Protection of The Wreck
In the aftermath of the disaster, many relatives of the deceased demanded that their loved ones be raised from international waters and given a land burial. Demands were also made that the entire ship be raised so that the cause of the disaster could be discovered by detailed inspection.
Citing the practical difficulties and the moral implications of raising decaying bodies from the sea floor (the majority of the bodies were never recovered), and fearing financial burden of lifting the entire hull to the surface and the salvage operation, the Swedish government suggested burying the whole ship in situ with a shell of concrete. As a preliminary step, thousands of tons of pebbles were dropped on the site. The Estonia Agreement 1995, a treaty among Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Russia and the United Kingdom, declared sanctity over the site, prohibiting its citizens from even approaching the wreck. The treaty is, however, only binding for citizens of the countries that are signatories. At least twice, the Swedish Navy has discovered illegal diving operations at the wreck. The wreck is monitored by radar by the Finnish Navy.
On 8 May 2006, the organizations of Estonian and Swedish relatives requested suspension of the diving ban by sending a letter to the governments who ratified the treaty: Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Denmark, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The joint letter entreats all who read it to use their influence to amend, modify, repeal, revoke, or suspend all practical or administrative measures prohibiting inspection of the wreck in order to secure new evidence. The letter also calls for an independent group of experts, working in a transparent manner, to conduct an investigation of the sinking.
Read more about this topic: MS Estonia
Famous quotes containing the words protection of the, protection of, protection and/or wreck:
“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Take away from the courts, if it could be taken away, the power to issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a privileged class among the laborers and save the lawless among their number from a most needful remedy available to all men for the protection of their business interests against unlawful invasion.... The secondary boycott is an instrument of tyranny, and ought not to be made legitimate.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The protection of a ten-year-old girl from her father’s advances is a necessary condition of social order, but the protection of the father from temptation is a necessary condition of his continued social adjustment. The protections that are built up in the child against desire for the parent become the essential counterpart to the attitudes in the parent that protect the child.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night;
To defy Power, which seems Omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change nor falter nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan! is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)