Just say NON! aux essais nuclaires!
Oct0ber-November 1995
This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
Nuclear nightmare a la carte in the South Pacific
compiled by Howard Stiff
Amidst the current chaos of congressional attacks on the environment and the sell-off of existing national parks and forests to private developers under the guise of "balancing the budget", it is perhaps easy to turn our thoughts to points south, to tropical destinations, in a dreamy effort to escape for a while our society's insatiable greed and destructive folly. However, a quick scan of Internet news covering tropical locales indicates that all is not well in paradise -- largely due to corporate exploitation of the ecology and political interference in the lives of the indigenous populations there.
In the South Seas, for example, the Australian-based transnational mining company BHP is hard at work, daily dumping 80,000 tons of mine tailings into Papua New Guinea's largest river, and buying the sanction of the PNG government to do it. US Freeport, operating a gold & copper mine in Indonesia, is alleged to be involved in numerous human rights atrocities including the recent death-squad massacre of 11 men, women and children who had fled into the hills from their "security officers". While fires burn in the Brazilian rainforest, plans proceed apace for new hydro-electric dams on the Bio Bio and Futaleufu rivers in Chile, and the people of Hawai'i, fighting for their sovereignty, face also the imminent environmental threat of a mega-hydro-project on the Puna Coast. And in Mexico, hot travel destination of many a paddler, military crackdowns by the government perch like a lava dome on a rumbling volcano of civic unrest.
Yet all these pale somehow in relation to the absurdity, arrogance and global danger of French nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific.
France detonated the first of 6 to 8 underground nuclear bomb tests at Mururoa atoll, 1200 km from Tahiti, on September 5, 1995 at 5:30 pm EDT (11:30 am Mururoa). French President Jacques Chirac's decision to resume testing after a 3 year moratorium is widely viewed as a cynical betrayal of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that was leading towards a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. This decision has been condemned by leaders around the world, and the nuclear test has provoked riots and protests throughout the South Pacific community of nations.
The French response to widespread international protest has been to maintain that the decision to resume testing is "irreversible", and to threaten to cut aid to South Pacific countries that are protesting. Said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Yves de Doutriaux: "It would be a pity to risk so much over something that would end in less than a year." The tests will be over in less than a year, but how long will the radioactivity linger in the food chain? When it was suggested to Chirac that the French should do their nuclear testing in France, he replied that Tahiti is French territory. Chirac should realize that Tahiti is the sovereign territory of the Maohi people that was stolen by the French. Chirac's insolence could cause a meltdown of French support in the region and fuel the efforts of the Maohi independence movement.
Background
From 1966 to 1974, 39 atmospheric nuclear test explosions have been performed over Mururoa and 5 more over the smaller, nearby Fangataufa atoll. The overall yield of these atmospheric explosions was 12,000 kilotons of TNT. Finally bowing to public pressure from Pacific and Latin American countries in 1975, France began conducting the tests underground, at a rate of 4 to 11 explosions each year, 3 large-yield explosions at Fangataufa (to avoid serious damage to the rock of Mururoa), and another 120 at Mururoa. The yields of these underground explosions have never been officially released but the total yield is estimated at about 2,500 kilotons TNT.
The underground tests are conducted at the bottom of shafts bored 500-1200 meters into the basalt core of the atoll. Initially these shafts were drilled in the outer rim of the atoll. In 1981, most likely due to the weakening of that rim, the tests with higher yields were shifted to shafts drilled under the lagoon itself. In 1986 all tests were shifted to the lagoon.
Environmental Effects of Tests
Sources of reliable information on the tests and their outcome are extremely limited due to the French military secrecy. Four investigations by scientists, including one by Jacques Cousteau in 1987, were permitted by French authorities. All these missions were extremely restricted in duration (3-5 days), preparation time, access to relevant data, sites and samples of coral and sediment from within the lagoon and atoll.
It is estimated that the amount of radioactive cesium-127 and strontium-90 dispersed in French atmospheric tests were 1.7 million curies and 1.1 million curies respectively. About one-half of the cesium and strontium still remain in the atmosphere, on the ground, and in water bodies.
The possible environmental effects of underground testing include short-term and longterm effects. At the time of the explosion, fracturing of the atoll surface triggers landslides, tsunamis (tidal waves), and earthquakes. There is also evidence to test only six bombs, not eight. A chorus of voices from the Pacific community is saying, "Six more bomb tests is six too many!" It is time that the French end their arrogant disregard for the wishes of people in the South Pacific. The South Pacific is not France's cesspool, as Chirac has declared. The ocean is the source of life for everyone in that region, and many more beyond. The French stupidity may last less than a year, but radioactivity is forever.
International Response
French Polynesia. Riots closed the airport in Tahiti the day after the first bomb test. Oscar Temaru, the leading pro-independence activist in Tahiti, has accused France of covering up evidence of the danger of radiation poisoning at Mururoa atoll. Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior tried to reach Mururoa, but was rammed by a French naval boat and boarded by French military. Ironically, the Rainbow Warrior was in New Zealand for a memorial celebration when the testing decision was announced; it was exactly ten years ago that French agents sank the first Rainbow Warrior, killing a photographer.
Australia. The Australian government has urged that citizens consider boycotting French goods. Protests were held outside French embassies in Canberra and Sydney. A group known as the Pacific Popular Front has claimed responsibility for a fire which destroyed the French consulate in Perth. Australian leader John Howard said "... most Australians regard the idea of nuclear testing ...as grotesque, and the idea that it should take place in our backyard, far away from metropolitan France is an act of great arrogance and great insensitivity..."
New Zealand. Don McKinnon, NZ Foreign Minister referred to Chirac's decision as "Napoleonic arrogance." Back in 1975, NZ took France to the World Court and succeeded in forcing them to conduct nuclear tests underground instead of in the air.
Fiji. In Suva, the Pacific Concerns Resource Center (PCRC) called for a boycott of the South Pacific games held in Tahiti in August, in protest of the French nuclear testing. The PCRC is the international secretariat for a network of nations which support a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP).
Solomon Islands. Government leader Mr. Tausinga said France should know that the South Pacific is not an empty ocean, but is inhabited by people whose lives depend on a clean environment and non-poisonous marine products. Western Samoa. Western Samoa was the first country to officially pull out of the South Pacific Games.
Vanuatu. The Vanuatu government is alone in not condemning the nuclear testing. It has placed a ban on broadcasts on Radio Vanuatu that mention anything in connection with the French nuclear testing.
Hawaii. US President Clinton, while in Honolulu commemorating the anniversary of V-J day in early September, requested that France NOT detonate any bomb tests -- at least while he was in the region, because he "would have to speak out against it" during ceremonies. (Wouldn't want to have to speak out against it, now would we Bill?)
Sources
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