Dutch Must Stop Greenpeace: Japan

The Age

Wednesday January 11, 2006

ANDREW DARBY with AAP, AFP

JAPAN has demanded that the Netherlands rein in Greenpeace to stop the escalating conflict between whalers and environmental activists in the Antarctic.

"We have asked the Netherlands to stop the pirate-like dangerous activities by Greenpeace, as their boat is registered in the Netherlands," Hideki Moronuki, deputy director of the whaling section at Japan's Fisheries Agency, said yesterday.

"The latest collision was really dangerous, although we were lucky no one was injured."

The demand followed Sunday's collision between the whalers' Nisshin Maru factory ship and Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise, with each side blaming the other.

It also follows a suggestion by Japan on Monday that it might ask Australia to intervene and would consider sending a military police aircraft to protect its whaling fleet.

Defence Minister Robert Hill said yesterday that the Government had not had any request from Japan to use Australian airports to fly police aircraft over the area.

He also indicated that Australia was unlikely to send the navy to patrol the Southern Ocean. "It's a civilian issue. We don't see an Australian military role," he said.

Japan's whaling authority, the Institute of Cetacean Research, has called on Greenpeace and the more militant environmental group Sea Shepherd to "stop at once their dangerous and criminal actions".

But Mr Moronuki yesterday backed away from his suggestion that police could be sent to protect the fleet, saying it would only ask for the patrols if conservationists escalated their protests.

The Japanese fleet was believed to be headed for the far west of its Antarctic hunting grounds yesterday. Nisshin Maru was steaming into polar waters about 4000 kilometres south-west of Perth. The Greenpeace ship Esperanza was in close pursuit, a spokeswoman for the environmental organisation said.

Nisshin Maru has refuelled and is likely to try to exhaust the fuel tanks of the Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd ships, which have dogged it for three weeks.

Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson, who skippers the Farley Mowat, has threatened to ram the Japanese ships. -- With AAP, AFP

© 2006 The Age

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