France admission on Moruroa cracks highlight need for an independent study

Suva, Fiji: The admission by French authorities that there are fractures in the coral cone at Moruroa and Fangataufa Atolls throws doubt on many of its other claims about the effects of nuclear testing in French Polynesia.

“After years of secrecy and denials about the environmental impacts of testing, the French Government has had to concede there has been damage to coral” says Greenpeace Pacific commu nications officer Samantha Magick.

The new director of France’s Atomic Energy Commission, Rene Pellet admitted that there are fractures in the atolls after carrying out an inspection of the two sites.

But he has also been reported as saying that no long-term dam age has been done by three decades of nuclear tests.

Greenpeace rejects this. “ (The) admissions lend strength to our argument that there should be a truly independent study done of the test sites. This study should be based on the full release of medical data to the workers concerned in the testing programme and com prehensive geological testing,” says Magick.

“Moruroa is leaking radioactivity now despite assurances from the French Government that no contamination from underground testing would occur for hundreds or thousands of years, if at all.

The oceans will disperse the plutonium and other materials, and Pacific people who depend on the ocean for their economy, identi ty, diet and culture will suffer” says Magick.

Greenpeace is not isolated in its concerns over the testing pro gramme and its legacy. Last year South Pacific Forum leaders expressed concern about the lack of geological detail in an International Atomic Energy Agency study of the test sites.

“The French government appears to be trying to manage the way information is released, in order to play down what they have really done. We need independent studies that will give the full story about the impacts on the environment at Moruroa and Fangataufa. The former workers there deserve to know exactly what risks they now face and what sort of compensation they should be entitled to.”

France conducted 193 'nuclear experiments’ above and under neath Mururoa and Fangataufa between 1966 and 1996. ■