Papeete, Tahiti, 23 August 1995 -- The Rainbow Warrior arrives in Papeete today, en route to protest a resumption of nuclear testing by France at Moruroa atoll next month.
The Rainbow Warrior will join an international peace flotilla of around 30 vessels, currently sailing from New Zealand, Australia, Chile, the United States and Germany.
"We return to Moruroa not alone, but on the winds of a large fleet of boats coming together with a single aim: to stop French testing at Moruroa," Greenpeace's Stephanie Mills said from aboard the Rainbow Warrior. "President Chirac still has time to listen to the international community and change his mind, and to show that real leadership in the 1990s means a commitment to nuclear disarmament, not to nuclear testing and nuclear proliferation."
She said a European flotilla sailing for Paris on September first in solidarity with the Moruroa fleet would take the same message to President Chirac.
The Rainbow Warrior sailed from Fiji with a crew of 19 two weeks ago, after undertaking repairs and re-provisioning following the boarding of the ship on July 10 by French commandos as it entered the 12-mile exclusion zone around Moruroa.
The Rainbow Warrior will berth in Papeete on Wednesday August 23 at approximately 10am at Motu Uta. A press conference on board the ship will begin at 11.30am.
The Rainbow Warrior sails for Moruroa on Thursday August 24, and
is expected to arrive off the Moruroa exclusion zone on August
27. It will join two other Greenpeace vessels, the sailing yacht
Vega and the MV Greenpeace, as well as a Danish vessel, the
Bifrost and other vessels arriving over the next few weeks to
form the international peace.
Further information:
Stephanie Mills on board the SV Rainbow Warrior +872 1300312
Thomas Schultz, Tahiti, +689 77 06 13
vBlair Palese, Greenpeace Communications, London +44 171 833 0600