18
July 2008 - International — Why would we
believe the whaling industry when it says
it is innocent? The institutions behind
the Japanese whaling operation have apparently
now investigated themselves and cleared
themselves of any wrongdoing over the whale
meat embezzlement scandal exposed by Greenpeace
in May.
When those guilty of
a crime investigate themselves it’s hardly
surprising that they arrive at the conclusion
they are innocent.
When Greenpeace first
exposed the long-held practice by whaling
crew of Japan’s so-called research whaling
operation of smuggling prime whale meat
cuts off the whaling factory ship, the Nisshin
Maru, and selling it for their own profit,
the responses from those involved the Japanese
Government’s whaling programme were many
and varied.
Kyodo Senpaku changed
their story three times in almost as many
days? Indeed, before the scandal was exposed,
an official of the Japanese Fisheries Agency
claimed that whale meat was never given
to crew.
Latest updates and background
on the whale meat scandal. Finally the Fisheries
Agency of Japan, the Institute of Cetacean
Research (ICR) and the whaling company itself,
Kyodo Senpaku, came out with a coordinated
response to our findings. It’s an extraordinary
piece of work – even calling Greenpeace
“malicious”.
But the statement raises
far more questions than it answers (well
actually it doesn’t answer anything).
Questions:
They claim that the
whale meat being smuggled off was a “gift”,
purchased by Kyodo Senpaku from the “Research”
arm of the Government, the ICR. Where is
the receipt?
Why were these so-called “gifts” labelled
as “cardboard”? If you’ve got a box of whale
meat, and it has been given to you by your
company, would you label the box as “cardboard”?
You also wouldn’t cover it up with a layer
of dirty clothes. What were they trying
to hide?
The company says that
each crew member receives 9.5kg of whale
meat – this would amount to two tones of
prime whale meat - if it can afford such
expansive gifts to crewmembers, why does
it need to get a huge Japanese taxpayer
subsidy each year?
Greenpeace’s investigation revealed that
at least 23 crew members sent 93 boxes of
“personal baggage” to 30 different destinations.
None seem to have been labelled as “whale
meat” – they had a variety of different
labels, such as “plastic stuff”. Strangely,
we could find no boxes which were actually
labelled as whale meat. How did the rest
of the crew transport their free whale meat,
paid for by the taxpayer?
Why were NONE of the boxes marked “whale
meat”? Everything Greenpeace uncovered in
the investigation matches the descriptions
given to us by the whistleblowers who came
to us with their concerns about what was
happening in the whaling fleet.
Why would these whistleblowers
who approached us take such a high risk
if they were simply making up the stories?
Then there’s the freight
company involved:
Why did the freight
company not report any missing box until
after we revealed our investigations in
a press conference, weeks after the activists
had intercepted it at the depot in Aomori.
If a box goes missing, surely one would
expect it to be reported immediately.
The biggest question
remaining, though, is this:
Why did the Prosecutor
investigating the case drop suddenly drop
his enquiries – on the very day that the
police arrested our activists?
The investigation needs
to be re-opened. No question. This is not
the end of this matter.
It is not the end for
Junichi and Toru, who are waiting trial
having been charged with theft and trespass
for bringing this scandal to public attention.
It is not the end for the taxpayers who
must be wondering why they are funding a
so-called research whaling that supplies
no science, whale meat that few want to
eat and ‘expensive gifts’ for the whaling
fleet crew.
