Press release - October 11, 2002
Spectator boats were greeted by Greenpeace inflatables and yacht Tiama with large anti-nuclear banners as nuclear company Areva boat Defi-Areva raced in the Louis Vuitton Cup today.
Tiama and Greenpeace inflatables moved amongst the spectator and
media boats informing about Areva's true activities and why
Greenpeace is opposed to their involvement in the Cup.
Tiama was part of the Nuclear Free Tasman flotilla last year and
again this year when 12 boats sailed out to protest the transport
of plutonium fuel and waste through our region. An Areva company
was responsible for the 2001 shipment and British Nuclear Fuels for
the shipment that arrived this month in the UK after worldwide
opposition to the transport.
Greenpeace is opposed to Areva's sponsorship because their group
of companies are shipping plutonium and nuclear waste through our
region, pollute the marine environment with radioactive waste on a
daily basis and are involved in the development of nuclear weapons
through their majority owner the French Atomic Energy
Commission.
"It is inappropriate for an industry with a history and current
practice of contaminating the environment to try and clean up its
image by associating itself with the clean, green image of
sailing," said Bunny McDiarmid, Greenpeace Nuclear
spokesperson.
Areva was formed in 2001 from a merger between the plutonium
reprocessing company COGEMA, the nuclear reactor construction
company Framatome, and FCI, a maker of electrical connectors. Areva
is 78.96 percent owned by the Commissariat a L'Énergie Atomique
(CEA - the French Atomic Energy Commission) and 5.19 percent owned
by the French government.
"Areva is here to re-launch itself and make new business using
the French sailing team, the America's Cup and nuclear-free New
Zealand as the venue. Behind the name is an industry with a
terrible environmental record and which is intimately involved in
the nuclear weapons business," she said.