By Amanda Yong

ROBBED, abandoned and left for dead on a deserted island miles away from the nearest help.

That could have been the fate of Dr Eric Frecon, a Singapore-based academic who specialises in piracy studies.

A taxi-boat operator on the Indonesian island of Belakang Padang, north-west of Batam, had offered to take him to meet some pirates living on another island.

Dr Frecon accepted the invitation.

'But that night, my friend told me he (the taxi-boat operator) was actually a pirate himself,' Dr Frecon said.

He learnt that the man had plans to rob him and leave him on the deserted island.

'So I never went to meet him,' he said, cringing slightly as he recollected the episode.

That incident in 2004 was the closest shave the Frenchman has had in the nine years he has been conducting fieldwork on piracy in Indonesia.

The 33-year-old is a post-doctoral fellow under the Indonesia programme at the Nanyang Technological University's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

He got interested in the topic when he was doing his master's degree in international relations at the Sorbonne in Paris.

He picked up Bahasa Indonesia and along the way, also developed a keen interest in doing research on terrorism, security issues and criminality in a post-Cold War South-east Asia. This led him to concentrate on researching piracy in the region.

He first came to Asia to conduct field research in 1999. His first stop? Indonesia. He has not looked back since.

His research takes him deep into the pirates' dens.

How does he get these men to open up to him?

'You're like a fisherman. You throw your line and you wait,' he said.

'You spend days drinking coffee with them. You talk to them, get to know their social context and understand why they attack ships.'

His nationality is an advantage in this aspect. 'I'm seen as neutral because I'm French and not Malaysian, Singaporean or Indonesian,' he explained.

EPL

The mention of French footballing legend Zinedine Zidane is often enough to break the ice.

'It's much more useful for me to know about English Premier League football clubs and talk to them about it,' Dr Frecon said.

But he tries not to get 'too close', he said. 'You're still a researcher, and these people are still criminals, robbers, gang members.'

He feels that people see piracy as a quick, easy way out of grinding poverty.

One former pirate he met landed in Batam from Sembawa in Java about 10 to 15 years ago, drawn by the promise of jobs.

Then in his 20s, he was hired to assist in an attack on a tanker in the Malacca Strait. But the Indonesian police fought off the attack.

'He tried to escape and spent a night swimming in the sea,' Dr Frecon recounted. 'But he was caught and beaten so badly that he lost one eye.'

The young man was jailed. 'But his jail time was cut short as his 'godfather', the pirate chief, paid 300,000rupiah ($44) to get him out,' he said.

Now in his 30s, the man is married with two children and works as a security guard in Batam's shopping district, earning up to $7 a day.

Said Dr Frecon: 'He told me, 'I still need money, so if there's an opportunity, I'll go back to it.' '

Meanwhile, his former pirate brethren freelance as actors in 'reconstruction scenes' in documentaries on piracy produced by foreign journalists. Or they take part in attempts to smuggle contraband cigarettes into Singapore.

But there are those who are still active in the 'profession'. These men roam the streets of Nagoya, Batam's city centre, waiting to get a call from a 'godfather' or a pirate chief looking to hire pirate crew.

Indeed, as Dr Frecon said, Nagoya has been a hot spot for former pirates and pirate wannabes since the early 1990s.

'In Batam, it's quite easy to recruit pirates,' he said. 'And it's a good place to gather information, hire and meet pirates.'

He explained: 'For instance, the 'godfather' gets intelligence from a shipping company. Then he sends word that he needs a gang of pirates.

'Once he has the numbers, they meet in a hotel and set off to another smuggling haven, a smaller island where they can set off for their attack.'

The pay-off is handsome. Each attack nets the ringleader as much as $70,000 on average, while the others get $20,000 each, Dr Frecon said.

With such lucrative returns for each raid, how can the problem of piracy be curbed?

'If you want to cut the roots of piracy, you have to address the problems on land,' he said.

He added: 'So instead of more patrol boats, it's better to fund NGOs (non-governmental organisations), build better and more infrastructure, and integrate these people into mainstream.'

While each trip he makes is fraught with risks, he takes steps to mitigate the dangers. And he has a support network of friends ready and available to help him should he need it.

'In every island, if there's trouble, I know there's someone I can ask for help,' he said. 'And Indonesians are very lovely people.'

This article was first published in The New Paper.