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LISA MULLINS: I'm Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Until a few years ago pirates staged their most frequent attacks in the Straight of Malacca. The Straight of Malacca is between Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Now pirates have changed targets from Southeast Asia to the coastline of Somalia in East Africa. Piracy there has reached the crisis stage just as the problem is almost disappeared near Indonesia. Correspondent Jocelyn Ford went to Aceh Indonesia to find out how the territory tackled the problem of piracy.

JOCELYN FORD: On a fishing boat hugging the Indonesian side of the Strait of Malacca forty-two year old Isaac Abdul Hamid describes how he and a half dozen other men used to grab their AK47s and take to the sea.

JOCELYN: They'd attack ships from tiny boats the length of a couple of sofas. Occasionally they'd bring a ship back to shore.

AMID: They took the boat from the middle of the oceans, and then they brought it over there.

JOCELYN: Isaac says on that occasion they unloaded twenty tons of logs. Then released the sailors.

ISAAC: They also take the big ships, big container.

JOCELYN: Sometimes they asked for a big ransom for the sailors. Isaac remembers the name of one of the ships because it appears on restaurant menus in Indonesia.

ISAAC: Hamburger. [LAUGHTER] This letter in the body of the ship. Hamburg, not Hamburger.

JOCELYN: The wiry father of three is quick to say he and his gun-toting mates never harmed anyone. And the pirate attacks, he says, were for a cause. Isaac belonged to a rebel group known as Gam. Fighting for independence from Indonesia, his division had about 200 marines. He says the rebels resorted to piracy because they were under siege by the Indonesian military. Surrounded on land and at sea. Isaac says the pirates were mainly trying to feed themselves and their families. Though he adds they did take some electronics to sell and for their own use. And once they made over $14,000 selling a load of illegally logged timber. But he says, they give a lot of that to the community to rebuild homes and used it to buy weapons.
As his wife and other women sit on the doc gutting fish, Isaac says now that's all in the past.
In 2005, eight months after the tsunami ravaged the shoreline of OCHA, the Indonesian government and the rebels reached a peace agreement. Isaac says that's more precious to him than gold. And these days pirate watchers have their spyglasses pointed elsewhere.

MALE: Good afternoon. IMB Piracy Reporting Center.

JOCELYN: Across the Straight from Aceh in a skyscraper in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur the International Maritime Bureau logs emergency calls on its 24 hour hot line, or in this case, it's a simulated call.

MALE: Two speedboats, chasing you, chasing your vessel and they're armed with RPGs and automatic. Are they firing at you? Okay.

JOCELYN: [OVERLAPPING] Many of the SOS calls are from the Gulf of Aden along the Horn of Africa. While the number of incidents around Indonesia in the first nine months of 2008 was down two-thirds compared to four years ago, piracy off of Somalia has escalated. Isa Ben Muneer is commander of the Malaysian Marine Police. He attributes the improved safety in the Malacca Straight to stepped up marine patrols.
He says Indonesia and Malaysia have started coordinated actions so it makes it more difficult for the pirates to escape to the other side of the Strait. US Consul Sean Stein, stationed on the Indonesian island of Sumatra says the United States is also helping.

SEAN STEIN: So working with the government of Indonesia we have invested in some fairly high tech radar systems so that the Indonesians can know exactly who and what is passing through the straits.

JOCELYN: But Stein doesn't think patrols have been the key to combating pirates. He says there are lessons for those seeking to combat piracy off of Somalia, which collapsed in a civil war in the 1990s and lacks a central government.

SEAN: Well I think there's a great lesson learned. And the great lesson learned, you know in Aceh was, you know despite great efforts to combat piracy, none of them were ultimately successful until they were able to solve the conflict that was happening on the ground. So that may have some lessons to be applied in Somalia. Solving ultimately the piracy situation in Somalia could be very difficult until the situation on the ground gets under control.

JOCELYN: Back on the shores of the Malacca Straight, Isaac gives a nod of agreement. He doesn't know what's going on in Somalia. But he dismisses the idea that military patrols can put an end to piracy on the open seas. After all, for years he smuggled arms for the rebels purchased from Thai fishermen on the high seas, despite the presence of Indonesian warships. And while he's disappointed that peace has not brought the prosperity he had hoped for, he has no plans to return to piracy.
Anybody who does he says, is an outright criminal and should be thrown in jail. For The World, I'm Jocelyn Ford in East Ache, Indonesia

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