Comments on: Marine lawyer concurs – Nisshin Maru was rammed

By: Graham Young

Graham Young — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 20:46:26 +0000

If the focus is on whether Greenpeace rammed the Japanese or not it is because Greenpeace caused this to happen.
If they had said “We rammed the ship, but we didn’t mean to. They put us in a position where we didn’t have any alternatives,” they would have avoided the scrutiny.
Instead they claimed that the Japanese were trying to “t-bone them” and implied that the Japanese had hit them with their bow.
Greenpeace having over-played its hand can’t complain if its honesty becomes the issue rather than the rights and wrongs of whaling. Part of my criticism is that Greenpeace’s media management is incompetent. Unless, of course, they are trying to create controversy and don’t care how.

By: MJL

MJL — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 15:51:14 +0000

Vee
A little ice breaker versus a big boat doesn’t make sense until one realises the Arctic Sunrise is a ice breaker.
Personally I do have a problem with whaling – scientific or otherwise – but at the same time I do not condone the type of tactics employed by Greenpeace. The video seems pretty clear to me.
MJL

By: maelorin

maelorin — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 12:36:31 +0000

The fact that the Greenpeace vessel actually hit the whaling ship is only part of the story, but does seem to have become the focus of discussion.
In early television coverage of ‘the certain marine incident’, a Greenpeace spokesperson described how it was – and also why – that the Greenpeace vessel did not evade hitting the whaling ship.
The Greenpeace vessel *did* ram the Japanese ship. However, the *but* is not immaterial – but, the Japanese vessel may well have breached the Law of the Sea to engineer the event.
This whole event highlights not only piecemeal or partisan reporting, but the limitations of public debate at the moment. So much focus on who rammed whom – but little by way of discussing how and why. The *why* is crucial.
It is the *why* that journalism is supposed to direct our attention towards.
Whatever the merits of either side’s case, it is the why that should be informing our public discussion of those merits – and the actions taken to further those positions.

By: Vee

Vee — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 09:28:10 +0000

Does little boat ramming big boat make any sense? No.
So it can easily be construed the Japanese were at fault.
But…
If little boat did ram big boat then it must have been to destroy little boat so the Japanese had no choice but to pick them up (save them) and then they could cause trouble on board.