Ian Cohen,MLC N.S.W Parliment, the Greens ,and crew member of the African Queen,one of the Pacific Peace Fleet Flotilla,Stuart Lennox, seen here in the water near the Pacific Teal, one of the two ships bringing plutonium through the Tasman.
The Nuclear Free Flotilla successfully delivered its message of
protest to the two armed UK nuclear freighters this morning,
despite the freighters best efforts to sneak through the flotilla's
line in the dead of night.
Two activists from the flotilla were dropped into the water at
dawn, after catching up with the two plutonium ships in an
inflatable boat. The two swimmers, Ian Cohen, the upper house
member of the New South Wales Parliament and Stuart Lennox of
Tasmania, held up a banner, which read "Nuclear Free Pacific" as
the two ships passed.
"As an elected member of the New South Wales Parliament,
representing many Australians who have expressed strong
anti-nuclear sentiment, I wanted to make sure that there was no
doubt in these shippers minds that they are not welcome in this
region," said Ian Cohen.
The flotilla boats also radioed their message of protest to the
ships after they picked them up on the radar around midnight and
moved to intercept them.
"We may be ten boats but our strength is that we carry the
wishes and demands of many thousands of people. It is pretty clear
from the plutonium shippers avoidance tactics overnight that they
are scared to face public opinion," said Henk Haazen from the
Nuclear Free Flotilla. "However they will not be able to avoid the
growing public and government pressure building against them from
Japan all the way to the Irish Sea, to stop this insane
business."
A similar protest was carried out last year when a shipment of
plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) went through the Tasman en route from
France to Japan. The Nuclear Free Seas Flotilla movement has grown
to include a flotilla in the Cape Horn region and one in Ireland
that is preparing to protest the arrival of the ships in the Irish
Sea.
The Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal are carrying a cargo of
faulty MOX, including 255 kgs of weapons-usable plutonium, which
left Japan for the UK on Thursday, July 4th. The shipment of faulty
MOX is being returned to the UK because its producers, the
technically bankrupt government-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL),
falsified critical safety data on the fuel and the Japanese refused
to use it. As a result of the scandal and due to a loss of
confidence by the Japanese communities in the MOX industry, none of
the MOX that has been shipped to Japan in the last four years has
been used.
"The proliferation and environmental risks that this industry
takes in producing plutonium are enormous. To then ship it,
increases the risks many times, and passes these risks to every
coastal nation en route," said Stephen Campbell, Greenpeace
Australia Pacific Nuclear Campaigner 'It is clear from the strength
of government and public opposition to this current shipment that
it is no longer a question of 'if' these shipments are stopped but
when."