Three crew members of a Japanese whaling vessel suffered face and eye injuries from acid fired by anti-whaling protesters during their latest clash in the Antarctic Ocean, their Japanese employers said yesterday.
The Sea Shepherd protesters said they lobbed butyric acid, produced from stinking rancid butter, which they often aim at the whalers to try to disrupt the annual Japanese hunt. The activists maintain that butyric acid is nontoxic.
The injuries sustained on Thursday were the first to Japanese whalers this year during confrontations with Sea Shepherd, although there have been two ship collisions for which each side blamed the other.
PHOTO: AFP/ THE INSTITUTE OF CETACEAN RESEARCH
Japanese Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu lashed out at the activists yesterday, telling reporters: “I am full of rage. I could not believe they did such a thing.”
Glenn Inwood, spokesman for Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research, said the injuries were not serious, but that butyric acid could cause temporary blindness.
The injuries occurred during an hours-long confrontation between two Sea Shepherd boats — the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker — and four Japanese vessels.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said that the activists’ actions were unforgivable.
“Thank God it did not result in serious injuries, but it is extremely regrettable,” he said.
Locky Maclean, first mate on the Steve Irwin, said the acidic substance thrown was rancid butter.
“It’s a harmless liquid,” he said. “You can handle it, and it’s not corrosive.”
Maclean said the Nisshin Maru, a factory ship, started the altercation when it turned its water cannons on the activists’ vessels. He said the ship’s military acoustic device was also aimed directly at the Sea Shepherd’s helicopter pilot.
The protesters targeted the Japanese ships Shonan Maru No. 2 and Nisshin Maru, dragging wire ropes across their bows in a bid to tangle and disable their rudders and propellers, the Institute of Cetacean Research said in a statement.
The crew of the Shonan Maru No. 2 said they were targeted with a high-powered laser weapon, while smoke bombs and red dye projectiles were launched at the Nisshin Maru. The factory ship also exchanged close-range water cannon fire with the Sea Shepherd vessels.
“They’re using pretty high-tech systems to fire these missiles on board our ships,” Inwood said.
The institute said it strongly condemned the actions of the Sea Shepherd activists, noting that Japan’s whale research vessels are conducting legal research activities in the Antarctic.
Japan has a six-vessel whaling fleet in Antarctic waters as part of its scientific whaling program, an allowed exception to the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 ban on commercial whaling.
It hunts hundreds of mostly minke whales, which are not an endangered species. Whale meat not used for study is sold for consumption in Japan, which critics say is the real reason for the hunts.
“It’s been a successful week,” Maclean said. “No whales have died for the last eight days we have been trailing the Nisshin Maru.”
Meanwhile, Greenpeace yesterday urged Japan to give a fair trial to two of its activists who sought to expose embezzlement in the whaling industry but were instead arrested for theft and trespass.
The “Tokyo Two,” as Greenpeace calls them, were held in police custody for 23 days after their arrests in 2008 and face a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted in the trial that starts on Monday.
Greenpeace says Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki were merely doing their jobs in an environmental investigation when they took a box of whale meat from a mail depot and presented it to state prosecutors as proof of embezzlement.
“They have taken a stand in the public interest,” said Kumi Naidoo, the Greenpeace international executive director, on a Tokyo visit to express solidarity with the two and lobby against whaling.
“It has come at a personal and professional cost. To be held in detention for day after day, tied down, with no lawyer, is a terrifying thing for anyone to endure,” said Naidoo, a one-time anti-apartheid activist. “To have that happen to them when all they were trying to do was draw attention to the abuse of public funds is beyond scary. It is wrong.”
The UN Human Rights Commission’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said that Japan had breached several articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its case against the pair.
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