Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 10, 1995 TAG: 9507100134
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA LENGTH: Medium
But Greenpeace said at least one of four inflatable boats, carrying eight people and launched from the ship before the commando raid, had reached the lagoon inside Mururoa Atoll. The French government did not confirm the claim and Greenpeace spokesman Jon Walter said the eight activists remained unaccounted for.
The voyage of the Rainbow Warrior II was aimed at calling world attention to French plans to set off eight nuclear test blasts between September and May, abandoning a moratorium declared by former French President Francois Mitterrand in 1992.
Some 150 commandos in black helmets and jumpsuits boarded the Rainbow Warrior II at 6:40 a.m. local time, knocking out doors, smashing windows and taking two dozen people off the vessel, Greenpeace officials said in Paris.
Among those taken off the ship, about 10 were being held for questioning, French prosecutor Jean-Pierre Dreno said in Paris. He said the ship had 22 crew members, three passengers and six journalists.
A spokesman for the French High Commission in Tahiti, Emmanuel Stamburg-Martine, said he expected the detained crew members would be freed later Sunday but that it would be up to French justice officials to determine whether they would be charged and what the ship's fate would be.
The nuclear testing plans, announced in June by French President Jacques Chirac, have sparked widespread protests by governments and activists. Protests were planned Monday in Australia and New Zealand to mark the 10th anniversary of the sinking by French agents of the original Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbor, New Zealand, drowning Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira.
The Rainbow Warrior II and two companion vessels had been trying to reach Mururoa Atoll for the anniversary of the July 10, 1985, attack.
The original ship was on a similar mission to protest French nuclear tests when French scuba divers mined it.
This time, commandos stormed the Rainbow Warrior II after it sailed into France's 12-mile territorial limit around Mururoa Atoll, 650 miles east of Tahiti.
Greenpeace initially said the commandos removed everyone on board, including Greenpeace protesters, journalists and Monsignor Jacques Gaillot, a liberal Catholic bishop.
Later Sunday, a Greenpeace spokesman in London, William Peden, said the French allowed a skeleton crew to remain aboard the Rainbow Warrior II to bring it to Mururoa to pick up crew members being questioned by police. It would then be allowed to leave, he said.
No one was injured, the French government said in a statement. Greenpeace said two people were injured by tear gas.
by CNB