INTRO- Pat Clyne [Publisher/Executive Director, IMAC Digest]

The institutionalized mind working towards a party line goal is hard to derail. But if any humor can be taken from all of this it would have to be in observing the robotic like antics of most of the archaeological androids running around trying to outdo each other, chanting their mantra, "We are the chosen ones, let no mere mortal ever dare touch what we claim to be ours"

These self appointed fascists who relentlessly invoke what they believe to be their right of "keepers of our heritage" can take hypocrisy to new heights, or is it new lows? This situation could have easily been ignored had it not been for their orchestrated and finely organized ties to those highly motivated political aficionados who view this as an opportunity to seize control of our resources.

These meetings at UNESCO in Paris, as badly organized as it seems, has all the underpinnings of a millennium switcheroo whereby all the justices and freedoms that so many of us have enjoyed in the past will now be slowly taking a back seat to their new "World Order"

For an American, there's just something terribly eerie about sitting in a room with a few hundred people from around the world and listening to them chip away at everything you believed was your rights as an individual. And to think, this is all just because we want the right to dive on shipwrecks. More Tomorrow

Peter Hess [Consulting Admiralty Attorney]

Four days down and two to go with some limited progress in the UNESCO debate. Major disputes over definitions, jurisdiction offshore, and compatibility with existing Law of the Sea still vex the negotiations. However, the language for archaeological guidelines for excavations is a long way toward passage. The showdown over commercial access to shipwrecks and the sale of artifacts remains.

One very disillusioning moment today occurred during a coffee break conversation with the Belgian delegate, a young bureaucrat who had never heard of Robert Stenuit, a world famous underwater archaeologist and shipwreck finder from Brussells who has never been consulted by his government in drafting its position on this Convention! And these are the self-annointed "experts" who are trying to make international rules governing our shipwreck exploration! Keep the faith and PLEASE join and contribute to ProSEA!

Steve Yormak [International Admiralty Attorney]

Well, the wolf pack of archaeologists came out of their collective sheep's clothing late today in their world gathering in Paris under the auspices of UNESCO, whose apparent mandate is to protect underwater historical shipwrecks for mankind.

Today the meeting, driven and composed of academics, went a long way to obliterating any semblance of private or perhaps even public access to the world's historical treasures.

Having carved up the world's seas and its control of the beds regarding shipwrecks, attending government representatives continued their quest to oust any private shipwreck operations in the world's sea beds notwithstanding the private sectors resounding success stories(Titanic, Atocha, Lusitania, Andrea Doria)and the courts' approval and support of these activities.

A working sub-group will be recommending to the main plenary to accept as part of the overall Conference that no artifact will be allowed to be sold or traded, ever.

This will apply no matter how many of the same item is recovered, for example, 10,000 cannon balls may all have to be stored or displayed if possible, not ever sold so as to in any way assist in financing the project. This was vigorously supported by the delegations from Australia, Italy, Canada and others..

In fact the Australian representative, an archaeological museum curator by trade, stated privately prior to the meeting that the best way to control underwater heritage is to put those who would retrieve shipwrecks out of business altogether.

This is not a gathering of legal experts who would go through the process of mapping the legal ramifications of many of these issues, including the liklihood of judicial support in the face of depriving private citizens of their fundamental rights.

Included in their definition and therefore governmental controls will be such benign activities as recreational diving and underwater photography.

By delivering control of all of these shipwreck sites into the hands of government archaeologists any future private or public access may be decided solely by reference to an under financed archaeological world, a world filled with archaeologists who have repeatedly stated that any and all sites must all first be surveyed by only their members, whereby no access would be permitted by any member of the public , recreational or otherwise

In effect some have said that if this accord is accepted, public access from one ocean to another wold wide may now be for all intents and purposes closed to the public----at least until further notice when those archaeological few will let us know.