Part of pay-out may go on atoll monitor

Press, 30 July 1986, Page 7

Part of pay-out may go on atoll monitor

PA Wellington Part of the $l3 million France paid New Zealand in compensation for the Rainbow Warrior bombing could be used to improve monitoring of French nuclear tests at Moruroa Atoll.

A spokesman from the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Lange, has said he was aware of a suggestion that part of the Rainbow Warrior money be used to upgrade the Rarotonga station. The matter was before the Cabinet.

Specific projects that might be funded were to go to the Cabinet some time over the next few weeks and details could not be released at this point, the spokesman said. The proposal has been

discussed by D.S.I.R. scientists who are considering options for the improving of the 21-year-old Rarotonga station. The station is the source of all New Zealand’s information about French testing at the atoll. Run by the Geophysics Division’s Seismological Observatory, the station is the closest seismograph outside French Polynesia and probably provides the most sensitive detector of French explosions, accordng to the D.S.I.R. The station is also part of the international seismograph network.

The purpose of the upgrading, which could cost up to $40,000, would be to provide New Zealand with fuller and faster information about the tests.

The Under-Secretary of Finance, Mr de Cleene, has said that he had not wanted the two French agents put on trial because he knew it would only be “buying a headache.” The Government “completely under-estimated” the arrogance of the French over the Rainbow Warrior affair, he told Waikato exporters in Hamilton.

France had proved to be one of the most "arrogant, persistent and ruthless” nations.

Mr Lange had “completely under-estimated” the French and put himself in a corner by promising the two French agents would not go free, said Mr de Cleene.