271
OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER
CANBERRA
Attached is the English translation of the feature article by the
Prime Minister published on a full half page in the French daily Le
Monde on 28 June 1995.
WHY AUSTRALIA SAYS NO TO TESTING
BY P. J. KEATING, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA
Australia and its citizens, along with the peoples and governments of many other
countries, have been angered by the French government's announcement that it will
resume nuclear testing at Mururoa. I believe the French people will have no difficulty
understanding such feelings.
The sentiment in the countries of the South Pacific is all but universal: if France must
test these weapons, let her test them in metropolitan France. Whatever the French
government intends by these actions, they are read by the great majority of people in
this region as an assault upon the rights of small nations by a large one. Inevitably,
the decision to resume tests is seen as a regression to old colonial attitudes. This is
all the more tragic because in recent years France's relationship with the countries of
the region has become much more positive and fruitful.
Neither Australia nor the other countries of the region are motivated by a desire to
see France out of the Pacific. On the contrary, we want to work closely and
cooperatively with her. But it is one regrettable consequence of this decision that
many in the region will now question the legitimacy of France's role.
The anger and frustration which Australians feel is the more acute because of the
history we share with France. French ships were present at the birth of European
settlement in Australia. French explorers and scientists and artists are prominent
among those who mapped the Australian coastline and interpreted the Australian
landscape. French culture significantly shaped our own cultural development. And
twice this century Australians fought in France. In World War I Australian and New
Zealand casualties on French battlefields were the highest per capita of any of the
combatants and that experience was a seminal influence on Australia's
development. The names of those battlefields are part of Australia's history and
legend.
Australia's concerns are heightened further by the added responsibility which derives
from our role this year as Chair of the 15-member South Pacific Forum. In this
capacity we speak on behalf of all the countries in the region, many of them small
and ecologically vulnerable, all of them in a profound material and spiritual
relationship with the Pacific Ocean.
I am confident that I speak for the members of the Forum in continuing to press
France to reverse her decision, and in asserting that if she were to do so she would
gain greatly in prestige, not only among the countries of the South Pacific, but among
the peoples of the world.
The French government has defended the environmental safety of the tests at
Mururoa. But we are deeply concerned about the possibility of accidents. And noone
can possibly foresee the longer term dangers'associated with possible leakage
from the fragile atoll structures housing the tests.
2
Australia's is not a hastily considered or reflexive reaction. Australia has a long
history of responsible diplomatic effort on nuclear issues. Along with the other
countries of the South Pacific, Australia opposed France's atmospheric tests in the
1970s, and on our initiative the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone was created in
1985.
Australia has also been consistently active on nuclear matters in the United Nations
and other international forums. We have often acted in close cooperation with
France, in particular since the very welcome decision by President Mitterrand in 1992
to declare a moratorium on nuclear tests. These efforts moved forward on 11 May
with the decision of the international community to indefinitely extend the Treaty on
the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons a vital element in the security of both our
countries. It is not for Australia or any other country to define France's security; but, in the
circumstances, I believe readers of Le Monde will permit me to say why we think
France's actions are not good for the world or for France.
We believe these tests pose a threat to our efforts to sustain the effectiveness of
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and achieve universal membership. Critical to the
indefinite extension of that treaty was the simultaneous negotiation and adoption by
all parties, including the nuclear weapon states, of a " Declaration of Principles and
Objectives on Non-Proliferation and Disarmament".
That declaration foreshadowed the early conclusion, no later than 1996 of a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. And pending the entry into force of such a treaty,
the nuclear weapon states committed themselves to exercise " utmost restraint".
But " utmost restraint" on nuclear testing cannot possibly comprehend a program of
eight tests. France's decision is certain to raise in the minds of non-nuclear weapon
states questions about the good faith of all the nuclear weapon states. That will put
pressure on the credibility of the Treaty, which must be maintained if some of the
states which have not yet signed it are to be persuaded to do so.
The decision will also add to the negotiating difficulties over the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty.
Despite the very welcome declaration by President Chirac that France will sign the
CTBT, there is a real danger that the very difficult series of negotiations which lie
ahead in Geneva over the Treaty will be made even harder.
France's very position as a responsible and leading power in the world means that
each new test by France will give comfort to would-be proliferators, and each test will
give pause to many of those countries whose support we will need to conclude the
CTBT. We are familiar with the arguments for France's nuclear capability and the strategic
dimensions of nuclear power. We are not arguing from a merely emotive standpoint
when we say that, for all of us, the greatest responsibility is to keep alive the hope of
a nuclear free world that was born with the end of the Cold War. The burden of that
responsibility falls most heavily on the nuclear states, particularly following the
indefinite extension of the NPT.
And, surely, for those with nuclear expertise in Europe, the greatest present test of
leadership is the one which lies at Europe's door. The damaged Chernobyl reactor
may now be entombed, but in the territory of the former Soviet Union there are
another twenty reactors with similar design faults. Scores of nuclear-powered
submarines from the former Soviet Fleet now lie idle. Nuclear materials and nuclear
expertise are seeping out of the former Soviet Union and into illicit markets.
These dangers, like the stockpiles of degrading nuclear weapons and contaminated
sites, will not be deterred by the development of further nuclear weapon capability.
But France's world class skills in nuclear science and technology can help. How
much more respect France would earn, and how much more sense it would make, if
instead of concentrating her skills and energy on combating a purely hypothetical
threat, she turned more of them to tackling a real one.
I have no doubt that Australians would want it known in France that their attitude is in
no way shaped by any hostility to the French people or the French nation. Our
opposition is specific to the French Government's decision to resume testing in the
Pacific. Sometimes in the past Australia's attitude has been read in France as an expression
of some Anglo-Saxon hostility to France.
But Australia is by no means an Anglo Saxon enclave in the Asia-Pacific region. As
the many French people who live in Australia could attest, this is a rich multicultural
society, half of whose immigrants these days come from the countries of Asia. It is
clear that among those same French residents of Australia there are many who
believe that the French Government should reverse its decision.
If they live on the eastern seaboard of Australia they will know that there is a world of
difference between studying a map of the Pacific in Europe and living on the shores
of the ocean in Sydney or Brisbane or Auckland or Suva. The map puts these places
a long way from Mururoa. But when you live in these places you know that, vast
though it is, the South Pacific is one environment and it binds all those who share it.
The sense of community which the Pacific Ocean gives us is not unlike that which the
idea of " Europe" gives France. It is the underlying reason for our opposition to
France's decision to resume testing and it is why Australia and our partners in the
South Pacific Forum will continue to press our views strongly to the French
government and to convey to the people of France, as far we are able, the depth of
our feelings.
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