2007, January 11: The Bahamas is reportedly still undecided about signing the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).

The PSI would give the United States of America the right to search any of the thousands of Bahamas-flagged ships anywhere in the world ostensibly for nuclear material or weapons of mass destruction.

The Bahamas is the world’s third largest ship registry.

According to a story in The Bahama Journal, the country’s Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell the matter is still being reviewed by the government and the relevant stakeholders, including the Ministry of Transport and the Bahamas Maritime Authority.

He told the local newspaper that that the reason for the government’s caution was that there are Bahamas-flagged ships all around the world. They are on The Bahamas Registry, but do not necessarily come through Bahamian ports. The question arises as to whether you should have access to these ships when searching for a specific type of cargo without having to refer to the State under whose flag the ship sails; whether you can have blanket authority to go in on the ship once you have reasonable suspicion of the presence of nuclear material or weapons of mass destruction.

Fred Mitchell

The Bahamas Foreign Minister said however that if there was suspicion, The Bahamas would not prevent anyone, including the USA, from searching any ship that was in violation of international laws, norms or rules. Such authority can be obtained quickly and efficiently, he said.

Meanwhile, the USA, through its Ambassador to The Bahamas, John Rood, continued to push for The Bahamas to sign on to the PSI.

While acknowledging the conclusion of the Megaports Initiative (MPI) and the Container Security Initiative (CSI) as major accomplishments in US-Bahamas relations, Mr. Rood pointed out that The Bahamas had yet to sign on to PSI. Referring to the initiative as "another very, very critical agreement," Mr. Rood told The Bahama Journal that he hoped to have it concluded before next year.

He said the agreement is designed to provide a protocol so that if a vessel flying the Bahamas flag was suspected of carrying nuclear material or weapons of mass destruction, that vessel could be boarded and inspected by US authorities.

It saves critical time and the majority of the large flag carriers have already signed on to this agreement so that is why it was so important for The Bahamas to sign on, he said

Mr. Rood said agreements, such as Container Security Initiative and Megaports Initiative, were incredibly important. They are win-win agreements that took some work putting through, but in the case of (MPI), being aware of radioactive material around the world is, in today’s environment, incredibly important.

The ambassador noted that the CSI agreement, which allows for pre-clearance into US ports, had removed the typical two to three week wait for containers to be cleared prior to CSI.