Posted on 26-2-2002

Pro-whales
Held To Ransom By Pro-whalers

From Greenpeace NZ,
Tuesday
February 26th, 2002, photo shows protest at Auckland Airport


<paraindent><param>left</param>Auckland, New Zealand: Away from public
notice and behind closed doors delegates of the International Whaling
Commission are hammering out a final plan to resume commercial whaling.
Outside Auckland’s Ascot Metropolis hotel where the delegates are
staying Greenpeace is keeping vigil. Activists wearing eyeball costumes
are shadowing the delegates whenever they appear publicly. As the sun
sets over Auckland’s harbour giant color photos of whaling are projected
onto a large wall opposite the hotel. “Stop Whaling” posters and
banners are hung in strategic shopping and eating venues to put the
delegates on notice that the world is watching.

Through a series of public engagement
activities throughout this week, Greenpeace will raise public awareness
that commercial whaling is on its way back should the pro-whaling
nations have their way.
The Government of Japan’s vote-buying
strategy has dramatically increased pressure on anti-whaling countries
to agree to a management plan for whaling.<italic> </italic>Full-scale
commercial whaling could be resumed despite deep differences over the
plan because vote buying by the Fisheries Agency of Japan is likely to
secure a majority at the May 2002 meeting of the IWC where the plan is
to be discussed.
“What Japan is doing should be condemned
in the strongest terms,” said Sarah Duthie, Greenpeace Oceans
campaigner. “The failure of the international community to say
something sends the signal that issues of international concern will be
decided by the highest bidder. In this case, we’re concerned that vote
buying means a return to full-scale commercial whaling worldwide.”
Last year’s International Whaling
Commission’s meeting was shaken when a senior Japanese official admitted
that his country uses aid to buy votes. A Caribbean Prime Minister who
admitted that his country supports Japan on whaling in return for aid
corroborated this. There were ten bought countries at last year’s
meeting in London, up from five countries attending the IWC in 1993.
(1)
“Given how commercial whaling has always
devastated whale populations in the past and how the world’s remaining
whales are now seriously threatened from the on-going degradation of the
oceans (2), the IWC should not be developing such a scheme. What the
IWC must address is Japanese vote-buying or be responsible for the
consequences,” said Duthie. “The precedent the Fisheries Agency is
setting undermines acceptable norms of behavior. Any victory by them at
the next IWC meeting will have been bought and not won.”
In recent weeks, the Fisheries Agency of
Japan has declared that it wants to lift the moratorium on commercial
whaling. Should the Government of Japan succeed in buying votes to
attain a majority at the upcoming IWC meeting in Japan, then it will
have gained a significant advantage toward expanding whale hunting in
other parts of the world.
The end of the present planning meeting
will mark 80 days until the next IWC meeting and with it a possible
resumption of commercial whaling.


Editor’s Notes:


1) In the run-up to the 2001 IWC meeting a
senior member of the Japanese delegation, Mr. Komatsu, confirmed that
Japan was vote buying. In an interview with ABC TV, Australia, Mr.
Komatsu admitted that Japan had to use the “tools of diplomatic
communications and promises of overseas development aid to influence
members of the International Whaling Commission". The Prime Minister of
Antigua and Barbuda, Lester Bird, independently corroborated this. The
Caribbean News Agency, CANA, reported him saying: "So long as the
whales are not an endangered species, I don’t see any reason why if we
are able to support the Japanese, and the quid pro quo is that they are
going to give us some assistance, I am not going to be a hypocrite; that
is part of why we do so."
The Fisheries Agency of Japan’s vote
buying programme is gathering momentum. At the 1993 meeting the
Fisheries Agency had just five countries on their payroll. By 1999
there were seven. Japan brought one new country into the IWC in 2000
and two more in 2001. The Agency now enjoys the support of ten nations
whose votes are paid for: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Guinea,
Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis,
Solomon Island, Panama and Morocco. All of these except Morocco vote
with Japan on every issue. The votes of these countries, combined with
those of nations like China, Korea, Norway and Russia, which vote with
Japan for their own reasons mean that the Fisheries Agency is within 3
or 4 votes of having a majority in the IWC.




The Fisheries Agency of Japan is believed
to have stepped up its vote buying drive, concentrating on West
Africa.




2) There is evidence that toxic pollution, ship noise, ozone depletion,
global warming, and overfishing threaten whale populations. For more
information see the Greenpeace report, “Whales In A Degraded Ocean”
(available on the Greenpeace website).