The next item deals with statements on nuclear testing by France. I call on the Leader to clarify the time arrangements.
French Nuclear Testing: Statements
Acting Chairman
By agreement, statements will be limited to five minutes per speaker. It was intended that each group will be limited to one speaker. However, I do not foresee a problem if other Members wish to contribute.
I congratulate the Leader and the Whips for arranging this debate. The nuclear tests which France proposes to carry out in the South Pacific have come as a complete surprise to most people. It is my view that, in deciding to proceed with these tests, President Chirac is making a major mistake. It is regrettable that these tests are being carried out at this particular time. It is an arrogant and stupid decision.
We should cast our minds back to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the establishment of democracy across Europe and the end of the Cold War. People throughout the world heaved a sigh of relief. However, we are now faced with a retrograde step. I am appalled at such a decision. I am pleased that the Taoiseach and Tánaiste have issued strong statements criticising and protesting against this decision.
A partial test ban treaty was signed in 1963 which banned all atmospheric tests. It was signed by the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. Regrettably China and France did not sign that treaty. France has continued to carry out tests in the intervening years. I regret that. The French are members of the European Union and as such are our partners. However, this is an act of aggression, particularly against the people living in that area.
There are a number of worrying points in connection with this. Records are not being kept on the effects of nuclear testing on people living in the area. In Tahiti most doctors are attached to French military personnel and a record has not been kept of the damage, suffering and deaths caused by the tests and explosions which have been carried out.
This is a most serious matter. Irish people should write to the French ambassador and the Government should continue to protest in the strongest possible manner so that the people of France are aware of the sentiments of our people on this matter.
In the French magazine Infomatin, a commentator. Marc Jezegabel, said the timing of the announcement — just before Mr. Chirac's first grand appearances on the international stage — was a “Gaullist inspiration”. He also stated the decision sent a message that France was still a great power, a nuclear power. Anybody who has to show off his strength in this aggressive manner is nothing other than a bully trying to intimidate people.
There is no necessity for these tests now. The real danger is that once one country resumes these tests, other countries may feel obliged to follow. That Russia, China and some western countries may follow this bad example is a cause for concern. We should make certain the French Government is aware of the strong feelings of this House against these tests.
I am glad this matter was raised on the Order of Business because it is of grave concern. In the last few years we expected the major countries would adopt a programme of decommissioning weapons of mass destruction. There cannot be a more dangerous weapon of mass destruction than a nuclear weapon. Nobody knows what will happen when one is exploded. Yesterday we discussed problems in East Timor an area not too far away from the region about which we are talking. There 200,000 people were killed but not by weapons of mass destruction.
The Mururoa Atoll is like a necklace. It has been fatally harmed over the years by the tests conducted by the French. Their arrogant colonial attitude is the same as that of any other colonial power. I was glad to see Mr. Gerry Collins, MEP, on the news last night criticising the attitude of the French to the resumption of nuclear tests on the Mururoa atoll.
Australia and New Zealand have suggested they will freeze all defence contacts with the French Government. Why do Australia and New Zealand need to buy arms from France, an international supplier of arms, particularly to parts of Africa where enormous numbers of people are being killed? The French, as members of the EU, continue to condemn atrocities all over the world but still want to supply arms on a commercial basis. The British do not have a great record in this area. It has been proved irrefutably that they supplied arms to both sides during the Iran-Iraq war. They have cancelled some of their contracts but have not withdrawn from the armament supply industry. The nuclear powers have not agreed to a moratorium on the elimination of nuclear arms but said they would pursue in good faith the elimination of all such weapons. However, they are still part of the supply mechanism to kill people.
We must join with our friends in the southern hemisphere, the Prime of Minister of Australia, Mr. Paul Keating and the New Zealand foreign Minister, Mr. Don McKinnon, who have unreservedly said that these tests should be stopped. The Japanese and the Americans have suggested the French should think again. The G7 is meeting in Nova Scotia in the next few days. I sincerely hope at this meeting the French will be told to stop these tests immediately.
The headline of the editorial in The Guardian newspaper is “A South Pacific Cloud”. Unfortunately, this is not the sort of cloud we have over Ireland on even a beautiful day like today. The cloud to which that editorial refers is the cloud of a nuclear destruction and a nuclear bomb.
In this House and in whatever fora are available to us we should urge that instruments of mass destruction are eliminated. If this is not done they will impact on future generations. We utterly abhor and must criticise what the French have suggested they intend to do. The pursuit of good faith in the elimination of nuclear weapons is not enough. We want the elimination of them.
I welcome the opportunity to make statements on this crazy decision by the French to restart testing on the small Mururoa Atoll. It should concern every public representative and citizen concerned about peace and world stability. When one compares the period of peace we have had over the last eight months with the decision of the French to start nuclear testing in September, it should concern us all. It is an outrageous decision which beggars belief and goes totally against the type of peaceful politics which now dominate the world agenda. France is not facing a security threat that we know of, so on that account alone the decision is inexplicable. It tells us more about domestic and internal French politics than about its external relations. Undoubtedly, the recent change of Government in France seems to have brought about a sharp change in its foreign and military policy which is out of step with current thinking.
In one fell swoop, the French have plunged themselves back into the thinking and actions which dominated world politics in the Cold War era and it is not surprising that the French decision has been met with anger and worldwide disapproval.
I welcome the statement issued yesterday by the Tánaiste and Minster for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Spring, who expressed deep concern at the announcement that France intends to resume nuclear testing later this year. The Tánaiste rightly said the decision would be viewed as a setback to the efforts to bring about an early and complete ban on nuclear testing. Indeed, the French decision is puzzling in the light of the recent non-proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference in New York which decided to conclude a comprehensive test ban treaty no later than the end of next year. The conference also called on countries to exercise restraint, but it seems the French have paid little heed to this call.
The reaction by the Australian and New Zealand Governments to the French decision is understandable. The New Zealand Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, said the French had shown New Zealand the "two fingers" in this display of military arrogance. He was right to say the action of the French Government runs counter to the decision of the New York conference.
In addition, France seems totally oblivious to any possibility of environmental danger from renewed testing. It disregarded the claims by environmental groups that the rock bases of Mururoa are being shattered by explosions and further damaged by leaking radiation. There are serious environmental, health and safety issues concerned with this type of weapons testing which the French seem to be ignoring.
I welcome the commitment of our Government to a complete abolition of nuclear weapons. In addition, Ireland supports an end to testing nuclear weapons everywhere, for all time. We also wish to see an end to the production and stockpiling of materials for use in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
I now call on the French Government to reconsider its decision in the light of the outcry from southern Pacific and other European countries. This decision goes against all current thinking in world politics. In the interests of peace and stability, I ask France to please consider this potentially dangerous decision.
I join in the condemnation, which appears to be international, of the decision by the French Government to resume nuclear testing. What is most extraordinary is that this appears to be for French domestic consumption to show that it is a nuclear power and has a place on the world scene. If President Chirac felt that way, why was this pledge to renew nuclear testing not at the top of his presidential manifesto? The result in the recent French Presidential election was extremely close. Would some of those voters have been swayed if they had known that France was to resume nuclear testing? I think some of them might have been. Therefore, he is there under a false premise if he did not explain to his own people what he intended to do, even when he came to office. The Chinese became involved in nuclear testing and now the French also want to conduct nuclear tests.
It is right that Ireland should make such strong public condemnations of the resumption of nuclear testing. We have a long history of public support for the campaign for nuclear disarmament and the public would feel wronged if this House did not express our abhorrence of what is happening.
People have talked about the environmental and medical effects. The French appear to have taken no notice in the past of the environmental and medical effects in the South Pacific, although they are well known and well documented; Senator Enright referred to them. I have no reason to think that irrespective of the objections made by Greenpeace or any of the other organisations that have been treated so shamefully and disgracefully by the French in the past — agents from French Intelligence were accused and found guilty of murder in that region — the French Government is likely to take any more notice of objections on environmental or medical grounds.
France should be asked to point out who it is proposing to bomb when it has carried out these nuclear tests. At least if we could know there was some purpose for what it was doing, it might make this ridiculous resumption of testing understandable.
The French and the US Administrations have, at various times, turned the South Pacific region into a nuclear playground. Some 25 years after the signing of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and just a few weeks after the treaty's extension, nuclear games are once again being played in the South Pacific.
French attempts to justify the proposed tests have been disturbing to say the least. The French Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, stated yesterday that nuclear testing was altogether a matter of France's own national interest. However, it must be made clear to the French Administration that nuclear fall out is no respecter of national boundaries and that the decision by any state to explode a nuclear device, or indeed to use nuclear energy for so called peaceful purposes, is the concern of the whole international community. Democratic Left has argued that the UK cannot make decisions regarding Sellafield or THORP without reference to other states and the same principle should be applied to nuclear testing.
I am particularly concerned at the eagerness with which the French far Right has rushed in to defend the French Government's decision. It is symptomatic of a creeping militarism which is once again gaining ground in some parts of Europe and which today is buttressed by the appalling threat of nuclear weapons.
The French decision to resume nuclear weapons testing has rightly aroused a storm of protest, not just from the countries most immediately affected — New Zealand and Australia — but also from our Government. In this regard I welcome the strong statements issued by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste and I hope they are indicative of the stance which this Government intends to assume in the future.
Amid the storm of protest, however, we should not forget the concerns of those too small to be heard; neighbouring South Pacific states whose environment is being sacrificed to what the Prime Minister of New Zealand has called "the arrogant action of a European colonial power". French colonialism brings the South Pacific region close to home — right into the European Union to be precise. Residents of France's overseas territories in French Polynesia are, in almost every respect, French nationals and thus, citizens of the European Union. Few citizens of the European Union, however, have nuclear bombs exploding in their backyard and it is up to us, as a member of the Union, to help vindicate the rights of our fellow European citizens. As a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Ireland also has an obligation to ensure that other signatories stick to the spirit as well as the letter of the treaty.
During the past 25 years, over 580 nuclear tests have been conducted. By the end of May 1996, that total will have reached 588 and those are just the tests we know about. Many of them have been carried out in the South Pacific, reducing islands to environmental wastelands. People have been forced to leave their homes and two generations on, they are still living in nuclear exile. There is a perverted logic to these tests. We all know that nuclear bombs kill, yet, thousands of hectares of land — whole islands — have been sacrificed to the obscene desire to quantify destruction. This Government has pressed for the early introduction and implementation of a total test ban and I welcome the complete test ban treaty, due to be signed next year.
In advance of the test ban treaty, however, signatories to the non-proliferation treaty extension pledged themselves to exercise restraint. In view of France's actions, one must wonder what they understand by restraint. The aim is obviously to get in under the ropes of the test ban, and I fear we will see more nuclear jurisdictions rushing to explode bigger and better bombs before the Test Ban Treaty comes into force.
As well as campaigning for the comprehensive implementation of a test ban, however, the issue of nuclear test victims should be placed on the international agenda. I would like to see Ireland taking a lead in the demand for proper compensation for those nuclear exiles forced out of their homes by nuclear testing as well as for those living on a daily basis with the environmental consequences of nuclear testing.
I am delighted that the Irish Government has made forceful representations to the French authorities regarding the proposed tests. We should not leave it there, however. The matter should be raised in every appropriate international forum until the French agree to abide by the spirit as well as the letter of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
On behalf of myself and the Progressive Democrats, I join with other Members in condemning in the strongest possible terms this outrageous decision by the French Government. I do not understand this decision, given that there is a ban on testing, that there has been a moratorium in France itself on testing since 1992 and that China is the only other country which is continuing to test. When one considers that the great powers such as Russia and the US have abandoned testing, it puts the French decision into context.
I note that France said that there will be eight small tests between now and 1996. I regard that as a contradiction in terms as I do not know how there can be a small nuclear explosion. By definition, a nuclear explosion must result in tremendous devastation and ruin, even in circumstances where it is contained.
I also understand, from what I read in the press, that France has 500 warheads already deployed. What are these warheads needed for in the world in which we now live? Whom are they pointed at? Why does France need 500 warheads and why does it need to continue to test? After the ban on atmospheric testing in 1963 France continued to test for another 11 years, so its record in this respect is not very good and is, perhaps, part of the explanation for this decision. Between 1966 and 1974 there were 44 atmospheric tests and 120 underground tests. The moratorium was then introduced by President Mitterrand in 1992.
The French authorities give no warning of these tests, which is extraordinary. I suppose they take the view that this place is 6,500 kilometres from Sydney; a similar distance from Los Angeles; 4,000 kilometres from Auckland and 1,000 kilometres from Tahiti. However, as has already been said, the nuclear cloud does not respect such distances.
The ultimate cynicism of this was shown when President Chirac said that "France has every intention of signing the complete test ban treaty, without reserve, in the autumn of 1996". How can they adopt that position on one hand and on the other say that they are going to continue with nuclear tests? France has given us an example of what civilisation can be and it is a great country. In that context it is even more appalling that it would continue with this policy. I suspect that it may be driven by the military, who are the people who need to be watched in all societies. In the film "Dr. Strangelove" the military were portrayed as those who would go to nuclear war because they seemed to like it.
The most important aspect of this from an Irish point of view is the impact which it will have on European policy. There will be an Intergovernmental Conference in 1996 where it is expected that we will proceed towards a common foreign policy which, as the Maastricht Treaty says, might in turn lead to common defence. I would have nothing to do with a common foreign policy which had nuclear arms as part of its make up. I say that as someone who is committed to the European ideal and who might even be described at times as a federalist. There are enormous implications for European policy.
Senator Lanigan is right that those at the G7 conference must tell France in no uncertain terms their view on this. If this is an instrument of France's foreign policy, then God help us all. What are these weapons needed for? Why are they needed? I do not see the reason for them, nor do I see the need for France to continue with this very ill advised and wrong policy.
Acting Chairman
When is it proposed to sit again?
It is proposed to sit again at 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 21 June 1995.