Cancelled orders spark fear of French retaliation

Press, 20 February 1986, Page 20

Cancelled orders spark fear of French retaliation

PA Auckland New Zealand meat and potato exporters have been shut out of the New Caledonian market, arousing suspicions of a French trade retaliation for the Rainbow Warrior affair, the “New Zealand Herald” newspaper reports. The authorities in Noumea have given no reason for their sudden turnround which jeopardises a long-established market valued at several million dollars a year to three Auckland companies. The first casualty was a 60-tonne shipment of beef, lamb, and mutton due to have sailed from Auckland on Tuesday, the “Herald” said.

Its exporter received a last-minute telex on Friday revoking French permission for the shipment, one of a number which earns the Auckland firm about $3 million a year.

The telex came from the Office de Commercialisation et d’Enterposage Frigorifique, a French Government - controlled authority handling meat and potato imports, which sent a similar telex to a South Auckland potato ex-

porter the same day. Spokesmen for the two companies say they can only believe the unexplained cancellations are tied to the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship, for which two French secret service agents are serving 10-year New Zealand jail terms. It was not known late Monday whether the other meat exporter to New Caledonia, the Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Co-operative, Ltd, was sent the same telex.

The managing director of Rangitikei Produce Distributors, Ltd, Mr lan Croft, said New Zealand was obviously being singled out.

His Pukekohe firm, which ships 1100 tonnes of potatoes a year to the French territory, could lose money if the now unwanted crop fetched a lesser price on the local market. Australian counterparts were still doing business, he said. “I suppose in the back of my mind I had been expecting trouble. If the thing is not resolved there will be far bigger deals than this affected,” Mr Croft said.

A spokesman for the

meat exporting firm said the usually helpful office and New Caledonian clients were strangely silent about reasons for the cancelled shipment. “Obviously it must be something political,” he said. “I hope they have the good sense to review the situation, because I think the people getting hurt are not the ones they want to hurt.”

French High Commission officials in Noumea have supplied no official reason for the shipment cancellations, in spite of repeated attempts to speak with them.

The New Zealand consul in New Caledonia, Ms Sarah Dennis, spent Monday seeking an explanation, to no avail.

“It is very peculiar . . . it is worrying in terms of the disruption of our trade,” she said. She did not want to speculate on possible political overtones tied to the Rainbow Warrior, saying the local French authorities were within their rights to bar New Zealand meat and potatoes. The only word to have come from the French High Commission so far is

that the contract cancellations could have been to protect local producers. Yet the French territory does not have sheepmeat farmers.