Japan Declares Bloody War on the Whales

[Guest guest]

Japan Declares Bloody War on the Whales

 

Sea Shepherd Prepares to Defend the Whales

 

6/7/06

 

Sea Shepherd Society.

 

 

 

Japan has been ruthless in their pursuit and massacre

of the world’s great whales. It has become a matter of

honour according to some Japanese to kill as many

whales as they can in order to assert their dominance

over the world’s oceans.

 

 

 

According to Joji Morishita of the Japanese Fisheries

Agency who spoke on the Australian program 60

minutes, the killing of whales is a part of Japan’s

identity and a question of national pride, and he asks

what is a nation without pride?

 

 

 

But surely there would not exterminates the whales. Or

would they?

 

 

 

Back in 1997 Captain Paul Watson had the opportunity

to sit down and speak with members of the Japanese

delegation in Monaco.

 

 

 

Captain Watson asked whaling delegate Tadahiko

Nakamura directly if he was concerned about the

survival of the whales and would he like to have his

children and grand-children see the whales.

 

 

 

His answer was shocking. “No,” he said. “My duty is to

my family, mu country and my company and that duty is

to make as much profit as I can for them today. I am

not concerned with future generations. They will have

to find ways to survive just as we must find ways to

survive today.”

 

 

 

Captain Watson then asked if he was concerned that the

whales would go extinct? “They may go extinct but that

is not my concern. My concern is to realize the

maximum profit from them before they do.”

 

 

 

This echoes the sentiments of Andrew Behr, the owner

of the pirate whaler Sierra that Captain Watson rammed

and disabled on July 16, 1979 and sank on February

6th, 1980.n the Sea.

 

 

 

Behr said that he was aware that whales could be

driven to extinction and if they were going to go

extinct then why not make as much profit from them

before they do.

 

 

 

The Japanese hold whale conservationists in contempt.

They see anyone opposed to whaling as standing in the

way of their illicit profits.

 

 

 

Since 1986, Japan has been killing whales in violation

of the global moratorium on whaling. Each year they

have illegally upped the kill quotas and during the

last two decades that the whales have been “protected”

more than 17,000 whales have been slaughtered.

 

 

 

The International Whaling Commission has done very

little to stop the carnage. The IWC has great

regulations but non-existent enforcement. The member

nations of the IWC like Australia and the United

States have been reluctant to enforce sanctions for

fear of trade retaliations by Japan.

 

 

 

The fact remains that Japanese and Norwegian whaling

is illegal and if nothing else the regulations of the

International Whaling Commission have served to give

legitimacy to Sea Shepherd efforts to oppose outlaw

whaling since 1986.

 

 

 

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been the

only enforcement agency government or

non-governmental, defending the whales over the last

20 years beginning with our sinking of half the

Icelandic whaling fleet in November 1986 to the

scuttling of illegal Norwegian whalers dockside in

1992, 1994 and 1998. This year we harassed and pursued

the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic Whale

Sanctuary. We did not commit any crimes with our

intervention because we were enforcing international

conservation law in accordance with the provisions of

the U.N. World Charter for Nature which allows for

non-governmental organizations to intervene to uphold

international conservation law.

 

 

 

For this reason there have been no criminal charges

brought against Sea Shepherd crew for these

interventions. Criminals are reluctant to retaliate

with the law especially when such retaliation would

further expose and provide documentation and evidence

of the illegal activities that Sea Shepherd is

intervening against.

 

 

 

Japan is now seeking to change the laws protecting

whales by working to overturn the IWC global

moratorium on whaling. And they are succeeding.

 

 

 

For the last few years Japan has been using foreign

aid to seduce and then recruit small poor nations to

join the IWC.

 

 

 

These nation then have their IWC memberships paid by

Japan and like little Japanese fiefdoms they vote as

they are told and they are being told to vote for the

resumption of whaling and to back Japanese objectives

100%

 

 

 

Last year, Japan succeeded in recruiting an equal

number of votes as the whale conservation nations.

This year they have surpassed that number and they now

hold the majority.

 

 

 

In a sneaky move reminiscent of the cowardly attack on

Pearl Harbor, Japan just this week announced that the

Marshall Islands and Cambodia have been bought and

will vote with Japan at next weeks IWC meeting in St.

Kitts. (June 16-20).

 

 

 

Japan now has 36 votes among the 69 member nations of

the IWC.

 

 

 

The first thing Japan intends to do is call for a vote

to scrap the IWC’s conservation committee.

 

 

 

The conservation committee was set up in 2003 to study

measures to preserve whales.

 

 

 

In other words Japan and their 35 puppet nations are

opposed to taking measures to preserve the whales.

 

 

 

Japan also intends to call for a vote on a resolution

supporting its “research” whaling in the Antarctic

Ocean and anywhere else in the world it decides to

kill whales

 

 

 

What does this mean for the Sea Shepherd Conservation

Society?

 

 

 

It means Sea Shepherd must stop the Japanese fleet in

Antarctica this year while the moratorium is in

effect. In addition to violating the moratorium, the

Japanese fleet will be violating the Convention on the

International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) by

targeting 50 endangered Humpback and 50 endangered Fin

whales.

 

 

 

Japan will also be violating the Antarctic Whale

Sanctuary and the Australian Antarctic Territory

Economic Exclusion Zone. In addition Japan will be in

violation of United Stated Department of Commerce

regulations.

 

 

 

This means that despite whatever gains Japan wins at

the IWC meeting in St. Kitts, their whaling operations

will continue to be illegal and thus Sea Shepherd can

continue to legitimately intervene against illegal

whaling operations.

 

 

 

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is presently

recruiting volunteers and preparing a ship to

intervene once again against illegal whaling in the

Southern Oceans in December 2006 and January 2007.

 

 

 

Last year the Japanese fleet was opposed by the Sea

Shepherd ship Farley Mowat and Japanese whaling

operations were documented by the Greenpeace ships

Esperanza and Arctic Sunrise.

 

 

 

Greenpeace will not be returning to Antarctic waters

this year leaving the Sea Shepherd crew to tackle the

whalers alone.

 

 

 

“These whalers are criminals,” said Captain Paul

Watson. “They are no different than ivory smugglers

and drug traffickers. We must once again intervene

against their illegal operations and our objective

must be to stop them from their plans to slaughter

these magnificent and endangered creatures.”

 

 

 

Captain Watson expects the campaign to be expensive,

and dangerous and he expects the Japanese whalers to

be hostile to any interference.