"Anti-piracy campaign has turned into sheer slapstick and deadlocked" – Voitenko

27.08.2010 Despite the absence of any credible statistics of piracy activities and presence of warships in risky areas, it may be said without exaggeration that the military cannot handle the problem, said Mikhail Voitenko, editor-in-chief of online Maritime Bulletin in the interview to the Central Navy Portal.

Primarily, the reason for this is that military mission in the region is inadequate for needs of commercial shipping. Anti-piracy activities held by international naval assets in dangerous waters should imply guaranteed safe passage of merchant and other vessels. The main thing is that such safety must not cause any damages to shipowners. Although convoys are escorted within the safety corridor, shipowners still have to spend money for security guards, ship insurance, double pay for crew, and to bear expenses due to change of schedule, engines' wear and waste of fuel while maneuvering, and so forth.

As for Voitenko, doing away with piracy once and for all is only possible on shore, although there's little hope for global community to conduct international land operation in Somalia.

Presently, only armed guard on board can protect commercial ships in piracy-risky waters, says Voitenko. The best way is conveyer method – guard team boards a ship in point A and is gets off at point B. However, none country or alliance is able to provide such protection alone; for a variety of reasons, only global cooperation can help. And as long as "Somali piracy is good enough for almost everybody" including the military, the anti-piracy campaign has turned into sheer slapstick and deadlocked, concluded Voitenko.