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Yesterday the ship made a stop at Hereheretue, a beautiful atoll half way between Tahiti and Moruroa. This is how Moruroa itself must have looked once upon a time: the whispering of coconut palms instead of the roaring of trucks and planes, the distant pounding of ocean instead of the thunder of bomb tests.
The twenty-odd people who live on Hereheretue came out to the ship to welcome us, and ran several parties ashore through a pass only 2-3 metres wide! Ashore, they had prepared the most wonderful welcome feast, with cooked and raw reef fish, local fruit and vegetables. After the meal the mayor sent us on our way with a very warm and heartfelt speech, wishing us the very best for our attempts to stop this testing madness, and saying that the people of Hereheretue might not be with us physically but their spirit went with us.
83KB GIF
or 23KB JPG. ©Greenpeace/Morgan
These people live simple, full and very human lives: yet they have had to live with the immediate effects of nuclear weapons, things for which they have no use, and which play no part in their lives whatsoever. This is the same pattern across the Pacific: the people who pay the largest price for nuclear testing are the ones for whom these weapons are most alien as a way of conducting relationships. And the "Great Powers" who construct, test and threaten to use these weapons claim to represent the "developed", "civilised" world. A world that has developed into collective insanity, perhaps? Well, it feels like it is time that those of us - who are after all in the vast majority - reasserted human values against the values of the bomb. Time to stand up and be counted, as we sail toward the test zone.
That's all for now, Alice
Nothing to add on the French warship front, all quiet on board.
Political news: The Group of 21 non-aligned countries at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament have launched a critique of France and China's testing programmes. They described France's decision to resume testing as a 'serious setback' for the Comprehensive Test Ban negotiations, and urged all nuclear weapon states to observe a moratorium until a CTB enters into force. They argue that, consistent with the CD's negotiating mandate, the CBT should be 'an instrument against both horizontal and vertical nuclear proliferation and should effectively contribute to nuclear disarmament'. They are therefore calling for the scope of the comprehensive test ban treaty to ban all tests in all environments. Reacting to news that the US might look to exempt low-yield tests from the ban, they have called for a test ban that really means zero.
Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian Foreign Minister told the Conference on Disarmament that during the Non-Proliferation Treaty talks, the nuclear powers had agreed to exercise "utmost restraint" on nuclear testing. "Therefore we would hardly agree with those who say that the continuation or resumption of nuclear tests does not contradict this provision. The 'utmost restraint' here should be the same for everyone and all," Kozyrev said.
Sri Lanka and Argentina also criticised China and France. Argentina said they hoped that France's decision "will be the last announcement of any new nuclear tests ever to be made."
Meanwhile, 113 members of the US House of Representatives on Wednesday July 5 called on President Clinton to continue negotiations aimed at a conclusion of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The letter to the President recommended that the Administration reject proposals to forgo a CTB and instead conclude a low-threshold test ban that would allow continued nuclear testing.
"Considering the Administrations's previous review of this issue and your subsequent commitment to pursue a comprehensive treaty, we find it disturbing that this issue is being reopened, and that Pentagon officials reportedly now are being afforded the latitude to resurrect the threshold issue just as CTB negotiations enter their decisive phase," said the Democratic and Republican lawmakers in their letter to the President.
The letter also noted that the proposed 500 ton low-threshold treaty would allow sizable nuclear explosions that could be used to develop new generations of nuclear weapons. As the lawmakers noted, "Recall that a truck bomb loaded with two tons of chemical explosives - 250 times less than the threshold that some in the Pentagon now reportedly are proposing to be adopted - was sufficient to destroy the federal building in Oklahoma City and severely damaged other buildings in the vicinity."
Also on Wednesday, the Chilean Senate passed a draft agreement expressing its opposition to nuclear testing and urged inter- parliamentary agreement between other Pacific Rim countries to consult on the issue.
On Easter Island, the President of the Council of Senior Citizens (Elders) have condemned French tests, saying that they would "jeopardize all marine life... pollute all our oceanic patrimony and goes against an ecosystem established for the benefit of man".
The Chilean section of the Democratic Association of French Citizens in Foreign Countries (ADFE) has categorically condemned the resumption of the French nuclear tests and the French-Chilean Friendship Corporation said: "We are forced, Mr President, as defenders of France, its image and its principles to let you know of our point of view in reference to your recent decision. Resuming the nuclear tests would give modern Chile a terrible image of France."
National and international unions have also expressed their opposition to further tests by France at Moruroa.
Bye for now, Steph on board the Rainbow Warrior
