Australia to take anti-nuclear test campaign to ASEAN

Australia to take anti-nuclear test campaign to ASEAN

SYDNEY (AFP): Australia will use next week's meeting of the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Brunei to boost international
pressure on France over its decision to resume nuclear testing in
the Pacific, officials said yesterday.

Although the issue is not on the agenda for next Tuesday's
talks, it will be raised in the 19-member forum and probably
during the preceding Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) ministerial meeting on Saturday and Sunday.

Foreign Minister Gareth Evans will lead the Australian
delegation to the meetings, which are also being attended by
France's Minister for European Affairs as head of the European
Union (EU) delegation.

The European Union has observer status at the ASEAN
ministerial meeting and full membership of the ARF, which has
become the major forum for security issues in the region.

An official in Canberra said Australia would be using the
meetings to try and get extra support regionally and
internationally for an effective comprehensive test ban treaty
next year and to increase the pressure on France.

"We will also take the opportunity to gauge the reaction of
other countries to the French decision," he said, noting that
Australia similarly opposed China's current nuclear test program,
although it is conducted inside China.

China is also a member of the ARF along with the seven ASEAN
nations and Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, the EU, Japan,
Laos, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia, South Korea and the
United States.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand and -- from July 28 -- Vietnam.

As the international furor continues over France's decision to
conduct eight test at Mururoa atoll, a visiting French trade
union leader gave his backing here yesterday to a boycott of
French products by Australian consumers.

Pierre-Jean Rozet, an executive member of France's largest
confederation of unions, the Confederation Generale du Travail
(CGT), told reporters in Melbourne that French unions also
opposed nuclear testing.

"I would like to say that we understand and support the
actions taken by Australian unions and consumer groups," Rozet
said.

He said he believed the French government had underestimated
the strength of opposition to nuclear testing in the South
Pacific, citing a recent poll in France showing that 56 percent
of workers were opposed to it.

Rozet said when CGT representatives met French government
officials last week, they found them very much on the defensive
on the issue of nuclear testing.

"It was clear according to the delegation that the president's
office was on the defensive because of the international
protests," he said.

Local union officials met Rozet to discuss ways in which
French and Australian trade unions could cooperate in opposing
nuclear testing.

French President Jacques Chirac announced in May that Paris
was ending a moratorium on nuclear testing and carrying out the
eight underground tests on Mururoa atoll, French Polynesia,
between September this year and May 1996.