[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 172 (Thursday, November 2, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11754-H11758]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        U.S. ACCESSION TO SOUTH PACIFIC NUCLEAR FREE ZONE TREATY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from American Samoa [Mr. Faleomavaega] is recognized for 60 
minutes.
  Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my deep sense 
of pride and to share with our colleagues and our great Nation an event 
of historic importance to the countries of the Pacific region.
  On Friday, October 20, at the United Nations, the United States, 
France, and Great Britain formally announced they have decided to join 
the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty and will complete signing of 
the protocols to the treaty by mid-1996.
  The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, commonly referred to by 
its acronym ``SPNFZ,'' is known formally as the Treaty of Rarotonga 
since it was signed by the leaders of the Pacific nations on the island 
of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.
  The Treaty of Rarotonga came into force in December 1986 after 
ratification initially by eight countries, thereby establishing the 
South Pacific nuclear free zone to combat nuclear weapons proliferation 
and the reckless disposal of nuclear wastes. Today, 11 Pacific Island 
nations--Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New 
Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Western 
Samoa--are members of the treaty.
  By banning the testing, stationing, manufacturing, and use of nuclear 
weapons in the zone, the Treaty of Rarotonga is a symbol for the 
peoples of the South Pacific, expressing their high level of concern 
regarding nuclear weapons and the possibility of a nuclear disaster in 
the region. The treaty also prohibits parties from dumping radioactive 
waste at sea in the treaty zone, and provides for verification 
safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The treaty 
protocols, in addition to the foregoing, require the nuclear weapon 
states not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons in the zone or 
against any South Pacific signatory of the treaty.
  Mr. Speaker, the South Pacific nuclear free zone covers a vast area 
extending from the western coast of Australia and the Papua New Guinea-
Indonesia border in the west, along the Equator in the north, to the 
boundaries of the Latin American nuclear free zone in the east, and the 
Antarctic nuclear free zone in the south.
  I want to express my deepest appreciation and thanks to President 
Clinton for his decision to support the South Pacific nations in their 
desire to keep the region safe from nuclear destruction. The 
President's global leadership on nuclear nonproliferation, along with 
international outrage over France's resumption of nuclear testing in 
the Pacific, no doubt influenced France and Britain to join America in 
this historic development.
  Mr. Speaker, the Clinton administration has identified nuclear 
proliferation as one of the greatest threats to United States and 
global security. I and many of our colleagues have long argued that to 
enhance U.S. credibility to build international support for successful 
extension of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] and negotiation 
of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty [CTBT], the administration should 
join the nuclear-free zone in the Pacific.
  Mr. Speaker, since the Rarotonga Treaty took effect over 8 years ago, 
the island nations have eagerly sought United States support for a 
nuclear-weapon-free South Pacific. By refusing to sign the treaty, 
however, the United States was increasingly perceived as indifferent to 
the aspirations and concerns of our South Pacific allies--many of whom 
fought at our side during World War I, World War II, the Korean 

[[Page H 11755]]

war, the Vietnam war, and supported United States operations during the 
cold war. Ironically, while the democratic nuclear powers failed to 
act, both Russia and China have long been signatories to the treaty 
protocols.
  There was no good reason for America not to support her Pacific 
allies by joining the Treaty of Raratonga. The treaty advances United 
States nonproliferation objectives without undermining United States 
security policy in the South Pacific, as past administrations have 
conceded while testifying before Congress. The treaty was carefully 
drafted, with considerable input from the Reagan administration, to 
accommodate U.S. interests, including our policy to ``neither confirm 
nor deny'' the presence of nuclear weapons or American warships or 
aircrafts; and it specifically protects free transit through the zone 
by U.S. vessels and planes carrying nuclear weapons.
  The United States already supports nuclear-weapon-free zones around 
the world, and has signed treaties prohibiting nuclear weapons in Latin 
America, the Antarctic, the ocean floor, and outer space. Not long ago, 
the White House lauded Argentina, Chile, and Brazil's entry into the 
Latin America Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, noting the treaty has been a 
critical building block for peace and stability in the Western 
Hemisphere, our backyard, while reinforcing the worldwide 
nonproliferation movement.
  With cessation of the cold war, justification for much of our 
Nation's past reluctance to join the treaty of Rarotonga has 
evaporated. The Soviet nuclear threat in the Pacific no longer exists. 
Instead, the United States and Russia are committed to deep reductions 
in their nuclear arsenals, the United States has removed tactical 
nuclear weapons from its surface fleet, and the prospects for a 
comprehensive test ban treaty are good in 1996.
  Mr. Speaker, in this new postcold-war era of lessened nuclear 
tension, I commend the Clinton administration for heeding the calls for 
assistance by our Pacific allies by signing the protocols of the South 
Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty as part of a comprehensive nuclear 
nonproliferation policy. Joining the treaty of Rarotonga is visible 
proof of America's commitment to continued progress with the indefinite 
extension of the NPT and negotiation of a genuine, zero-yield 
comprehensive test ban treaty.
  Mr. Speaker, in welcoming this action we have pursued with three 
successive administrations, I want to thank and recognize the 
invaluable bi-partisan support of my esteemed colleagues--
Representatives Jim Leach, Lee Hamilton, Ben Gilman, Gary Ackerman, 
Chris Smith, Howard Berman, Doug Bereuter, Tom Lantos, Connie Morella, 
Ron Dellums, Jim McDermott, Pete Stark, Matthew Martinez, Neil 
Abercrombie, Patsy Mink, and Robert Underwood.
  In particular, my former colleagues on the House Asia-Pacific Affairs 
Subcommittee, Chairman Stephen Solarz and Representative Bob 
Lagomarsino, must be recognized for their early and instrumental role 
in laying the foundation for these historic developments. I would also 
thank Dr. Zachary Davis, international nuclear policy analyst with the 
congressional research service, for his excellent service to Congress 
which greatly assisted the decision for U.S. accession to the South 
Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. Last, I would recognize and give 
credit to Ambassador Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of State for 
Asia-Pacific Affairs, for his considerable involvement in the 
President's decision.
  Mr. Speaker, while France has also agreed to accede to the protocols 
of the Rarotonga Treaty by mid-1996, it is apparent the French 
Government still intends to carry out its latest series of nuclear bomb 
detonations in French Polynesia. Clearly, France's accession to SPNFZ 
is meant to supposedly appease the world communitie's great outrage and 
condemnation of their nuclear testing program in the Pacific.
  France should be commended for joining the SPNFZ treaty protocols, 
which clearly entails permanent closure of their testing facilities in 
Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls. However, this should not be construed as 
acceptance of a cheap ``quid pro quo'' that excuses and condones 
France's continued detonation of nuclear bombs that threaten the 
welfare of some 28 million men, women, and children of Oceania. If 
French President Chirac wants to be taken seriously on his commitment 
to the treaty of Rarotonga, he should terminate immediately all 
testing.
  Mr. Speaker, I would call upon our colleagues and the international 
community to further increase pressure on France to cease this insane 
and deplorable and reckless nuclear testing in the Pacific which is 
inconsistent with the spirit of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone 
Treaty.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a little newspaper article that says, the 
photos show cracks in the nuclear test site. Well, these photos were 
taken by he famous oceanographer Jacques Cousteau in the testing 
program or the study that he conducted in 1987.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit to my colleagues and to the American people, 
there are cracks on the Moruroa Atoll and nothing could convince me 
otherwise. Mr. Speaker, if you have exploded 165 nuclear bombs and 
there is one atoll in this volcano, something has got to give. The 
great President Chirac is going to explode six more nuclear bombs on 
this same atoll and the French are saying, it is OK, everything is all 
right. Not so, Mr. Speaker. Since 1986 the Jacques Cousteau report 
indicates cracks of about 9 to 10\1/2\ feet wide and several miles 
long.

                              {time}  1745

  Yet, the French military officials continue to deny that this atoll 
is full of contamination, nuclear contamination, I submit. It has been 
estimated that this atoll probably has the equivalence of 10 Chernobyls 
all packed in this volcano.
  Mr. Speaker, I can just imagine if the leaks and the cracks start 
coming out of this volcano, it is going to go right into the Pacific 
Ocean. Not only is it going to affect the health and the lives and the 
safety of some 200,000 people who live in these islands, the 28 million 
people that live in the Pacific region are going to be affected.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask the good people of Japan, in their conscience on a 
voluntary basis, since we cannot get the governments to agree on this, 
that on behalf of some 290,000 Japanese men, women, and children who 
died as a result of nuclear explosions, that maybe they should send a 
message to France by not purchasing French wine, French products, or 
goods. That way, President Chirac will get the message that he does not 
need to explode 6 more nuclear bombs to improve his nuclear mechanism, 
or whatever trigger he needs to do to provide for his arsenal of 
nuclear weapons.
  Mr. Speaker, what hypocrisy, the height of hypocrisy, that here the 
most industrialized countries, democratic, that we outlaw germ warfare 
and chemical and biological warfare and yet it is all right to explode 
nuclear bombs. I am absolutely at a loss on how we are so very much 
wanting to get rid of this, and yet we have nuclear bombs ready made 
and available if that crisis ever comes.
  Thank God, we never had to explode one bomb during the cold war. 
These weapons are ready made and available to kill not one or two 
people. No, we want to kill them by the hundreds and thousands at a 
time. That is what nuclear Holocaust means.
  Mr. Speaker, the concern these people have living on these islands, 
all they want to do is live as a people. They would like to fish from 
the ocean, knowing that the ocean is free of any contamination, 
especially nuclear at that. That is all they are asking for.
  I want to express my sincere appreciation to the chairman of our Asia 
Pacific Subcommittee on the Committee on International Relations, the 
gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] and also the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Berman] the ranking member. We are going to hold a 
hearing on this issue next week, and we are going to find out exactly 
what the situation is, because the United States is also a Pacific 
State.
  This is what bears the slight difference that we have here, Mr. 
Speaker. France is 14,000 miles away from the Pacific. France is not a 
Pacific State. We have got these States like California, Oregon, and 
Washington State right along the Pacific coast. Also the State of 
Hawaii. I sure hope to God 

[[Page H 11756]]

that this will never happen, but there have been estimates made to the 
effect that if there is to be leakages and contamination coming out of 
this volcano that the French have been exploding nuclear bombs in for 
the past 20 years, and if these leakages should come out it would 
affect the lives of American citizens living in the territories of 
American Samoa, Guam, and how about the State of Hawaii or California, 
or maybe even Oregon and Washington?
  Mr. Speaker, the Humboldt Current does not stand still. It tends to 
move. We do not live in a stagnant pool of water. The Pacific Ocean is 
constantly moving. There are earthquakes and tidal waves. Any time 
there is something going on underneath there, we have these disasters.
  I would venture to say, Mr. Speaker, that these atomic bomb 
explosions that the French Government continues to do in the Pacific 
will definitely have a tremendous impact on the lives of the people 
that live in the Pacific.
  So, while President Chirac, as I have said this before and I will say 
it again, while President Chirac is sitting in his palace in Paris 
drinking his sweet French wine, we the people in the Pacific are going 
to be catching hell from this volcano that is the equivalent of several 
Chernobyls in there. That is not a comforting thought for people of the 
Pacific who have been given this kind of present from President Chirac 
who lives 14,000 miles away from the Pacific.
  Mr. Speaker, I would sincerely hope that our President and the 
Congress would seriously look at this situation and not take for 
granted the disaster that we could be facing with this atoll, this 
volcanic atoll that is already as full of contamination, of nuclear 
contamination.
  I know that passively we say it is all right. It is thousands of 
miles away. Mr. Speaker, I submit that it is not too far away if that 
volcano does start to crack and there are leakages, contamination 
coming out of there, and it gets into the life cycle, gets into the 
plankton, the fish, and all forms of marine life.

  We are the ones who are going to be the recipients of something that 
I do not even want to describe. I sincerely hope that President Chirac 
will seriously look at the seriousness of the problem of exploding six 
more nuclear bombs.
  I understand quite imminently President Chirac is going to explode 
another nuclear bomb in the South Pacific, despite the outrage of 160 
countries in the world; despite the fact that 60 percent of the people 
in France do not want him to conduct nuclear testing.
  Perhaps he should pay a little more attention to the unemployment 
problem that he is facing in France. Perhaps he should be paying a 
little more attention to the problems in Algeria, rather than looking 
at doing more harm by conducting this insane practice of exploding more 
nuclear bombs, putting at risk the safety and the lives and the health 
of the people in the Pacific. I think it is absolute arrogance on the 
part of President Chirac to do this and I think he should stop.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the Record:

             [From the Honolulu Advertiser, Oct. 12, 1995]

                  Photos Show Cracks Under N-Test Site


               france denies fissures exist beneath atoll

       Paris.--Raising new questions about the safety of French 
     nuclear tests, a newspaper published photos yesterday that it 
     says show cracks in one of the South Pacific atolls where the 
     underground explosions took place.
       Ouest-France said the photos contradict government claims 
     that the tests caused no damage to Mururoa Atoll in French 
     Polynesia.
       Critics say the nuclear tests could cause the atoll to 
     break apart, spewing radioactivity into the water and air in 
     what many consider to be one of the world's last paradises.
       The government denied a similar report last week in the 
     respected daily Le Monde.
       Ouest-France said the photos were taken in 1987 and 1988 by 
     a diver several dozen yards under the Mururoa Lagoon. The 
     cracks are about 9 to 10\1/2\ feet wide and several miles 
     long, the newspaper said.
       It did not reveal the photographer's identity or say who he 
     was working for.
       Normally only military personnel and scientists working on 
     the French nuclear program have access to the isolated atoll, 
     750 miles southeast of Tahiti.
       After the Le Monde report, French Foreign Minister Herve de 
     Charette told the National Assembly that ``no crack of any 
     sort has ever been discovered'' on the atoll.
       French Atomic Energy Commission experts said some fractures 
     were created by the first tests carried out directly under 
     Mururoa's reef. But they said there had been no further 
     cracks since tests were moved to the middle of the lagoon.
       France has exploded two nuclear devices in the South 
     Pacific since President Jacques Chirac announced the 
     resumption of the nuclear testing last June after a three-
     year moratorium.
                                                                    ____


             [From the Honolulu Advertiser, Oct. 14, 1995]

                   Nobel Peace Winner Attacks N-Tests

       London.--In the New Mexico desert during World War II, 
     young Polish physicist Joseph Rotblat worked on the Manhattan 
     Project that built the first atomic bomb. Ever since, he has 
     campaigned tirelessly and often controversially to keep the 
     genie of mass destruction from escaping again.
       Yesterday, Rotblat and the loose association of maverick 
     scientists he heads divided the $1 million 1995 Nobel Peace 
     Prize.
       At a news conference in London, the 86-year-old Rotblat 
     lost no time in launching a new attack on the French and 
     Chinese, calling their recent nuclear tests outrageous.
       He said French President Jacques Chirac had begun a series 
     of tests in the South Pacific ``because he is a true 
     Gaullist, and he learned from Gen. (Charles) de Gaulle that a 
     sign of greatness is to have nuclear weapons.''
       Asked what message he would give to Chirac, he said: ``Stop 
     being a Gaullist, and try being a human being. I hope he will 
     perhaps have one more test and then stop.''
       Meanwhile, he said, protests against the tests should 
     continue. He said he hoped the award would be ``a message not 
     only to the French but to the Chinese as well.''
       The Norwegian Nobel Committee saluted Rotblat, a British 
     subject since 1946, and the Pugwash Conferences on Science 
     and World Affairs for their efforts ``to diminish the part 
     played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the 
     longer run to eliminate such arms.''
       ``I hope the recognition will help other scientists to 
     recognize their social responsibility,'' said Rotblat.
       Rotblat, professor emeritus of physics at the University of 
     London, fled to England as a refugee after losing his wife in 
     the Holocaust. He worked on developing the atomic bomb with 
     American scientists at Los Alamos, N.M., but quit the project 
     late in the war, believing that defeat-bound Germany had 
     scrapped its own atomic plans. ``The only reason I started in 
     1939 was to stop Hitler using it against us,'' Rotblat said.
       He said he was devastated when the United States dropped 
     bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ``The whole idea of making 
     the bomb by us was that it should not be used.''
                                                                    ____


                [From the New York Times, Oct. 11, 1995]

        A Day of Discontent in France as Public Employees Strike

                         (By Craig R. Whitney)

       Paris, Oct. 10.--Trains ran sporadically or not at all, 
     buses and subways limped, garbage rotted uncollected and 20-
     mile traffic jams clogged highways across France today as 
     more than half of the five million public-sector employees 
     went on a one-day strike.
       The strike was against a Government budget to freeze state 
     payrolls next year as part of a plan to cut a swollen 
     deficit.
       Prime Minister Alain Juppe has pledged to cut the 
     Government deficit in half by 1997 as he will have to do 
     under the terms of a European Union treaty if France is to 
     qualify to join a common European currency by the end of the 
     century. So far only Germany appears likely to meet all the 
     terms, and currency speculators who doubted France could meet 
     its targets drove the value of the franc down against the 
     German mark in recent trading until the French national bank 
     took action to support it on Monday.
       ``We want to make the Government rescind the freeze,'' said 
     Jean-Rene Masson, one of tens of thousands of union-led 
     demonstrators who marched through Paris today in protest, 
     part of the biggest national manifestation of discontent 
     since the mid-1980's.
       Mr. Masson seemed to think it would have the desired 
     effect. ``After 1996, we'll be in a pre-election period 
     again, and I would be very much surprised if the Government 
     didn't give us all a raise then anyway,'' he said.
       The Government's main problem is one all continental 
     Western European countries have: How to keep the comfortable 
     post-World War II welfare state routines of annual raises 
     above the rate of inflation, unlimited health insurance and 
     unemployment benefits, and state-supported pension systems 
     from throttling the economic competitiveness they need to 
     create jobs and stay prosperous in the 21st century.
       Despite the inconvenience of today's strike, more French 
     taxpayers seemed to want the Government off the strikers' 
     backs than off their own. One national public opinion poll 
     published in Le Parisien showing 57 percent of the sample 
     supporting the public employees in their battle with the 
     Government. Another poll showed 47 percent supporting the 
     strikers.
       For Mr. Juppe, the lesson of all this may have been to make 
     sure you've tightened your own belt before you tell other 
     people to tighten theirs.
       Prosecutors are now considering whether to charge him with 
     malfeasance for obtaining below-market leases on city-owned 

[[Page H 11757]]

     apartments in choice Paris neighborhoods for himself and his 
     son when he was Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of 
     supervising city public housing for Mayor Jacques Chirac in 
     the early 1990's. Mr. Chirac became President and named Mr. 
     Juppe Prime Minister in May.
       Mr. Juppe denied any wrongdoing and dismissed rumors that 
     he planned to resign, but he announced last Friday night that 
     he and his children would soon vacate their bargain 
     apartments.
       Mr. Juppe announced his plan for a general wage freeze for 
     Government employees on Sept. 1, after rejecting a call by 
     his first Finance Minister, Alain Madelin, to take a look at 
     the pension benefits for public servants, which can amount to 
     up to 96 percent of their basic salaries.
       The system was breaking even in 1993 and will require $14.2 
     billion from Government coffers this year. But laying a hand 
     on it has long been taboo and so Mr. Madelin handed in his 
     resignation on Aug. 25 and was replaced by Jean Arthuis. 
     ``It's not by deploring social gains that we will bring about 
     conditions for greater solidarity,'' Mr. Juppe said then.
       He later proposed a budget that raised general sales taxes 
     on most goods and services to 20.6 percent, and promised to 
     hold the deficit to 5 percent of Gross Domestic Product this 
     year, with a target of less than 3 percent in 1997.
       The 25-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
     Development commented in a study of the French economy last 
     month: ``Additional measures, especially in terms of 
     continuing health care reform, are likely to be needed in 
     order to achieve the assumed expenditure restraint. There is 
     a clear need to pursue reforms of the social security system 
     vigorously.''
       Now, doubts persist whether either Mr. Chirac or Mr. Juppe 
     has the nerve to continue telling the French that they have 
     to wean themselves from what the Government and business 
     leaders call excesses of the comprehensive European 
     welfare state.
       For a President and a Government who came to office 
     pledging to reduce France's chronically high unemployment 
     rate--now 11.5 percent--by cutting back Government spending 
     and reducing the burdens that state-run social security and 
     health insurance systems impose on employers, the power of 
     today's strike and the public reaction to it were not good 
     omens. Advisers to Mr. Chirac say that he is worried about 
     the possibility of an outburst of social unrest like the 1968 
     riots that doomed his mentor, Charles de Gaulle. Mr. Chirac 
     was Prime Minister during the last big wave of student 
     demonstrations, in 1986.
       Students and school administrators made up a good deal of a 
     four-hour parade of strikers that wound its way across Paris 
     today from the Place de la Bastille, site of the prison 
     destroyed in the French Revolution, to the Church of St. 
     Augustin.
       Mr. Masson, the labor protester, said that French unions 
     were willing to talk with the Government about reducing 
     working hours. ``We're even ready to discuss salaries with 
     them,'' he said. But he expressed horror at the idea that 
     five to six weeks; annual vacation for beginning employees 
     might not be sacrosanct, in a country where the first week of 
     August is normally referred to as ``the departure'' and the 
     last week of that month as ``the return.''
       ``Vacations are untouchable,'' he said.
                                                                    ____


             [From the Honolulu Advertiser, Oct. 12, 1995]

                      A Hostage to Nuclear Testing

                        (By Carl T.C. Gutierrez)

       Agana, Guam.--Why is France testing its nuclear devices 
     under an obscure atoll halfway around the world from Paris? 
     Because it can.
       France can put the lives of its Polynesian people in 
     jeopardy because it is a colonial power with absolute control 
     over the approximately 200,000 French citizens living in the 
     South Pacific paradise. If the heat gets too bad in French 
     Polynesia, France need only look to another of its colonies, 
     New Caledonia, for another area to explode nuclear devices 
     that the people of Paris would never allow to be detonated 
     anywhere close to their city.
       The nuclear testing actually highlights two real problems 
     that need real solutions: (1) As President Clinton has 
     proposed, there should be an immediate and absolute ban on 
     all nuclear testing, and (2) there should be another cry, 
     just as loud, for an end to absolute colonial control by 
     superpowers over the islands they possess.
       Nuclear testing is not a horror being practices only by 
     France. China has also exploded devices, but these tests did 
     not receive the worldwide outcry the French Polynesian 
     explosion prompted.
       The issue of the superpowers using their colonies for their 
     own interests deserves equal billing with the nuclear issue. 
     No matter how much ``paradise'' you put into the equation, 
     use and misuse of island possessions by colonial powers is 
     still a violation of basic human rights.
       I am the governor of an American colony: Guam. We, like the 
     people of French Polynesia, have a great deal of our lives 
     controlled by our governing ``benefactors.'' Unlike the 
     Tahitians, we do not have to deal with the billion-year 
     ``half-life'' of nuclear testing. But we could. The people of 
     Guam live every day with the realization that important 
     decisions affecting their lives are made in Washington. Laws 
     on shipping, endangered species. ``land grabs,'' immigration 
     inundation and the exploitation of our waters are all 
     decisions in which we cannot participate. In fact, these 
     decisions are made for us without any semblance of a 
     democratic process.
       Our people have asked Congress to hold hearings on our 
     political status. We have had a Commonwealth Draft Act 
     begging for attention for nearly a decade but have yet to 
     have our day in Congress. President Clinton has shown his 
     support for Guam by appointing a series of commonwealth 
     negotiators to review the draft act and submit a position to 
     the president. We hope Congress will show the same kind of 
     commitment to the American citizens living in Guam by 
     listening to our pleas for a voice in how our islands will be 
     governed.
       Two hundred and nineteen years ago, the people living in 
     the British colony of America threw off the yoke of imperial 
     rule. After nearly 100 years of colonial rule by the United 
     States, Guam is asking for the same rights the Founding 
     Fathers of the United States demanded. It is the basic right 
     of all people to have a say in how their lives, and the lives 
     of their children, are lived.
                                                                    ____


                  [From the Samoa News, Oct. 30, 1995]

            World Condemns France's Latest Nuclear Bomb Test

       Paris.--Denouncing France's latest nuclear test, Greenpeace 
     activists swamped the main post office Saturday with tons of 
     petitions addressed to President Jacques Chirac.
       Worldwide, nations harshly condemned the underground blast 
     Friday on Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia--France's third 
     nuclear test in a series that began in September. The day 
     before the blast, Chirac said there probably would be six 
     tests in all--scaled down from eight originally planned.
       In Paris, a group of about 50 Greenpeace activists took the 
     city's main post office near the Louvre by surprise 
     Saturday--depositing what the group said was two and a half 
     tons of protest petitions with 7 million signatures. The 
     packages of letters, sent by registered mail, were all 
     addressed to Chirac at the Elysee Palace.
       The hundreds of packages amounted to a huge headache for 
     postal workers, who must process the mail free of charge. In 
     France, no postage fees are required for letters to the 
     president.
       ``We expected Chirac to finally listen to the world 
     protest. Apparently he is deaf to that, so we condemned it 
     and here behind me are 7 million witnesses who are, together 
     with us, very angry,'' said Greenpeace spokeswoman Fransce 
     Verdeuzeldonk, from the group's Dutch office.
       Police had prevented Greenpeace activists from delivering 
     some of the petitions to Chirac's office in September, so the 
     group decided to dump it all at the post office--thus 
     guaranteeing they would reach the Elysee Palace.
       As police looked on Saturday, the activists unloaded the 
     packages from six cars and a van and brought them into the 
     post office, where officials scrambled to accommodate 
     the mountains of mail by opening a special booth.
       The signatures were collected in about 30 countries ``from 
     Japan to Colombia,'' said Greenpeace spokesman Jean-Luc 
     Thierry.
       In Japan, protesters gathered Saturday at Nagasaki's Peace 
     Park, where the world's second atomic attack after Hiroshima 
     was centered in World War II.
       Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama called the test 
     ``extremely regrettable.'' Foreign Minister Yohei Kono 
     summoned the French ambassador to ask for an official 
     explanation.
       Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating said the testing had 
     seriously damaged France's international reputation. His 
     government delivered a formal protest to the French 
     ambassador Saturday.
       In Sydney, a Paris-bound Air France jetliner from New 
     Caledonia was grounded after Australian airport workers 
     refused to refuel it until Sunday to protest the blasts.
       Paris ``seems impermeable to world opinion,'' New Zealand 
     Prime Minister Jim Bolger said.
       Iermia Tabai, who heads the 16-nation South Pacific Forum, 
     denounced how France uses ``our backyard to test nuclear 
     weapons, putting at risk the Pacific environment and the 
     health of Pacific peoples, not their own.''
       The United States, Russia, Norway, Sweden, South Korea and 
     Belgium all said they regretted France's decision to set off 
     another blast.
       A French Foreign Ministry official, speaking on customary 
     condition of anonymity, said the government wouldn't comment 
     on the latest worldwide barrage of criticism.
       But Paris appears unphased by the outcry.
       ``The program provides for one test per month,'' Jacques 
     Baumel, vice-president of the French parliament's defense 
     committee, was quoted as saying in Saturday's editions of Le 
     Parisien newspaper.
       Chirac has pledged to halt all tests by next spring, then 
     sign a global test ban treaty. France says the testing is 
     needed to develop computer simulations, thus making more 
     tests unnecessary.
       There was little reaction in France to the latest blast. 
     The Green party and former environmental minister Segolene 
     Royal denounced it. The conservative Rally for the Republic 
     party, the senior partner in the government coalition, 
     announced its support.
       Britain so far is the only country to show sympathy for 
     France's nuclear testing. In an interview published Saturday 
     by the Paris 

[[Page H 11758]]

      daily Le Monde, British Prime Minister John Major said the 
     decision by Chirac was ``difficult to take'' and that he was 
     sure Chirac ``did it because he was persuaded he had to.''
       Friday's blast was about 60 kilotons, the equivalent of 
     60,000 tons of TNT, or three times the force of the bomb that 
     destroyed Hiroshima.
       The Australian Geological Survey said it packed the punch 
     of a magnitude-5.6 earthquake.
       Governments and environmental groups across the globe have 
     condemned France for breaking a 1992 moratorium on nuclear 
     tests. All nuclear powers except China had adhered to the 
     moratorium.
       The first test was conducted Sept. 5 beneath the same 
     atoll, 750 miles southeast of Tahita. A second blast was set 
     off Oct. 2 beneath neighboring Fangataufa Atoll. Rioting 
     broke out in Papeete, capital of French Polynesia, when the 
     first bomb was detonated. The city was quiet Saturday.

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