BUYING THE WORLDS WHALES -
GREENPEACE EXPOSES MULTI MILLION PRICE TAG

Melbourne - 16th January 2002:
The Japanese Government has already spent more than 320 million US dollars on buying a return to full scale commercial whaling, said Greenpeace today after its expedition ship MV Arctic Sunrise docked in Melbourne.

After six weeks dogging the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica Greenpeace activists on board the Arctic Sunrise expressed their pure frustration that despite all their efforts money may be the deciding factor in the future of the whales.

"The Japanese government is determined to restart whaling by any means. It’s buying votes and ultimately it’s buying the world’s whales," said Greenpeace Campaigner, Sarah Duthie at a press conference on the Arctic Sunrise.

A research document released today showed new figures on the staggering sums of money passing hands to overturn the current ban on commercial whaling. In 2001 alone more than 47 million was spent buying the votes of six countries. This money is described by the Fisheries Agency of Japan as fisheries aid grants, but the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda admitted that the money was in return for voting with Japan on whaling issues. Japan has also publicly admitted that it is buying votes, but no-one has previously added up the cost to Japanese tax- payers. (1)

According to official ODA figures and publications from the Institute of Cetacean Research, fisheries aid grants exceeds 210 million dollars - while subsidies for research whaling amount to 113 million. The total amount spent since the start of the moratorium on whaling in 1987 is more than 320 million dollars, though even this leaves out a range of other costs in the campaign to bring back whaling. Greenpeace reports that Japanese government departments have hired international lobbyists and a PR firm as well as paying for advertising campaigns.

"While the Japanese economy is failing, our Government is wasting billions of yen to force the world to restart whaling," said Japanese campaigner Yuko Hirono. "Japan should not be using such extreme methods to get what it wants. Every member of the Japanese public pays for this and they don’t even realise it."

Yuko is one of 30 Greenpeace campaigners on board the Arctic Sunrise who have endured ferocious Antarctic conditions to stop the take of whales. They have witnessed the harpooning and tried to prevent it and been targeted with high-powered water cannon from the factory ship Nisshin Maru. So far it is estimated that the whalers have taken over 200 minke whales out of their target of 440.

For further information contact:
Sue Cooper, Media Officer Tel: + 61 (0) 408268024
MV Arctic Sunrise - Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner: Sara Duthie (English language) or Yuko Hirono (Japanese) Tel: + 61 (0) 438740454
Footage and stills: Kate Davison Tel: + 61 (0) 418 204869

Editors Notes:
In the run-up to the 2001 IWC meeting a senior member of the Japanese delegation, Mr Komatsu, confirmed that Japan was vote buying. In an interview with ABC TV, Australia, Mr. Komatsu admitted that Japan had to use the “tools of diplomatic communications and promises of overseas development aid to influence members of the International Whaling Commission". This was independently corroborated by the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Lester Bird. The Caribbean News Agency, CANA, reported him saying: "So long as the whales are not an endangered species, I don't see any reason why if we are able to support the Japanese, and the quid pro quo is that they are going to give us some assistance, I am not going to be a hypocrite; that is part of why we do so."

The Fisheries Agency's vote buying programme is gathering momentum. At the 1993 meeting the Fisheries Agency had just 4 countries on their payroll. By 1999 there were 7. Japan brought one new country into the IWC in 2000 and two more in 2001. The Agency now enjoys the support of ten nations whose votes are paid for: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Guinea, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Solomon Island, Panama and Morocco. All of these, except Morocco vote with Japan on every issue. The votes of these countries, combined with those of nations like China, Korea, Norway and Russia, which vote with Japan for their own reasons mean that the Fisheries Agency is within 3 or 4 votes of having a majority in the IWC. The use of money to undermine international institutions in this way appears to be a growing trend by Japan. In the last two years Japanese officials have used these tactics in the election of a UN agency head, attempts to weaken protection for whales at CITES and, most recently, in attempts to increase the number of Nobel prizes awarded to Japan. (see below for more information)


How much has the Japanese Government spent in its efforts to overturn the moratorium on commercial whaling?

"The campaign [to overturn the moratorium] is one of the best financed and most determined the world has seen. Japanese government departments have hired Washington lobbyists and London PR firms and launched advertising campaigns in newspapers and scientific journals. The government is using aid to buy the support of poor countries, cementing ties with right-wing American politicians, forging links with right-wing British think-tanks, and sounding out MPs. As part of the campaign, Tokyo invited The Observer on an all-expenses-paid trip to Japan to hear its side of the story."
The Observer newspaper (UK), 24th June 2001

Since the moratorium came into effect for Japan in 1987, Japan has spent at least 320 million dollars in trying to overturn it. This figure is certainly an underestimate, probably a gross underestimate. The last time an IWC meeting was held in Japan, in 1993, the Tokyo Shimbun published a story (May 15, 1993) referring to the pre meeting vote-buying drive, calling it a 'bankroll offensive' and citing 'stories circulating that the economic assistance recklessly spent by the Japanese government for vote consolidation this time exceeded 300 million dollars'.

Known spending: (all figures in US dollars)

Subsidy for 'research whaling':
$2.7 million in 87/88 and 8.5 million a year thereafter = 113.2 million dollars.

Fisheries aid grants to 5 Caribbean countries - Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines from 1987 to 1999: (The period 1987 - 99 was chosen because 1987 marks the beginning of the vote buying offensive. 1999 is the last year for which official figures have been published.) 11,871 million Yen = 100 million dollars.

Aid to the Solomon Islands 1993-1999:
1009 million yen = 10 million dollars.

Aid to Morocco 1994-1999:
5039 million yen = 45 million dollars. (Morocco was an observer at the IWC from 1994 to 2000. It joined in 2001 and voted with Japan.)

Aid to Guinea in 1998:
899 million Yen = 7.5 million dollars. (Guinea joined the IWC in 2000 and voted with Japan)

Sub total for 1987-99:
275.7 million dollars.

Although official statistics for 2000 have not yet been obtained, there have been some announcements of aid packages in the last 9 months of 2001, mostly via Japanese government websites.

Fisheries aid grant to Antigua and Barbuda in 2001:
798 million Yen = 6.4 million dollars.

Fisheries aid grant to Guinea in 2001:
881 million yen = 7.2 million dollars.

Fisheries aid grant to Dominica in 2001:
1114 million yen = 8.95 million dollars.

Morocco Fisheries aid cooperation 'about USD 10 million' (reported in Maghrab Arab Press) = 10 million dollars.

St. Kitts and Nevis Fisheries grant aid:
567 million yen = 4.5 million dollars.
(St Kitts and Nevis began voting with Japan in 1999)

St Lucia Fisheries grant aid:
1318 million yen = 10.6 million dollars.

Known grants for part of 2001:
47.65 million dollars.

TOTAL: Sub total 1987-99 plus known grants from 2001 = 323 million US dollars.

This figure is certainly an underestimate since there are also many other costs we have not been able to quantify such as the costs of hiring lobbyists and PR firms outside Japan, advertising campaigns, travel of high level delegations on recruiting trips to bring in new countries, the travel and accommodation of IWC delegations from the recruited countries to Japan for briefings and to the IWC meeting itself and the costs of Japan's very large delegation to the IWC.

The use of money to undermine international institutions in this way appears to be a growing trend by the government of Japan. In the last two years Japanese officials have used these tactics in the election of a UN agency head (1), attempts to weaken protection for whales at CITES and, most recently, in attempts to increase the number of Nobel prizes awarded to Japan (2).

The Fisheries Agency's vote buying programme is gathering momentum. At the 1993 meeting the Fisheries Agency had just 4 countries on their payroll. By 1999 there were 7. Japan brought one new country into the IWC in 2000 and two more in 2001. The Agency now enjoys the support of ten nations whose votes are paid for: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Guinea, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Solomon Island, Panama and Morocco. All of these, except Morocco vote with Japan on every issue.

The votes of these countries, combined with those of nations like China, Korea, Norway and Russia, which vote with Japan for their own reasons mean that the Fisheries Agency is within 3 or 4 votes of having a majority in the IWC.


Footnotes

1. The Times 8th August 2000 "Japanese 'trickery' won top Unesco job", By Michael Binyon.

DAMNING charges against Japan of chicanery, influence-buying and ruthless diplomatic deception are made in an account by Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to London of how he was outmanoeuvred by Tokyo for the job of Unesco Secretary-General.

Ghazi al-Gosaibi all but accuses Japan of outright bribery in persuading dozens of smaller countries to support its candidate, Koichiro Matsuura, who was elected by a wide margin. He said that Japan unashamedly used its huge foreign aid budget to buy the votes of Third World countries, even threatening to cut off development aid if the vote did not go to Mr Matsuura.

"A number of representatives of developing countries which receive aid from Japan have told me they received an explicit warning that aid would come to an end if those countries did not vote for the Japanese candidate," he says. "More than one permanent representative has told me also that Japan informed his country that Japan would withdraw from Unesco if its candidate was not elected." The effect, he says, would be to bankrupt the UN organisation, which sponsors educational, scientific and cultural projects.

Japan even went as far as instructing Mr Matsuura himself to hand over Japan's hurricane-damage aid to Honduras to bolster his candidacy.

Dr al-Gosaibi's pamphlet, The Unesco Experience, details the way Japan mobilised its campaign "as though it were a real war", starting long before the election in October 1999. "This is a war Japan cannot under any circumstances lose," the Japanese Prime Minister said in April 1998. A Unesco spokesman said in Paris yesterday that neither Unesco nor the office of the Japanese Secretary-General had any comment.

The pamphlet says Japan began by changing the Unesco election rules so that those casting the vital votes "could not depart even a hair's breadth from official instructions". It then set about creating bogus candidacies. Dr al-Gosaibi says that candidates were secretly encouraged, co-ordinated and even funded by Japan to mask the support for Mr Matsuura. As they dropped out after the first rounds, their votes went to Japan.

Tokyo made victory a priority of its foreign policy because it was "desperate" to secure a post in an international organisation to bolster its claim to a permanent seat on the Security Council, Dr al- Gosaibi says. Every day, the Japanese pressured all those who supported another candidate to change their positions. “The delegate of a Western state told me that the Japanese representative was driving him crazy with visits three times a week asking for backing from his country."

Dr. al-Gosaibi, a distinguished Arab poet and historian, received Britain's vote and was the runner-up in the election. But he bitterly reflects on the deceptions used by Japan, which included getting a country's President to promise its vote even while its Unesco delegate was lobbying for Dr al-Gosaibi. In another example "which almost passes belief" a Foreign Minister of a friendly state was mustering support for him in Paris as the permanent representative, on instructions from the President, was voting for Japan.

Dr. Al-Gosaibi reserves the final stiletto for France, which he accuses of duplicity. Saudi Arabia asked Paris whether it would veto a candidate who did not speak French and was told that it would maintain strict neutrality. Before the election, France said it could not support a candidate who did not have excellent command of French. "The statement was an unexpected shock and God alone knows the damage it caused us."

Observer - Sunday December 16, 2001 "Japan's Nobel ploy riles Swedes - Offer of all-expenses paid trip to prize officials outrages Scandinavians", by Robin McKie, Science Editor.

It was supposed to be an innocuous offer to aid scientific co-operation between two countries. But an attempt to get Sweden's Nobel Foundation officials to take an all-expenses trip to Japan has outraged Scandinavian scientific sensibilities, and threatens to trigger a breakdown between the two nations.

'The invitations pose an ethical problem,' Nobel committee member Anders Barany told Nature last week. 'There is such an outspoken Japanese policy to acquire Nobel prizes.'

The row also underlines how agitated the Japanese have become about their international image as unoriginal imitators, a failing that goes deep into the country's troubled psyche.

A few months ago this insecurity led Japan's government to make an extraordinary promise: its scientists would win a startling 30 Nobel prizes over the next 50 years. Given that the nation has managed only nine in 100 years, this promise will require its boffins to increase their Nobel output by more than 500 per cent, an unprecedented improvement.

'Could the government of any other country get away with making such ridiculous promises?' asked one unhappy Tokyo researcher.

Despite such criticisms, the country has followed up this pledge energetically. The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science set up an 'information office' at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, Sweden's medical university. Its function seems a blatant attempt to lobby Nobel medical committee members about the merits of Japanese researchers.

In a world of the quiet academic, such directness is unprecedented. But the Japanese have followed up their information office with an attempt to pay for a group of Nobel laureates and Nobel Foundation staff to come to Japan to celebrate the prizes' centenary.

The Japanese say they are just being hospitable. It is customary to cover visiting scientists' expenses, they claim. It is not a view shared by Barany. The Nobel Foundation has enough money to pick up the bill for any visit, he told Nature.

Moreover, the bid is also controversial within Japan. There the government's Nobel policy has also stirred up intense feelings, although few scientists deny that the nation has a pitiable prize record for one of the world's richest and most technologically proficient nations.

In 100 years, Japan has picked up only six Nobel prizes in the main science topics of physics, chemistry and physiology. (Ironically, one of these was awarded this year to the chemist Ryoji Noyori.) By contrast, Britain has won 70 in these fields, even though its population is less than half that of Japan.

For a country whose electronics, cars and computers dominate world markets, such a level of scientific excellence is puny and worrying. But simply going round throwing money on the world promotion of Japanese scientists will not solve the problem, say critics. It is not that the rest of the world is just failing to understand Japanese greatness. The real problem lies with the nation's educational failings. The country lacks creativity because its educational system relies far too heavily on rote learning and conformity.

In addition, the entire Japanese university system is top-heavy and paternalistic. Its academic 'koza' system gives professors immense power to dictate what their younger researchers do. Instead of pursuing their own original ideas, these young scientists have to follow up the moribund ideas of ageing bosses.

As one of Japan's few Nobel prize winners - Hideki Shirakawa, of the University of Tsukaba - says, younger scientists have little alternative 'unless they go abroad'. Until that problem is tackled, no amount of promotion will buy the nation what it now openly craves: tangible scientific credibility.


Greenpeace International Media Briefing
January 2002