ABSTRACT
Introduction On October 22, 1999, as it was leaving the port of Kuala Tanjung, Indonesia, pirates boarded the Japanese-owned vessel Alondra Rainbow. The crew, which included a Japanese captain and chief engineer, were set adrift in a life raft and, after eleven days at sea, rescued in Thai waters. The pirates changed the name of the Alondra Rainbow to the Mega Rama and disposed of half of the cargo before rerouting the ship for Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. The owners of the vessel informed the Japanese Ministry of Transport that they had lost contact with the Alondra Rainbow and suspected that it had been pirated. The Obuchi Keizō administration swiftly ordered the dispatch of a Japan Coast Guard (JCG) vessel to Southeast Asian waters and worked with Southeast Asian governments in the search for the lost ship. On November 16, the Mega Rama was pursued and captured by the INS Prahar, an Indian naval corvette, and the pirates were later tried and sentenced to seven years hard labor by an Indian court (Hino 2000, 104-5; Takai 2002, 6-7; Yamada 2003, 136).1
