S.Pacific Nuke Free Zone Signing Chance for Further Disarm

[the.greenbase@green2.greenpeace.org]

----------
Original-TO:      World Press (Green2:Green2:Gnl:INET)
Original-Cc:      The Greenbase (Green2:Green2:Gnl:Main)
----------
               ************************
               GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
               ************************
 
>>  NUCLEAR FREE ZONE SIGNING OPPORTUNITY FOR FURTHER
                        DISARMAMENT 
 
AUCKLAND, March 6, 1996 (GP) France, Britain and the United
States should use this month's signing of the South Pacific
Nuclear Free Zone Treaty to make further commitments to
nuclear disarmament, Greenpeace said today.
 
The South Pacific Forum has been informed that the three
nuclear powers will sign the treaty on either March 21st or
25th, probably in Rarotonga where the Treaty was agreed in
1985. The Treaty bans nuclear testing and commits states in
the region to remain non-nuclear.
 
Greenpeace's Stephanie Mills said the three nuclear powers
should deepen their commitment to nuclear disarmament by
agreeing to a Southern Hemisphere free of nuclear weapons and
making further cuts in their nuclear arsenals.  
 
"To make the Pacific genuinely nuclear free, it is also time
the Treaty is broadened to protect the Pacific from transits
of nuclear ships and vessels carrying plutonium and nuclear
waste," she said.
 
"The United States and Britain cynically acquiesced to
France's testing programme before announcing with France in
November that they would sign the Treaty when testing ended,"
she said. "While nuclear tests blasted Moruroa and Fangataufa,
the United States simply said it was 'studying the problem'. 
Signing the Treaty alone is not enough."
 
She said the three nuclear powers had created the problem of

nuclear testing in the Pacific, and had an obligation now to
ensure a Comprehensive Test Ban was agreed definitively this
year.  They also had a responsibility to monitor and address
the long-term consequences of the testing programmes at
Moruroa, Fangataufa, Australia and in the Marshall Islands,
she said.
 
 
ENDS
 
Further information: Stephanie Mills in New Zealand on mobile
025 790 817 or (+64 9) 630 6317.
Bunny McDiarmid, Greenpeace Pacific in Fiji +679 312 861   

----------