LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
WHALING: Has Seychelles Been Paid For Her Silence?
Sir,
Sunday, during a historic conference of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) held in St. Kitts and Nevis, the IWC declared that a 20 year moratorium on commercial whale hunting was no longer necessary, because the marine mammals supposedly have recovered from near extinction.
Essentially, the vote of 33-32, although barely passing, gives Japan a key symbolic victory in its campaign to resume whaling, and more importantly, signals a major power shift within the commission. Sunday’s vote deals a devastating blow to the environmentalists and whale conservationists worldwide.
Japan and its pro-whaling allies Norway and Iceland have been trying since the whaling ban was enacted in 1986 to gain the necessary votes to acquire control of the IWC, and controversially, they have done so by enticing small Caribbean, Pacific and African countries, some of them landlocked and most of them with no interest in whaling, with lavish aid and assistance in developing fisheries.
Although the delegation must have a 75% majority from the 70 member strong commission to overturn the ban on commercial whaling entirely, it now possesses the majority of the commission and signifies a political shift within the IWC that is certain to favour the pro-whaling agenda of the Japanese.
“Japan will continue to do its best to achieve the normalisation of the IWC as an organisation that manages whale resources, as well as a resumption of scientifically based, sustainable whaling,” said Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan’s minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
Seychelles’ history with the IWC goes back to 1979, when it joined the whaling commission for the first time fundamentally shifting the balance of the commission to a pro-conservationist or anti-whaling stance. During those years, many original members of the IWC were astounded that a non-whaling island country like the Seychelles had joined the IWC, but shortly realized that the Seychelles was brought in for the sole purpose of creating a moratorium on commercial whaling.
During the 70’s, Seychelles was a pro-conservationist country and was easily swayed to join the IWC through the efforts of an Englishman by the name of Mr. Lyall Watson. In 1978 Mr. Watson held the post of secretary general to the non-profit organisation the Threshold Foundation.
Although having different motives today, the Threshold Foundation at the time strongly felt that commercial whaling was immoral and a ban needed to be put in place to protect whales. Moreover, the Foundation was founded by the brother of ex-Iranian Shah Pahlavi through his vast personal royal fortune. It was, and still is today, made up of individuals united through wealth, who mobilize money, people and power to champion causes as they deem necessary.
Thus, consequently after Mr. Watson became its secretary general in 1978, the Threshold Foundation took up the whaling issue vehemently. During a visit to Japan that same year, accompanied by Mr. Pahlavi, Mr. Watson proposed to Mr. Akira Matsuura, the director general of the Fisheries Agency, that “Japan should temporarily halt its commercial whaling operation and transfer its whaling ships as well as relevant technology to the management of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN). Japan respectfully declined.
As for Seychelles, the link to the Threshold Foundation was reportedly due to the fact that Mr. Pahlavi owned a large villa in the Seychelles. It is suspected that through financial lobbying of high government officials in Seychelles, the Seychelles agreed to adopt the foundation’s agenda. Thus, Seychelles joined the IWC in 1979 under the conservationist ticket to ban commercial whaling. It also appointed Mr. Watson to lead that delegation. What price was paid for Seychelles’ entry into the IWC in 1979? Although the sum paid to Seychelles will probably never be known, one thing is certain, the Threshold Foundation had bottomless funds to back any cause they chose to undertake.
Thus, after becoming members to the IWC in 1979, the first order of business for Mr. Watson, as part of the Seychelles delegation, was to recruit Sidney J. Holt, one of the oldest scientists in the IWC, to the Seychelles team. Sidney Holt was a central figure in the Save-the-Whale movement, and his scientific data backed up the fact that many whale species were endangered or on the brink of extinction.
It goes without argument that Mr. Holt’s data was correct and that the IWC needed to do something before many species of whales became just a memory for future generations. For example, it is well known that the waters around Seychelles were once filled with large sperm whale populations, but tragically in the 19th century commercial whalers devastated the populations. Today there are very few sperm whale pods left in the Indian Ocean, if at all.
Nevertheless, regardless if Seychelles in this instance in 1979 happened to choose the right side morally and was conservationist minded, did the government hide from the Seychelles people the reality that it was receiving money from the Threshold Foundation in exchange of playing global whaling politics?
Shortly after becoming new members, in another pro-conservationist move, Mr. Watson and Mr. Holt pushed through in the IWC in 1979 an Indian Ocean whale sanctuary act. It was adopted and declared that the Indian Ocean north of 55 degrees south latitude would be off-limits to commercial whaling. This sanctuary, still in existence today, has protected these mammals for over 20 years from commercial exploitation.
Continuing on their campaign, as was done in Seychelles, through the seemingly endless funds of the Threshold Foundation, Mr. Watson and Mr. Holt went on an intense campaign to buy new members into the IWC to secure the necessary votes to effect a moratorium on commercial whaling. Surprisingly, several of the new member countries that Mr. Watson enticed to join the IWC were led by foreign nationals hand-picked by Mr. Holt and Mr. Watson themselves.
Before the 1970s, the number of IWC members was stable with just under 16 registered members, as not many countries had a direct interest in whaling; however, during the period from 1979 to 1982, 19 new states joined the IWC. The new members were the Seychelles, Oman, Switzerland, China, Costa Rica, Dominica, India, Jamaica, the Philippines, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Uruguay, Antigua, Belize, Egypt, Kenya, Monaco, Senegal and West Germany.
Therefore, as a direct result of new member influx, the Seychelles delegation a few years later in 1986 had enough votes to pass the whaling moratorium, and it is this moratorium that was voted on Sunday in St. Kitts and Nevis.
Shortly after 1986 however, the Seychelles delegation began weakening under Japanese financial and political pressure. From an excerpt taken from “Propaganda and Pretext – Japan’s strategy to gain control of the International Whaling Commission (IWC),” Mr. Sidney Holt writes:
In the year that Japan began large-scale ‘’scientific whaling’’ its authorities decided to launch a secret exercise to ‘’turn around’’ several of the countries that had supported the moratorium decision to ensure that a blocking vote (one fourth plus one of voting Members) would be able to prevent any further conservation moves. They thought they had succeeded by 1993 but in 1994 failed to block the declaration by the IWC of the entire Southern Ocean as a whale sanctuary, following a proposal by France. This hitch was only temporary, however, and in any case the Southern Ocean was, in both political and scientific terms, a very special case, linked to the battle by many Antarctic treaty powers to delay (for at least 50 years) exploration for, and exploitation of, minerals on the continent. Thereafter, once assured of a blocking one-fourth, the Japanese authorities decided to move towards gaining a simple majority with which to block even non-binding ‘’unwelcome’’ IWC decisions and, as soon became apparent, to dismantle the fragile structure of conservation measures that had been erected since 1972. This was called, in Japan, ‘’vote consolidation’’ and by others ‘’vote buying’’
An attempt to bribe the Government of Seychelles (to dismiss its delegation and to vote with Japan against its original conservation policy) failed because its President resisted and went so far as to publish the exchange of messages between his Government and the diplomatic representatives of Japan. The proposed pay-off was more than 20 million dollars. A few years later Seychelles decided simply to leave the IWC rather than be submitted to further continued diplomatic and financial pressures.
Recently since 2000, poorer African nations that have joined the IWC and are generally viewed as being cheaply bought with Japanese development projects from many members within the IWC ranks. Sub-Saharan newcomers include Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania and Togo. All these poorer nation votes were instrumental in Sunday’s decision at the IWC conference.
Could it be that like these poorer African nations that have recently joined the IWC, Seychelles, since its resignation from the IWC in the 90’s, is likewise being cheaply bought by the Japanese to stay out of the picture?
Looking at the facts, throughout the 90’s up to the present day, Seychelles’ largest benefactor in the fisheries sector is the Japanese. Seychelles has received financial assistance for its fisheries sector from the Japanese government numerous times. A few examples of donations include: an ice plant for Praslin, a post-tsunami grant to repair quay sides, longline fishing equipment, a polystyrene box making machine etc. All these gifts were given generously to the people of Seychelles absolutely free of charge.
Furthermore, Japanese officials have recently earmarked USD $6,000,000 to develop an artisanal fishing port at Providence (Zone 6) complete with cold storage, an ice plant, refueling station, etc, for the future expansion of the bottom fishing (demersal) industry.
Sadly, Sunday’s vote in St. Kitts and Nevis to overturn the moratorium on whaling was passed with just one vote in the IWC commission. If Seychelles had still been a member of the International Whaling Commission, it could have taken the pro-conservationist or anti-whaling stance that it held in the late 70’s and 80’s and voted against the ban being lifted. This would have resulted in a tie vote essentially defeating Japan’s pro-whaling stance.
Unfortunately though, all evidence supports the conclusion that Seychelles has been bought by the Japanese with handouts to the fisheries sector for their position of non-interference or silence on the commercial whaling issue. In short, Seychelles is now choosing Japanese money over whale conservationism, just as they chose the Threshold Foundation money in the late 70’s to fight for conservationism. Will Seychelles’ government officials never learn that virtually no country or organization gives poor countries money free of charge without strings attached?
Name witheld
Editor’s note: The silence from the government conservation champions is indeed deafening. Recently, the Government of Seychelles and an Icelandic company signed an agreement under which the Icelandic company will install, for free, computer networks in all the state schools of Seychelles. You mentioned above that Iceland is one of Japan’s pro-whaling allies. Could the signing of the computer agreement have had anything to do with the fight for control of the IWC?
