This is cheapskate move if I have ever seen one. Instead of accepting the costs of security, the global shipping industry has cooked up a scheme to get the UN to provide these guards? We are talking about the same UN that effectively stood by while places like Rwanda burned, or the same UN that sent forces into the Ivory Coast, that traded food for sex with starving people. Oh yeah, the UN is a great bargain and idea. There are so many examples of how pathetic the UN really is, and yet these shipping companies want to go this route? Amazing.
But what really kills me is who do you think will pay for such a service? Well the US contributes 22% to the UN budget and is the top contributor of funding, so that gives you an idea of where a good chunk of that money will come from. And of course the cheapest most corrupt country will provide the troops, and that government will swindle most of the money used to pay for that force. The end result will be what you see with most of the UN’s deployments, and that is a under-funded crap military force lead by greedy and corrupt leaders.
How about this. Those companies that cannot afford PSC’s, yet can afford to buy a multi-million dollar vessel and transport millions of dollars worth of cargo, can own up to the idea that contracting with PSC’s is the cost of doing business. Just like banks hire their own guards, or shopping malls hire their own security–the shipping companies can do the same. And like-wise, you don’t see banks or shopping malls calling on the UN to provide guards? Pfffft.
Either way, I don’t see it happening. I also think that the cost of security should be a personal responsibility of these shipping companies and not on the UN. Then those costs can be passed onto their clients that choose to use those services. That is how this is done, and that is the way it should be. –Matt
Global Shipping Industry calls for UN armed force against Somali pirates
September 9, 2011
The global shipping industry (represented by the Round Table of international shipping associations) has called for the establishment of a United Nations force of armed military guards to tackle the piracy crisis in the Indian Ocean, which it says is spiralling out of control.
In a hard hitting letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), BIMCO, INTERTANKO and INTERCARGO demand a “bold new strategy” to curb rising levels of piracy which have resulted in the Indian Ocean resembling “the wild west”.