ON OCTOBER 3, 1995, a group of parliamentarians from Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and America took to the ship Kaunitoni to travel to Fangataufa atoll, a small, narrow, coral atoll in the eastern side of the Tuamotu Archipelago near Tahiti to protest the French Government’s use of nuclear tests in the region. The atoll is near to Mururoa, one of the site that has received around 200 nuclear bomb tests since the 1960s.
France had just detonated its second nuclear bomb at Fangataufa Atoll.
However the 20-day voyage to the testing area was cut short after the 150 foot (46-metre) vessel broke down halfway into its journey.
At the time the Kaunitoni was carrying 25 crew, and 45 passengers from 12 nations, including Pacific politicians and journalists from Australia, Japan and Europe.
Protest leader Adi Finau Tabakaucoro had chartered the vessel. In The Fiji Times article in 1995, Ms Tabakaucoro said while they were disappointed at not reaching the protest site, the protesters had succeeded in voicing their opinion to the rest of the world.
Speaking to this newspaper of that event, Ms Tabakaucoro said she still stood by those sentiments.
“We were all very hyped up when we went that day. We knew about the perils that this nuclear testing could bring to our lives and we had set off very encouraged,” she said.
” We were an interesting group. There were parlimentarian leaders from Europe, Pacific leaders and journalists that were part of the group. We even had the late Dr Tom Davis, who was the former prime minister of Cook Islands as our doctor on the voyage. Despite what happened (ship breakdown), we did what we had to protect our environment. I am glad I was part of that historic protest group. Following the political pressure from many Pacific leaders and supporters, the French Government stopped carrying out their tests,” Ms Tabakaucoro said.
“Imagine the general devastation to the environment if this was allowed to go on?” she added.
From church groups to environmentalists to governments around the world, the outcry was loud and against France’s second nuclear testing.
France announced it had carried out the test at 1.30pm on Sunday, October 1, 1995 Tahiti time at its Fangataufa atoll testing site and the defence ministry said “this was necessary to guarantee weapons security and reliability in the future”.
