Detained Falkland's vessel back home and ready to fish again

Monday, April 10th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

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The Falkland Islands flagged fishing vessel John Cheek, which had been detained by the Argentine authorities since February 20th arrived back in her home port of Stanley today, Monday.

Mrs. Jan Cheek, Director of Petrel Trawling, which owns the vessel, spoke to Stacey Bragger of the Falkland Islands Radio Service (FIRS) about the circumstances leading to the vessel's release on Friday evening.

According to Mrs. Cheek, after some weeks of the vessel's detention, the Argentine Sub-Secretariat of Fisheries had put together a ?Sumario' (Summary), which included all the information about the arrest of the vessel and further background information on the vessel's ownership, and related topics.

This summary was then presented to Petrel Trawling's representatives in Argentina, with notice that an administrative fee would have to be paid before the ship could be released. In Mrs. Cheek's own words, the fee would be "quite a large sum, running to hundreds of thousands of dollars" Petrel Trawling were also informed that the fee would double, if it wasn't paid within a certain period.

Mrs. Cheek continued: "After careful discussion with fellow owners and in discussion with the Foreign Office representatives in Stanley, we decided that the best thing was to pay the administrative penalty and get the ship released, but before doing so we had an Argentine lawyer write a letter saying that we did so, not quite under protest, but without prejudice. In other words we were not admitting that the vessel had been poaching, because as far as we were concerned, given the information that we had, the vessel hadn't been."

"According to the information that we had, which was based on the coordinates provided by the UK Hydrographic Office, we were not within their waters. We were taking the advice of that office in keeping the vessel over half a mile outside what they said was the two hundred mile line from the Argentine coast."

Coming to the decision to pay the administrative fee was quite difficult, said Mrs. Cheek, "It's a lot of money and there's a feeling that when you have acted in entirely good faith you shouldn't have to pay something like that. But in the end it was that or see the ship moldering over there for months and months ahead."

Mrs. Cheek stated that the effect of both the administrative fee and the loss of fishing time would be that the John Cheek would be operating at a very significant loss for some time to come. However, she told F.I.R.S. the important thing was that the vessel was in the harbour today, collecting its fin fish licence, having its nets checked and about to go off and fish.

Asked for her reaction to the Falkland Island Government's apparently muted response to the vessel's detention, Mrs. Cheek, herself a former member of the Islands' Legislative Council, said "I was slightly disappointed that councilors didn't at least express public concern at the issue. I understand they were being extremely cautious, however we've had since then great cooperation from the Fisheries Department and from Government House."

John Fowler (Mercopress) Stanley

Categories: Falkland Islands.

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