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any Indonesians are enraged by media reports that MV Sinar Kudus, an Indonesian cargo ship carrying nickel ore from Pomalaa, South Sulawesi, to Rotterdam, the Netherlands, is still being held hostage one month after Somali pirates hijacked it in the Arabian Sea on March 16.

There are 20 Indonesians among the 31 crew members aboard, and there has been announcement of rescue efforts from neither the Indonesian government nor the shipping company or the firm owning the nickel ore. Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said that the absence of an announcement doesn’t mean that the government isn’t acting. We can only hope that the government does act.

Latest news reports say the Indonesian Military (TNI) has deployed troops to Somalia to free the ship and its crew.

Somali pirates have become a constant threat since the fall of the Siad Barre regime in Somalia. Foreign aid to develop the country’s fishing industry dropped due to the Somali civil war. In 2011 alone, there have been 13 ships attacked by the pirates: seven in January, five in February, and one in March. An attempt to hijack a Bahaman container ship was prevented by the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard. One private American yacht saw its hijackers killed and detained by US forces after its entire crew was killed. Three ships have been rescued, six are still captive and two still have crew being held hostage.

Defying popular requests to pay the ransoms, other states whose citizens have been hijacked have maintained a principle of not negotiating with pirates. The governments’ priorities are to seize control of the ships, capture the pirates and rescue the hostages.

In January, South Korean commandos under Operation Dawn in the Gulf of Aden recovered a hijacked South Korean tanker by dispatching South Korean special forces, backed up by a nearby naval destroyer and a Lynx helicopter providing cover.

In March, the Combined Maritime Forces’ CTF-151 counter-piracy mission came to the rescue of an Indian oil tanker in the Indian Ocean from four suspected Somali pirates by assigning US Navy destroyer USS Bulkeley, supported by a Turkish frigate, TCG Giresun, of NATO’s counter-piracy taskforce and an SH-60 Seahawk helicopter.

The Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) itself is a 25-nation naval partnership that works to disrupt piracy and armed robbery and improve security in international waters off the coast of the Middle East, while the Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) is one of the three taskforces operated by the CMF in its counter-piracy mission.

The list doesn’t stop with the success stories. In February, the US Navy failed to rescue all four crew members of an American private yacht captured in the Indian Ocean. Pirates killed the crew before US forces boarded the vessel, killed two pirates and detained 13 others. The incident took place as negotiations involving the FBI were under way for the hostages’ release.

Those stories tell us what the Indonesian government has to do. First, the government must not negotiate with the pirates. While their irrationality may be questionable (as Peter T. Leeson argued in his 2009 book, The Invisible Hook), pirates don’t need to be “crazy” to be wrong (borrowing Amitai Etzioni’s terms on rogue states’ and terrorists’ rationality). What the government needs to prioritize is the safety of the hostages.

This task needs quick response, which the government has failed to comply, and a guarantee of the hostages’ safety can only be ensured either after our forces rescue all of them or after all pirates are killed or detained.

Second, multinational cooperation is a must. This is to provide support necessary to ensure the success of the operation. The rescue requires at least the support of aircraft providing close air support (CAS) and a warship providing suppressing fire, which also prevents the escape of the pirates.

This is where our Navy lacks: Our aircraft inventory mainly consists of transport aircraft and utility helicopters, while our frigates lack the tonnage to cross the ocean. The CTF-151 is composed of various countries that assign vessels and aircrafts, which would be of great support to our forces.

In a nutshell, a hostage rescue operation conducted by the military is necessary to free the MV Sinar Kudus.

Last but not least, the problem of Somali pirates must be solved comprehensively, down to its roots, through a multilateral forum, as Somali pirates have long been a threat to international shipping since the early 21st century and their acts of piracy have only risen through the years. Shipping costs increase as ships now require military escorts in areas under threat of Somali pirates. Multilateral steps are essential so that no other Indonesian vessels are captured in the future.

The writer is a graduate scholar of international relations studies in University of Indonesia, specializing in international security studies.