“Shipbreaking” #16
The shame remains but the crime scene has disappeared.
In October 1992, the Renata (then named MC Ruby) was owned by MC Shipping Company, a subsidiary of the Vlassov Group based in Monaco; her ship manager was V Ships, another subsidiary company of the group. The ship was loaded with cocoa in Ghana and was bound for Le Havre, Amsterdam and Hamburg. During the trip, nine stowaways were discovered, stripped of their money and confined in the forepeak ; they were brought up on the deck by night, then struck and thrown on the high seas between Takoradi and Le Havre. The only survivor alerted officials in Le Havre. On December 9th 1995, at the end of a four week trial, the master and the chief-mate were condemned to a life sentence and three other members of the Ukrainian crew to 20 years of detention. Neither the Vlassov group, nor their subsidiary companies (MC Shipping and V. Ships) have been sued, in spite of the degraded conditions imposed on the crew and the many additional traffics on the ship which were highlighted and known to all. The significant bond between the ship management and the crew was not retained. See« Coke en stock », La Flèche, hiver 1996 and « Le désert des Barbares » communiqué de Robin des Bois, 9 décembre 1995.
“Shipbreaking” #15
Goodbye Bangladesh, hello Philippines?
On March 18th 2009 the Bangladeshi High Court of Justice ordered the closure within two weeks of all ship-breaking yards operating without environmental clearance. Considering the state of all the ship-breaking yards in the country this would mean completely closing down the field. The decision also prohibits the importation of vessels which have not undergone any preliminary extraction of hazardous materials (asbestos, PCBs, heavy metals, hydrocarbons …) To prepare an appeal against this decision the industries obtained a delay of three weeks. In the meantime, the vessels continue to arrive and are beached in Chittagong. We are left to see how this decision will be followed up, the decisions effects and if it will encourage the Bangladeshi government to put standards in place and follow up the environmental and social conditions of ship-breaking or if the demolition market will move elsewhere: due to the crisis the Japanese ship owners have an influx of vessels to be demolished and are pushing the Filipino government to launch into the demolition business.
The demolition of vessels is being weighed down by the global crisis
The 14th Information bulletin on ship demolition is available. It covers the period of September 22nd to December 31st during which a rush of old hulls heading towards Asian ship-breaking yards is noted. 54% of these vessels belonged to European ship-owners or belonged to members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). In this trend the French ship-owner CGM-CMA sent to be demolished the I’Ursula Delmas ex-Sherbro, the Véronique Delmas and the CMA-CGM Potomac. 65% of the vessels left for demolition during the last trimester of 2008 had previously been detained in harbours worldwide for deficiencies; this confirms deterioration in the maintenance and in the general condition of vessels. They all left without pre cleaning.
