Protest ship crew “ready to die”
(New Zealand Press Association)
WELLINGTON, May 20.
The crew of the nuclear protest fleet’s mother ship Fri have pledged they are “prepared to die, or suffer the consequences of nuclear radiation” in their protest against the French tests.
In a message to the New Zealand Press Association, received today, the crew of the ship said the pledge had been written into an agreement signed at Pitcairn Island on May 13.
The Fri, an Americanregistered former Baltic trader carrying 13 people, put in at Pitcairn earlier this month for engine repairs. She left New Zealand on March 13, and will act as the mother ship to other protest vessels sailing to the Muruoa Atoll, the site of the nuclear tests.
The agreement said the crew was prepared to die or suffer radiation, “in the belief that these tests are a crime against the planet, Earth, for which no man may assume responsibility.”
The document said it was agreed by all crew members, as volunteers, that the Fri would enter the boundaries of the nuclear danger zone delineated by France as unsafe for shipping. Official witness The agreement was drawn up by the master, Captain D. Moodie, an American, and signed by him and the others aboard the ship, and was witnessed by the Pitcairn Magistrate, Mr P. Young. The agreement had been drawn up so that no-one might question the convictions or motivations of Captain Moodie’s crew “in this dangerous enterprise,” said the report.
Head winds The Fri is fighting head winds, but is now within 200 miles in the south-west of the testing zone. The Spirit of Peace, another protest vessel, which left New Zealand a month after the Fri, passed Rapa Island in the Austral group of French Polynesia last night, and observed a warship, "presumed French" according to the message received from the Fti. ,
The Spirit of Peace was circled by two aircraft yesterday—one thought to he an Orion of the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
The Royal Navy ship Sir Percival, which has monitored tests in the past, is now at Pitcairn.
Ministers meet
In The Hague, the New Zealand Attorney-General (Dr Finlay) has met the Aus-
tralian Attorney-General (Senator Murphy) to discuss their countries’ cases to the International Court of Justice.
The hearing of the Australian case will begin at 2 p.m. Tuesday (New Zealand time), and it is expected that the New Zealand case will be heard after its completion. The New Zealand group in The Hague, which includes the Solicitor-General (Mr R. Savage), Professor R. Quentin-Baxter, and Mr J. K. Keith from Victoria University of Wellington, Mr C. D. Beeby and Mrs N. C. Mullins from the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the director of the National Radiation Laboratory (Mr H. J. Yeabsley) by tomorrow would be “quite ready to go,
whenever we are called upon,” said Dr Finlay. The Fiji agent at /The Hague, Mr Donald McLoughlin, had filed an application to intervene in the Australian case, reliable sources said.
Japanese action In Tokyo, the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan, which represents more than four million workers, has adopted a resolution calling on Europe to cancel her tests in the Pacific. The resolution said the council would support protest movements by trade unionists in France, Australia and New Zealand, and would begin organised campaigns in Japan.
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