Japanese Greenpeace Activists on trial for stealing whale meat , illegally killed whales Antarctica

[Annces]

A bitter face-off in Japan over whaling


By John M. Glionna
February 14, 2009

Junichi Sato's face clenched when he recalled opening the reeking box of whale meat -- all 50 pounds of it. "At first we thought it was someone's dismembered body," Sato said. "It was quite depressing." He and fellow Greenpeace activist Toru Suzuki had tracked the package to a mail depot in northern Japan after tipsters told them it contained whale meat bound for the country's black market, smuggled by crew members of a ship commissioned to kill the mammals for scientific research, not profit.

But when they held a cameras-flashing news conference last spring to turn the meat over to police, the officers instead arrested the activists for trespass and theft.

That put them at the center of a bitter face-off between environmentalists and the Japanese government, which many believe wants to severely punish the pair as a warning to citizens who question the country's controversial whaling policy.


Japanese officials say the men -- dubbed the Tokyo Two -- are eco-terrorists who stole the meat from a legitimate transporter to falsely malign the nation's whaling establishment. The pair faced a pretrial hearing in their case this week; they could receive up to 10 years in jail if convicted.

"These men have been painted as heroes," said Joji Morishita, consulate for the Japanese government's powerful Fisheries Agency, which sponsors the whale hunts. "They're not heroes."

The case has shifted the front lines of the war over Japan's whaling program from the frigid waters off Antarctica, where 100 whales are culled by Japan each winter, to the streets of Tokyo and the court of public opinion.

It also is a rare occurrence of Japanese taking the lead in protesting their government's environmental policies. In a culture where demonstrations are rare and a premium is put on polite public discourse, Sato and Suzuki's actions have raised eyebrows.

"Usually it's Australians, Americans or British taking action, not the Japanese themselves," said Keiko Hirata, a political scientist at Cal State Northridge who specializes in Japanese foreign policy.

Along with putting Japan's whaling practices on trial, experts say, the case calls into question the tactics of activist groups such as Greenpeace, which are often viewed here as meddling outsiders.

Although commercial whaling was banned in 1986, Japan is permitted to kill the animals for "lethal research" on their migratory and other habits in anticipation of a return to sustainable commercial hunts. Norway and Iceland also cull a limited number of whales each year.

Environmentalists routinely harass Japanese whaling boats during the hunt for the nation's disputed annual harvest of 935 minke and 50 fin whales. The group Sea Shepherd has been accused of tactics such as firing acid, mud, nails and water cannons at the vessels.

After the arrest of the two activists, Greenpeace supporters sent 250,000 letters to Japanese prosecutors and a delegation handed a letter of protest to the office of Prime Minister Taro Aso.

"This has become a very political case," Suzuki said. "The government wants to destroy Greenpeace."

Morishita responded icily to Greenpeace assertions that the men have not been treated fairly. "If they don't trust our police," he said, "there is no basis for further discussion."


FULL ARTICLE

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-whales14-2009feb14,0,5110794.story

Greenpeace discussion of the issue

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/whales-justice180209


Junichi Sato, Greenpeace Activist

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/06/20/whalemeat_narrowweb__300x491,0.jpg

[Chulanowa]

1. Am I reading that right?

Greenpeace members actually did something?

Not let's wait for the officials of the organization to join the Japanese government in denouncing this "terrorism"

[Annces]

2. I don't think Greenpeace expected to be charged with illegal activity

I think they were trying to do something that they thought was safe, and now they are in deep trouble. The Japanese legal system might come down with a hammer on these 2 activists.

[kristopher]

3. A little fact checking

1) The whale meat is not from whales that are "illegally killed." The Australian law that the claim is based on is about as valid an North Korea's claim to ownership of South Korea. It may be considered legitimate within the country making the claim, but the rest of the world recognizes the assertion (Basically amounts to a claim of ownership of half Antarctica) for the absurdity under international law that it is.

2) They broke into and stole a package from a government POSTAL FACILITY. Try doing that ANYWHERE and see if you aren't promptly arrested, prosecuted and jailed. WHAT you are stealing is totally irrelevant.

3) The package is alleged to contain "illegally killed" whale meat bound for "the country's black market" that had been "smuggled by crew members of a ship commissioned to kill the mammals for scientific research, not profit".
This whopper is just pulled out of someone's ass. Disposition of the whale is at the sole discretion of the nation conducting the scientific whaling. From ARTICLE VIII, here are Paras 1-3 of the moratorium.

1. Notwithstanding anything contained in this Convention any Contracting Government may grant to any of its nationals a special permit authorizing that national to kill, take and treat whales for purposes of scientific research subject to such restrictions as to number and subject to such other conditions as the Contracting Government thinks fit, and the killing, taking, and treating of whales in accordance with the provisions of this Article shall be exempt from the operation of this Convention. Each Contracting Government shall report at once to the Commission all such authorizations which it has granted. Each Contracting Government may at any time revoke any such special permit which it has granted.

2. Any whales taken under these special permits shall so far as practicable be processed and the proceeds shall be dealt with in accordance with directions issued by the Government by which the permit was granted.

3. Each Contracting Government shall transmit to such body as may be designated by the Commission, in so far as practicable, and at intervals of not more than one year, scientific information available to that Government with respect to whales and whaling, including the results of research conducted pursuant to paragraph 1 of this Article and to Article IV.

Crew members of the whaling ship were given a portion of their catch that was stolen from a secure government Postal Facility after the crewmen mailed it.

Yeah, I'd say they are going to be found guilty and will have to face whatever the penalty is for their conduct. BTW: Japanese prosecutors have a 99% plus conviction rate and there is no trial by jury. I certainly hope Watson enjoys cashing the checks that exploiting the misery of these poor schmucks will bring him.



Some background on the matter from those who only read Sea Shepherd propaganda:

Politics

There has been concern that the conflict between those who seek renewed utilisation of whales and those who seek protection for every whale has placed a dangerous strain on the IWC. Oran Young and eight other noted scholars in the field assert that "changes in the current arrangements are inevitable" and that "the killing of whales for human consumption will continue, whether whalers operate within a reconstructed international whaling regime, opt to join alternative arrangements like NAMMCO, or seek to establish a hybrid system".<18> The BBC also reports that "onservationists argue that the IWC should be devoting far more of its attention to issues such as whales being hit by ships, the effects of pollution and climate change, and the pressures that drive species such as the baiji (or Yangtse river dolphin) to extinction. As things stand, it cannot. The logjam of hunting has to be overcome first."<19>

Allegation of politicising science

The pro-whaling nations accuse the IWC of basing these decisions upon "political and emotional" factors rather than upon scientific knowledge given that the IWC prohibits all whaling, even though its own Scientific Committee has concluded since 1991 that quotas on some species of whale would be sustainable. They argue the IWC has swayed from its original purpose and is attempting, under the guise of conservation, to essentially grant whales an entitlement to life via an absolute protection from being killed by humans for commercial purposes.<20>

Non-IWC whaling nations have expressed similar sentiments. Canada withdrew from the IWC after the vote to impose the moratorium, claiming that "he ban was inconsistent with measures that had just been adopted by the IWC that were designed to allow harvests of stocks at safe levels."

After the moratorium came into force in 1986, the Scientific Committee was commissioned to review the status of the whale stocks and develop a calculation method for setting safe catch limits. At the IWC's annual meeting in 1991, the Scientific Committee submitted its finding that there existed approximately 761,000 Minke Whales in Antarctic waters, 87,000 in the northeast Atlantic, and 25,000 in the North Pacific. With such populations, it was submitted, 2000 Minke Whales could be harvested annually without endangering the population. Despite this, the IWC Plenary Committee voted to maintain the blanket moratorium on whaling, arguing that formulas for determining allowable catches had not yet been adequately evaluated.

In 1991, acting on the recommendation of the Scientific Committee, the IWC adopted a computerised formula, the Revised Management Procedure (RMP), for determining allowable catches of some whale species. Despite the fact that the RMP indicated that it would be possible to authorize a catch that year, the moratorium was not lifted. The IWC noted the need to agree on minimum standards for data, to prepare guidelines on the conduct of population surveys, and to devise and approve a system of measures for monitoring and inspection.

The IWC Plenary committee adopted the RMP in 1994, but decided not to implement it before an inspection and control scheme had been developed. This scheme, together with the RMP, is known as the Revised Management Scheme (RMS). Since then it has been all but impossible for the member countries in the Plenary committee to agree on an RMS.

Frustrated by this delay in the return to commercial whaling, with no sign of agreement on the RMS in sight, pro-whaling countries have accused some hard-line anti-whaling countries, such as United Kingdom and New Zealand, of not negotiating in good faith, insinuating that they are filibustering the adoption of an RMS by introducing unrealistic demands that will make the RMS unworkable. The accused countries respond by claiming that they only want to make sure best practices will be followed and that it is the pro-whaling countries that show unwillingness to compromise. These anti-whaling countries, which want the moratorium to be permanent, also face questions why they are participating in the discussions in the first place, since the whole objective of the RMS is to regulate commercial whaling. Their response is that the RMS and the moratorium are two separate issues, and should the moratorium be lifted against their will, they want the best possible management scheme in place. Thus a politically awkward situation could arise where the RMS and the moratorium co-exist.

Australia is the only member country of IWC who has officially announced its opposition to any RMS and is therefore not participating in the discussions. Anti-whaling NGOs, such as Greenpeace, are also generally against the RMS.

Ray Gambell, then the Secretary of the IWC, agreed at least in part with the argument of the pro-whaling nations: "In all reasonableness, we would have to say that a commercial catch could be taken without endangering stocks."<21> In June 1993 the Chairman of the Scientific Committee, Dr Philip Hammond, resigned in protest to what he saw as contempt of the Scientific Committee’s recommendations. The same year Norway became the only state in the world to resume commercial whaling, on the grounds that they had objected to, and thus opted out, of the moratorium. - wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Whaling_Commission

[Chulanowa]

4. I'm not sure I'll ever quite be able to understand...

There's the big argument over whether whale "harvest" is sustainable. It's apparently not asked nor explained why they need to be taken in the first place. Much less any questions or explanations why it would need to be done on a commercial level.

There's also the problem that every major fishery in the world is collapsing because of overharvesting because all the government-paid experts assured everyone "there are plenty in the sea". If Japan can't fucking manage salmon and tuna, why trust them with whales any more than we could trust Canada after their adventure with cod?

[GliderGuider]

5. Speaking as a Canadian, I agree.

A Canadian Coast Guard employee told me a seriously cynical joke as he showed me a buoy anchor chain encrusted with zebra mussels. I asked him if there was any way to get rid of them, and he replied, "We're going to declare them an endangered species and put them under the protection of the Conservation and Protection branch of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They'll be extinct in two years."

[kristopher]

6. You might benefit from better knowing the history of the IWC.

It is an organization dedicated to managing the harvest of whales and it's best science shows that some species are able to be taken without endangering the species.

The real issue is, as you point out, a decision involving the normative values of those involved. WHY should the whales be killed? Instead of making that argument from the view that whales are sentient and that for many people, sentience activates the murder/cannibalism taboo; those who were acting on that motive instead used the Rethuglican tactic of screwing with the process and the science to force their values and beliefs on others. Worse yet, they added insult to the injury by using underhanded tactics to get the moratorium in place.

This has caused the Japanese who favor whaling for food (a minority) to carry the day by portraying the antiwhaling voices as arrogant (one of the worse things a Japanese can be accused of). There is also the feeling in Japan that racism is a large part of the picture since Norway and Iceland are seldom a target of antiwhaling groups in the same manner Japan is.

To be effective, the dialog has to somehow be reset to a place where the past is somehow diminished in significance.

[Chulanowa]

7. Perhaps if Japan were to publish the body of science it's gotten after twenty three years...

And four thousand whales? Norway and Iceland publish their findings. Japan doesn't. Norway and Iceland both also have a much smaller annual take than Japan. Japan also has a bad habit of threatening to go after endangered species (even carrying out that threat with fins).