Protest yacht defies French

Press, 2 December 1981, Page 1

Protest yacht defies French

NZPA staff correspondent Washington French sailors yesterday boarded the anti-nuclear protest ketch Greenpeace 111 as it neared the South Pacific atoll of Mururoa, and warned the crew not to approach closer than 42 miles. However, Greenpeace Foundation spokesmen later reported that the crew of five intended to continue on course to Mururoa in a bid to stop what was believed to be a new series of nuclear tests. A report from Auckland -said that the ketch was expected to cross the 42-mile limit about midnight last night (New Zealand time). The French boarding came as Mr David McTaggart, of Canada, the co-ordinator of the Greenpeace Foundation’s campaign against nuclear tests, was talking to the NZPA Washington office by radio telephone. Mr McTaggart: Something has just come up ... We are very close to Mururoa ... We have just sighted a French warship off our starboard bow it looks like a minesweeper.

The interview was broken off; at this point, but the radio operator later made contact with Greenpeace in San Francisco to report that the French crew had boarded the ketch and delivered the warning not to sail too close to the atoll. The operator also reported that the ketch would continue to head for Mururoa. In a conversation with NZPA earlier yesterday, Mr McTaggart said that the ketch was about 80 miles from Mururoa. “We will be there in the morning,” he said. Greenpeace 111, also known as the Vega, had sailed more than 50,000 kilometres, he said, but the crew — himself, a Frenchman, a Briton, an American, and an Australian — were all well and had plenty of provisions. Describing the first contact with the military, he said that the ketch had been flown over six times by a French reconnaissance plane. He had not sighted any French Navy ships in the vicinity.

“But I would expect that the same thing will happen again (as during the protest voyages in 1972 and 1973)... that a French military ship will come up tonight or tomorrow morning. “In 1972, ‘this ship sailed from New Zealand to Mururoa, with myself and two other persons on board. After 75 days at sea and another 30 around Mururoa the ship was rammed- by a warship. It was sinking, and they towed us in, then took us back out to sea again.

“Then we returned again in 1973 and that is when the Australian Government and the New Zealand Government put the French Government in the World Court at The Hague and sent warships

in. “That was the year that myself and the crew were beaten up quite seriously. - “Now we are returning simply because the .French Government has bombed the atoll. We believe the atoll "is sinking, polluting the ocean,” Mr McTaggart said. f »

Reports from Wellington last week said that an underground test was carried out on November 11, but apart from being of comparatively low strength, no other details were known. In London, a spokesman for the foundation’s cam. paign against nuclear tests, Mr Alan Thornton, of Canada, said that the November 11 blast was believed to be the first of a series that would go on throughout the summer. „ The Greenpeace spokesman in Auckland, Mr Roger Wilson, said that the French order was handed to Mr; McTaggart by an officer of the minesweeper Hippotame. The minesweeper — the same ship which harassed the ketch in 1972 and 1973 at Mururoa — called alongside and put. several men into an’ inflatable raft, Mr Wilson-' said. ’■ -• • • ' i The French officer had riot specified -what the penalty would be if the ketch crossed the 42-miie limit, but Mr Wilson quoted Mr McTaggart as saying that he would not be intimidated by “this type of illegal threat.”