The Australian Government has dithered over the activity of eco terrorists in arctic waters. Having made the mistake of endorsing a law that they wouldn't enforce, the Government has compounded their error when two gung ho activists decided they would test the law.
The US based vessel, Sea Shepherd, sent an Australian and a Briton, uninvited, to board the Japanese vessel in arctic waters.
Despite an Australian court ruling that Japan couldn't whale hunt in Arctic waters, the Japanese court, and over 95% of all nations, don't recognize the Australian court as having jurisdiction in those waters.
Boarding vessels at sea is bad anytime. Had the boarded vessel been Chinese, not Japanese, there is a high probability the boarders would be dead, because China has a very strong Piracy issue. The activists were banking on the fact that Japan is a modern nation, capable of following rules and laws these activists spurn.
It is an ugly view, of such an attractive face.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Another Canberra Diplomatic Error
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Canberra casts off whaling activists
By Elizabeth Gosch and Mark Dodd
THE Australian Government has condemned the actions of the rogue activists who boarded a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean, as federal police examined whether they could be prosecuted.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith last night ordered the Customs vessel Oceanic Viking to end a three-day standoff and rendezvous with the Japanese whaler holding the two men.
The tactics of the Sea Shepherd activists were also rejected by Greenpeace, which has its own ship shadowing the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic, as maritime law expert Don Rothwell warned they could be charged with offences ranging from trespass to terrorism.
Mr Smith said the incident was being "evaluated" by the Australian Federal Police.
Asked whether activists Benjamin Potts, 28, of Brisbane, and Briton Giles Lane, 35, had illegally boarded the Yushin Maru No2, Mr Smith said they had acted without restraint.
"If it transpires that anyone has engaged ... in unlawful or illegal activity, then not only do I not condone that, I absolutely condemn it," he said.
Last night, the two-day standoff ended with both protesters handed to Australian officials.
But an already-complex legal situation was further complicated when the US-based Sea Shepherd filed a counter-complaint with the AFP alleging the men had been assaulted by the Japanese.
A spokeswoman for the AFP confirmed that the Sea Shepherd complaint was part of the "wider evaluation" of whether Mr Potts and Mr Lane had broken Australian law by boarding the Yushin Maru without permission on Tuesday.
Professor Rothwell, of the Australian National University, played down speculation that they could face prosecution for piracy. "I think you can conclude there was no intent on the part of the Sea Shepherd individuals to seize control of the Yushin Maru and that would be one of the crucial elements of any attempt to charge these two with an act of piracy," he said.
"I do need to stress that it does not exclude the fact they may be subject to other provisions - of Japanese law and even Australian law - in terms of illegal boarding of a vessel."
Kevin Rudd said yesterday that the Government remained committed to ending Japanese whaling.
But the Prime Minister appealed for all parties to show restraint in the dangerous Antarctic waters.
"I have concerns about the safety of all people involved with the operation," he said.
Mr Smith said the Oceanic Viking would be used as a neutral platform to return the two activists to their own ship, the Steve Irwin.
Its captain, Paul Watson, told The Australian by satellite phone yesterday that he was yet to hear from either the Japanese ship or Australian authorities on how the operation would take place.
But he rejected as ridiculous accusations that his US-based group had participated in an act of piracy.
Greenpeace whales campaigner Rob Nicholl said his group's ship, Esperanza, which is also tracking the Japanese whaling fleet, had rebuffed efforts by Mr Watson to co-ordinate with it.
Mr Watson was a co-founder of Greenpeace before he split with the organisation in 1977 to pursue more radical action against whaling.
"We are there to defend the whales, not to attack whalers," Mr Nicholl said.
Additional reporting: Siobhain Ryan, Greg Roberts
Whaling protesters released
By Michelle Draper
A JAPANESE whaling ship handed over to an Australian customs vessel two anti-whaling activists who climbed aboard two days earlier, an official from Japan's Fisheries Agency said.
Australia sent the customs ship, the Oceanic Viking, to the Japanese whaling ship in a bid to end the stand-off involving the activists of the militant Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
“Two Sea Shepherd activists who intruded onto the Yushin Maru No 2 and have been in custody on the ship were handed over to the Oceanic Viking chartered by the Australian Government,” Hideaki Okada, a whaling official at the Fisheries Agency in Tokyo, said this morning.
The activists - Australian Benjamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35 - were detained on Tuesday after boarding the harpoon ship to protest Japan's whaling program.
US-based Sea Shepherd, a militant offshoot of the environmentalist movement Greenpeace, strongly opposes Japan's plan to kill some 1000 whales in the Antarctic Ocean this season.
The group described the activists as hostages and said they were being held as Japan pressed for the group to agree to give up its harassment of the Japanese whaling fleet.
Japan, which says whaling is part of its culture, described the militants as unwanted guests and said it was trying to get rid of them safely.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said yesterday that the Government was sending the customs ship to pick up the activists.
Australia initially dispatched the Oceanic Viking to monitor Japan's whaling as part of Western governments' campaign to stop the hunt.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had earlier urged calm and the safe return of the two men, saying Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was in constant contact with the Japanese Government to arrange the handover.
The confrontation had forced the Japanese fleet to suspend whaling and drawn attention to efforts by activists to halt the annual hunt for good.
Japan, which says whaling is a part of its culture, uses a loophole in an international moratorium on the practice which allows “lethal research”.
Media-savvy Sea Shepherd on top in PR war
By Jamie Walker and Siobhain Ryan
THE heat between Japanese whalers and environmental activists reaches far beyond the icy Southern Ocean: it's in the cutting edge battle to harpoon public opinion.
Satellite up-links, webcams, around-the-clock internet blogging and dragooned reporters are the weapons of choice in this struggle for hearts and minds.
Sea Shepherd's images have been plastered on the front pages of metropolitan newspapers and in television news bulletins, often without right of reply by the whalers.
The man supplying the pictures, Sea Shepherd's volatile Paul Watson, is accessible by satellite phone. Between playing his increasingly high-stakes game of bluff with the Japanese whaling fleet, he makes time to regularly update his blog from the Steve Irwin.
The nerve centre of the media operation is a one-room office in Melbourne where Watson's American sidekick, Jonny Vasic, downloads dispatches from the Antarctic and punches them on to the Sea Shepherd website. Watson's satellite number is given to any reporter who asks.
Aboard the Steve Irwin - the 53m cutter bought from the Scottish fisheries service in 2005 and rebadged after its British maritime registration was revoked-- there's a dedicated photographer and separate video camera operator.
Space has also been made on the cramped ship for a six-strong documentary crew from the US Discovery Channel.
"Media is one of our main tools," said Vasic, who has flown from the US with wife Christine to manage the on-shore operation from Sea Shepherd's office in inner-Melbourne Fitzroy.
"We are not delusional that we can solve this problem on our own.
"At best, we can be a spark, a catalyst, and we have to get this out to the world so people know what's going on down there with Paul and the crew."
Sea Shepherd includes Lonely Planet, outdoor gear retailer Patagonia, and Swiss-based Save Our Seas Foundation among its sponsors, supporters and partners, which number almost 30.
More than 3000 volunteers and staff have worked for the organisation since the original Sea Shepherd's first voyage in the late 1970s, according to its website.
The media saturation tactic has worked. Kevin Rudd, his deputy, Julia Gillard, and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith all fronted the media yesterday on the whaling dispute.
Former journalist Greg Smith, who lectures in public relations at Edith Cowan University, said the media's remoteness from the action, and reliance on activists for photos, risked pushing the debate "out of balance".
"We fall for the cute and cuddly animal story, and having it on the high seas adds to the drama," Smith said.
But "when they're strong pictures like that, the other side doesn't have much chance".
Australian National University marketing lecturer Andrew Hughes said it was not just awareness Sea Shepherd had created. The organisation was generating "a lot of money" by linking its powerful images, blog updates, and promise of instant action to online donations.
It has even converted former Howard Government environment minister Ian Campbell, now on the Sea Shepherd's board of advisers. When he was a minister, Campbell slammed Watson's verbal offensive against whalers as "deranged" and hinted at legal action against him.
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