Nuclear comfort
p. 31 · Read in the full issue
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T O N G A
THERE are a number of reasons for France’s insistence on bombing the Pacific Islands. The Military justi fies it by pointing out that actual tests are absolutely required even for developing test simulations.
Strategic considerations, it is said, would remind us that although Russia and an East Bloc are no more, the Middle East is so volatile and unreliable and there may be ill-advised little countries beside that it must be provided for or somehow deterred. And politically France requires to demonstrate her autonomy (a de Gaulle legacy) and proclaim, in no uncertain terms, her vital interests.
The man who can put all this into prac tice just happens to be at the helm at this very moment. And he’s no novice in this game. Chirac, after proclaiming the resumption of the tests, made sure that any negative reaction inside France is neu tralised by initiating talks about the Vichi government which has been a taboo sub ject for a number of years. For showing he has the nerve to do this, Chirac is now regarded as a hero.
But make no mistake about it; the French people themselves are generally against the tests. A 1994 poll showed 72 per cent of the French public are against them and want them to be banned for good if other nations stop theirs. The Tahitians, however, are all for the Bomb because they would all starve to death, etc, if the Bomb Programme is discontinued. And they have always favoured the Conservatives because of their proclaimed anti-Communist policy. But this is normal in an intensely Catholic community.
The French nuclear tests used to be conducted in the Sahara but since Algeria got her independence in 1962 that country has banned the French from that area. And because France can’t do it in her own backyard that leaves her with no other choice but the idyllic islands of her Polynesian territory as the logical sites for
this enterprise.
That, however, is small comfort to the Pacific Islands. For their peoples, it is a matter of life and death, of ghastly defor mities for their children, of strange dis eases for their future generations.
That is why the islanders are protesting.
New Zealand, the Cooks, Samoa the whole lot are blending their voices togeth er. And Australia has come out very strongly against France and the latter
answering by recalling her Ambassador
etc. The issue precipitated a/crisis in the
Fiji parliament over whether a strong protest (urged by the Opposition) or a soft-toned amendment (proposed by the Prime Minister) is to be sent to Paris.
When the amendment was defeated by
two Ministers voting with the Opposition and one abstaining the PM caused one to resign and two to be expelled from Government. Tonga is sending a protest, but no one to be on the ground in Mururoa.
All this may not be enough to cause the French to budge. The people of the Pacific are sacrificeable, are of a different race from the French, and their cultures have no universal appeal like those of Europe.
Japan’s voice would be heard. The US and UK can do a lot if they wanted to. But they are keeping their peace remember their silence before and after the Rainbow Warrior affair?
Yes, the great powers give with one hand (in aid) and take back with the other (in nuclear proliferation). Watch that US ship of death peddling her lethal merchan dise in the Marshalls. And Japanese aid has a strange knack to run back home, except a pittance in low wages for the islanders and a scattering of structures they cannot maintain. But the price of French aid is certainly the acme, the ultimate in duplicity. A