last modified: 11/26/95
Essential Reading:
French Neanderthal behavior in Mururoa, 1995
In 1995 nuclear "device" detonation activities by the French government in their "vassal" "state" on the island of Mururoa in the South Pacific drew into sharp focus the fact of what is a fundamentally inappropriate type of "behavior" for such archaic entities as "nations" to be engaged in. Such neanderthal bumblings are about as extreme a valuing of everything anti-life and anti-social as can be imaginable by mosa and this ratitor.
Included below are some articles/sites relating to this
crimes-against-all-life-on-earth series of incoherent
and insane actions by the "decision makers" in the
french version of the political system's Asylum
Government.
last modified: 11/26/95
PARIS, December 7,1994-(GP)- Greenpeace released a report today which documents the extensive generation of nuclear waste at the French la Hague plutonium separation, or "reprocessing" plant. The study, produced by WISE-Paris (1), is based on published and confidential sources and provides an extensive survey of nuclear waste generation, storage and environmental discharges at the la Hague plant.
The WISE report totally destroys the myth of the "ecological" virtues of reprocessing. The report for example reveals that annual liquid discharges from la Hague, authorized by the French government, are roughly 3 times the total liquid discharges from all the nuclear reactors world-wide. In addition, the report documents the fact that as la Hague has grown, so too has its radioactive discharges to the environment. . . .
1. A NUCLEAR TEST OR A NUCLEAR WAR?
Does Mururoa understand French? When they say they are "Just testing" can she, the atoll, tell the difference between a 'not really real' test and an all-out nuclear war on the structure and integrity of the atoll and associated life? . . .2. WHAT IS THE REAL EXPERIMENT AT MURUROA?
3. COMPREHENSIVE ACCOUNTING OF CLEAN-UP COSTS.
4. THE SICKNESS OF NATIONALISM
What could be more symbolic of the destructive forces which generate the 'modern' nation-state than the atomic bomb?
5. ELDERS AND ADULTS - BLOCKADE MURUROA
"ANY STATEMENT THAT THE TEST IS SAFE IS, IN MY VIEW, NOT A SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT; IT IS A POLITICAL STATEMENT."
Dr Peter Wills, physicist.French scientific evidence 'incomprehensible".
Scientific tests that French authorities said showed no radiation leakage from nuclear testing at Mururoa were incomprehensible, Auckland University physicist Peter Wills said yesterday. . . .
web petitions/sites continuing to focus on French oblivion-addiction:
- http://www.peg.apc.org/~freedom/
substantial info re: boycotting of All FRENCH and CHINESE goods and services.
"BOYCOTT - The Buck Stops With You!"- http://WWW.ozemail.com.au/~midac/
Working to Keep Our FUTURE SAFE, Issue: Nuclear Testing and Stockpiling- http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/rw/rw.html
Greenpeace page with images/vids-w/sound of 1st detonation, etc.- http://www.theage.com.au:80/news/french.htm
French nuclear testing: the fallout - THE AGE Newspaper special reports including, "Global anger", "Nuclear fallout", "Addresses", to add yer voice to, "Anti nuclear-testing sites and petitions", "The High Energy Weapons Archive" site.- http://www.iijnet.or.jp/nuke/
Electronic petition to STOP FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTS pages, ancillary sites, information, access.- http://www.citybeach.wa.edu.au/nuclear2.html
French Scientists Protest Nuclear Tests in Pacific
For the people of the South Pacific, especially those in "French" Polynesia seeking independence, resumption of testing can only mean that their natural environment (yet again) will be impacted on. Resumption of testing also means that their fight for independence takes a back seat, to weapons testing. Living in Aotearoa/New Zealand we're only about 3000 miles south of the area affected. THIS IS MADNESS (excuse the capitalisation)!!!
Please, please, do what ever you can to help us overcome the sheer bloody-minded madness, that is being forced on us in the South Pacific. Write letters to your congressmen/women, to your parliamentarians, to your government, asking them to take up the cause for Mururoa and for the rest of Polynesia. Write to the French government. Write to your newspapers. Refuse to buy French products, etc. What we need is worldwide publicity and protest. . . .
A FRENCH - GERMAN NUCLEAR ALLIANCE?
Imagine a fascist Europe armed with nuclear weapons.
Could secret European trade deals be behind the decision of the right wing French Government to renew nuclear experiments at Mururoa?
Did Chirac and his party obtain support from reunified Germany in return for doing the dirty work in developing weapons of mass destruction? . . .
. . . NZ Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, is allowing the possibility of sending an NZ navy vessel to the test site at Mururoa. . . .
This is in response to mounting public pressure and political concern from opposition parties and MPs in his own team, many of whom are considering an invitation from MPs in the Australian Federal government to stage a joint action by sailing to Mururoa.Rarotonga, July 20th 1995:- The Cook Islands Government and Parliament has unanimously endorsed sending a vaka (traditional Polynesian double hulled outrigger canoe) to Moruroa to protest a resumption of French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. . . .
On the 50th anniversary of the United States atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1995, Australians will remember two of the most criminal acts of carnage inflicted on humanity. At the same time, we will be fighting to throw the French out of the Pacific, to end their nuclear blackmail and their colonial injustices. . . .
Polynesia is not France. It is the ancestral lands of the Maohi people. New Caledonia is the French colonial name for Kanaky. France should not be permitted to poison the people, their food and the land, sea and air -- not in the Pacific and not in their own backyard either.Nuclear guinea pigs We should never forget that former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said of Micronesia:
* There are only 90,000 people out there, who gives a damn?
This arrogance allowed the United States to conduct experiments injecting its own citizens with plutonium, to expose its own soldiers to radiation during nuclear tests in Nevada and to use the peoples of the Pacific as nuclear guinea pigs. . . .
Due to impending French nuclear tests in the South Pacific and the renewed interest in the issue, The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research are distributing the following document on the health and environmental effects of French nuclear testing. This is an updated version of Chapter Nine from the book Radioactive Heaven and Earth, one of the few sources of information on this subject. We encourage wide circulation of this information. The text may be forwarded by email but may not be republished without written authorization. Any reference to the text must use the following citation:
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Radioactive Heaven and Earth: the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons testing in, on and above the earth. (New York: Apex Press, 1991.) . . .
After the end of the Cold War, it seemed reasonable that the nuclear insanity of the world would have subsided. But, after being in office about a month, newly elected French President Jacques Chirac announced his decision to resume nuclear testing at the South Pacific atoll called Mururoa. This decision has been condemned by leaders around the world, and has provoked negative reactions throughout the South Pacific community of nations. . . .
Two independence and anti-nuclear activists from Tahiti -- Etienne Teparii and Chantal Spitz -- arrived in Australia last week at the invitation of the Sydney Anti-Bases Action Committee, in collaboration with the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement and Pax Christi Sydney. During their stay they took part in Hiroshima Day activities, visited ports and unions to thank those who had been taking solidarity actions against French nuclear tests. The following are extracts from the story they told a public meeting at the Tom Nelson Hall in the offices of the Maritime Union of Australia and later at a meeting with The Guardian and other left papers. . . .
AUCKLAND Friday 11 August, 1995 (GP) The SV Rainbow Warrior is to set sail for Moruroa atoll from Suva, Fiji on Sunday August 13th, two months to the day that President Chirac announced plans to resume nuclear testing in September. . . .
Statement for the Anti-nuclear Rally
The 3rd No Nukes Asia Forum
September 3rd, 1995, TaipeiWe the participants of the 3rd NO NUKES ASIA FORUM join the countless voices around the world in protesting the recent decision of the French government to resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific. We are also strongly opposed to Chinese nuclear testing at Lop Nor, and N-test by any country. . . .
Mutiny in the land of Bounty WHEN the French government announced their decision to resume nuclear weapons testing, it was surprising casualties didn't result from the subsequent rush to condemn them.
As governments worldwide battled each other for occupancy of the moral high ground, their solemn pronouncements were displayed prominently in the mainstream media. Their perspective was clear - by their actions the French were jeopardising the cosy arrangement whereby the big powers of the First World held onto their huge nuclear arsenals. This was, and is, a tactical dispute between the members of the world's nuclear club.
Forgotten and ignored amidst the clamour is the fact that the French intend conducting these tests in a part of the world that is not rightfully theirs. And they will be doing so with flagrant disregard for the wishes of that region's inhabitants.
The French nuclear tests are scheduled to be held on the Mururoa Atoll, in the South Pacific. The Atoll is just one component of a region inaccurately known as 'French Polynesia', located in the south Pacific.
First colonised by the French in the 1840s, Polynesians have in recent years expressed their growing desire for independence through support for Tavini Huiraatira - the Polynesian Liberation Front. . . .
The IRIS DMC provides near real-time access to wave-form data from recent large earthquakes through the IRIS `SPYDER' system To access these data, login to the dmc bulletin board by the usual means and choose the `spy' option.
The following are the last 10 events (as reported by the USGS NEIC) for which spyder data have been acquired. . . .
CTB Clearinghouse announce/urgent request to Tell the French government that you strongly condemn their nuclear test. . . .
French President Jacques Chirac told France2 TV today that France may conduct fewer nuclear tests and that France remained committed to a zero yield treaty.
According to Reuters reporter John Chalmers, Chirac "said he may cut to six the eight planned underground tests and complete them far earlier than had been scheduled.
'Eight tests is the maximum, but as soon as we have enough data, naturally we will stop,' he told France 2 television in an interview. 'And most likely we will stop well before the date I indicated, which was May 31.' . . .
I spoke this evening with an activist in Tahiti about the situation there. Yesterday, after it was announced publicly that the nuclear test had taken place, one of the local unions called a general strike on the island, that began at 12 midnight last night. People began to congregate at the Tahiti airport at Faa'a. By sunrise this morning the airport was entirely blocked. Two international flights at 9 a.m. were cancelled, and police riot forces were called in. They used tear gas to push back the crowd, as well as force. Several people have suffered broken arms and legs, and some have been hospitalized. . . .
Geneva, Sept 6 - The IPB utterly condemns the French nuclear test that took place yesterday at Moruroa. This is the 138th test on the atoll. It shows a total disregard for the fragile environment and inhabitants of the region, and is step back to the paranoid politics of the Cold War. The fact that these tests are intended to develop new, more sophisticated, nuclear devices is clear evidence that France intends to maintain its arsenal well into the next century. Why does France need it? What contribution will it make to solving the Bosnian crisis, or to halting terrorism on Parisian streets? . . .
(Washington, DC) -- Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) condemned France's nuclear weapons test in the South Pacific today and announced that it is urging U.S. consumers to join the international boycott of French consumer goods in protest over President Chirac's resumption of nuclear weapons testing. The group, along with a broad coalition of disarmament, environmental, peace, and religious organizations, expects the boycott to put pressure on French companies to exert their economic influence and encourage Chirac to end all nuclear weapons testing.
"France's resumption of environmentally damaging nuclear weapons tests flies in the face of international consensus to end all nuclear testing," stated Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., PSR Executive Director. "Mr. Chirac's execution of these tests so soon after announcing his support for a truly comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) could undermine the international movement toward non-proliferation and severely impede progress in the CTBT talks currently underway at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva." . . .
BRUSSELS, 4 October, 1995 (GP) Greenpeace today said France's testing of nuclear weapons in French Polynesia is being conducted in clear breach of obligations under Articles 34, 35 and 192 of the Euratom Treaty. If the European Commission fails to take legal action against France, the Commission itself will also be in breach of its obligations under the Treaty. . . .
On Oct. 1 France conducted the second of eight planned nuclear tests in Polynesia, despite continued and increasing international protests against the tests. The latest test was estimated at about 100 kilotons -- more than five times the size of the first test Sept. 5. Seismologists in New Zealand said the blast produced a shock wave equal to a 5.9 magnitude earthquake. . . .
RENNES, France (Reuter) -- The French daily Ouest-France carried a photograph Wednesday of a huge crack in coral at France's Mururoa atoll nuclear weapons testing site that it said had been taken by a diver.
The picture of a fissure, 10 feet wide, which the paper said snaked for several miles, seemed certain to fuel a debate over the safety of the underground blasts at Mururoa in the South Pacific and the nearby atoll of Fangataufa. . . .
France, eager to appear as a leader in nuclear safety, proposed on Wednesday that the European Union supply free power to Bulgaria while security checks are being carried out on its oldest, controversial nuclear reactor.
Industry Minister Yves Galland said that supplying Bulgaria with 400 megawatts of electricity would allow it to delay the re-start of the 430-megawatt Kozloduy reactor which has caused concern in the West that it could trigger a disaster of Chernobyl magnitude. . . .
``We prove through this move that France is an example to the world concerning nuclear safety,'' he said. . . .
PARIS (AP) -- Raising new questions about the safety of French nuclear tests, a newspaper published photographs Wednesday that it says show cracks in one of the South Pacific atolls where the underground explosions took place...
Critics say the nuclear tests could cause the atoll to break apart, spewing radioactivity into the water and air in what many consider to be one of the world's last paradises. . . .BUCHAREST, Romania (Reuter) -- New Zealand and other South Pacific states drove home their attack on French nuclear testing Wednesday, using a forum of 500 parliamentarians from 130 countries to issue a call to ``stop this foolishness.''
But a member of President Jacques Chirac's neo-Gaullist RPR party defended the tests as ``indispensable'' to a future ban while China defended its right to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent while showing ``extreme restraint.'' . . .
In light of French President Chirac's decision to break France's nuclear testing moratorium, disarmament, environmental, religious and labor organizations internationally are supporting a boycott of French goods until France ceases testing. . . .
BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuter) -- France's south Pacific nuclear weapons test site is unstable and there is a risk of landslides and tidal waves which could submerge Polynesia, a French vulcanologist said Monday.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuter) -- France, the United States and Britain plan to join the South Pacific nuclear-free zone after France completes its current round of controversial tests at the Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls, according to a U.S. official.
WELLINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuter) -- New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger expressed delight on Thursday at the surprise news that France, Britain and the United States planned to join the South Pacific nuclear-free zone.
NEW YORK (Reuter) -- President Jacques Chirac said Monday France would probably carry out four more nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific, fewer than he had initially planned. . . .
Chirac said that while many world leaders had condemned French nuclear testing publicly, few had criticized him privately.
President Clinton had not raised the issue with him, he said, while British Prime Minister John Major and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had been supportive.
BRUSSELS, Oct 24 (Reuter) -- The European Commission will not take France to the European court over its South Pacific nuclear test programme, a Commission official told Reuters on Tuesday. . . .
The official said Monday's meeting had concluded French nuclear tests were not ``particularly dangerous experiments'' under EU law and so the Commission could shortly close its file on them.
SYDNEY, Oct 27 (Reuter) -- An Australian trade union placed a snap 24-hour ban on Friday on Air France's final flight out of Australia in protest against France's resumption of nuclear testing in the South Pacific.
CANBERRA, Oct 27 (Reuter) -- France has threatened legal action against Australia's smallest state, saying the state's anti-nuclear boycott of French goods could be a discriminatory act under trade rules that may be punished with heavy fines.
PARIS (Reuter) -- France has staged its third nuclear test in the South Pacific in defiant fulfilment of President Jacques Chirac's vow to conduct a final series of checks on its nuclear arms before ending tests forever. . . .
As in the case of France's two earlier tests Sept. 5 and Oct. 2, the strongest denunciations came from the Pacific rim nations geographically closest to the remote Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia where the test was carried out. . . .
France says the aim of the current tests is to reach the level of technical know-how to enable computer simulation of weapons tests and to test the security of weapons already in the French nuclear arsenal.
CANBERRA, Oct 28 (Reuter) -- Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating strongly criticised on Saturday France's third nuclear test in the South Pacific and said France's international reputation would be seriously damaged. . . .
France set off the third in a series of nuclear tests in the South Pacific at Mururoa atoll at 2200 GMT on Friday. The strength of the blast was described as under 60 kilotonnes, or 60,000 tonnes of TNT.
LONDON (Reuter) -- Hundreds of people protesting against French nuclear testing invaded the grounds of Prime Minister John Major's official country home on Sunday as Major prepared to greet French President Jacques Chirac. . . .
British sources said the accent on this meeting would be on defense.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuter) -- More than 25 nations fired the opening shot Tuesday in their U.N. campaign against nuclear testing by introducing a draft General Assembly resolution aimed at France and China.
The document, circulated in the assembly's disarmament and international security committee, does not mention either country by name but ``strongly deplores'' all current nuclear tests and ``strongly urges'' that they stop immediately.
Norway is the only European sponsor of the draft backed by states from Asia, Latin America and Africa as well as Canada.
Other sponsors include Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Japan, Guatemala, Peru, South Africa, Uruguay, South Korea, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, Bolivia, Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Western Samoa, Solomon Islands, Nicaragua, Mongolia, Guinea, and Indonesia. . . .
Diplomats said another provision in the preamble of the draft was worrying to the nuclear powers because it expressed concern about the ``potential negative effects of underground nuclear testing on health and environment.''
This section, they said, could open nations like the United States to law suits for past tests.
There is now clear evidence that there is considerable alarm in French business circles, notably in vulnerable sectors like wine, food, clothing and cosmetics, as well as armaments. Labour unions in Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific islands have been in the forefront of calls for consumer boycotts and and other economic actions against French interests in the region. French-Australian relations are developing into a trade war. Other countries could follow suit, but this will only have a political impact if the French commercial sector reacts quickly enough. Already pear growers have pelted the Agriculture minister over nuclear testing and falling prices. Wine growers are demanding compensation from the government, and have requested an injunction against Greenpeace to prevent them from taking up the boycott. In several countries there has been a strong response to boycott the `Beaujolais nouveau'. Perfume and champagne manufacturers are worried about the Christmas trade.It is clear that if more tests do go ahead, each of the next few months will provide another opportunity to intensify the protests, and to build a bigger snowball of consumer reaction. Demonstrations may come and go; the boycott is an ideal long-term campaigning tool.
What to boycott? Different groups have different targets. Most popular are wine, cheese, cosmetics and airlines, but some feel strongly we should focus on cars, gasoline and all French government services and nationalised industries, such as Air France, ELF and Renault.
IPB now has various types of lists, available on request:
EACH ORGANISATION MUST MAKE ITS OWN DECISIONS ABOUT THE SCOPE AND METHODS OF THEIR OWN BOYCOTT. THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO WORK TO SPREAD THE MESSAGE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC. IT IS ALREADY BECOMING VERY UNFASHIONABLE IN SOME CIRCLES TO BUY FRENCH. . . .
- a) Contractors: a list of companies engaged in contract work at the Test Site - these need to be heavily targeted, though their products and services are largely technical.
- b) General products and companies: two different lists of over 100 French companies in Australia, and of French companies operatingin Europe. There is an Italian list from Naples.
- c) French companies who have declared themselves against thetests. (`Positive-list') All are urged to give this maximum publicity. We do not wish to alienate our friends.
URGENT - Nouveau Beaujolais the next target!
On Oct 25 the International Peace Bureau issued a call for a worldwide focus on Nouveau Beaujolais as the next stage in the boycott campaign. This is because the product is emblematic of France's export drive and unlike other wines is a perishable commodity. (Text of Press Release available on request). . . .
THE HAGUE (Reuter) -- France urged the International Court of Justice Wednesday to reject a United Nations request for advice on the legality of nuclear weapons.
A French foreign ministry legal official argued that the request was inappropriate and that a nuclear deterrent was key to national self-defense.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuter) -- U.N. members Thursday called for an immediate end to nuclear tests and deplored those already conducted by adopting a resolution aimed at France and China.
The vote in the General Assembly's disarmament and international security committee was 95 in favor, 12 against, with 45 abstentions. The decision means the resolution will be endorsed by the General Assembly next month and Australia wants a higher vote at that time. . . .
U.S. delegate Stephen Ledogar objected to a preambular paragraph on the potential harm to the environment and health he said ``goes too far without relevant evidence.''
PARIS (Reuter) -- France canceled a summit with Italy and postponed one with Belgium Friday in a fit of pique after Rome and Brussels joined most European Union nations in a U.N. vote deploring French and Chinese nuclear weapons testing. . . .
The cancellations were the clearest signs of strain with close allies since France resumed nuclear tests in the South Pacific in September.
A resolution passed Thursday by the U.N. disarmament and international security committee demanded the end of nuclear tests and deplored current tests. . . .
Most of the 12 states who voted with France against the U.N. resolution were former French colonies in Africa.
The indigenous populations in New Kaledonia, after having vegetated in a kind of cultural vacuum for one hundred years, had been colonized by forcible means and made economically more dependent than ever on the "mother-country" at a time when practically all other colonial peoples around the globe have attained independence. The early post-european history does not differ much from elsewhere in the Pacific, with the exception that explorers, whalers and missionaries arrived earlier and in greater number and thus destroyed the indigenous cultures more extensively. Two islands, Tahiti and Moorea, the most fertile ones suffered most. . . .A woman whose husband worked between 1969 and 1974 on Mururoa, explained in 1985 to the European parlamentarian Dorothee Piermont that she had six misscarriages in succession. Shortly after the birth of her seventh child the skin peeled off. Many represantatives from polynesian churches, environmental organizations, political parties, with them the minister for health Jacqui Drollet demanded in august 1988 the establishment of an radiometer-institute under the control of the W H O that should examine coherence between the cancer rates and the nuclear fallout. They also suggested to control regularily the health conditions of the 12000 Maohi people working on Mururoa.
PARIS (Reuter) -- France staged a fourth nuclear test in the South Pacific Tuesday, defying a host of nations which just last week called for an end to its underground blasts. . . .
The latest series of tests broke a 1992 moratorium on French nuclear testing which was declared by Chirac's predecessor, Socialist Francois Mitterrand.
The first in the series took place on Sept. 5, the second on Oct. 2 and the third on Oct. 27.
Chirac has said France will probably stage six tests rather than the eight he originally announced in June. But he denies that the series has been cut short because of the outcry against the tests abroad.