Off Moruroa atoll, 1230 a.m. local time July 10 (1030pm GMT) -- The Rainbow Warrior is now being towed under duress from the Moruroa nuclear test site into international waters by the French navy after being boarded by French commandos 18 hours ago.
A Greenpeace inflatable launched from a second Greenpeace vessel, the Vega, with three people aboard is still in the vicinity of the test site. Greenpeace's Stephanie Mills, on board the Rainbow Warrior, said France should stop preparations for tests while the activists remained undetected in the area.
The activists aboard the inflatable are David McTaggart, (Greenpeace's honorary chairman and a veteran of protests at the site), Henk Haazen (Dutch) and Chris Robinson (Australian). The Greenpeace vessel Vega and a Danish vessel Bifrost are also near the test site, in international waters.
So far unreported by French authorities, Greenpeace activists yesterday occupied the nuclear test drilling rig inside the Moruroa lagoon in protest at France's decision to resume testing there in September in an unprecedented breach of military security at the test site,.
The Rainbow Warrior was boarded just off the pass into the lagoon by French commandos who broke into the bridge and used tear gas to force crew from the ship at 0630 a.m. local time. Commandos split open the radio room door with an axe and used tear gas to drive two crew (Thom Looney, radio officer and Stephanie Mills, campaigner) to climb out of the porthole and onto the bridge above. The Rainbow Warrior was rammed by a large tug, causing damage to its bow, before being towed to a mooring point inside the lagoon.
Greenpeace France's Jean-Luc Thierry said the French military had taken the easy resort to violence so stop Greenpeace's peaceful protest. "But no amount of force can weaken Greenpeace's determination to stop nuclear testing at Moruroa and worldwide," he said. "President Chirac cannot ignore the strength of international opinion against a resumption of testing at the atoll."
Three out of four Greenpeace inflatables -- launched outside the 12 mile exclusion zone around the atoll at 2 a.m. and 3.30 a.m. yesterday local time -- suceeded in entering the lagoon and reaching the drilling rig, in spite of French navy claims last week that the French authorities had sufficient resources to repel Greenpeace. Two activists, Richard Leney (British) and Madaleine Habib (Australia), scaled the drilling rig and occupied it for more than 20 minutes. The Greenpeace inflatable crews were then boarded by commandos after a two hour chase through the exclusion zone and lagoon.
The 23 crew from both the inflatables and the Rainbow Warrior were then transferred to Moruroa and held and interrogated by French military police for more than 15 hours. Crew identified themselves merely as Fernando Pereira, the Greenpeace photographer who was killed by French secret service agents when they bombed the first Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour on July 10 1985.
"The best commemoration of Fernando's death we could offer was our action today," Greenpeace's Stephanie Mills said. "An end to nuclear testing now and forever is what Fernando would have wanted us to be fighting for."
The French authorities have demanded that the Rainbow Warrior be towed into international waters without three out of four of its inflatables and their safety and navigational equipment. The Greenpeace crew refused to return to their vessel without this equipment, and staged a sit-in at the Moruroa dock. Around 100 French Foreign Legionnaires surrounded the crew and eventually bodily lifted people into a transport vessel which ferried them to the Rainbow Warrior.
The Rainbow Warrior is now under tow, under duress, by the French Navy, and will be taken into international waters outside the atoll's 12 mile exclusion zone. The French Navy have said they will escort the vessel once it is in international waters for an unspecified time afterwards.
The Rainbow Warrior's skipper, David Enever (UK), said the Rainbow Warrior would remain in the vicinity of the test site while further protest activity was discussed. Stephanie Mills said Greenpeace would be uncompromising in its oposition to all nuclear testing worldwide and would scale up its protests internationally at France's plans to resume testing in September.
ENDS
Further information: Stephanie Mills, Jean-Luc Thierry, on board SV Rainbow Warrior +872 1300312
Blair Palese, Cindy Baxter, Greenpeace Communications, London +44 171 8330600