Japan Accused of Buying Votes on Whaling (again)

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Japan Accused of Buying Votes on Whaling

Mon May 20,12:52 PM ET

Kalyani and Jim Lobe,OneWorld South Asia

 

As an international conference on whale protection

opened at the home of Japan's whaling fleet Monday,

global conservation groups accused the Asian giant of

" buying " votes to end a worldwide ban on commercial

hunting for whale meat.

 

Greenpeace International and the World Wide Fund for

Nature (WWF) said Japan was using foreign aid to

persuade members of the International Whaling

Commission (news - web sites) (IWC), meeting this week

in the southern port-city of Shimonoseki, to overturn

a moratorium on commercial whale hunts.

 

" [Japan's] fisheries agency has been actively going

out and buying the votes of developing countries by

giving them fisheries grant aid, " said Richard Page,

an anti-whaling campaigner for Greenpeace

International, whose presence at Shimonoseki has

already provoked angry demonstrations by nationalist

right-wing parties there.

 

" As the Japanese government recruits more poor

countries into the IWC in exchange for overseas

development aid, the balance of power is shifting

within the commission and it will become impossible

for anti-whaling nations to maintain the moratorium

much longer, " Greenpeace warned in a statement issued

Sunday.

 

To lift the moratorium, three-quarters of the IWC's

membership of 48 countries must vote to do so. While

Tokyo is still short of that goal, it needs only a

simple majority to change some of the rules under

which the IWC operates.

 

Four new developing-country members--Benin, Gabon,

Palau, and Mongolia--will be taking part in IWC

deliberations for the first time at the five-day

meeting. Among the four, only Mongolia, which is

land-locked, is expected not to follow Japan's lead.

 

Two other new members, Portugal and San Marino, are

expected to vote with countries opposed to lifting the

ban, of which the most aggressive include Australia

and several other South Pacific countries, Britain,

and the United States.

 

Japan has been spearheading the movement in favor of

hunting for whale meat, sold primarily to restaurants

where it remains a popular menu item. Last March,

there were even reports that Japan was resuming

imports of whale meat for the first time in 11 years,

from Norway, which remains a major hunter despite the

moratorium by the IWC, created in 1946 to " provide for

the proper conservation of whale stocks. "

 

With a long whaling tradition, Japan has argued

against the ban virtually from its adoption in 1986.

Joined by Norway, Tokyo has argued more recently that

whale herds have sufficiently recovered to justify

ending the moratorium.

 

WWF said that since the moratorium, nearly 23,000

whales from five species had been killed, mostly by

Norway and Japan. Japan kills up to 600 whales each

year, including 540 minke whales, 50 Bryde's whales,

and 10 sperm whales, according to the group.

 

Two months ago, Tokyo announced its intention to

expand whaling operations to hunt 50 sei whales in the

North Pacific. The sei whales, which are distinguished

by their slim, streamlined bodies, have been listed by

the World Conservation Union as endangered, because

they face a very high risk of extinction in the wild

in the near future.

 

" It may only be a matter of time before the Japanese

government recruits enough votes and the IWC will once

again sanction commercial whaling, putting the world's

remaining whales at risk, " according to Greenpeace,

which mounted a colorful demonstration Monday outside

Shimonoseki's convention center waving banners calling

for " Aid for aid, not for whaling. "

 

The controversy surrounding the accusations prompted

an official response last week, that " there is nothing

like vote-buying going on. " " Japan is providing aid to

more than 150 countries, " said Joji Matsushita, a

Fisheries Agency official and a member of Japan's IWC

delegation. " It's hard to find places that don't get

our aid, " he said.

 

However, in a report released in January, Greenpeace

charged that Tokyo has spent over US$320 million since

1987 in order to gain votes on the IWC for its

position. In 2001, it said, over $47 million was spent

buying the votes of six Caribbean countries - Antigua

and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis,

St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

 

Greenpeace cited an article carried by The Caribbean

News Agency which quoted the prime minister of Antigua

and Barbuda, Lester Bird, saying that there was indeed

a bargain. " So long as the whales are not an

endangered species, " he told the agency, " 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. "

 

2002 OneWorld.net.

 

 

 

 

 

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