Australia's Greens Want Japanese Whalers Watched
Date: 28-Dec-05
Country: AUSTRALIA
Author: Michelle Nichols
Greens leader Bob Brown and Greenpeace also called for Australia to stop one of the six Japanese ships -- due to arrive in the southern city of Hobart on Saturday to deliver a sick crew member to hospital -- from returning to the fleet.
Two Greenpeace ships have challenged the Japanese whaling fleet in the icy waters near the coast of Antarctica by deploying inflatable craft to harass the "catcher boats", positioning them between the whale and harpoon gun.
Brown, who planned to join a protest in Hobart on Saturday, said the Japanese people needed to be made aware of what the whaling fleet were doing.
"If we had a naval surveillance ship down there we'd be able to do that," he told Australian television.
"Remember, (the Australian) government has impounded scores of Indonesian fishing boats. It's spent millions chasing pirate ships. But when it comes to this piracy of whales in our waters, it seems to be sitting on its hands."
Prime Minister John Howard's office declined to comment on Brown's remarks or his call for a navy ship to monitor the whaling fleet.
Australia is a staunch critic of Japan's whaling programme, and Howard reiterated his opposition in a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on the margins of a regional summit in Malaysia last week.
Japan abandoned commercial whaling in 1986 in line with an international moratorium and began what it calls a research programme the following year. Critics said the programme was a disguised commercial hunt for meat for upscale restaurants.
Despite international disapproval, Tokyo announced in June plans to nearly double its annual catch of minke whales to 850 and add fin whales and eventually humpbacks -- two types of whales conservationists say whose survival is threatened. Greenpeace, which tracked down the whaling fleet after a month-long search, and the Japanese fleets accused each other on Thursday of ramming each others' vessels.
