French admiral talks

about his Pacific role

The growing significance of French military activity in the Pacific was underlined by remarks made in Tahiti by Rear-Admiral Gerard de Castel bajac, Commander in Chief of French Armed Forces in the Pacific and Commander of the CEP nuclear test centre.

The admiral spoke to the Tahiti press in late January on the eve of a visit to Noumea and Wellington, one of numerous visits planned as part of France’s drive to sell arms and defence technology in the Pacific.

The January trip coincided with news from Canberra that the Australian Government plans to buy a SASO million navy supply ship from France.

In his Tahiti conference, Admiral de Castelbajac spoke not only of France’s nuclear test centre but of the planned local build-up of a maritime force to police the extended territorial waters to 200 miles. This is a problem likely to be shared by all Island countries in the Pacific area and already at its strategically placed islands in the region France is pre paring to display useful boats for this maritime surveillance task.

Admiral de Castelbajac took up his Tahiti post at the beginning of 1976, after previous service which included Indo-China and training as an air pilot in the USA. Speaking of the nuclear test centre in French Polynesia, the admiral said that after several years of troop reductions around this base, the numbers employed were now likely to stabilise at present levels. This had meant a shifting away from concentra tion in Tahiti and the island of Hao to Mururoa which now had acommunity of 3,000 military and civilians living in single quarters. Personnel on Hao dropped from 2,000 to a few hundred persons and the island’s airfield has been open to commercial traffic since the beginning of this year.

But there has been a new develop ment for the French Navy, the introduction, from January this year of a maritime gendarmerie brigade.

Composed initially of only six gendarmes, this brigade is expected to expand with the growing responsibil ity of surveillance over territorial waters which are scheduled to be

extended to 200 miles about the middle of this year.

Such an extension would bring French Polynesia’s territorial waters up to about five million square kilometres.

The admiral said it was hoped the navy would soon be given sufficient naval and air equipment to carry out this surveillance work. He said it was difficult to fully assess such needs, but the exploitation of the ocean’s resources is opening up a new era in the

economic history of humanity.

Admiral de Castelbajac also spoke of his third role, that of French admiral in the Pacific. This included maintain ing good relations with the naval forces of various countries in the area. The admiral pointed out that in 1976 he had visited the US naval authorities in Hawaii, besides the Australian naval authorities in Sydney and Canberra.

He had also recently received a visit from Vice-Admiral Samuel L.

Gravely, Commander of the US 3rd Fleet, based at Pearl Harbour. This year, the French admiral said, he plans to visit other naval officials in Pacific countries.

The admiral wound up with, “France has been in the South Pacific for a long time. She expects to remain here and make her contributions to the maintenance of peace in this part of the world . . . The increasingly important role played by the sea in national economies, the probable creation of economic sea limits of 200 miles, can only encourage us to play an active and constructive role in this sphere.”