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TRANSLATED ARTICLE - LA REPUBLICA
He was accused of shooting birds, seals, and whale calves, as well as of not
carrying out his technical duties.
CAPTAIN FLANGINI
RE-EMBARKED THE REPORTED OBSERVER OF THE "MAYA V"
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LA REPUBLICA
30 May 2004
(COLTO wishes to apologise for
the rough translation)
Militant of the
“Palo y Palo” brigade led by deputy García Pintos, Mario Andrés Morales
appears on the 15.2222 List, in which the director of Dinara is also
included. Flangini protects his political activist despite the confession of
illicit acts, whereas he goes after unionized observers. Senator Gargano
questions the military man’s management. It benefits the Spanish syndicate
who makes up the economic group reported before Customs and the Taxation
Office (“DGI”). Two Ukrainian pirate boats dock in Montevideo.
*Roger
Rodriguez
The observer
Mario Andrés Morales, reported for shooting birds, seals and whale calves,
some of which were dynamited in his presence, when he should have been
carrying out duties as comptroller on the fishing boat “Maya V”, was again
embarked representing the National Office of Aquatic Resources (Dinara),
under the command of the Ships Captain (r) Yamandú Flangini.
Mario Andrés,
who in 1999 occupied the 17th place on the 15.2222 List, that in
the interns of the Colorado Party both the member García Pintos and the same
Yamandú Flangini led, is aboard the fishing boat “Marie” (now called “Vaerland”),
that a few days ago went out to fish toothfish for the company Odansir SA,
in the common fishing zone shared with Argentina.
A member of the
“Palo y Palo” brigade, Mario Andrés was last year benefited by his political
leader and director of the fishing office of the Ministry for Livestock,
Agriculture and Fishing (MGAP), directed by the 15th listed,
Martin Aguirrezable, boarding on the pirate fishing boat “Maya V”, member of
the Spanish syndicate group who is represented in Uruguay by Navalmar SA.
The member of
the New Colorado Force (FNC), whose youth use on their armbands a Nazi
symbol in a tribute to a national-socialist group that existed in Uruguay in
1938, is not an officer of the MGAP and, without any other technical
experience apart from a short course taken in 3 months, was employed in
November 2003 to travel to Namibia and embark on the fishing boat with
Uruguayan flag.
The “Maya V”,
which set sail on November 7 from the port of Walvis Bay in company of the
Uruguayan fishing boat “Carran”, committed a number of offences (it went as
far as exchanging fuel with the Spanish pirate boat “Inca” in return for 120
kilos of dynamite), before being apprehended by the Australian patrol boat
Warramunga when caught fishing illegally in the EEZ.
Flangini’s technical observer reported
The technical observer who
acts as second to captain Flangini, gave in Australia a confession accusing
officials and crewmembers of the “Maya V” in exchange for his freedom, by
wielding his condition of representative of the Uruguayan government. The
Uruguayan captain Charles Thomas, other Spanish officials, and three
crewmembers that did not plea guilty, remain arrested in the city of Perth
awaiting trial.
Two of the
Uruguayan fishermen, Gustavo Hermida and Alejandro Mayo, accused in each
interview broadcasted by LA REPUBLICA and Radio Carve, the
“Flanginist” Mario Andrés, for his actions against marine fauna that he
should have been protecting in his position as the Dinara observer.
“The observer,
to tell the truth, did no work at all. We started fishing on December 24 and
he appeared three or four days later in the factory for measuring and
weighing fish. Afterwards we had a month light drizzle and he never went
down again. He dedicated himself to playing with the famous rifle…” they
said.
The accusations
against the member of García Pintos’ list, were reiterated by another two
crewmembers of the “Maya V”, the fisherman Robin Vasconcellos and the waiter
Bernardo Alvarez, who confirmed that Mario Andrés shared the bridge of
command with Manuel Torres, the Spanish skipper, and was only once sighted
in the factory were he was to carry out his duties of measuring fish as a
scientific observer.
The “Maya V”
now belongs to the Australian maritime authorities, after the companies
Noblepan SA belonging to the Uruguayan José Marcicano Yannaco, Alcimar SA
belonging to the Spaniard Florindo González Corral and Navalmar SA belonging
to the Spaniard Antonio Vidal, let expire the deadlines to appeal the
judicial decision to seize the vessel with Uruguayan flag. According to
what was reported a few days ago, the “Maya V” shall be used as an
Australian patrol boat.
The captain’s
“magic world”
The public reports
made by crewmembers of the “Maya V” against the casual Mario Andrés Morales,
were taken in neither by captain Flangini in Dinara, nor by Minister
Aguirrezabala, who omitted the corresponding case investigations and they
even defended the observer from deputy García Pintos group, when summoned by
the respective commissions of the Deputy and Senator Chambers.
Both authorities
from the “fifteenth list” did not take into consideration the public reports
made by officers from the Livestock and Agriculture Ministry Officer
Association (Asociación de Funcionarios del Ministerio de Ganadería
Agricultura y Pesca - AFGAP) who accused Flangini with appointing without
any technical grounds, his friend Mario Andrés Morales as observer in the
"Maya V".
Flangini supported
the upgrading of technical short courses for untrained personnel outside the
MGAP, some of whom had never been on board, in response to claims from
experienced scientific observers. These observers referred to Decree No.
391/003 by the Executive, which imposed a unilateral and compulsory
reduction to their income. Some of the observers that made their complain
public have been penalised by Dinara and have not been on board since then.
The technical
short courses were stopped last November (Mario Andrés Morales completed
this last one) because the Dinara teaching staff refused to continue
offering theoretical classes without the corresponding practice training
before the freshmen were embarked on deep-sea vessels.
The accusation for
union persecution against Flangini was reaffirmed in a media release by
AFGAP, last May 25, where it was reported the attempt to move out of the
Dinara the personnel of the “Biostatistics and Data Processing and
Non-Traditional fisheries” section into a port facility where they lack the
appropriate and vital elements for sample processing.
Nepotism and
fund management
Flangini, who
since taking office at Dinara favoured the appointment to the institution of
many members of the 15.2222 List (amongst them his own stepdaughter,
Fiorella Barbieri, who was in the 71st place in that electoral
list), was also reported for mismanagement of the funds from UNDP (United
Nations Development Program) for the Infopesca Project.
Even Edmundo
Estavillo, president of the AFGAP Union, said before the parliament that “an
internal auditing should be conducted at Dinara, in that there are payments
made in cash and cash salary payments, and the observers, when on board, do
not make social security contributions neither do their employers”.
Some of these
questionings were included in a report request submitted on May 18th
last by the socialist senator Reinaldo Gargano, who inquired about Infopesca,
about the tasks of the scientific boat “Aldebarán” and about the reasons why
this State boat is not sailing when there is a 3,718,400 pesos budget
allocated for its operation.
The Dinara
technical personnel allege that the reason for not having the possibility to
establish a fishing policy is the fact that the “Aldebarán” is not operating
currently. The MGAP is therefore factually facilitating the non-regulated
capture of some species, particularly of those that attract a high economic
interest.
Dinara decided to
grant a quota of up to 200 thousand ton of anchovy to the company Ibramar
SA, owner of eight fishing vessels based in “La Paloma”, through a technical
report by Inape in 1975 and 1976, regardless of the reports on this regard
by the fishing skipper union of Uruguay (Sindicato Unico de Patrones de
Pesca del Uruguay - Sudepu).
Cover-up of
an economic syndicate
A nostalgic
Flangini, who in 2003 authorised 3000 ton of red crabs even though the
technical recommendations indicated less than half that amount, argued
before the Parliament that fishing in the Uruguayan territorial waters was
depleted and therefore it was necessary to keep foreign fishing fleets with
Uruguayan flag in order to keep the international quotas.
A group of fishing
vessels with Uruguayan flag, that obtain interim fishing permits for 60 days
from Dinara, have been reported by international organisations as illegal
toothfish fishing pirates in waters monitored by the
CCAMLR.
The NGO Antarctic
and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) and Coalition of Legal Toothfish
Operator (Colto), have made public lists of the pirate vessels, which
include about twenty vessels with Uruguayan flag. Amongst them the "Viarsa
I" and "Maya V", which were apprehended by Australia in September 2003 and
February 2004 respectively, with toothfish catches valued at two million
dollars.
A Galician Group,
led by the Spaniards Florindo González and Antonio Vidal (considered as the
“heads” of the pirate fishing syndicate), have found a powerful tool in the
class “D” permits for fishing vessels with Uruguayan flag to profit
enormously despite the high risks involved when vessels are seized and
crewmembers are imprisoned and trialled.
González and
Vidal, associated with a Panamanian company, based in a hotel in Montevideo,
have appointed engineer Luis Pazos as their representative in Uruguay.
Pazos is in charge of Navalmar SA, the leading firm of a group of companies
that recruit crewmembers, run maritime agencies and carry out exports and
imports of the catches, have been reported for fraud to Customs (Dirección
Nacional de Aduanas – DNA) and the Taxation Office (Dirección General
Impositiva – DGI).
The “pirates”
are in Montevideo
The apprehension
of the Uruguayan flagged "Youn Hwa 99" by the Argentine maritime
authorities, has become over the last days one of the several pressure
centres that captain Flangini has been facing. The vessel set to sail
without authorisation by Dinara and was apprehended in a non-permitted
zone.
The incident
forced Flangini to travel to Buenos Aires in order to solve the problem of
the vessel. Triomar SA, a maritime agency belonging to the economic group
led by engineer Luis Pazos from Navalmar SA, services the vessel.
Mysteriously, the vessel seemed to have “found” an interim permit dated May
10th, precisely the day that it was apprehended in non-permitted
waters.
That was not
Flangini’s only headache during the last weeks: another one of the vessels
reported internationally as belonging to the pirate fleet led by the
Galician syndicate, the “Elqui”, stopped broadcasting via the VMS satellite
equipment and the National Naval Prefecture lost their maritime positioning.
The “Elqui” had
been sailing during a month without being instructed by the shipowners to
start fishing, so the crewmembers began suspecting they might be in a vessel
with a fate similar to the "Viarsa I" or the "Maya V". The 31 members of
the crew nearly took part in a mutiny including a hunger strike. The
situation forced the Uruguayan authorities to instruct the “Elqui” to sail
back to Montevideo, but the vessel, that belongs to the company Mergen SA,
arguing that water was seeping into the vessel, ended up docking in Punta
Arenas, a Chilean port city.
While the director
of Dinara was in Buenos Aires to attend to both situations, other two
vessels with international background arrived in, and were operating in
Montevideo, serviced, non surprisingly, by Triamar SA: the fishing vessels "Simiez"
and "Yantar", both with flag from Ukraine.
The "Simiez"
(formerly Florens 1 and Florence) belonged to the Pacific Andes group and
was photographed in Jakarta in August 2002 and February 2003, allegedly
unloading toothfish illegally caught in the Australian EEZ, in the
proximities of Heard Island. The “Yantar”, on the other hand, was known as
a vessel from the Russian Federation, and had also been detected in Jakarta
in November 2002, allegedly taking part in illegal fishing activities. *
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