French nuclear weapons tests labelled crime against humanity

Transcript

RICHARD TUHEIAVA: It's still at the level of a local petition in pursuance of what the Protestant Church board decided last year when the issue of crime against humanity was considered and referred. So what we are now trying to do is to continue to change the mindset of the population about the nuclear test and not only focussing on the compensation issue or the environmental issue but also on the human rights issue of the testing. So we have found, discovered a few evidences that France were aware of the effect of the testing on the human body. Now we are pretty much sure that this latest issue has to be raised and taken in front of the United Nations. The only matter is the proceedings, the legal proceedings at the UN level at not really easy to follow, and it is for example not possible for a state to be attacked for crimes against humanity. It's only, for example, leaders - political leaders or physical people, and not a state. And the second thing is if we decide to sue a file before the International Court of Justice, we need to be an independent state, and we are not yet and independent state of Maohi Nui. So there are some obstacles at the legal level. So that is why we are trying to start up our process by raising this case before the human rights committee in Geneva, which is the committee which we can legally stand before. We are fully aware within the Tavini Party that the church cannot do the whole job by itself. So we have decided to also carry this issue on a political level because we feel it is in our duty and we also know we have the full documents to start something that has already started.

WALTER ZWEIFEL: Rene Bidal, the French High Commissioner, says there is no basis for any charge of crimes against humanity because there is no question of any killings, there were no exterminations, no deportations, ethnic cleansing and the like. What do you say to his counter view?

RT: He is doing his job. Of course as the representative of the French state here in French Polynesia/Maohi Nui he has made confusion among the local opinion as crime against humanity - it needs to resemble or look like the Holocaust or something that will shock.

WZ: When did you get this evidence and what does it consist of?

RT: These are documents from different offices of the state of France from a few years ago. We are waiting for the legal opinion of our lawyers and legal people to start disseminating this information. But what we know now here is that there is no chance for the state of France to avoid its full awareness of the negative outcome and effects of the nuclear testing on the humanity, on the health and on the body of the Polynesian people as well as the Algerian people in the Sahara.