Pirated vessel Filitsa freed for ransom

SOMALI pirates have released the hijacked bulk carrier Filitsa after the owner payed an undisclosed ransom. following the payment of a ransom by the owner. The vessel was hijacked on 11 November 2009 and had been held at the pirate stronghold of Hobyo on the Somali coast until now.
Meanwhile, on Feb 2, pirates moved another hijacked ship, the ro-ro Asian Glory, from its anchorage off the coast of Somalia to rendezvous with a hijacked fishing vessel in the Arabian Sea northeast of Socotra. The pirates on the fishing vessel transferred to the Asian Glory, which then headed back to Somalia. A western warship assisted the halted fishing vessel, enabling it to continue its voyage.

COMMENT: Stakes are high for the pirates - and they're willing to defend them - an important consideration for the less than 30 navy warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden. But it's a good time to pause and consider why the navies cannot control piracy:

• Reason one is simple. There are not enough naval ships to patrol all the oceans. There has been a general run-down in ship-building and naval power that pirates, drug smugglers, and other criminals are well aware of.
• Next, international cooperation is poor. There are at least three separate maritime task forces in the area, while China, India, and Russia go it alone.
• Third, and just as simple, apolitical criminals like pirates care not a fig for the policies, opinions, ambitions or rivalries of the world powers. Business is business and navies are just one more official nuisance to be evaded.
• In the fourth place, piracy is not run by the pirates, but by the landlubbers who control and organize piracy onshore. No one is willing to take on the mess in places like Somalia or Nigeria where criminality and piracy therefore thrive.

Oddly enough, recent experience seems to show that merchant shipping companies can counter piracy far more effectively than navies can. This year alone, around 80 percent of pirate attacks have been foiled by a combination of marine managers calling in security specialists, by merchant captains' professionalism, and by the courage of ordinary seamen fighting back from their vessels.
How encouraging is that? The answer to defying and defeating the pirates lies increasingly in the private sector, not with weakening national navies.