France was testing nukes in the South Pacific. The testing was over the top though, Greenpeace were protesting the tests. I despise Greenpeace as much as most of you guys, imho they're just another "corporate" charity feeding of peoples fears and pity. However, there is no excuse for bombing their shipping, let alone taking the life of someone. Oh the irony of this with the recent riots.
Anyway, heres the low down on their testing...
French nuke test legacy: Mururoa's sickness toll
29 October 2005
By MICHAEL FIELD
Unexpectedly high levels of radioactive contamination are being discovered in French Polynesia nearly a decade after nuclear testing ended on Mururoa Atoll, the territory's president Oscar Temaru says.
Up to five people a day are being sent to private hospitals in Auckland for diagnosis and treatment for what may be radiation-related illnesses, officials say.
Mr Temaru has accused the French Government of a continuing, high-level cover-up over the health and environmental consequences of the testing.
"We have a lot of health problems," he said while flying to Auckland from Papua New Guinea with Prime Minister Helen Clark on a Royal New Zealand Air Force flight. Mr Temaru was an observer at this week's Pacific Forum summit.
Though France preferred such patients to be sent to Paris, it was cheaper and closer to send them to New Zealand, an official travelling with Mr Temaru said.
France conducted 41 atmospheric nuclear tests over the Tuamotu atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa between 1966 and 1974.
It followed these up with 134 underground nuclear tests at the same testing sites between 1975 and 1991. Eight more tests took place in 1995 and 1996.
AdvertisementAdvertisementIn July, Mr Temaru set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the tests and it was due to report back next month.
But he said the French Ministry of Defence was refusing to cooperate with the commission and was keeping secret files in Paris while insisting that Mururoa and Fangataufa remain off limits.
He believed it was covering up serious, continuing health problems.
"I witnessed what happened to the atoll of Mururoa," he said. "It is still forbidden to go to Mururoa."
Outside experts, including specialists from Japan, had looked at the situation but were being denied access to crucial health statistics.
Mr Temaru said that the commission was doing its best.
"One of them (commission members) told me they found out very strange, very high levels of contamination from the atoll of Tureia."
The data had to be analysed in France but Mr Temaru said people did not know what was going on.
"We need a neutral organisation to come to Tahiti, and France should open those secret archives and tell us why they are still secret."
Tureia, 115 kilometres northeast of Mururoa, has about 100 people living on it. It is the closest resident population to the test sites.
Inquiry commission head Tea Hirshon said the aim was to make a precise assessment of the effects of nuclear tests on the environment and the health of the Polynesians. "The major question put forth was to know whether or not the Mangarevans still live in a contaminated environment."
Tahitipresse reported last week that Bruno Chareyron, head of the independent French Commission on Radioactivity Research and Information, was unable to say whether there is or was radioactivity on Mangareva, in the Gambier Islands.
At the inquiry hearing on Mangareva, 450 kilometres southeast of Mururoa, witnesses talked of "an accident" on July 2, 1966, after which the French military bought vegetables in Papeete instead of locally and talked about children being covered with wounds after an atmospheric test codenamed "Aldebaran".
A witness also told of an important French military official coming to the island and leaving abruptly after a test.
