Australia continues ship ban

Australia continues ship ban

SYDNEY (Reuter): The Maritime Union of Australia's bans on
Indonesian cargo and shipping would continue, Terry Buck, joint
secretary of the Fremantle, Western Australia, branch, told
Reuters yesterday.

"The Bogasari Empat is loading today. When it completes
loading it won't sail for 24 hours," he said.

Bogasari Empat is scheduled to carry 32,500 tonnes of wheat to
Indonesia from Fremantle, Western Australia.

A container vessel due in Fremantle next week would meet with
similar bans, Buck said. A cattle vessel had been held up since
Wednesday in Darwin, he added.

"Any other cargo vessel from Indonesia will meet with the same
fate," Buck said. "What we're going to do is determine case-by-
case, issue-by-issue, vessel-by-vessel, cargo-by-cargo just how
we're going to meet the bans," he said.

"It may well be, for example, next week a container vessel
coming into port, we will not load it for 24 hours," he said.

"The vessels (also) require the services of mooring gangs and
tug crews. They just withhold their labor," he said, outlining
the various ways the bans could be enforced.

The union has imposed bans on Indonesian ships to protest
against the arrest of two independent labor leaders in Indonesia,
Muchtar Pakpahan and Dita Sari.