Jan 6, 2010, 20:42 GMT
Wellington - Both sides blamed the other Thursday for a collision between a Japanese whaling ship and a New Zealand protest boat in Antarctic waters.
Peter Bethune, skipper of the powerboat Ady Gil which had 2.4-metres of its bow ripped off in Wednesday's clash, told Radio New Zealand: 'The Japanese whalers are just a bunch of thugs. They have deliberately gone and tried to run us over.'
Bethune said it was lucky that the five New Zealanders and one Dutchman on board the former Earthrace boat, now owned by the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd organisation, were not killed. They were rescued by another Sea Shepherd vessel, the Bob Barker.
Crew member Laurens de Groot was quoted in Wellington's Dominion Post as saying, 'They have no mercy, those guys. They were trying to kill us, ramming us like that in one of the most hostile environments in the world. The only way to describe it is attempted murder.'
The Tokyo-based Institute Of Cetacean Research, which operates the Japanese fleet on its annual whaling expedition to the Southern Ocean, claimed the Ady Gil was responsible for the collision.
Spokesman Glenn Inwood said the Japanese security ship Shonan Maru No. 2, was trying to prevent the Ady Gil from getting close to the whaling boats. He charged that the protest boat was trying to sabotage the whaling ships by fouling the propellors with ropes.
'When the Shonan Maru comes in to protect the other ships, you can see the Ady Gil puts the hammer down and full steams ahead and that's when the collision occurred,' he said.
'Japan will continue to use its vessels to protect its crew and the people in the Antarctic in whatever way it can. If one of those rope entanglements occur, some of the weapons that Sea Shepherd has on board could easily dislodge a screw from a boat and if so, you can see a Japanese ship going down within five to 10 minutes.'
Japan's government-backed whaling fleet aims to harpoon up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales, classed as endangered, in the Southern Ocean this season, claiming it is for research purposes.
The New Zealand and Australian governments back environmental organisations like Sea Shepherd which view the 'research' as commercial whaling in defiance of an international moratorium.
'This almost realises our worst fears about what might happen down there during the whaling season this year,' New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said.
He said no one had been killed but 'it's clear that there has been combat engaged in which has put life at risk in a very serious way.'
McCully urged both sides to exercise restraint and said Maritime New Zealand would investigate the collision because a New Zealand- registered boat was involved.
The Ady Gil is the powerboat previously known as Earthrace, which set a world circumnavigation record.
It was the most serious clash of this year's whaling season between the six-ship Japanese fleet and the three protest boats belonging to Sea Shepherd.
'The whales are worth more to us than the ships, so we will continue,' Sea Shepherd captain Paul Watson said. 'These are poachers, they are criminals, which is why we've never been prosecuted and why they haven't sued us. We're doing the job that governments ought to be doing.'
Japan uses a loophole in the International Whaling Commission's 1986 moratorium to continue whaling under the guise of scientific research. According to the conservation organization Greenpeace, it has killed more than 9,000 minke whales over the past 22 years.
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