IWC meeting ends in a bitter divide

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020525a3.htm

 

JAPAN STANDS FIRM

IWC meeting ends in a bitter divide

 

By MICK CORLISS

Staff writer

 

SHIMONOSEKI, Yamaguchi Pref. -- The International

Whaling Commission's weeklong annual plenary meeting

ended Friday with a ban on commercial hunting in place

for another year but nations bitterly divided over

aboriginal whaling.

 

Observers said the meeting was the most divisive in

years after Tokyo led a bloc of mainly Caribbean

nations in defeating the renewal of an aboriginal

whaling quota for northern natives in Alaska and

northeastern Russia by a single vote.

 

" In 56 years of history in the IWC, " said U.S. IWC

Commissioner Rolland Schmitten, " that was the most

unjust, unkind, unfair vote that was ever taken. That

vote literally denied people (the ability) to feed

their families. "

 

U.S. officials said they are considering all their

options and are willing to continue the debate as long

as it takes to reach agreement.

 

" We will leave no stone unturned. It is so critical

that we want to see if we can revive it today, " a

disappointed Schmitten said. " Governments can play

games, but you can't play with families. "

 

Japan and 10 other countries voted against the

proposal to renew a bowhead take of 279 for Alaskan

Inuits and to Russia's indigenous Chukotka people.

Thirty-two delegates supported the request, which

failed to get the necessary three-quarters majority.

China and Panama abstained.

 

A dejected George Ahmaogak, an Inuit, whaling captain

and mayor of a small municipality and resident of

Barrow, Alaska, worried that the decision will have

serious implications for Inuit.

 

" We have worked so hard to meet the mandates and the

requirements of the IWC (for 25 years) and we are very

disappointed. "

 

Ahmaogak, a member of the U.S. delegation who has

attended IWC meetings since 1977, said that just under

10,000 people in 10 coastal villages rely on whale

meat for 80 percent of their diet.

 

" We live in a very harsh cold environment, " Ahmaogak

said. " The blubber is the key element of our diet

(that allows us) to take on the hard, cold weather.

 

" When it gets to 70 or 80 (degrees) below, the blubber

of that whale thickens the blood to withstand the

environment. We lose that, we have a really serious

problem. "

 

Japan objected to putting the proposal to vote Friday.

 

" This proposal is virtually the same as that we voted

down yesterday, " Masayuki Komatsu told the plenary

before the vote. " Procedurally, taking this up is a

problem. "

 

Prior to the vote, Japan proposed a last-ditch

compromise by amending the bowhead quota proposal to

also allow Japan a commercial catch of 25 minke whales

for what it calls four whaling villages.

 

However, the chairman ruled against it, and commission

members voted the amendment down because it addressed

commercial whaling, not aboriginal subsistence

whaling.

 

The difference, the U.S. delegation said, is the

difference between meat for supermarkets and meat for

family dinner tables. Japan's delegation, however,

sees it in terms of need and says the needs of

aborigines and those of commercial whaling towns is

the same.

 

" We requested (a catch of Northern Pacific minke

whales) for our people based on science, based on

needs, " Komatsu told a mob of journalists after the

vote. " And there is the issue of their livelihoods

very much almost the same as aboriginal subsistence

whaling. So what the U.S. is saying is completely

inappropriate. "

 

It was the first year, ironically, that no resolution

was endorsed condemning Japan's scientific whaling

program. The commission ran out of time, largely due

to days of bickering between Japan and the U.S. over

the bowhead issue.

 

Some IWC veterans called it the least productive

meeting they had attended in more than three decades.

Criticism and concern over the future and

functionality of the IWC abounded as the curtain

closed on the annual gathering. " What has happened

over the last few days has nothing to do with

aboriginal subsistence whaling and everything to do

with dirty politics, " Mexican IWC Commissioner Andres

Rozental said. " This will undoubtedly come back to

haunt us in the future. "

 

The Japan Times: May 25, 2002

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