WELLINGTON: Thirty years ago this month, the New Zealand government mounted what was probably the first state-sponsored Ban the Bomb protest, stationing a navy ship off a tiny South Pacific atoll as France tested its nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.

The frigate Otago cruised off the French testing site at Mururoa as “a silent accusing witness” in the words of Norman Kirk, then the New Zealand Prime Minister and an outspoken critic of the nuclear arms race.

France and China were the only countries still conducting nuclear tests in the atmosphere, although the United States and Soviet Union maintained underground testing programmes.

Kirk was particularly incensed that the French, who had moved the tests to the Pacific in 1966 after losing their former site in the Sahara when Algeria gained independence, were polluting a faraway ocean in what he saw as New Zealand’s backyard.

Together with neighbouring Australia, New Zealand took France to the International Court of Justice in 1973 and won an 8-6 majority ruling banning a fresh series of tests.

When the French rejected the judgment, Kirk — leader of a tiny country but ready for a diplomatic battle with a world power — ordered the navy to prepare a ship for sea.

It was never intended to try to stop the tests, it would not go into French territorial waters and, unlike a flotilla of private protest boats planning to head for Mururoa, it would not sail downwind of radioactive fallout to frustrate explosions.

Ruling out “gunboat diplomacy” as the Otago sailed from Auckland in late June 1973 with 245 aboard, Kirk said, “She leaves not in anger, but as a silent accusing witness with the power to bring alive the conscience of the world.

“What we aim to do is to publicize what is happening in this remote part of the world, so as to stimulate world opinion against nuclear testing and attract wider support for the rights of small nations.”

Determined to “ensure the eyes of the world are riveted on Mururoa”, Kirk put cabinet minister Fraser Colman, father of three young daughters on board, and directed the navy to take along two newsmen (one of them this correspondent) and a TV cameraman.

It was a state-sponsored anti-nuclear publicity campaign without parallel and a piece of daring diplomacy that defied advice from New Zealand’s closest allies.

Britain, New Zealand’s former colonial master and a new colleague of France in the European Economic Community, not only refused any help but warned Kirk that his opposition to nuclear weapons represented a “very significant cleavage of policy” with London.

Even Australia only reluctantly committed an oil tanker to the exercise — critical because the Otago could not carry enough fuel to cover the 4,280 kilometres to Mururoa, let alone home again — “as a last resort in trying to stop the tests”.

Kirk admitted later that never in his wildest dreams did he envisage the international publicity the voyage obtained as the newsmen’s stories and wireless interviews with Minister Colman were featured on front pages and radio stations around the world.

French commandos’ seizure on July 18 of the civilian protest yacht Fri, with 13 people aboard including a six-month pregnant New Zealander, while newsmen were talking to it on the Otago’s radio was a sure sign the 1973 testing programme was about to start. It also created an insatiable appetite for the story from then on.

The French had never announced their tests, or even confirmed them after they were identified by seismologists. However, when they set off a nuclear explosion (estimated at 15-kilotons by the US Atomic Energy Detection System) from a balloon above Mururoa on July 21 it went around the world in minutes, followed by photographs of the tell-tale mushroom cloud.

Kirk’s foreign ministry received official messages of support from all quarters and he exclaimed, “Never before has world opinion on nuclear testing been so stirred.”

Fraser Colman transferred from the Otago, which sailed home after an unprecedented 35 days at sea, to a replacement ship, the Canterbury, which watched another smaller test eight days later.

Defiantly, the French set off three more explosions before year’s end and seven more in the atmosphere in 1974 before going underground with 124 tests between 1975 and 1991.

After a four-year moratorium, France resumed testing to renewed criticism from New Zealand, Australia and other countries in 1995, detonating six more before the last and biggest at 120 kilotons on January 7 1996.—dpa

Opinion

Editorial

Judiciary’s SOS
Updated 28 Mar, 2024

Judiciary’s SOS

The ball is now in CJP Isa’s court, and he will feel pressure to take action.
Data protection
28 Mar, 2024

Data protection

WHAT do we want? Data protection laws. When do we want them? Immediately. Without delay, if we are to prevent ...
Selling humans
28 Mar, 2024

Selling humans

HUMAN traders feed off economic distress; they peddle promises of a better life to the impoverished who, mired in...
New terror wave
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

New terror wave

The time has come for decisive government action against militancy.
Development costs
27 Mar, 2024

Development costs

A HEFTY escalation of 30pc in the cost of ongoing federal development schemes is one of the many decisions where the...
Aitchison controversy
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

Aitchison controversy

It is hoped that higher authorities realise that politics and nepotism have no place in schools.