We have stopped a ship!

Early this morning we took action against a ship delivering an illegal shipment of genetically engineered maize to the Mexican port of Veracruz. Activists are currently on the anchor chain, preventing the offloading of the contaminated shipment.

It is usually pretty quiet at this hour in the Mexican port of Veracruz, but not this morning. At 6:30 this morning the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise gave a call to the bulk carrier Ikan Altamira, a bulk carrier registered in Singapore.

We told them that since the Biosafety Protocol went into effect yesterday, their 40 000 tonne load of genetically engineered yellow maize from New Orleans could not legally enter a Mexican port without the informed consent of the Mexican authorities. We then told them that we were going to prevent the shipment from unloading, and stressed that this was a non-violent action.

The captain was asleep when we called. He was woken up. He said that he thought there was nothing wrong with his cargo, that he didn't want to speak with us, and to call his agent (shipping agent, not Hollywood) He would take no responsibility for the Greenpeace activists.

We put three inflatables in the water, and two activists climbed onto the anchor chain to prevent the ship from pulling up the anchor. The shipment has been stopped.