The Greenpeace vessel MV Sirius was ordered to leave harbour and French territorial waters, during a peaceful protest against the departure of the British flagged freighter Pacific Teal from the French port of Cherbourg this afternoon.
Escorted by a military armada of naval vessels, commando inflatables,and helicopters, the British-flagged freighter Pacific Teal departed Cherbourg today at 17h00 CET with its cargo of nuclear weapons-usable plutonium fuel (MOX).
Late yesterday Greenpeace International was informed by its bank in Amsterdam that its bank account had been seized at the request of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL).
"Greenpeace will not be strangled in its peaceful efforts to expose the dangerous and dirty nature of the plutonium industry by this financial terrorism," said Bruno Rebelle, Executive Director of Greenpeace France.
"It is an obscene miscarriage of 'justice' that Greenpeace is under attack rather than the French, British and Japanese governments, who are conducting a massive trade in weapons-usable plutonium and using draconian means to stifle public debate and protest. Clearly, plutonium and democracy do not mix."
The Teal arrived in Cherbourg at 07:00 hrs on Wednesday morning. The loading of the plutonium fuel, contained in four transport containers, plus one empty decoy container, was carried out over 8 hours and was conducted under the protection of military police and special force commandos.
The plutonium shipment, which leaves France despite intense criticism of the state-controlled plutonium industry, departs along a secret route for Japan in the face of rising international criticism of the unsafe, insecure and unnecessary transport. Greenpeace has called the transport a "recipe for disaster" and warned that the Japanese shipment threatens to ignite a "plutonium powder keg" in East Asia.
The shipment sails directly into rising international protest against the dangers posed to enroute nations by the plutonium transport. So far, safety and security concerns have already prompted protests by the Irish, New Zealand, South Korean and 25 governments of the wider Caribbean region (meeting as the Association of Caribbean States-ACS). On July 16, the Heads of State of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) issued a statement in which they stated that they are "particularly outraged at the callous and contemptuous disregard of their appeals by the governments of France, the United Kingdom and Japan to desist from this dangerous misuse of the Caribbean Sea."
This growing controversy mirrors that which occurred in 1992 when over 50 countries around the globe protested a plutonium shipment from France to Japan onboard the ship "Akatsuki Maru". Opposition to that shipment, and subsequent shipments of high level nuclear waste from France to Japan, has lead to demands from enroute nations that they be involved in route planning and receive guarantees of emergency response, salvage and liability coverage.
"Each of these ships will be carrying a quarter of a tonne of plutonium, some 7 tonnes of high explosive ammunition and 1,100 tonnes of fuel oil. This is a recipe for disaster," said Damon Moglen of Greenpeace International. "It is inconceivable that the UK, France and Japan think that they have the right to make these deadly transports through the waters of other sovereign states without any process of consultation. Clearly the transporting countries are only concerned about the well-being of their plutonium programmes."
The Pacific Teal, under naval escort, will now rendezvous with another British-flagged freighter, the Pacific Pintail, also owned by Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd. (PNTL), which is carrying a cargo of 8 MOX fuel elements containing some 225 kilograms of plutonium. The British cargo comes from the state-controlled British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) plutonium factory at Sellafield. The nature and timing of this rendezvous is a carefully kept secret but it is believed that the two ships, under French and British naval escort, will meet somewhere off Cherbourg late this evening. The two lightly armed freighters will then proceed along their secret route without naval escort.
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Greenpeace press office on: 020 7865 8255
