Greenpeace Japan spokesperson Junichi Sato discusses vote buying outside the "Normalization" meeting for the IWC, organised by the Japanese government.
One part of our campaign to stop whaling forever is to address
the propaganda that the ICR and the Fisheries Agency of Japan (JFA)
has been pushing to Japanese people for years - that anti-whaling
means "anti-Japanese" and that anti-whaling protestors are all
violent "terrorists" -so the Japanese people need to support the
government against these protests. Whaling will only be ended when
the Japanese government hangs up its harpoons, not just because we
come to the Southern Ocean to stop individual whales being
killed.
Anti-whaling does not equal anti-Japanese
Our office in Japan has bravely released an internet travelogue
called Whale
Love Wagon. Based on a popular Japanese TV program known as
Love Wagon
, the program will go for ten weeks and feature a young Japanese
woman and a Spanish man. In each of the weekly stories, various
issues will be examined; such as the ecology of whales, different
views between the people inside and outside Japan, the history of
whaling by western countries as well as Japan, and international
efforts and treaties about whaling.
Whale Love Wagon episode 1
Setting the record straight
"More than 92 percent of Japanese people don't even know that
their government is the only one that hunts whales in the Southern
Ocean Whale Sanctuary and this year planned to kill 945 minke and
endangered fin whales," explains Junichi Sato, Greenpeace Japan
Oceans Campaign Project Manager. "In addition, outside Japan many
believe that all Japanese people support whaling, and subsequently
criticise Japan as a whole. We hope the Whale Love Wagon will
dispel the myths and set the record straight on all sides."
In the news
Something seems to be changing. Between Whale Love Wagon and
the offer of help from the Esperanza crew in the Southern Ocean,
reports in Japanese media have been unprecedented in their
even-handedness and even positive portrayals of Greenpeace. "It's
even more than I expected!" says Junichi.
Recently, one of the most popular daily evening news programs
called "News Station" (or Hodo Station in Japanese) on TV Asahi,
ran the story about the Nisshin-maru which drifting for a week
after the fire on it, and the presenter led by saying "this
problem is complicated".
Cool-headed communication
And this week, the major Japanese newswire Kyodo ran a piece
about the fire on the Nisshin Maru that killed 27 year old crewman
Kazutaka Makita. The article concluded:
"If JFA and ICR had shown insight deep enough to accept
Greenpeace's offer, it could have been a sufficient trigger for
cool-headed communication about whaling. In that way, the death of
Mr.Makita would not have been wasted."
Hopefully, as the debate gains more objective scrutiny inside
Japan, we can end whaling once and for all. But it isn't easy. As
Junichi wrote in a recent email update toGreenpeace staff, "So as I
write this email, I am getting "you die"messages in my mail box
also".
Next steps
Meanwhile, we are continuing political work to pressure
politicians at the highest level to act rather than talk at the
coming International Whaling Commission meeting in Anchorage,
Alaska.
You can help by pressuring
Poland to pay up and join the IWC, and helping us come up with
new ways to keep the pressure on Denmark to support the
moratorium.
Take Action!
Create your own anti-whaling campaign
Ship's weblog
Updates from the crew of the Esperanza, in the Southern Ocean