LONDON -- "They do not allow them free for a moment -- not even at cocktail parties," said Atherton Martin, former Environment and Fisheries Minister of Dominica, describing how the Japanese ride herd on the representatives of countries whose votes they have bought at International Whaling Commission meetings. "It's disgusting, it's appalling. It's beyond colonial." And they'll doubtless be doing it again at the IWC meeting that opened in London July 24.

There are no whalers in Dominica. Japan just paid for its IWC membership and bought its vote, as it has done with other small, poor countries including Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The payment is disguised as overseas development aid, but an indiscreet Japanese government official recently admitted what everybody already knew: it is straight bribery.

Speaking to Australian television, Masayuki Komatsu, head of the international division of Japan's Fisheries Agency, explained that "Japan does not have military power. The means (to gain support on the IWC) is simply diplomatic communication and ODA. . . . It is natural that we must rely on those two major tools, so I think there is nothing wrong."