Greenpeace today held a press conference to call on the British Government and its state-owned nuclear reprocessing company, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL) to immediately rescind the freeze on its bank account, and to end plans to expand plutonium fuel (MOX) production at BNFL's Sellafield plant in Cumbria, north England.
The MV Greenpeace - banned from UK waters for three days earlier this week by the UK Government after a plutonium fuel shipment departed from the northern England port of Barrow - sailed up the Thames River today to issue the twin challenge. A large white elephant, a replica of one used by Greenpeace at Barrow to alert the international community to the departure of the plutonium shipment, was towed by barge to the Houses of Parliament with a message to the UK Prime Minister: "Tony Blair, Ban Plutonium Shipments NOT Greenpeace Ships".
At a press conference on board the MV Greenpeace, Greenpeace International Executive Director Mr. Thilo Bode said the on-going freeze on Greenpeace's bank account and the ban on the MV Greenpeace, while lifted on Wednesday, were draconian and anti-democratic measures to stifle public debate and legitimate peaceful opposition. BNFL froze Greenpeace International's bank account after alleging that Greenpeace activities, during the departure of the Pacific Pintail carrying plutonium fuel from the port of Barrow to Japan, had delayed its departure.
Greenpeace said it would be issuing summary proceedings against BNFL in the Dutch courts, following BNFL's failure to meet a Greenpeace request, made yesterday, to lift the freeze on its bank account by this morning. It urged BNFL to drop all legal proceedings against Greenpeace and said BNFL's claim of £0,000 damages was baseless.
"The response of the UK Government and BNFL to Greenpeace's opposition to the transport of 60 nuclear weapons worth of plutonium shows that democracy and plutonium do not mix," Mr. Bode said.
"BNFL cannot win the public debate about the security or necessity of these plutonium shipments, and is instead resorting to aggressive financial and legal tactics to silence legitimate protest," Mr. Bode said. "Such tactics will not deter Greenpeace, and will only increase public opposition to the plutonium shipments from around the world."
Greenpeace called on the UK Government to make an immediate commitment that it would not use such bans in future against Greenpeace or any other body or individual employing peaceful means to protest.
Today is the final day of the Government consultation process for the Authorisation of the Sellafield Mox plant. If the plant is given the go-ahead, dozens of plutonium fuel shipments between the UK and Japan will take place over the next decade. The executive director of Greenpeace UK, Peter Melchett, said the government should immediately stop plans to expand the Sellafield MOX facilitates.
"In the interests of nuclear non-proliferation and democracy, the UK Government must outlaw the separation of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel and ban the commercial trade in nuclear weapons-usable material," Peter Melchett said.
Greenpeace also announced at the Press Conference that it would be sending activists to South Africa, the South Pacific, South Korea and Japan to work with local citizens' groups -- which have already protested against the shipment -- to organise further opposition.
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Greenpeace press office on: 020 7865 8255
