The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) wants the UN Security Council to undertake urgent measures to restore sanity to Somali waters, where piracy and armed attacks against ships have become the order of the day.Talking isn't the same as taking action.
Following the appeal by IMO secretary general Efthimios Mitropoulos and UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, the Security Council is expected to pressure the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia to either crack down on the menace itself or seek international assistance.
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UN action would include consenting to naval ships operating in the Indian Ocean, entering the country’s territorial waters when engaging in operations against pirates or suspected pirates and armed robbers endangering the safety of life at sea, in particular the safety of crews on board ships carrying World Food Programme humanitarian aid to Somalia or leaving Somali ports after having discharged their cargo.
The Council authorised the secretary general to take action in accordance with his proposal.
“The continuing incidents of acts of piracy and armed robbery in waters off the coast of Somalia is of great concern to IMO member states, the IMO secretariat and to me personally,” Mr Mitropoulos said. “The Council’s endorsement of this high-level approach will help considerably in alleviating the situation, especially if support and assistance to ships is enhanced; and if administrations and the shipping industry implement effectively the guidance that IMO has issued and the notices promulgated regularly by naval operations centres.”
*A wonderful phrase from the mind of Jim Boren, well stated as
Dynamic inaction, doing nothing but doing it with style, ...providing the appearance of performance while not having to actually do something.Mr. Boren is an expert on bureaucracies and the minions who inhabit them, and is the author of one of my favorite books, When in Doubt, Mumble.
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