UNITED NATIONS AND PIRACY

Jack Lang

After years of ships being hijacked seafarers captured and killed, it has finally dawned on the United Nations (UN) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that they should actually do something about it. The former French politician Jack Lang has been appointed Piracy-Advisor.

As regular readers know NAUTICAL LOG does not think very highly of the leadership at IMO and the UN specializes in Resolutions and ineffective limited response to chaos - see Egypt for as the current example. So it was with some curiosity that we read a report from one of our European correspondents this morning. Under the glowing headline 'UN launches new anti-piracy drive' on reading further NAUTICAL LOG was informed that this drive had been launched:

"amid concerns that the seizing of ships by Somali pirates was outstripping international attempts to stop them".

Well now this is a relief isn't it. How long does it take for daily reports of piracy to penetrate into the UN and more to the point the IMO HQ in London.

It seems that the layers of bureaucracy buffers not only the noise of London traffic but years of daily data as well. Instead of using extreme prejudice against these thugs in the first place:

"the plan loosely examines the issue of what justice the pirates should face if they are caught".

In other words after mid-morning coffee they will chat a bit and then adjourn for a three hour lunch. May one be so bold as to suggest a firing squad if they missed the extreme prejudice in the first place. Sorry fellow seafarers just another time wasting Ban-Ki-moon speech (very nice man though) which will do little or nothing for us mariners.

Good Watch.

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