A Year of Living Precariously
By Captain Paul Watson
May 18th marked a full year since Japan and Japan’s co-conspirator Costa Rica
had me detained in Frankfurt, Germany on politically motivated charges.
However despite the fact that Japan has
invested close to thirty million dollars to destroy Sea Shepherd and myself, I
remain free and Sea Shepherd continues to be an effective organization.
Last month, Sea Shepherd Australia announced
plans for Operation Relentless, the 10th campaign to the Southern Ocean to
defend the whales from the illegal whaling activities of the Japanese whaling
industry.
Japanese economic and political power and
influence has succeeded in forcing Sea Shepherd USA to withdraw from the
Southern Ocean campaigns to comply with the U.S. Court ordered injunction to
not interfere with the slaughter of whales by Japan in the Southern Ocean Whale
Sanctuary.
Fortunately Sea Shepherd Australia under the
leadership of Jeff Hansen and Bob Brown are raising the support to carry on the
campaigns without the support or involvement of Sea Shepherd USA.
Sea Shepherd groups in different countries are
independent of each other but all the groups have three things in common. The
first is that Sea Shepherd groups all adhere to a strict nonviolent strategy
and that is the reason that not a single person has been killed or injured by
any Sea Shepherd action since Sea Shepherd was established as a movement in
1977.
The second thing is that all Sea Shepherd
groups were established to intervene against illegal operations. Sea Shepherd
groups do not protest. The objective is and always has been to interfere with
unlawful operations. The Japanese whaling ships are unlawfully slaughtering
whales in an internationally established whale sanctuary. The whalers are also
currently in contempt of an Australian Federal Court ruling prohibiting the
killing of whales in the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory.
The third thing is that Sea Shepherd groups
recognize and comply with the law. For this reason Sea Shepherd USA complied
with a court ordered injunction in 1998 during the Makah whale hunt and Sea
Shepherd USA also complied readily and fully with the court ordered injunction
granted to the Japanese whalers in December 2012 by the Ninth District Court of
the United States.
Sea Shepherd Australia however is not
answerable to the U.S. Court but they feel duty bound to uphold the court order
of the Australian Federal Court prohibiting whaling in Australian waters.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society of all
nations have never been convicted of a criminal action in the entire history of
the Sea Shepherd movement and this is a record that Sea Shepherd groups of all
nations intend to keep.
One of the problems in the modern world
however is that wealthy nations and wealthy corporations consistently abuse the
law.
Australia is presently working to bring Japan
to the International Court of Justice and hopefully this case will be heard
sometime within the next year. Australia and Japan hold the position that
Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean under the guise of “scientific research”
whaling is illegal.
The United States government has chosen to sit
on the fence although the U.S. Ninth District Court has apparently taken a pro
whaling stance.
Although I disagree with the injunction
imposed by the U.S. Court I am duty bound to comply with it because I am a
citizen of the United States. Sea Shepherd USA is also duty bound to comply
with the injunction.
Sea Shepherd groups outside of the United
States are not bound by a U.S. Court order and in the case of Australia, Sea
Shepherd Australia is operating in a manner to uphold the rulings of the
Australian Federal Court.
Sea Shepherd ships are allowed unrestricted
access to Australian and New Zealand ports. Japanese whaling ships are banned
from entry into Australian and New Zealand ports. Any Japanese whaling ship
that enters an Australian port would be subject to arrest by Australian
authorities for contempt and for unlawfully killing whales in Australian
waters.
Sea Shepherd Australia led Operation Zero
Tolerance which successfully brought down the kill figures by the Japanese
whalers to just under 10%. Operation Zero Tolerance was the most successful of
the nine campaigns Sea Shepherd has undertaken to the Southern Ocean.
The Japanese whalers described Operation Zero
Tolerance as “violent, relentless” and strangely they also described it as
“inhumane”. George Orwell would have chuckled at the irony of that statement.
During Operation Zero Tolerance there was not
a single violent action initiated by the Sea Shepherd crew. The whaling ships
deliberately and violently attacked the Sea Shepherd ships.
But because the whalers described Sea Shepherd
as “relentless”, Sea Shepherd Australia decided to name the next campaign as
“Operation Relentless.”
I led the first eight campaigns to the
Southern Ocean but over the years, an experienced network of Sea Shepherd
directors and crew have evolved so that the helm that I was forced to step away
from by the U.S. Court imposed injunction was immediately taken over by Sea
Shepherd activists outside of the United States to keep the campaigns on
course.
Last month Peter Bethune signed a declaration
that he was forced to accuse me of ordering him to board the Japanese security
ship Shonan Maru #2. This accusation is the sole basis for the Japanese issuing
an arrest warrant for me that has placed me on the Interpol Red List.
In 2010, Japan gave Bethune a suspended
sentence in return for that accusation. The question now is whether Interpol
will take this into account and drop this listing on the grounds that the
listing was politically motivated and without substantial evidence.
I hope they will see the justice of the case
but the fact remains that Japan has a army of lawyers to throw at Sea Shepherd
and I and the reality is that we am up against one of the great economic super
powers on the planet.
But despite the obstacles and the
inconvenience of my situation, I am happy with what Sea Shepherd has achieved
over the last decade. The thousands of whales that we have saved have been
worth the sacrifices.
It has never been easy. From the days of
challenging the Soviet whaling fleet in the North Pacific in 1975 to our
landing in Siberia in 1981 to get evidence on illegal Soviet whaling in 1981 to
stopping the pirate whalers in the Atlantic throughout the Eighties to
challenging the illegal operations of the Japanese whaling fleet for the last
ten years, my life has been dedicated to saving the lives of whales and doing
so aggressively but nonviolently. Thousands of lives saved and none taken and
no injuries caused.
No matter what our critics say, not matter
what the consequences, the one thing that can never be taken away from us are
the lives we have saved, the laws we have helped to bring into play and the
criminal operations we have shut down.
Although I am no longer directing Sea Shepherd
campaigns I am confident that the Southern Ocean campaigns are in competent
hands and that the Sea Shepherd crews will continue to save the lives of whales
from the criminal operations of the Japanese whaling fleet.
