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Vote Buying at International Whaling Meet? |
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By Diego Cevallos*
Japan
allegedly tried to bribe Central American countries ahead of the
International Whaling Commission meeting to support an end to the
moratorium on commercial whale hunting. Honduras and Guatemala deny
there was any such pressure.
MEXICO CITY - Around a thousand whales are
killed each year with harpoons that explode as soon as they penetrate
the skin, electrical charges of thousands of volts, or gunshots
to the head. Japan is the leader in these practices and, in its
zeal to maintain and expand the whale hunt, has allegedly bribed
governments of small Latin American countries, according to charges
by environmental activists and scientists.
The Japanese government has proposed lifting the moratorium on commercial
whale hunting, in place since the mid-1980s, during the meeting
of the International Whaling Commission, Jun. 16-20 on the Caribbean
islands of St. Kitts and Nevis.
The IWC delegates voted Sunday in favor of a motion that could open
the way for a return to commercial whaling. Brazil and New Zealand
criticized the vote outcome. Japan now has to convince 75 percent
of the Commission's 65 member countries to vote against the moratorium
at a future meeting.
In exchange for the votes of several countries -- many with no whaling
tradition whatsoever -- in favor of its position in the IWC, Japan
has offered financial support and consultation services for fishing
industries, denounce some activists and experts.
"This is known by everyone, and Japan doesn't even try to hide it,"
Jorge Urban told Tierramérica. He is a whale expert at the Autonomous
University of Southern Baja California, in western Mexico, and has
attended all of the annual IWC's scientific committee meetings since
1986.
It was expected that the larger countries of the Latin American
region, like Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Mexico, would oppose lifting
the moratorium. But on the eve of the IWC meeting there was an alert
that smaller nations like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua
might support Japan's proposal to once again allow commercial whaling.
"Half of the countries that are members of the Commission want to
end the ban and the others want to maintain it," said Urban.
The international environmental organization Greenpeace accused
government of President Manuel Zelaya in Hondruas of succumbing
to Tokyo's pressures.
The Honduran foreign minister, Milton Jiménez, expressed his indignation.
"That is speculation and an intolerable insult. Any determination
about this matter should be made by the president in consultation
with his ministers, and that is not on the agenda. Honduras does
not sell nor does it negotiate its votes," Jiménez told Tierramérica.
Greenpeace "should identify its source in order to prove (that the
country was bribed) and we will make a formal protest if this speculation
continues," he said.
To the pleasant surprise of the environmentalists, at the last minute
El Salvador and Guatemala reported that they were not able to join
as new members of the IWC and would therefore not be attending the
meeting.
"Guatemala will not be in St. Kitts and Nevis, not as a IWC member
and not as an observer," that country's foreign minister, Jorge
Briz, told Tierramérica last week.
Nicaragua and Honduras, which are already IWC members, maintained
an uncertain position. Although the Honduran government expressed
offense at Greenpeace's charges that it had accepted bribes, it
did not clearly state what its vote would be.
The decision to restrict whale hunting in the 1980s was made based
on evidence that several species were in danger of extinction as
a result of over-hunting.
There are more than 20 species of whales worldwide, and scientists
say some cetacean species are highly intelligent, with complex social
systems and communication abilities.
Japan, Iceland and Norway argue that the populations of some kinds
of whales have already reestablished themselves to a sufficient
degree and that whale hunts could be reinstated without harm to
the species. Those countries say, for example, that minke whales,
the smallest of the baleen family, number more than 500,000.
The approximately 1,000 whales that are hunted annually are part
of quotas established by the IWC for scientific studies and allow
indigenous populations, like the Inuit in the Arctic, to maintain
their ancient fishing and food traditions.
The Norwegian government is the only one to unilaterally break the
ban agreed by the IWC. In 1993 it renewed fishing for minke whales,
which measure some 10 meters long.
The Norwegian authorities say the moratorium adopted in 1986 should
have been reassessed in 1990, but that did not happen because the
majority of the Commission's members were opposed, even though they
considered that there was clear evidence of the recovery of some
whale species, like the minke.
Japan, meanwhile, maintains whale hunts ostensibly for scientific
studies. But the meat from the vast majority of the whales its fleet
hunts ends up on plates in restaurants in that country or exported
as an exotic product.
"Japan and Norway say they have the right to hunt whales, and they
argue that they make use of the resource while maintaining it. That
same right is one we have to state that the resource can be used
sustainably without the need to kill them," said Lorenzo Rojas,
Mexico's representative before the IWC.
Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico oppose a renewal of commercial
whale hunting. Most Latin American countries have no whale hunting
tradition, but several have developed a successful tourism industry
based on whale-watching excursions.
Whale-watching generates revenues of more than a billion dollars
a year around the world, contributing to an improved quality of
life in coastal communities.
"The killing of whales cannot coexist with observation, and it has
been proved that whale-watching is much more profitable than whale
hunting," said Roxana Scheteinbarg, coordinator of the Argentine
non-governmental Whale Conservation Institute.
"Whether or not there is a large population, there is no longer
any need to hunt whales," she said in a Tierramérica interview.
According to Mexican expert Urban, the studies conducted by Norway
and Japan that say minke whales can be hunted again without threatening
the species are inconclusive.
The risk of extinction weighs on all of the big whale species of
the Asian Pacific, like gray whales, of which only about 120 can
be found in that region, said the scientist.
At sea, whales are killed by shooting them with a so-called grenade
harpoon, which explodes upon contact with the animal. Poles that
transmit high electrical charges are also used.
If none of the usual methods kill the giant mammal, the hunters
use firearms: the order is to shoot directly at the whale's head.
* Diego Cevallos is an IPS correspondent.
With reporting by Marcela Valente in Argentina, Thelma Mejía in
Honduras and Jorge Grochembake in Guatemala.
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