VZCZCXRO1798
RR RUEHMJ
DE RUEHKO #2109/01 1310002
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 110002Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY TOKYO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3482
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC
INFO RUEHME/AMEMBASSY MEXICO 0449
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 1784
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 0983
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 2123
RUEHRK/AMEMBASSY REYKJAVIK 0157
RUEHNY/AMEMBASSY OSLO 1135
RUEHSM/AMEMBASSY STOCKHOLM 0630
RUEHBK/AMEMBASSY BANGKOK 4149
RUEHMJ/AMEMBASSY MAJURO 0063

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 TOKYO 002109 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR D, G and OES/OA - MHAYES/JFIELD AND EAP/J 
USDOC FOR NOAA/NMFS - US IWC COMMISSIONER HOGARTH AND McCARTHY 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV EFIS KSCA IWC JA ETRD
SUBJECT: WHALING: JAPAN SEAMEN'S UNION ON IWC AND NISSHIN MARU 
 
REF: A)05 TOKYO 2932; B) 06 TOKYO 2965 
 
¶1.  As part of its annual pre-International Whaling Commission (IWC) 
meeting "demarche" to Tokyo embassies, the All Japan Seamen's 
Union's (JSU) Suezo Kondo, Secretary for the Bureau of Fisheries, 
and Keiichi Imai of the Kanto Regional Branch visited EST Deputy and 
EST FSN on May 8 to preview the 70,000-member (30,000 Japanese and 
40,000 foreign members) organization's position for this year's IWC 
Annual Meeting in Anchorage.  Until last year, the JSU visited 25 
embassies, but this year it is focusing on only 10 -- the U.S., 
Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, 
Slovenia, plus two to be decided. 
 
¶2.  Kondo stressed that the JSU is a labor union seperate from the 
GOJ and private sector, and that its desire is best described as 
"well-regulated commercial whaling and crew members' job security." 
Having said that, he generally defended the GOJ's position including 
its proposal on small-type coastal whaling (STCW).  Kondo underlined 
that STCW targets small companies and Japan requests only 50 minke 
whales annually from stocks that the nation considers abundant.  He 
called it a double standard that the U.S. requests Alaskan 
aboriginal subsistance whaling while it does not allow STCW. 
 
¶3.  In addition to the JSU paper, Kondo handed out another 
IWC-Anchorage position paper of the JSU's umbrella organization, the 
U.K. based International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) in 
which he serves as chair of the Fisheries Division in the 
Asia-Pacific region.  The ITF's paper states that "we strongly urge 
all the Member States to finally establish(SIC) the RMS....and 
finally, lift the unnecessary and counterproductive moratorium." 
 
¶4.  Referring to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's attack on 
Japan's research whaling fleet during the 2006-2007 season in the 
Antarctic Ocean, he recounted that two crew members' eyes were 
injured.  The most dangerous tactic was trying to throw ropes and 
nets into the Nisshin Maru's propellers.  Both the JSU and ITF 
papers condemn such dangerous activities, and in particular the JSU 
paper urges representatives of governments around the world to 
revoke Greenpeace's status as an observer to the IWC as the NGO also 
carried out a similar campaign last year.  Asked about the Nisshin 
Maru's fire in February 2007, Kondo said that it was not confirmed, 
but almost certain that the fire was caused by a wire malfunction 
due to a short-circuit. 
 
¶5.  Text of the JSU's Position Statement for the IWC Anchorage 
Annual Meeting (as presented to Post): 
 
OPENING STATEMENT 
TO THE 59TH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE IWC 
28-31 May 2007, Anchorage 
 
All Japan Seamen's Union 
 
On the opening of the 59th Annual Meeting of the IWC, All Japan 
Seamen's Union (JSU) would like to express its basic standpoint on 
the whaling issue.  We sincerely ask the chairperson of the plenary 
and distinguished delegates from governments around the world to 
respect the principles of the International Convention for the 
Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), to hold discussions fairly and calmly 
based on scientific evidence and to exclude any politics, economic 
issues and emotions from the discussions. 
 
Needless to say, the preamble to the ICRW stipulates that it 
'desires to establish a system of international regulation for the 
whaling fisheries to ensure proper and effective conservation and 
development of whaling stocks and thus make possible the orderly 
development of the whaling industry'. 
 
Nevertheless anti-whaling nations neglected the decisions made by 
the Scientific Committee of the IWC and imposed a moratorium on 
commercial whaling, in effect since 1986, by force of numbers. 
Consequently commercial whaling has been suspended since 1987 and 
many JSU members who had been living on whaling fisheries have lost 
their jobs. 
 
Today 20 years later we can scarcely hide our deep disappointment at 
the fact that the IWC is heading in the wrong direction that has 
strayed from its original aims. 
 
Anti-whaling nations such as the US, the UK, Australia and New 
 
TOKYO 00002109  002 OF 004 
 
 
Zealand who shut their eyes to their own past behaviour insisted 
that whales were on the verge of extinction and forced through a 
moratorium on commercial whaling, although such a statement had no 
scientific basis. 
 
Under the provisions of Article VIII of the ICRW, the government of 
Japan carried out Japan's Research Programme in the Antarctic 
(JARPA) and Japan's Research Programme in the North Pacific (JARPN) 
since 1987-1988 and 1994 respectively.  Through these research 
programmes a vast array of scientific data were collected on more 
than 100 items including whales' population, distribution, species, 
body weight and length, age composition, sex ratio, maturity and the 
amount and types of food whales eat, which have been reported to the 
Scientific Committee every year pursuant to provisions of the ICRW. 
 
Seafarers who have been long engaged in capture and sighting survey 
under harsh weather and sea conditions are all JSU members.  Without 
valuable scientific data collected by years of survey the Scientific 
Committee would have no ground and evidence on which it can make any 
analyses or judgment. 
 
If anti-whaling camp is adamant that the moratorium on commercial 
whaling should be sustained, they should start their own research 
activities and argue against a resumption of commercial whaling 
based on their own scientific evidence in the forum of the IWC.  Why 
do they not do so?  It is because they are afraid that scientific 
research would reveal whale resources are in a healthy condition. 
 
 
Conservation groups such as Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd 
Conservation Society who are notorious for their extreme 
anti-whaling campaign jointly used a boat to ram a Japan's whaling 
factory ship, 'the Nishhin Maru' and other boats when they were 
engaged in a new research programme, JARPA? launched in November 
¶2005. Such sabotage repeatedly committed against Japan's whaling 
fleet clearly violates rules of the Convention on the International 
Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREGs) and 
their acts were no better than terrorism, endangering lives and safe 
operation of vessels.  Such acts are totally unacceptable to the 
JSU. 
 
Despite the fact that the St Kitts Declaration on ensuring the 
safety of research activities was adopted by the IWC at its meeting 
in St. Kitts and Nevis last year, the Sea Shepherd continued its 
'terrorist attacks' on Japan's whaling feet including the Nishhin 
Maru during the 2006-2007 research. Organisations such as Greenpeace 
and Sea Shepherd call themselves environmentalists but their acts 
are nothing but terrorism. They put in enormous time and effort in 
fund raising and planning for more radical attacks and performance 
in the future. 
 
The JSU strongly urges representatives of governments around the 
world to condemn such 'terrorism' and to revoke Greenpeace's status 
as an observer to the IWC. 
 
Being informed that the Greenpeeace campaign boat 'Esperanza' was 
about to enter a port in Japan in March this year, the JSU urged the 
Foreign Ministry of Japan not to allow the boat's entry into the 
Japanese port.  This was to show that we can never forgive their 
repeated terrorist attacks on JSU members. 
 
Lastly but not least the JSU is determined to continue to publicise 
the importance of marine resources management including cetaceans 
and their sustainable use. 
 
END TEXT 
 
¶6.  Text of the ITF's Position Statement for the IWC Anchorage 
Annual Meeting (as presented to Post): 
 
IWC/59/OS ITF 
 
Opening Statement by the 
International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) 
To the 59th Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission 
(IWC) 
 
The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) is a Global 
Union Federation that, among other things, works for the interests 
of fishers worldwide.  The ITF strongly supports the concept of 
 
TOKYO 00002109  003 OF 004 
 
 
responsible and sustainable use of all living marine resources.  We 
have many times emphasised that our aim is to preserve the fishing 
industry by effective enforcement of international regulations. 
They present a framework which gives some hope of a future in our 
industry, where there are adequate quantities of both fish and 
cetaceans to support the livelihoods of people engaged in the 
industry.  In this regard the ITF and its fisheries affiliates have 
supported the mandate to manage the sustainable utilisation . 
 
The ITF position is fully consistent with applicable international 
instruments and the principles of sustainable development.  The 1992 
United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development 
endorsed the principle of sustainable use of all living marine 
resources; the 1998 report entitled "the Ocean our Future: the 
Report of the Independent World Commission on the Oceans" urged 
implementation of existing regulations on sustainable use of marine 
resources. 
 
At the same time we would like to remind the meeting that Article 
119 paragraph 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the 
Sea regarding conservation of the living resources of the high seas 
clearly states: 
 
"States concerned shall ensure that conservation measures and their 
implementation do not discriminate in form or in fact against the 
fishermen of any State." 
 
The ITF believes that the industry should, in addition to complying 
with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Code 
of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and other applicable 
international instruments, also be run in a manner which is 
consistent with the three pillars of sustainable development: 
environmental, social and economic.  We would like also to remind 
that the Code is asking that the "States should ensure that fishing 
facilities and equipment as well as all fisheries activities allow 
for safe, healthy and fair working and living conditions and meet 
internationally agreed standards adopted by relevant international 
organizations." 
 
A sustainable fishing industry should be considered as one which not 
only manages the fishing resources but also provides fishers with 
safe work places and decent work.  In our opinion a sustainable 
utilisation of all living marine resources creates a stable basis 
for the employment of fishers on decent terms and conditions, as 
well as making a valuable contribution to the world food supply. 
 
In this regard the ITF and its fisheries affiliates have supported 
the IWC's mandate to manage the sustainable utilisation of whale 
stocks. We believe that the sustainable utilisation of whale 
resources is of importance to secure enough food supply. If we look 
outside whaling to the wider world there is consensus that 
international rules and standards need to be enforced. 
 
In this regard, we are repeating again our plea to the IWC to 
fulfill its core mandate and, based upon the comprehensive data 
which has been collated by the IWC's Scientific Committee, to set a 
quota for those species which are sufficiently abundant to permit 
sustainable harvesting.  It is regrettable that no significant 
progress has been made on this issue during the last meetings of the 
IWC. Whale stocks should also be taken into account when adopting 
the ecosystem approach to fisheries management. 
 
In setting quotas the IWC should be abiding by both the spirit and 
the letter of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation 
of Whaling (as amended).  We would like to remind the Annual Meeting 
that too many years have passed since the Revised Management 
Procedure was developed and endorsed and the continuation of the 
delay in reaching agreement on the Revised Management Scheme and the 
refusal to set a quota for these whale stocks, which on the basis of 
overwhelming scientific evidence are sufficiently abundant, 
undermines the legitimacy of the IWC as an organisation. 
 
We strongly urge all the Member States to finally establishing the 
RMS, which is important for the whale conservation and management, 
authorise and allocate a sustainable quota to preserve the ecosystem 
of marine resources, pursuant to the ICRW's objectives and, finally, 
lift the unnecessary and counterproductive moratorium. 
 
At the same time we would like to express our concerns that some NGO 
protests have moved from being peaceful to the point that they are 
 
TOKYO 00002109  004 OF 004 
 
 
endangering the safety of life at sea. This is of grave concern, 
especially given the hostile environment in which they have taken 
place. 
 
The ITF strongly condemns such violent campaign activities and 
requests the IWC contracting Governments to take appropriate 
measures in avoiding such incidents in the future, central to which 
is the fulfillment of the IWC's core mandate. 
 
Thank you! 
 
END TEXT 
 
DONOVAN