Tahitians Cop It Over

French Bomb Tests

Tahiti didn’t turn up for the South Pacific Festival of Arts in May, although it had originally planned to send a team of dancers.

But “ban the bomb” protest ban ners and a protest march through Suva helped keep Tahiti’s image alive. The French Government is to begin a new series of nuclear tests in the Pacific in mid-June.

During the opening of a traditional village for the festival at the University of the South Pacific, Suva, groups of placard toting students stood around, and banners adorned the campus, reading “Pompidog don’t bomb us, bomb Paris” and “Where is the French conscience Stop testing now”, and “France cares nothing for the survival of the Pacific peoples”.

NZ Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister, Sir Keith Holyoake, in Fiji for the festival, said he and Fiji’s Prime Minister had discussed France’s bomb plans, but it was difficult for the Pacific countries to agree on a practical way of carrying protests further. NZ had closed its borders to ships or aircraft connected with the tests, he added.

Prince Tui’pelehake, Premier of Tonga, agreed in Suva that group protests might prove more effec

live than individual protests, and commented, “I think criticism should come from a more power ful group. The first protest from any small country should come from Tahiti ... 1 have not heard Tahiti making any protests at all.”

Which was unfair to Tahiti. The French Polynesia Territory As sembly has protested vigorously in the past, and in Auckland in May on a visit, Mr. Francis Sanford, French Polynesia’s deputy in the French National Assembly, said, “We don’t like the tests at all.

The French people wouldn’t like it if they did the tes!s in Corsica”.

He said France should have offered French Polynesia a referendum before the tests, Mr. Sanford, who is a leader of the autonomy movement in French Polynesia, added that French Polynesia would seek self government this year, taking the demand to the UN if necessary.

In Suva it was popularly sup posed that the bomb tests had something to do with the French decision not to send a delegation to the festival, but the truth was that a budget allocation was knocked on the head, much to the anger of many Polynesians who felt the expenditure was worth while.

A banner at Suva's anti-bomb demonstration.