Chilean senators protest Japanese stance at whaling commission

Senators Baldo Prokurica, Andrés Allamand and Guido Girardi, together with environmental groups, signed a letter to the President requesting she declare Chile’s territorial waters to be an official whale sanctuary. 

Japan plans to hunt 1035 whales this season for scientific reasons, a 50% increase from 2006 levels. Among the hunted are 50 endangered species, according to UDI vice president Allamand and two other senators, who joined forces with Chile’s Centro de Conservación Cetácea.  The letter requests Chile ban Japanese mammal hunting within its territorialwaters.  

Lawmakers met with Ricardo Lagos Weber, Minister Secretary-General for Government, in order to “ask our officials to prevent Japanese ships from hunting whale” in Chilean waters.

Senator Prokurica insisted that the senators speak to the Japan-Chile Friendship Parliamentarians’ Union regarding the whaling issue. He suggested the Friendship Union be disbanded should Japan remain intransigent on whale hunting. 

Prokurica stated he would speak to every member of the Friendship Union (Guillermo Vásquez, Carlos Kuschel, Sergio Romero, Antonio Horvath and Juan Antonio Coloma) because he feels Chile should not have parliamentary friendship leagues with countries that do not comply with international treaties and hunt endangered species protected by same.

The UDI blog has posted a letter, dated November 23, 2007, which was sent to the Japanese ambassador in Chile, Wataru Hayashi, wherein the three senators roundly reject Japan’s stance on whaling.  The letter states that Japan can no longer continue to violate the Antarctic Treaty based on the “scientific hunting argument”.