N-tests at Mururoa to continue—France

Press, 24 February 1987, Page 33

N-tests at Mururoa to continue —France

NZPA-Reuter Paris France, brushing aside criticism by regional States, has strongly reaffirmed its intention to continue underground nuclear blasts at its test site on the Polynesian atoll of Mururoa. At the same time, the Defence Ministry has been at pains to deny reports that France may seek an alternative site on one of its remote, windswept island possessions in the Indian Ocean near Antarctica.

“France is at Mururoa, it is fine there and has declared it will stay, full stop,” said the Defence Minister, Andre Giraud. At the same time, he dismissed as fundamentally flawed a controversial treaty declaring the South Pacific a nuclearfree zone, a treaty that France perceives as directed against it.

“Once the wolves begin to get along together, then the lambs may take notice,” he said in dismissing the pact, known as the Rarotonga Treaty. It was signed in Rarotonga, capital of the Cook Islands, in August by New Zealand, Australia and II smaller island nations which together make up the South Pacific Forum.

The Soviet Union and China had signed protocols bf the treaty, but the United States, following France’s lead, announced earlier this month it would not sign. Britain, the fifth nuclear-armed Power, had said it was still studying the issue. The treaty bans nuclear testing as well as stocking nuclear arms and dumping nuclear wastes. France has charged that the real intention is to bring a halt to French testing at Mururoa, 4200 km north-east of New Zealand.

The French Foreign Minister, Jean-Bernard Raimond, told a 40-nation disarmament conference in Geneva that France was determined to go on

testing its nuclear devices because to do otherwise would be to accept their "planned obsolescence.” The Defence Ministry, meanwhile, moved unusually quickly to deny a report that France -was considering an alternative site, possibly in the Kerguelen Islands or SaintPaul in the south Indian Occfln. Within hours, the Ministry denied allegations made on February 10 at an anti-nuclear forum in New Zealand by a French academic, Abraham Behar.

Mr Behar, a professor of biophysics at the University of Paris, quoted what he called sources in the French'atomic energy agency as saying the hunt was on for a new site.

He linked this with the mystery surrounding the Panamanian-flag trawler Southern Raider which sank off the Indian Ocean island of St Paul, on October 9 after being fired on by a French patrol boat.

Mr Giraud said that the Southern Raider, whose master and first mate were Australian nationals, had not been fishing off St Paul.

He declined, however,' to be drawn on published reports that the trawler was bristling with sophisticated electronic gear to monitor any French preparation of a new test site. The two Australians

were charged and convicted of illegally fishing in French waters. They subsequently ' escaped from house arrest on Reunion Island and made their way back to Asia after receiving temporary travel documents from the Australian Embassy in neighboring Mauritius.

Mr Giraud said that the crew of the ship, which included citizens of New Zealand, South Korea and Sweden, apparently deliberately scuttled their vessel. Shots ’from the French patrol vessel hit it above the waterline in the bow, but it sank stern first.

The Kerguelens and St Paul are part of France’s southern and Antarctic territories, known by their French initials, T.A.A.F. St Paul is an extinct volcano, barren and uninhabited, roughly midway between Perth on Australia’s south-west coast and Cape Town at the tip of South Africa. Like Mururoa, its substratum is formed of basalt, which is non-po-rous.

France’s position is that test blasts are essential to maintain the credibility of its independent nuclear deterrent, that they pose no health hazard where they are being held, and that there is no suitable site in metropolitan France.

A Government booklet last year emphasised that

any such site would have to be at least 20km to 40km from “fragile constructions” such as villages to protect them from underground shock waves.

The continued testing at Mururoa has increased France’s growing diplomatic isolation in the Pacific. The conservative Government of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac is also at odds with most of the region over its desire to keep New Caledonia under a French flag after an independence referendum due by August.

In addition, relations were also strained by the sinking by French agents of the Greenpeace environmental group’s flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985.

The Greenpeace ship had been due to lead a protest againt test blasts at Mururoa.

Earlier this month, President Francois Mitterrand seized the opportunity of a visit to France’s nuclear missile site on the Plateau d’Albion in the south of France to reaffirm that the testing would continue at Mururoa.

“Mururoa exists and Mururoa will continue to exist. Having a nuclear force implies the ability to carry out tests. All countries do so,” Mr Mitterrand said.