testing in the Pacific.

Other letters: Resumption of nuclear testing in the Pacific.

From Cook Island News, In Rarotonga.

President Chirac, Your arrogance, in the face of world opinion, as displayed by the resumption of your nuclear testing programme at Mururoa is not unexpected.

However, your naivete in not being able to comprehend that the current surge of independence activity by our brothers and sis ters in French Polynesia is unrelated to your tests is truly amaz ing.

Monsieur, you must either have a skin as thick as a rhinoceros or the memory of a rooster - perhaps it is both!

The recent events in French Polynesia represent an almost identical performance to that of your Algeria fiasco of the 19605.

In that decade, Algeria fought your nuclear testing pro gramme. Your Government of the early ’6os polluted Algeria’s Sahara Desert by atmospheric nuclear testing to such an extent that despite the lip service of your French-installed puppet gov ernment, the mass majority of Algerians wanted France out - the rest is history.

However, today, over 30 years on, Algerian activists haunt you with bomb attacks in Paris.

The issues in Papeete today are akin to those in Algeria in the ’6os, only with some significant differences.

In the ’6os the world knew little of the devastating and fatal effects to mankind from radio-active pollution.

Today the long-term harmful effects of the 12,000-year half life span of plutonium are well known. It is for this reason that the world community says a definite NO to your resumption of nuclear testing.

Further, the Algerians fought many a long and hard battle with your best troops and with little support from the world communi ty. And they won. However, Polynesians are basically like us, non-hostile, peace-loving people.

And despite your ever increasing military presence in Papeete, they will throw off your colonial yoke and gain through support and actions of all South Pacific nations and many other countries of the world, including many of your near-European neighbours.

Peter G. Etches

Cook Islands

A New Zealand protester en route to Mururoa.