WHY?

WHY?

There is a story much bigger and more important than the drama between the Bandero and the Icelandic Coast Guard.

It is the story more important then why the Bandero and her crew are in Icelandic waters, why the crew have been detained, and why the ship has been seized.

It is the story of agonizing suffering and death, about one mad man’s obsession with brutally extinguishing the lives of defenseless intelligent self-aware sentient beings.

It is about the arrogance of a stubborn old man named Kristján Loftsson and the killing, the slaughtering and the snuffing out of the lives of beautiful whales.

The Questions

1. Why does he do it? There is no profit for him.

2. Why does the Icelandic government support this slaughter? There is no political gain for Iceland and it is extraordinarily bad for international relations.

3. Why did the Icelandic Coast Guard come running to the defense of a whaling ship like obedient guard dogs answering to their master’s demand?

The Bigger Question

1. Why is this man allowed by his government to commit such barbaric and sadistic atrocities against a creature that the people of India and the Māori people of Aotearoa regard as having rights equal to humans?

2. What right does Loftsson have to kill creatures that do not belong to him or to Iceland? These are citizens of the sea who contribute to the health of phytoplankton populations in the sea that provide us with the oxygen we require to breathe.

What right does Loftsson’s thugs have to viciously rip the unborn calves from the bellies of their dead mothers where the life of the unborn whale is not counted as one of his allotted victims?

What right does some ignorant kid have to amusingly play with whale dork bigger than himself as his fellow sadists look on and laugh as the Icelandic national anthem blasts over loudspeakers in the background?

What right does a harpooner have to deliver four harpoons into a fleeing whale as the creature flees in extreme pain, as shot after shot is delivered for nearly an hour of suffering?

Why is such an incompetent harpooner even allowed behind such a torturous device if he does not know how to do the job properly?

What right does the Icelandic government have to ignore violations of the Animal Welfare Act and the pollution regulations?

Yes, the rights of our crew are being violated. Seizure of property without a warrant, denial of the right to appoint a lawyer, detained unlawfully onboard the ship with refusal by the coast Guard to provide water and sewage facilities.

But our crew expected to be treated unfairly. They expected to be discriminated against and threatened. Compassion cannot be expected from a culture that practices torture and inflicts death to defenseless beings.

The whales on the other hand are being stalked and viciously murdered. Yes, murdered, because many people consider the killing of a whale or dolphin to be – murder. And not only murdered but tortured in the extreme and after death, their bodies horribly mutilated before the eyes of the entire world.

The crew of the Bandero is in Iceland because of the horror that Kristján Loftsson inflicts to these magnificent sentient minds in the sea. We are here because of the pain and the death and because we cannot morally turn our eyes away from this atrocity.

When people are willing to risk their lives to defend the lives of whales, the threat of jail and fines is trivial in comparison.

Threats to seize are ship do not bother us. A ship is expendable, the life of a whale is not.

Out there on the vast ocean, a terrified whale flees in desperation from the looming steel hull of a whaling vessel, its engine roaring. Each breath she takes is a labored spasm, expelled in bursts of spray from lungs painfully strained by the relentless pursuit.

Suddenly, a cataclysmic explosion erupts as a missile tears into the her flesh, rending muscle and bone, shattering organs. Yet still she surges forward, her will to survive driving her onward in a futile escape from her tormentors. Another explosion. Another missile tears through her body, shredding her liver and lungs Each exhalation releases a crimson mist into the air, swirling around her convulsing form like a shroud of steaming blood.

Defiant to the end, she fights for life, for the chance to see her unborn calf experience the breathtaking wonders and epic adventures of the ocean’s embrace.

And then—darkness. Her struggle ceases. The ocean, once her sanctuary, claims her at last.

This is why we are here and this why we refuse to be intimidated by defenders and apologist for this ruthless serial killer.

We stand for life and diversity. Loftsson stands for death and cruelty.

The choice should not be difficult.

Bandero við bryggju. The Icelandic Coast Guard detained the Bandero in front of the bows of two Japanese Naval vessels as a show of solidarity between two whaling nations.

RÚV