space Press Releases, News Stories

CARIBBEAN CALLS FOR HALT TO NUKE WASTE SHIPMENTS

Reuters

PARAMARIBO, Surinam, 8 March 1999 -- Caribbean leaders called on Western governments to stop using their sea lanes as shipment routes for nuclear wastes.

Heads of state gathered at a Caribbean Community (Caricom) summit in the former Dutch colony Surinam said contamination from such a cargo could devastate the tourism industry on which many of their tiny economies depend.

In a statement issued at the end of the two-day summit, Caricom leaders reiterated "their unwavering opposition and that of their peoples to the blatant and persistent use of the Caribbean Sea for the transshipment of highly toxic nuclear materials."

Caricom added that it had learned with profound concern of "the simultaneous dispatch of two shipments of highly radioactive materials from France and the United Kingdom through the Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal destined for Japan."

A ship carrying reprocessed nuclear waste left the French port of Cherbourg Feb. 25 on a six-to-eight week voyage to Japan.

The Greenpeace environmental group said the cargo contained "the most radioactive elements ever produced."

Greenpeace activists tried to disrupt a similar shipment as it passed through the Panama Canal early last year, boarding the vessel and chaining themselves to its mast.

The ships' operators say their vessels are equipped with special safety measures such as double hulls and enhanced buoyancy bulkheads. But anti-nuclear activists say the ships are particularly vulnerable when passing through the 50-mile (80-km) canal which is 500 feet (151 meters) wide at its narrowest point.

FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The Basel Action Network is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability and environmental justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a `fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond `fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
More News