Japan Unleashes a Tsunami of Muscle Against Sea Shepherd
Armed Security ships, mercenary thugs, Coast Guard officers, heavy weight public relations firms, and lawyers!
Japanese Coast Guard hurl flash bang grenades at Sea Shepherd (Operation Migaloo 2008)
Thirty million dollars buys a great deal of influence and can exert immense pressure when defending an illegal activity.
In an act of desperation, the Japanese whalers armed with a war chest
of some $US30 million allocated by the Japanese government from the
tsunami earthquake relief fund are throwing a great deal of muscle into
their efforts to stop the Sea Shepherd ships from saving whales this
season.
The latest move has the Japanese whalers filing a lawsuit in a U.S.
Court to prohibit Sea Shepherd from intervening against illegal Japanese
whaling operations. Sea Shepherd dismisses this suit as frivolous and
nothing more than the whalers attempting to use litigation as a weapon
against Sea Shepherd.
“We have won this round already,” said Captain Paul Watson. "Last
season we defeated the whalers and sent them home in humiliation after
they were only able to kill 17% of their quota. This year will be more
challenging. Thirty million dollars buys a great deal of influence and
we are expecting a full onslaught of harassment and bureaucratic
obstacles from Japan and from the governments, courts and media they are
able to influence.
“It will be a challenging season and the most dangerous campaign to
date as we head down for our eighth year of interventions against the
whale poachers of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.”
Sea Shepherd is undeterred by this latest attempt to stop us in the U.S. Courts.
“This seems like a frivolous lawsuit to me,” said Captain Watson. “We
have the images of the Japanese whalers destroying one of our ships,
ramming our ships, running over our crew, firing upon us, throwing
concussion grenades, deploying acoustical weapons, hitting us with water
cannons and bamboo spears and they are suing us because they are
accusing us of violence towards them. We have not rammed them and we
have not caused a single injury nor have we been charged with a crime or
even reprimanded by anyone for our actions. We have cooperated with
every inquiry. They have not. This is simply a case of using the courts
to harass us. I don’t believe they have a case and I doubt a U.S. court
would take this seriously. Unlike Japan, the courts in the United States
don’t automatically do what the government demands that they do.”
Sea Shepherd has more important issues to address than being
distracted by lawsuits. “Our entire focus for the next three months will
be on preventing the ruthless and illegal slaughter of whales in the
Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary,“ said Captain Watson. “We will not be
deterred by force, by lawsuits, by bureaucrats, by critics or by any
government. We act non-violently within the boundaries of the law and we
save whales from a criminal operation in a whale sanctuary.”
All this muscle is simply the last gasp of a dying, ecologically
destructive and ruthless industry. Sea Shepherd will never abandon the
whales of the Southern Ocean no matter how heavy handed the Japanese
whalers become. The only way they will stop us is to kill us and they
may be just desperate enough to do just that.”
