Activists protest in front of
1st plutonium ship, Pacific Pintail,
in Panama Canal.
BNFL Loses PR Campaign in Panama as Nuclear Ships Transit
2nd update from Panama on transit
of 2nd plutonium ship, Pacific Teal, 14 May, 2002
Update from Greenpeace activists in Panama, 12 May 2002
After spending several days with Panamanian activists in meetings with officials and other key people, we were able to spot the Pacific Pintail as it entered the Panama Canal on Saturday afternoon at approximatley 4:30 local time. To our surprise, it was accompanied by the Pacific Swan, which apparently is on its way to Japan to pick up spent research reactor fuel. The Pacific Teal is still expected to transit the Canal on Tuesday.
The passage got good coverage in the media in Panama, including a front page article with a large photo of the Pintail with an armed forces helicopter above it of the country's largest paper (La Prensa) on Sunday (in Spanish only), article is now archived. The timing of the coverage is excellent given that the debate on the legislation banning all nuclear transport is scheduled to be voted on in committee on Wednesday, 15 May.
We initially spotted the ships from the only tall building adjacent
to the Caribbean entrance to the Canal in the decaying port city of
Colon (Spanish for Columbus ...as in Christopher).
As
we attempted to proceed to the first lock in the Canal, we were halted
at a police roadblock and were not able to "greet" the ships
there. We pushed our way through that roadblock, but were held for an
hour at the second roadblock by heavily armed national police and a
single Panama Canal Authority policeman. Eventually we were able to
leave and did see both vessels from a close distance as they passed
through the Pedro Miguel Lock, second of three locks, on their passage
to the Pacific Ocean.
The police harrassment, which brought back images of Banana Republic days and the Noreiga dictatorship to all of us, made the story much larger in Panama. As was hoped, the passage comes at a bad time for BNFL, given that the law banning all nuclear shipments takes place on Wednesday. The law is expected to be passed on to the full Panamanian assembly, where it will face strong opposition from politicians influenced by the all-powerful Panama Canal Authority and their benefactors (BNFL, Cogema and Japanese nuclear utlities). Now we also know the exact passage time for at least one of the ships which is headed to Japan to recover the bad MOX.
BNFL has a person based in Panama but the company did not do any advance press work on the shipment. It's pretty clear that BNFL's strategy of trying to sneak through the Panama Canal without being seen backfired. We were accused by BNFL of being a security threat, but we all know that it's those who engage in commerce in nuclear materials who are presenting the threat.
The Panama Canal Authority PR department said it would issue a news release when the ships had passed http://www.pancanal.com
Raul Escoffery, an inspired acivist, has published the excellent Spanish
language resource book "Transito de Material Radioactivo por Panama"
(found at http://www.geocities.com/raul_escoffery/pntl),
printed by the Asamblea Legislativa of Panama.
2nd update from Panama on transit
of 2nd plutonium ship, Pacific Teal, 14 May, 2002
View
the Caribbean Community's (CARICOM) latest statement on the shipment
(7 May, 2002).
