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Total and French Nuke diplomacy



Dear Free Burma readers, 

Some time ago we posted that Total  international corporate strategy &  
French economic and military diplomacy were directly linked, and that the 
direct link through men like  -Pierre Lellouche- , French parliamentarian 
and spokesman defending French President Chirac?s governmental NUKE 
policy, also   Political Advisor  to TOTAL, the French major energy 
company -in which the French state has a 5% or so stake - may help to 
explain why the French government is so sophisicately cynical - not at 
all indifferent - about Burma, doing business as usual there, waiting it 
out, denying all wrong-doing, selling arms to everyone (including Iran, 
but its now a very hot issue in France since the Palestinian bombings and 
Summitt conference, as the French were among the first, including Juppé, 
to directly denounce Iran). We in the Free Burma French Action Group will 
highlight the Burma and French government issues when and if the best we 
can as we do think the world knows very little about the French, and 
understands even less. Such is the French art of diplomacy, and that?s 
not bad for a country that survived two world wars, twice nearly 
destroyed, and comes out very much on top at the end of the century, 
while destability and disorder run amuck elsewhere in the world. It does 
raise the question, and cause one to wonder, why, and how it is so. 
Please respond if you are interested, or not interested, as we do not 
want to send unwanted mail. 

Slorc is buying time and making a lot of money playing a waiting game 
with foreign business of the international community, and directly 
profiting the French too. Its all part of the big superpower 
international game of politics and diplomacy, which may not seem to 
matter much to human rights activists, all of whom are fighting big 
dollars, and big investments of the industrial countries in need of 
export markets, cheap labor, and stability at home. 

And its all the more reason why one should be as best informed on the 
issues, to understand them, and argue why one cannot buy human rights, or 
put a price on it, no matter how strong and powerful seems to be the 
adversary.


Nuclear Proliferation News -- Issue No 35, Thursday 26 October 95
http://csf.colorado.edu/egi-bin.msf/01/esf/web.dfax/npn/npn35.htm 

excerpt
On 17 October, in Bariloche, Argentina, a 'Latin summit' of 21
states from Europe (Spain and Portugal) and Latin America issued a
denunciation of all testing: "We deeply deplore all nuclear tests,
in particular those recently carried out in the Pacific Ocean. Any
test of this nature poses potential health, safety and
environmental risks. We urge all states to put an end to such
tests". According to reports, Spain and Portugal requested that
France and China not be named directly.
Earlier, in Madrid on 10 October, Spain's Prime Minister, Felipe
Gonzalez, failed to take advantage of a meeting with President
Chirac to raise the issue. Speaking at a joint press conference,
Gonzalez, asked the tests had been mentioned, said: "I'm not going
to allow myself to be dragged along by public emotions... We must
respect the solidarity between European Union countries".
President Chirac again insisted that "France has to complete this
programme to guarantee its security and that of its dependent
countries".

On 10 October, France's diplomatically besieged Ambassador to New
Zealand, Jacques LeBlanc, requested journalists not to describe
France as detonating 'bombs': "I do not like this word 'bomb'. It
is not a bomb, it is a device which is exploding," Le Blanc
explained, adding: "It is one kilometre below the ground and it
does not harm anyone". Le Blanc, addressing the National Press
Club in Wellington, asked "why should France renounce her nuclear
weapons in a world which will remain a nuclear one for a long
time?" and added that "as long as large parts of this world are
under the control of criminals and madmen, the civilised nations
really need to retain their nuclear weapons".

The ambassador then proceeded to apportion much of the blame for
the controversy generated by the tests to Greenpeace: "Some people
prefer to accept lies and misinformation propagated by
Greenpeace... They are good at big issues and going for soft
targets to produce the maximum publicity instead of focusing on
the actual problems". Greenpeace spokesperson Stephanie Mills
responded (10 October): "It is not just Greenpeace which has
opposed these tests, it is over 160 countries".

Addressing a European Parliament Committee on 17 October,
President Chirac's envoy, Pierre Lellouche, insisted that France
had the interests of Europe's security at heart: "Of course it is
easier to 'surf' the anti-nuclear wave than to explain to public
opinion why...Europe needs a nuclear deterrent now more than ever.
You do not destroy the extinguishers when the house is threatened
by fire...".

Lellouche also argued that the tests were an essential
precondition of the successful entry into force of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT): "France's accession to the
CTBT is possible only if my country first gets the necessary
technologies for simulation and these technologies can be gained
only be a limited series of tests of real size".

Also on 17 October, during a visit to Singapore, the Foreign Trade
Minister, Christine Chauvet, adamantly expressed the view that the
outcry against the tests was not having a significantly
detrimental effect on French trade: "following the nuclear tests,
we are checking what is happening to trade. Fortunately, there are
no effects. ... I think people are adults, the consumers are also
adults and they are not easily manipulated."


France's Socialist Party continues to campaign internationally
against the tests. On 18 October, it issued a joint statement with
Japan's Socialist Party, warning that the tests risked "isolating
France in the international community". The two parties pledged
themselves to "make concerted efforts to make the French
government rescind its decision".

While the decision is perhaps unlikely to be reversed, Foreign
Minister Herve de Charette suggested on 12 October that France
would like to conclude the testing series in advance of the 31 May
target-date. At a conference on European security issues in Paris,
de Charette was asked when the tests were now likely to finish. He
replied frankly: "the sooner the better, if I judge by the
hullabaloo that they have produced". De Charette added: "Do not
think that we take these reactions lightly".

Writing in Le Figaro on 12 October, former Gaullist President
Giscard d'Estaing cautiously backed the tests, saying they were
"justified only if they are indispensable to the achievement of
[computer] simulation". Commenting on the strategic context of the
decision, d'Estaing said that, following the end of the Soviet
Union, "there is no need for our deterrent force to be operational
over the next few years". However, President Chirac was obliged to
take a longer-term view: "On the other hand, faced with all the
uncertainties of the future, it is wise precaution to maintain our
deterrent force in an operational state".

European Commission continues to press for more information

The European Commission's search for adequate information on which
to decide its own competence to monitor and judge the safety of
France's nuclear testing, which began in June with President
Chirac's announcement of a resumption, is nearing its end. On 11
October, Commission President Jacques Santer announced that the
Commission would meet in special session on 23 October and
announce its verdict thereafter. The Commissioners will have to
decide whether the tests fall under the category of "particularly
dangerous tests" referred to in Article 34 of Euratom Treaty - the
implementation of which it is the Commission's duty to oversee. If
so, the Commission will have the power to ask France to take
special measures to protect human health. This may take the form
of a recommendation that the tests cease. It seems, however, that
France could not be compelled to act upon such a recommendation.

On 12 October, the Commissioner for the Environment, Ritt
Bjerregaard of Denmark, wrote to the French Government with a
detailed request for more information. Speaking in Copenhagen,
Bjerregaard said: "I am counting on the French government to
respond to our request within the time limit... We have a right to
monitor the health and safety of populations and it is our duty to
do so".

The reply was received on 18 October; meaning, according to
spokesperson Thierry Daman in Brussels, that "the Commission will
be in a position to take a decision and define its policy by
Monday [23 October]". [Editor's note: the decision, and reaction
to it, will be featured in the next Review.]

Also on 18 October, a spokesperson for France's Foreign Ministry,
Jacques Rummelhardt, announced that Commission experts had been
invited to visit the laboratories at the Management of Nuclear
Test Centres (Direction des Centres d'Experimentation Nuclearies -
DIRCEN) complex in Montlery, France. Rummelhardt explained: "In a
desire to be transparent...this is a voluntary initiative by the
French government. It can take place on 19 October, if the
Commission wants it".

A team of experts did visit the test site in September (18-29 -
see last issue), but, due to incomplete information, were forced
to conclude that it was "impossible to give an unreserved view on
the efficiency and adequacy of the overall surveillance system",
according to a Commission report compiled by the experts and
released on 9 October.

The report itemised the gaps in the information they had received:
there was a lack of "geological and hydrological" data; there was
"no positive information...on any monitoring programme for [the]
Fangataufa [atoll]" where the 1 October test was conducted; and
data on the "DIRCEN sampling programme" was either not provided or
provided only partially. However, earlier (6 October), the three
experts concerned had said in an interim report that they were
"satisfied on the whole" with what they had been able to learn,
although they noted that they were denied access to the most
sensitive parts of the test sites due to what they were told were
"secrecy and defense security" reasons. The three were also denied
access to visit DIRCEN. On 12 October, President Chirac was quoted
as saying that the experts "recognised that there had been total
transparency, with the exception of access to strictly military
sites".

</P>

<P>
On 6 October, Commissioner Bjerregaard was herself invited to
visit French Polynesia; an invitation to which she reacted, in
Luxembourg the same day, with some anger: "There's basically no
need for me to go there as a tourist. I would not necessarily be
able to ask the relevant questions or to get the relevant
answers... It is no time for joking". France's spokesperson
Rummelhardt reacted equally sharply, also on 6 October, to the
Commissioner's response: "We hope she will seriously study the
details of the invitation... The European Union is an institution
about which we do not joke".

</P>

<P>
On 17 October, Austria's Chancellor, Franz Vranitzky, meeting with
Bjerregaard in Vienna, stoutly defended the Commission's role to
date:

"I am very much satisfied that the Commission has taken up this
case seriously, not only as far as the case as such is concerned
but also because it is actually a signal to the people living in
the Union that whenever there is a problem, the Commission takes
their apprehensions seriously... It proves that, contrary to what
many people believe, the Commission doesn't live in an ivory
tower."

"A decision on the part of the British Government to support the
Treaty of Raratonga would be a very welcome gesture in the region
and would be helpful in defusing the tensions and feeling created
by the British reaction so far to the French nuclear testing."
The Government's stance has been roundly condemned by the
opposition Labour and Liberal-Democratic parties (see Documents
and Sources). On 18 October, the Labour Party, in the form of
Shadow Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, handed in a petition with
12,000 signatures to the French Embassy, demanding an abandonment
of the testing programme. The signatories included Labour Members
of Parliament and European Members of Parliament. Cook accused the
British Government of only seeking a short delay in the testing
programme until after the Commonwealth Summit:
"It has been suggested that John Major has asked French President
Chirac to postpone the next nuclear test until after the
Commonwealth summit next month so that he can avoid the
embarrassment of having to explain its craven failure to oppose
the French test programme. ... If France does stop testing, it
should not be a temporary measure to spare John major's blushes,
but a permanent response to world opinion."

dawn star