U.N. solution ‘example for other nations’

Press, 9 July 1986, Page 9

U.N. solution ‘example for other nations’

New Zealand and France had set an example to other nations by going to the United Nations to resolve the dispute over the French agents, said the secretarymanager of the NuclearFree Zone Committee, Mr Larry Ross, yesterday. He was referring to the agreement to transfer the agents, Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur, to a French military base on Hao atoll, in French Polynesia, before the end of this month.

Mr Ross said it was difficult for . a world Power like France to admit guilt, apologise, pay compensation, and agree to “stop bully-boy tactics” against New Zealand and its products.

“The decision of the

United Nations SecretaryGeneral, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar, is also very important to the French people,” he said. “They had been led to whitewash the criminal acts of the Government and agents. .

“It is difficult for the New Zealand Government to allow a United Nations solution but mutual compromise is the vital lesson for other States in dispute. There can be no future for humanity without mutual compromise and toleration,” Mr Ross said.

Russia should seek an international solution to the war in Afganistan, Mr Ross said.

The United States should accept the verdict of the International Court of Justice in The Hague

that mining of Nicaraguan harbours and financing an invasion of "Contras” was a violation of international law, he said. Creative peacemaking through the United Nations and other organisations should be applied to Arab-Israeli disputes, South Africa, the Falklands, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Iran and Iraq and Northern Ireland, Mr Ross said. “It should also be applied to the global nuclear arms race and the growing risk of destroying all life. New Zealand is in a good position to develop itself as an international peacemaker with its nuclear-free independence from military alliances and acceptance of the United Nations solution for the French agents dispute,” Mr Ross said.