Agadir, Morocco – The worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling that has been in place since 1986 could be overturned this week as the 88 member governments of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) hold their annual meeting in Agadir amidst accusations of corruption and vote buying.
The IWC is expected to vote on a proposal by the Commission’s Chairman and Vice-Chairman that would allow a resumption of commercial whaling in exchange for pledges by three whaling nations – Japan, Norway and Iceland – to reduce the numbers of whales they kill each year.
Under negotiation for three years, the proposal would allow limited commercial whaling, giving the three whaling nations permission to take almost 13,000 whales over the next 10 years, including several threatened species.
The proposal would allow hunting in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary around Antarctica and approve the killing of whales for commercial purposes by Japan around Antarctica and in the North Pacific. It would add new rights for Japan to hunt whales in its coastal waters and allow continuing whaling by Iceland and Norway, but no other nations would be permitted to begin whaling.
Hotly contested by anti-whaling nations such as Australia and Germany, the proposal has attracted the tentative support of Japan and its allies, mostly small island and African nations.
The meeting opened on June 21 behind closed doors without the leadership of IWC Chairman Ambassador Cristian Maquieira of Chile, who has pulled out of the meeting in Morocco due to ill health. The nature of his illness was not specified by the IWC.
The meeting is being led by IWC Vice-Chairman Anthony Liverpool of Antigua and Barbuda, who co-wrote the proposal with Maquieira. But Liverpool’s authority as acting chair and the entire IWC process have been compromised by accusations of corruption which appeared in the “Sunday Times of London” on June 20 and June 13.
According to the reports, Liverpool and the IWC commissioners of 15 other member countries had their flights, accommodations, per diem, and other meeting expenses paid by representatives of the government of Japan, a conflict of interest that undermines their ability to be fair to both sides.
The IWC convention states that, “The expenses of each member of the commission and of his experts and advisers shall be determined and paid by his own government.”
But a Sunday Times reporter posing as a British lobbyist willing to pay IWC member governments to vote against the proposal recorded admissions that those governments feared to lose aid payments from Japan if they did so. Cash and the services of prostitutes were also used to gain their support for Japan on IWC votes, the undercover reporters learned. Such vote buying has long been alleged, but Japanese government representatives have denied employing the practice.
The June 13 report prompted a call by a whistle-blower to the Greenpeace office in Tokyo to tell the campaign group about his role in Japan’s vote buying operation.
The whistle-blower revealed that Liverpool’s bill at the Atlas Amadil Beach hotel in Agadir from June 13 to 28 was being paid by Japan Tours & Travel, a firm based in Houston, Texas and linked by a Sunday Times reporter to a Japanese businessman named Hideuki “Harry” Wakasa, who also lives in Houston. The whistle-blower last week identified Wakasa as the middleman who paid cash and checks to five east Caribbean island nations, including Antigua.
Junichi Sato, Program Director of Greenpeace Japan, said on June 21, “Whistle-blowers have come forward to confirm what we have known for years – that Japan actively engages in vote-buying at the IWC.”
“Scandals surrounding Japan’s whaling industry continue to emerge,” Sato said. “Two years ago, I exposed the embezzlement of expensive cuts of meat, smuggled off Japanese whaling ships and sold on the black market. I was arrested, prosecuted and now face up to 18 months in prison, all for revealing the true face of my government’s whaling program.”
“I urge the negotiators meeting here in Agadir to take political risks, for which they will not be jailed, to improve the current proposal, end the decades of IWC deadlock and bring it into the 21st century,” said Sato. “The meeting in Agadir can and must save whales, not whaling industries reliant on bribery and embezzlement for survival.”
Patrick Ramage, Global Whale Programme Director with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said, “Of the countries paying their own way here, the vast majority favor permanent protection for whales. However, procedural manoeuvres are being used to prevent them from presenting their views in an open session.”
“The acting chair has ordered two further days of closed-door meetings to limit time for open debate, with a view to fast-tracking the proposal when the formal session re-opens on Wednesday,” said Ramage. “Whatever one’s view on the proposal,” he said, “its adoption under the present circumstances will destroy any remaining credibility of the Whaling Commission.”
Wendy Elliott, Species Manager at WWF International, called the decision to exclude the civil society and media is “a scandal”. “The unprecedented decision to start discussions at this year’s IWC behind closed doors is fundamentally unacceptable,” Elliott said. “The issues discussed at the IWC are of enormous public interest. We already had two years of closed doors negotiations leading up to this point, and now is the moment to open up a transparent and honest discussion.”
Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which for the past five years has sent ships to the Southern Ocean to block Japanese whaling, called the IWC, “Irrelevant, Wearisome, and Corrupt”. “It has become increasingly clear that Japan has been bullying, buying, and threatening nations to vote in favor of ending the global moratorium on whaling,” said Watson. “The IWC no longer has any credibility, it is an irrelevant organization. Many of the nations voting for Japan have zero interest in the issue of whaling. They vote the way they are paid to vote.” Watson says he will again send ships to the Southern Ocean to intercept Japanese whalers during the next whaling season.
But the government of Japan, in a briefing note issued in advance of the IWC meeting in Agadir, again denied that it buys the votes of IWC member governments. “This accusation is false. Japan is one of the world’s largest donors, providing aid to over 150 countries. This aid is not linked to the policies of recipient nations on specific issues. In fact, Japanese aid is provided to a number of countries including Argentina, Brazil, India and Mexico that are opposed to whaling,” Japan said through the Institute of Cetacean Research.
