04/11 African Nuke-Free Zone:Global Disarmament

[the.greenbase@green2.greenpeace.org]

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Original-TO:      World Press (Green2:Green2:Gnl:INET)
Original-Cc:      The Greenbase (Green2:Green2:Gnl:Main)
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               GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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>> GREENPEACE: AFRICAN NUCLEAR FREE ZONE SHOULD LEAD TO GLOBAL
DISARMAMENT
 
Malta, 11 April, 1996 (GP) - Greenpeace today applauded the
signing of the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty in
Cairo, and demanded that it leads to a global nuclear
disarmament and to a ban on all nuclear weapons testing.  
The African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty, also called the
Pelindaba Treaty, bans nuclear testing in Africa and commits
signatories to keeping this continent free from nuclear
weapons.
  
"Greenpeace welcomes this treaty as a clear message from
Africa to the international community that nuclear testing is
absolutely unacceptable," said Dr. Mario Damato from the
Greenpeace Mediterranean Office. "Greenpeace recognises that a
genuinely nuclear free Africa is a great achievement, and it
also points to the need for a world free of all weapons of
mass destruction."  
 
"Mediterranean states have already considered a regional ban
on weapons of mass destruction. It is time that these
considerations to be come reality," Damato added.
 
Greenpeace demands that the five nuclear superpowers - the US,
Russia, China, Britain and France - reach agreement on a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) currently under
discussion in Geneva before the end of June, so as the CTBT
can be ready for signing soon afterwards. The treaty signed in
Cairo should encourage the negotiations in Geneva to work
harder to achieve a CTBT by June.  
The superpowers should also agree to discuss a radical
reduction of their huge nuclear arsenals. This is the best way
to ensure other countries stop their weapons of mass
destruction programmes and scrap their rising stocks of
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
 
In 1960, France used its then Algerian colony to detonate the
first nuclear bomb on African soil. After the independence of
Algeria, France conducted more than 160 atmospheric and
underground nuclear tests in the South Pacific atolls of
Moruroa and Fangataufa.
 
South Africa is believed to have produced and maintained up to
six completed nuclear weapons until it unilaterally decided to
get rid of these and join the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) regime in July 1991.
 
For further information please call Dr. Mario Damato,
Executive Director of the Greenpeace Mediterranean Office in
Malta, Tel. ++356-803484; or Fouad Hamdan, Press Officer
Greenpeace Mediterranean, temporarily based in Hamburg, Tel.
++49-40-30618447.

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