Nuclear inquiry demanded

Press, 27 August 1979, Page 16

Nuclear inquiry demanded

NZPA-Reuter Parjs French Polynesia has demanded the suspension of nuclear tests on Mururoa Atoll and a commission of inquiry to investigate accidents in which two persons were killed and four others injured there last month, officials have said. A Polynesian deputy, Mr Jean Juventin, of President Giscard D’Estaing’s Union Pour la Democratic Francaise political grouping, asked the

Ministry of Defence (Mr Von Bourges) to set up the proposed commission immediately. He called for an end to all nuclear tests pending the inquiry’s findings. Mr juventin, who is also Mayor of Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, denounced rhe “utter silence as well as the contradictory and embarrassing explanations,” given by the French Atomic Energy Commission in Paris and the nuclear tests headquarters in

the South Pacific. The accidents occurred on July 6 and July 25. The Defence Ministry declined to comment, and the Atomic Energy Commission has dismissed both cases as “industrial accidents, nothing to do with nuclear tests.” Earlier this week, the French Polynesian Territorial Assembly also called on the President and Government in Paris to suspend all nuclear tests at Mururoa pending investigations.