Guest guest Posted May 21, 2002 Report Share Posted May 21, 2002 ***************************Advertisement*************************** TechCentral http://star-techcentral.com ***************************************************************** This message was forwarded to you by yitzeling. Comment from sender: whaling This article is from thestar.com.my URL: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2002/5/21/features/fishvote & sec=\ features ________________________ Tuesday, May 21, 2002 Quest to resume whaling Japan is fishing for pro-whaling votes from poor countries by donating large sums in aid, writes PAUL BROWN. TWO very small countries joined the International Whaling Commission recently – Cape Verde and Benin. A few days before, the Japanese forecast that the 17-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling would be overturned this year. The two events are not unconnected. The Japanese have been targeting millions of American dollars in aid to dozens of small and impoverished countries, some of which have subsequently joined the IWC and supported the resumption of whaling. Conservation groups, and even some governments, have denounced it as a massive vote-buying scam. British fisheries minister Elliott Morley, who is attending the ministerial meeting which started yesterday in Japan, believes that this year the Japanese have stacked up so many votes it will be hard for conservation nations to “hold the line”. The Japanese campaign began shortly after the original whaling moratorium was agreed in the 1980s. A string of large aid packages was agreed with tiny island states principally in the Caribbean where it has spent US$100mil (RM380mil). By the late 1990s six Caribbean nations began to vote in a bloc with the whaling nations, Japan and Norway. But the true extent of the current Japanese aid for votes campaign has never been made public. Having sewn up six votes in the Caribbean and spent US$10mil (RM38mil) persuading the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, Japan expanded its operations. In 2000, Guinea, and last year Panama and Morocco – both large scale recipients of aid packages – joined the pro-whaling block. Cape Verde and Benin have now become members, Gabon and Senegal have lodged papers – all after inducements – and more African nations are expected to apply. Conservation groups and the New Zealand government openly accused Japan of buying votes and last year, at the IWC meeting in London, during a heated row the delegation admitted using money from the ministry of fisheries to influence smaller countries to join the IWC. This admission was officially withdrawn a month ago and the six Caribbean nations issued an angry joint statement denouncing the New Zealand accusation. “To say we have accepted bribes is an affront and an insult and is totally rejected.” It was also described as “extremely patronising and appears quite racist.” Unlike most international conventions, the Cambridge-based IWC is small, currently with 44 member governments. Two of these do not have the right to vote because they have failed to pay the annual fee. Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and a group of like-minded anti-whaling countries, have blocked all attempts by Japan to restart whaling. This has not been difficult until now, because a three quarters majority of countries voting is required to overturn the ban. But despite years of apparent stalemate Japan is quietly confident that, at the ministers’ meeting in the Japanese whaling port of Shimonoseki, it will succeed. The tactic used by the Japanese to influence nations, which otherwise have no interest in whaling, to join the IWC is to spend money over several years in a poor country,making clear that what it calls proper utilisation of marine resources is its policy. This is a euphemism for whaling. After a softening up process, which usually includes visits by senior Japanese politicians and paid-for return visits to Japan, the nation involved is expected to join the IWC just before the annual meeting and spring a surprise on the commission by backing Japan. Some countries have arrived and joined in the middle of meetings just before crucial votes. The cost of the Japanese operation runs into billions of yen, and although ministers have denied paying the annual subs, it is clear that small countries would have no incentive to join the IWC, nor have the cash, without “fisheries” aid. The Caribbean nations, for example, have an important financial interest in the North Atlantic tuna fishery. This includes the Caribbean area, but the small island states have said they cannot afford to join ICCAT, the convention that polices tuna fisheries. The minimum fee to join the IWC, in which they would appear to have no interest, is US$32,000 (RM121,600), yet they pay up regularly. In 2000, when Guinea unexpectedly joined the IWC, and last year when it was followed by Morocco, it was clear that Japanese fisheries money was being spent in large quantities in West Africa. Reports passed to The Guardian of meetings between government representatives of West Africa countries and delegations from Japan make clear that the aim of the aid money is to defeat the conservation lobby at the IWC. At what is described as the fourth ministerial conference on fishing cooperation of African countries with rivers debouching into the Atlantic which met in October 1999 in Conakry, Guinea, 22 countries were present. In his speech to delegates Minouru Morimoto, assistant director general of the fishery agency of Japan, and his country’s IWC commissioner, said Japan had fishing agreements with eight countries, and had spent almost US$600mil (RM2.28bil) in aid. Fishing nations like Japan and their African partners had to work together against the “hindering from extremist ecological movements which have a tendency to say no fishing activities per se,” he said. Fears that Japan may pull off a coup at the ongoing meeting have provoked environmental groups to attempt to recruit new nations. Anti-whaling nations are also more determined to stop Japan because it has extended its use of a loophole in the convention to kill whales for “scientific purposes”. Previously this scientific catch has been mainly the still-numerous minke whales which Masayuki Komatsu from the Japanese fisheries industry and a delegate at last year’s IWC meeting in London described in a speech as “the cockroaches of the sea”. Rather disastrously from the diplomatic point of view, it was in the same speech he conceded that Japan was buying votes. This year Japan has announced it will kill hundreds of minke whales in the Antarctic and 100 in the Pacific. In addition 50 18m-long Sei whales, which are officially classed as endangered, 10 sperm whales (the Moby Dick species) and 50 Bryde’s whales will be “sampled” to establish what they eat. The Japanese argue this is important research in terms of world food security, since it estimates that whales and dolphins consume three to five times the marine resources harvested for man. The curious rules of the convention mean that countries can turn up with the correct paperwork, take part in the voting and pay subscriptions later. Belgium, Malta, San Marino and Greece, all believed to be anti- whaling, have all made inquiries about the rules for joining the IWC. Japan, which is proposing secret ballots be adopted “to prevent undue influence on small countries,” and an abolition of both the Antarctic and Indian Ocean sanctuaries for whales, insists it does not indulge in “bribery and vote buying”. He says that Japan is the world’s largest donor of aid to 150 countries. Brazil, India, Kenya and Mexico all receive more aid than the Caribbean nations, but oppose whaling. – Guardian News Service ________________________ Your one-stop information portal: The Star Online http://thestar.com.my http://biz.thestar.com.my http://classifieds.thestar.com.my http://cards.thestar.com.my http://search.thestar.com.my http://star-motoring.com http://star-space.com http://star-jobs.com http://star-ecentral.com http://star-techcentral.com 1995-2002 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Star Publications is prohibited. 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