Parliamentarians protest against nuclear test on Moruroa &amp&amp

By Sid Spindler
In the early hours of Saturday, September 2, 35 Australian parliamentarians arrived by plane in Tahiti. Most of us substituted a cup of coffee for sleep, and by 9 o'clock we were assembling at the Municipal Offices of the Faaa district, which was to be the starting point for the protest march through Papeete. In groups and one by one, parliamentarians from some 20 countries kept drifting in, and when the march finally started, we were joined by thousands of local people to make it a very powerful rally estimated at more than 10,000 people opposing French nuclear tests.
At the end of the march, speakers from all delegations indicated their stance while most of the Australian delegates went to see Paul Ronciere, the French high commissioner, to present him with the petitions we had collected.
I handed over some 8000 signatures together with a letter from the Robinson family in Moe. The commissioner undertook to transmit the messages to President Chirac.
At night, protesters assembled for an international press conference, further statements and folk dancing by candlelight.
On Sunday, the various parliamentary delegations met at Tai Tapu Beach for a meeting chaired by Oscar Temaru, the leader of the Independent Forum and locally the most outspoken opponent of nuclear tests. The meeting adopted a resolution to found a network of Parliamentarians for a Nuclear Weapons Free World, "to exchange information and to plan action ... to achieve ... cessation of all nuclear tests and the dismantling of all nuclear weapons".
President Chirac has united all Australian parliamentary parties across the political spectrum on this issue, and everyone supported this resolution. It is a significant event in Australian political history and one to rekindle the hopes "peaceniks" have cherished for decades.
Senator Bruce Childs was elected secretary of the global network and Oscar Temaru chairperson for the first 12 months. Temaru stated that he accepted his election as an anti-nuclear parliamentarian rather than as the leader of the independence movement, but the French may not see it that way.
On Monday, we met again with Oscar Temaru, this time in his capacity as the leader of the Liberation Front, and several of his followers. We received a briefing on the political situation and the difficulties the independence movement experienced in the face of the almost total economic and political dependence of the indigenous community on the French.
On Tuesday we met with Boris Leonteff and other members of the other opposition party, the Te Fetia Api group, who made it clear that they were reluctant to support independence but strongly opposed the nuclear tests.
Meanwhile, it had become clear that the boat which the Australian parliamentary group had hoped to hire was seriously delayed, and most people flew out in the early hours of the morning of September 6. As we arrived in Australia, we were met with the news of the nuclear test explosion by the French and the escalating riots.
Violence is not acceptable and often counter-productive as a means of achieving political change, but the French government had lit the fuse not only by exploding the nuclear test but also by behaving as a colonial oppressor.
Independence for what is now French Polynesia is inextricably linked with the nuclear question. Just one day before we were due to leave for Tahiti a fax arrived at my office from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade which said in part: "The French authorities have made it clear to us today that they see the proposed 2 September protest march and associated activities as principally pro-independence in their objectives."
It was, of course, important for us to focus our protest on the nuclear test and to avoid diluting the strong anti-nuclear message the French authorities were receiving.
On the other hand, it is equally clear that an independent Tahitian nation would not engage in any nuclear tests. France appears to have used the time-honoured colonial ploy of retarding the economic, educational and political development of the indigenous population to maintain a high degree of dependence on their French masters.
France retains control over external affairs, defence, police and justice, treasury, communications, broadcasting and local government. An elected 41 seat Territorial Assembly looks after the rest and is controlled by a right-wing pro-French coalition of 24 members headed by Gaston Flosse.
Oscar Temaru's Liberation Front has four seats. At the meeting with the Te Fetia Api group (10 members), we were told that a proposal to debate the nuclear tests was lost by one vote, with 24 members absenting themselves. No doubt they were influenced by another statistic: 20% of the economy is dependent on activities related to the tests. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 51% of exports from Tahiti are re-exports of mainly French military and scientific equipment.
The opposition parties describe a gerrymander which would have made Joh Bjelke-Petersen green with envy: city electorates have 3000 voters, whereas outlying islands, with access largely dependent on government resources, have electorates of 500.
Tertiary education appears difficult to access for indigenous people, as evidenced by reports that they are not represented in the legal or medical professions.
It is obvious that Tahitian independence is linked with economic self-reliance, and in turn that depends on France and on the international community. Australia's aid is limited to eight tertiary scholarships.
The French parliament did approve a 10-year development assistance plan in 1994, but as yet little appears to have trickled down, and I suspect the Polynesians are not holding their breath.
The French warned that they "will regard participation [in the anti-nuclear protest] as interference in France's internal affairs", and it is certainly clear that they are nervous about the world finding out how they are handling their last colonial outpost — and with good reason.
We are closing our eyes to the obvious if we deny that the two issues are inextricably linked. Our own government will have to acknowledge that the people of French Polynesia have as much right to self-determination as the people of Tibet and the East Timorese and that Australia's foreign policies, including our aid policies, must take account of that.
[Sid Spindler is an Australian Democrats senator from Victoria.]