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The next leg of the campaign commences. It has been a busy day: last minute preparations and arrangements to accommodate our new "fellow travellers". Joining the crew are five journalists (from Agence France Presse, the London Times, Channel 9 in Australia and a French company), and also Mgsr. Gaillot, a French bishop, Pastor Temarama - a local anti-nuclear campaigner, and Oscar Temaru, long-time anti-nuclear campaigner and mayor of Faa'a, the largest town in French Polynesia. Oscar Temaru also played a major part in the blockading of Papeete and the anti-nuclear marches that have paralysed Tahiti over the last week. He is a man of great mana (loosely translated as power and charisma) amongst the Polynesian population.
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During the day the ship has received literally wagon loads of fruit, vegetables and other provisions. Around three in the afternoon a crowd of several hundred people gathered on the quay side, and a long celebration/ceremony ensued to wish us well for our forthcoming voyage. A tattooed warrior went around the crowd, exhorting the people. Then he called the two priests and Oscar Temaru to the ship and went through a ceremony to give them a safe passage on the voyage. Finally, at around 4.30, the Rainbow Warrior, bedecked along her rails with the leaves of the sacred outi tree, slipped her lines and headed out of the harbour With the power of many thousands of people in Tahiti - and many millions of others all around the world - pushing her through the waves, the Rainbow Warrior has struck a course south-east, direct to Moruroa.
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Alice Leney
The local papers in Tahiti are still dominated by the issue of nuclear testing: President Gaston Flosse has invited other political leaders, notably Oscar Temaru, to a "picnic" at Moruroa between July 16-18 to show how "safe" the atoll is.
News about demonstrations and activities continue to pour in to the Rainbow Warrior -- from marches in Copenhagen and Chile to The Cure denouncing French testing at a rock concert in Belgium and demonstrations in Mexico.
A delegation from Medecines Sans Frontieres, an aid organisation of medical professionals, has arrived in Tahiti to get a picture of the health impacts of testing. They tell me that all the health authorities they have phoned for meetings or information have been totally unhelpful. Meanwhile, our Australian film crew have had a two hour delay at Customs, only to discover that the camera gear could not be used until they got on board. So they had further entanglements with the bureaucracy here trying to sort that out.
Observers at the nuclear test ban talks in Geneva say that recent events have hardened anti-testing positions there. France has announced the resumption of nuclear testing, the Chinese tested just three days after the end of the Non-Proliferation Treaty talks, and the indications are that both the US and UK are considering resuming tests of low-yield explosions. Many non-nuclear states had until recently been prepared to turn a blind eye to low-yield explosions (say under 200 tonnes) in order to get a test ban treaty that included all the nuclear powers. Now, they feel betrayed by the nuclear weapon states and feel a treaty that is not truly "comprehensive" is hardly worth having. They are demanding that zero tests means zero, not a "threshold" treaty which would not impede nuclear proliferation and would permit the nuclear club to use enhanced technology to develop new nuclear weapons.
Bye for now,
tephanie on board the Rainbow Warrior.
