Fed: Govt worried by threats to damage whaling ships

AAP General News (Australia)
12-30-2005
Fed: Govt worried by threats to damage whaling ships

By Robin Pash

CANBERRA, Dec 30 AAP - Threats by a conservation group to battle Japanese whalers will
do nothing to help its anti-whaling cause, warns the government amid fears the Southern
Ocean protest will put lives at risk.

The fighting language used by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS), which indicates
it is prepared to damage Japanese ships, has been condemned by the government as counter-productive.

Statements by the Sea Shepherds' founder, captain Paul Watson, have also been criticised
by Greenpeace, which has distanced itself from the group.

In an email to friends and supporters last week, 55-year-old Mr Watson said he was
expecting a confrontation with the whalers as he steamed towards the Japanese fleet on
the Canadian-flagged Sea Shepherd vessel Farley Mowat.

"We anticipate that we may sustain some damage but our objective is to shut down their
illegal activities and we will risk losing the ship if need be to further that objective,"

he said.

"The crew are ready and eager to engage the Japanese whalers."

The email also said: "We may lose our ship and find ourselves in our lifeboats within
the next few hours. I am quite sure we will sustain damages".

Mr Watson was a founding member of the Greenpeace Foundation but split from the group
in the late 1970s to set up SSCS.

Environment Minister Ian Campbell said Mr Watson's language would do nothing to help
the anti-whaling cause. He has referred the email to Justice Minister Chris Ellison.

"The word deranged came to mind when I read it," Senator Campbell said.

"I couldn't not do something about it."

A spokesman for Senator Ellison said the the situation was being closely monitored.

He said no formal complaint had been received from the environment minister or the
Japanese whalers, but Senator Campbell had discussed the matter with Senator Ellison in
recent days.

"If there was a formal complaint, we would obviously look at it promptly," the spokesman said.

Senator Campbell said statements like Mr Watson's would not help turn Japanese public
opinion against the country's so-called scientific whaling program.

"Tactics that are clearly designed to harm or potentially harm the Japanese themselves
will be incredibly counter-productive," he said.

AAP was unable to contact Mr Watson via satellite phone on board the Farley Mowat today.

But Greenpeace expedition leader Shane Rattenbury, who is on board one of two Greenpeace
ships in the Southern Ocean, said his organisation would never condone the tactics suggested
by the Sea Shepherds.

"We are working independently from the Sea Shepherds," he said.

"The reason for that is that we do have a different understanding of what we consider
to be non-violent direct action.

"For us the idea of ramming vessels or endangering the lives of Japanese whaling crew
is out of the bounds we would consider to be appropriate."

He said he had seen no evidence of such tactics since the Sea Shepherds' vessel found
the Japanese whalers on Christmas Day.

The Japanese fleet sped off when the Farley Mowat arrived and the Sea Shepherds had
been unable to keep up with the whaling ships and had not been seen since, Mr Rattenbury
said.

Japan plans to slaughter 935 minke whales and 10 fin whales in Antarctic waters this
summer as part of its whale research program.

Conservationists maintain it is a commercial, not a research, operation.

AAP rp/cdh/jlw

KEYWORD: WHALES (REISSUING)

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