The following is a press release sent to the media tonight (Sunday 29th March)

MURUROA VETERANS SOCIETY



27 March 2009



MEDIA RELEASE – FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTING COMPENSATION


New Zealand Navy veterans sent to Mururoa Atoll to protest against French atmospheric nuclear testing in 1973 have appealed to the New Zealand Government to follow the example of the French Government.

France has drafted legislation to set aside $13.5 million to compensate military personnel and the peoples of French territories in the South Pacific who suffered health consequences including leukemia and other forms of cancer.

The Mururoa Veterans Society, representing navy personnel who served on the protest frigates Otago and Canterbury, and their dependants, has applauded the French decision, saying France has finally recognised the after-effects.

“Now it is up to the New Zealand Government to show the same honesty by providing specific funding assistance for those Mururoa veterans and their dependents who are still suffering from exposure to atmospheric nuclear testing,” says Society president Peter Mitchell of Tauranga.

In the process of developing its own nuclear capability, France exploded 38 nuclear devices in the atmosphere above Mururoa Atoll.

New Zealand opposed the testing programme and in1973 the Labour Government led by Norman Kirk sent the Otago and then the Canterbury on voyages to provide a focus international condemnation.

The voyages, later regarded as New Zealand’s most successful act of international gunboat diplomacy, mobilised world opinion and forced the French to stop atmospheric nuclear testing and move to underground sites.

Each frigate monitored single nuclear blasts upwind at the edge of the 12-mile territorial limit around Mururoa Atoll.

The Society estimates 90 percent of the combined crews of 500 have since complained of health consequences and many have died of cancer-related diagnoses.

“Successive New Zealand Government have never taken them seriously – and yet these are the men they sent to Mururoa to force France to stop atmospheric nuclear testing.”

Mr Mitchell says “France’s admission that there were after-effects for its military personnel and civilians in the French territories in the South Pacific makes it hard for the New Zealand Government to deny there were consequences for our sailors.”

He says just as the Agent Orange effects on New Zealand veterans of the Vietnam War were swept under the carpet by successive Governments for 40 years, the effects of atmospheric nuclear testing at Mururoa have been ignored for 36 years.

Mr Mitchell says the Mururoa Veterans Society will write to the Prime Minister and Minister of Veteran Affairs Judith Collins to ask for justice.


Further Information:


Peter Mitchell
President, Mururoa Veterans Society

07-5799150 or 021-1792136

A downloadable copy is available here