The fact that Japan buys the votes of small poor countries has long been a secret within the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This year the practice garnered unusual public scrutiny at the Australia meeting of the IWC when Dominica’s fisheries minister, Atherton Martin, suddenly resigned his post in protest. Dominica has voted in lockstep with Japan for years, along with five other Caribbean countries that receive financial assistance from Japan. But this year Dominica’s government changed, and its cabinet voted to abstain from voting on the South Pacific Whale Sanctuary proposed by Australia and New Zealand. According to Mona-George Dill of the Dominica Conservation Association, a Japanese delegation came to the little Caribbean island and told the government that an abstention would be considered a “hostile act.” Dominica’s Prime Minister, Roosevelt Douglas, reversed the board cabinet’s decision and directed his delegation to vote against the sanctuary. Atherton Martin decried “international extortion” and said that Japan is “undermining the viability of these economies in order to pursue her agenda internationally.”

Mr. Martin’s statement and resignation received extensive coverage in Australia because the Caribbean votes were pivotal in blocking the formation of a South Pacific Sanctuary. The sanctuary was supported by an overwhelming number of countries in the region.

The rules of both CITES and the IWC call for one country/one vote. But Japan now comes with at least eight, giving them a blocking minority of any major pro-whale initiative within the IWC. This year the pro-Japanese Caribbean bloc of six countries was boosted by the addition of Guinea (a small African country that has never had a whaling tradition.) But in every vote taken, Guinea sided with the Japanese. Zimbabwe and Morocco were present as observers and are expected to join the body on Japan’s behalf next year. Both received foreign aid from Japan starting in 1998.