition Command– Iraq, 40 multilateral cooperative initiatives, 120–23 Multilateral Maritime Security Conference, 133 multinational legal framework, creation of, 161 Myanmar black arms market, participation, 21 Chinese arms, 42

1/18/11 1:23:56 PM

Index

N Nagorno-Karabakh, 32 National Defense Authorization Act section (1206), 134 section (1207), 137 section (1902), 137 National Democratic Front for Bodoland (NDFB), 41 national fragmentation, Black Sea region, 32 National Liberation Army (ELN), 29–30 Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), 41 Naval Air Group Islander, 141 Naylor, R.T., 21 New People’s Army, 64 Nicaragua, Contras, 28 Nixon, Richard, declaration of War on Drugs, 28 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 30 North Korea black arms market, participation, 21 use of front companies in Hong Kong, 82 Northeast Asia, 44–45 percentage of global arms production, 58

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 209

209

Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers, 10 Nunukan, 99 Nur Misuari, 65, 155 direct ties with Arab sponsors, 68 negotiation for autonomy, 70 return to Mindanao, 67 O officials, bribes given to, 107 Operation Balikatan, 140 Operation Enduring Freedom–Philippines (OEF-P), 7, 140, 155 Operation Ultimatum, 76, 140 Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), 68 averse to supporting minority groups, 87 contribution to MNLF, 69 organized crime syndicates, 80–82 Osama bin Laden, 6, 32, 71, 73 Ostend, Belgium, 35 overproduction, 110 P Pakistan-Afghan frontier, quality and volume of handmade firearms, 41

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210

Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), 40 Palawan route cluster, 96–97 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 37 arming of NPA, 64 Palestinian Authority, Fatahled, 38 Palmas Island, dispute over, 122 paltik counterfeits of Western models, 81 paltik industries, 111 Pangkor Island, 67 Pathet Lao, 64 Pavel Grachev, 32 peacekeeping, expansion of, 3 Pelabuhan Baru, 100 Pentagon gang, 80 Philippine Army, outgunned by Moro rebels, 6 Philippine Coast Guard, 120, 141, 161 Philippine Marine Corps, 81 Philippine National Police (PNP) Maritime Group, 141, 160 Philippine National Police (PNP), 74, 140

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 210

Index

Philippines agencies responsible for littoral security, 9 Armed Forces see Armed Forces of the Philippines banning sale of gunpowder, 61 establishment of littoral enforcement units, 119 licensed manufacturers, 110–11 Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA), 160 national efforts, 139–42 number of firearms, 4 post-war, political environment, 63 reissuing confiscated firearms, 22 Phuket, Thailand, 43 pistols, Glock, 40 political importance, guns, 3 politicians Sulu Arms Market, 79 tribe-centric, 80 Poly Technologies, 45 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), 37

1/18/11 1:23:56 PM

Index

R Ranong, Thailand, 43 Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP), 123–25 regional market complexes, 27 Revised Agreement on Direct Liaison and Coordinated Patrol Operations, 128 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), 29 Rheinmetall, 34 Royal Malaysian Police, 100, 142 Russian Mafia, 30 black arms transfers from, 33 S Sabah, 98 clans, 9 Sandakan, roads connected to Tawau, 99 Sarangani Coast, 103 Saudi Arabia, grey arms transfers from, 33 Schuck, H., 61, 99

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 211

211

Sebatik, 99 Senate Armed Services Committee, 134–36 Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path), 30 Serbia, 30 Shabu, 82 shipped to Kudat, 96 Shamil Basayev, 32 Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE), 35 SIG Arms, 34 Sipadan, 75, 122 small arms impact of availability, 2 proliferation, management, 3 Small Arms Survey, 10, 21, 52 smuggling avoidance of authorities, 102–4 camouflage, 104 deception, 105 definition, 94 importance of speed, 103 stealth, 103 smuggling culture, 94 smuggling routes, 83 South Africa, 36 South Asian Market Complex, 40–42

1/18/11 1:23:57 PM

212

South Korea, production capacity, 44 South Ossetia, 32 Southeast Asia Cooperation Against Terrorism (SEACAT) exercise, 136 Southeast Asia Tri-Border Initiative (SATI), 132, 137–38, 159 Southeast Asian arms market, study on, 11 Southeast Asian Market Complex, 42–44 Southern Thailand, 42 Soviet equipment, 28 Spain, counter-trafficking efforts, 61 Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), 55 Special Operations Group, MILF group, 72 Spratly sub-regional market complex, 42–43 Sri Lanka, 42 Sterling Armaments, 34 Steyr-AUG rifles, 112 Steyr-Mannlicher, 34 stockpiles, insurgents, 109, 110 Strait of Malacca, 42 Sudan, 20 Sultanate of Brunei, 98 Sulu, sultans of, 61

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 212

Index

Sulu Archipelago, clans, 9 colonial history, 60–62 smuggling, 97 Sulu Arms Market at crossroads, 157 cooperative initiatives affecting, 121 demand principles and practices, 101–8 routes, 92–101 gateway for guns entering, 98 historical roots, 9–10 importance, 1–7 mid-1960s, grey market, 63 qualitative approach in research, 13 source of supply, 108–12 government arsenals, 111–12 insurgent stockpiles, 109 regional production, 110–11 supply and demand, 93–112 Sulu nationalism, 86 Sulu route cluster, 97–101 Sulu traffickers, 94 Sulu Zone, historical accounts of American and British administrations, 10

1/18/11 1:23:57 PM

Index

Superferry 14, bombing of, 76 Sunni-Shia divide, 37 T Taiwan appearance of guns from Sabah, 82 production capacity, 43 Taiwanese gangs, 80 preference for Danao guns, 81 Taliban Chinese weaponry, 42 grey arms transfers from, 33 Tawau, 98 Tawi-Tawi, 67 Thai-Myanmar frontier, 42 Theatre Security Cooperation Plan (TSCP), 132, 134–36, 164 Transdnistria, 30, 32 transnational threats, influence of United States, 119 transporters, 25–27 tri-border area, 4 Tri-Border Interagency Security Conference, 133 Tripartite Technical Experts Group (TTEG) on Maritime Security, 125

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 213

213

Tripoli peace agreement, 69, 72 Tun Mustafa, 67 Turkey, grey arms transfers from, 33 U UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 123 United Arab Emirates, Sharjah, 35 United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), 41 United Nations, 3–4 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 52 United States multilateralism in Sulu Arms Market, 130–42 need to leverage intelligence and other capabilities, 166 U.S. Coast Guard, combined exercises with, 138 U.S. Department of Defense Directive, Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations, 131

1/18/11 1:23:58 PM

214

Index

U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), 139 U.S. Military, little knowledge of Sulu Arms Market, 8 U.S. Navy, joint exercise with Malaysian Marine Operations Force, 151–52 U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), Security Assistance and International Logistics Division, 135 U.S. Special Operations Command, 140

W Wali Khan Amin Shah, 74 warfare, shift from interstate to intrastate, 3 Warsaw Pact, 30 weaponry, global trade, 19 Western European producers, licensing agreements with manufacturers, 33 Western Mindanao Command (WESTMINCOM), 141, 161 white market guns, 22 World-MPC (Worker’ League of Danao Multi-Purpose Cooperative), 111

V Vietnam abandoned stockpiles of guns, 23 captured American weaponry, 64 Vietnam War, 42

Yakuza, 80 Yousef, Ramzi, 74 Yugoslavia, former leaders, 31

08 Sulu_AM Index.indd 214

Z Zaire, 35

1/18/11 1:23:58 PM

About the Author Major Lino Miani is a United States Army Special Forces officer with over seven years of special operations experience in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. He has a unique background in academic and interagency activities, most recently as a member of the Program for Emerging Leaders (PEL) at the Center for the Study of WMD at National Defense University in Washington, DC. He holds a Master’s of Interagency Studies from Kansas University where he was a member of the inaugural class of the Special Operations Interagency Studies Program (ISP); a Master’s in Strategic and Defense Studies from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where he was an Olmsted Foundation Scholar; and a Baccalaureate in Human Regional Geography and Systems Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is currently serving with the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne).

09 Sulu_AM Author.indd 215

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FIGURE 2.1 Components of the Arms Market 00a Sulu_ArmsFig.indd 1

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FIGURE 2.2 Regional Market Complexes

Note: Boundaries are approximate and there is a significant overlap between some complexes. See Wendy Cukier and Steve Shropshire, “Domestic Gun Markets: The Licit-Illicit Links”, in Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms edited by Lora Lumpe (London: Zed Books, 2000), p. 110; Rachel Stohl, Matt Schroeder, and Dan Smith, The Small Arms Trade: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007), p. 15; Peter Batchelor, “Small Arms, Big Business: Products and Producers,” in Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem edited by Peter Batchelor and Keith Krause (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 30–31; Michael T. Klare, “The Subterranean Arms Trade: Black-Market Sales, Covert Operations and Ethnic Warfare,” in Cascade of Arms: Managing Conventional Weapons Proliferation edited by Andrew J. Pierre (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997), p. 60; Hugh Griffiths and Adrian Wilkinson, Guns, Planes and Ships: Identification and Disruption of Clandestine Arms Transfers (Belgrade: South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons [SEESAC], 2007), pp. iv–vi; Aaron Karp, “Half a Billion and Still Counting… Global Firearms Stockpiles”, in Small Arms Survey 2001, p. 41 and 47; Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (2nd Ed.) (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991), pp. 190–94; and David Kinsella, “The Black Market in Small Arms: Examining a Social Network”, Contemporary Security Policy 27, no. 1 (April 2006): 100–101.

00a Sulu_ArmsFig.indd 2

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FIGURE 2.3 The Southeast Asian Regional Market Complex and its Sub-complexes

Note the distinct divide that runs along the Malayan Peninsula. See Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror (New Delhi: Viva Books, 2005), p. 95; “Thai Writer Links Problems in South With GunRunning, Aceh Rebels”, Bangkok Post, 28 January 2004 (accessed 7 July 2008); Andy Webb-Vidal and Anthony Davis. “Lords of War: Running the Arms Trafficking Industry”, Jane’s Intelligence Review 20, no. 5 (May 2008); and Maria Haug, “Crime, Conflict, Corruption: Global Illicit Small Arms Transfers”, in Small Arms Survey 2001, p. 182.

00a Sulu_ArmsFig.indd 3

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FIGURE 3.1 MILF’s Black Market Suppliers 00a Sulu_ArmsFig.indd 4

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FIGURE 4.1 Geography of the Sulu Arms Market

See Rahman Daud, “Police Suspect Rice Smugglers May Be Bringing in Weapons”, New Straits Times, 11 September 2003; “Indonesia, Philippine Leaders Agree To Fight GunRunning”, Agence France Presse, 22 August 2001