Protest ketch sails to French test area

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32902, 28 April 1972, Page 10

Protest ketch sails to French test area

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, April 27.

The ketch Green Peace 111 (shown above) sailed at 5.45 p.m. today for the French nuclear testing zone in the Pacific.

Several problems seemed likely to delay the departure, especially the interest shown by Customs and Marine Department officials.

If the authorities were interested in the ketch’s facilities for the voyage they would have made the checks when the Green Peace 111 (then the Vega) first arrived in Auckland, said the chairman of the Green Peace Foundation (Mr E. B. Metcalfe). The authorities were sending one official after the other, said Mr Metcalfe at

Westhaven about an hour and a half before the ketch was due to sail. Hinting that this was an attempt to forestall the departure, Mr Metcalfe said that when the Green Peace 1 sailed on its first protest voyage the Canadian Minister of Immigration cancelled the boat’s insurance, but later reinstated it. Late this afternoon, Mr Metcalfe and his crew de-

cided to cast away before the next group of officials arrived. A Hamilton company director, Mr C. E. Home, was unable to go because he could not get a passport in time. Mr Home said the Department of Internal Affairs had “stone-walled” his application for a passport, and the ketch’s crew had chosen instead an Australian living in Auckland. Mr G. Davidson, because of the expected delay. Mr Home said that he had been given to understand when he first applied for a passport a few days ago it would be ready by today. The department had received the necessary documents, which were in order, but when he asked about the passport today he had been told he was

on the bottom of the list of about 800 names.

“I am really upset about a Government department taking this attitude: after all, I am a New Zealander living in this country,” said Mr Home. The nuclear tests would affect the whole of the population, he said. “I think it's terrible. We have pollution in our own environment, why add to it with a test that should not be?”