Boycott French goods: YLKI

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) is calling for a total boycott of French products in protest over Paris' total disregard of world objection to the French government's latest nuclear test at Mururoa atoll.

"YLKI encourages the people and government of Indonesia to boycott French products and substitute them with other locally made or foreign goods," the agency's secretary Z. Sani said yesterday.

The foundation maintained that Paris' decision to continue nuclear tests displayed French arrogance and inconsideration to international pleas to stop nuclear testing.

"Stop buying and using products from France," Sani said in a statement made available to mass media.

France conducted its first test at the tiny atoll in the South Pacific on Tuesday in what is expected to be a series of up to eight underground nuclear explosions.

Australia, New Zealand and Japan have already announced a boycott of French products.

Jakarta, despite issuing strong statement's of regret, has refused to take stronger steps against France.

The Indonesian government did not heed a call by the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) to cancel a show of fireworks donated by France in commemoration of Indonesia's independence on Aug. 19.

Sani said that the French government suffered a double- standard syndrome in which they applied the adage "not in my back yard."

"The argument from the French government to justify this test as a form of national sovereignty cannot be accepted...The injustice here is not just cross-national but also cross generational," he said added.

Meanwhile at the annual World Medical Association (WMA) assembly in Bali, French doctors insisted on omitting direct reference to France in an anti-nuclear statement about to be released by the association.

As reported by AFP yesterday, French doctors threatened to withdraw from the conference if the references were not excised.

The threat was further compounded when the newly elected president of the WMA, French Medical Association secretary general Jacques Moulin, threatened not to assume his post.

Despite the lack of reference to France, the WMA in their statement issued yesterday said they deplored nuclear testing and called on member associations to advise respective governments of the dangers of nuclear testing. (mds)