Tonga's Flag Move Upsets Seamen

P I R A E U S , Greece, Jan. 23 -- In this seaport of Athens, a simple action by the faraway Pacific kingdom of Tonga sent ripples of panic and consternation through seamen here and in about 200 vessels plying the world's oceans.

Tonga panicked and cancelled its flag of convenience registry here shortly after the Israeli navy seizure of the Tonga-flagged freighter Karine A. on Jan. 3. The Karine A was carrying 50 tons of weapons and munitions that Israel and the ship's Palestinian captain claim were destined for Yasser Arafat's beleaguered Palestinian Authority.

Then there was a 17-hour U.S. Navy search of another ship flying the red-and-white Tonga ensign, the Rasha J., in the Mediterranean near Sicily. The search revealed nothing suspicious, but still, it added to the swirl of suspicions surrounding an island whose reigning king is under media attack for allegedly harboring secret foreign bank accounts of more than $350 million.

That was the last straw for Tonga — which began flagging operations in December 2000 — a relative new member of a not-very-exclusive club of these havens.

These flag of convenience vessels are owned in one country — let's say the United States, Britain or Australia — and registered in havens like Liberia, Panama, Cyprus or even the Cayman Islands — to avoid international safety and tax regulations and maximize the shippers' profits.

American Seamen Feel Vindicated

As shipowners in Greece, the United States and other countries wrung their hands, the deputy ship registrar in Piraeus, where Tonga's ships were registered, said, "We feel picked on." But American seamens' unions and other bodies who perennially fight the flags of convenience chalked up what they felt was a minor victory.

Shipping company executives, writes Dr. Z. Oya Ozcayir, a Turkish maritime law consultant, "take all decisions in order to achieve the common aims of minimizing private costs and maximizing private revenue."

This is especially bad news for the dwindling merchant fleet: attracted by the low fees of the flagging states and their often-negligent regulations. Hundreds of owners of ships, from spiffy cruise vessels to ageing rust-bucket freighters, have abandoned the U.S. flag for exotic registries like Vanuatu, Cyprus, Belize or the Marshall Islands.