France finally accepts
responsibility for its toxic mess 15/02/2006
- France — French President Chirac has announced
a dramatic recall of the asbestos-laden
warship Clemenceau -- it will be turning
around and going back to France. Our actions,
emails to Chirac and an embarrassing international
scandal left France with little choice but
to abandon the misguided attempt to dump
its own toxic mess on India.
"This is a victory for international
law, a victory for Indian workers, and a
victory for workers all across Asia"
said Pascal Husting, Greenpeace France Executive
Director. “In today’s globalised world it
is vital that nations, such as France and
India, co-operate to uphold global justice
and not shamelessly pass on their responsibility
to those in vulnerable areas of the planet”.
Back in December we highlighted France's
attempts to dump an old warship laden with
toxics like deadly asbestos on India. France
didn't want to deal with its own toxic mess
- despite our actions to block the departure
of the Clemenceau from the French port of
Toulon. We said it was wrong for France
to dump a 27,000-ton warship full of asbestos,
PCBs, lead, mercury, and other toxic chemicals
in India to be broken up by hand in a scrapyard
where impoverished workers are injured and
die every day. France insisted it was right
and sent the ship to India anyway.
We weren't going to let them off that easily.
In January we reboarded the warship in the
Mediterranean and called on Egypt to block
the passage of the ship. The French government
intervened at the highest level to ensure
the ship could continue to head to the ship-breaking
beaches of India.
Meanwhile in India there was a growing
media and public scandal.
Greenpeace and our anti-asbestos allies
launched lawsuits in both the French and
Indian courts, and India ordered the warship
to stay out of Indian waters pending a final
ruling. Online activists around the world
were peppering the French government with
email demanding the ship return to France.
Still France kept the asbestos ship steaming
towards India.
As the Indian Government dithered and the
French Government stubbornly insisted on
the dumping plan, media interest intensified
and levels of public anger in India and
France increased with every day the ship
continued to sail head-on into the winds
of public opposition.
The decision of the French supreme court
that Greenpeace was right came just a few
days before a planned state visit to India
by President Chirac, who announced that
the warship would be turned around and head
back to France. Domestic heat over the scandal
had intensified last week when the French
Defence Ministry declared that it could
not account for about 30 tonnes of asbestos
that was supposed to be aboard the ship.
The case of the Clemenceau has become a
symbol of the moral injustice of rich countries
dumping their toxic waste on poorer countries.
Having tried and failed to offload the ship
to other countries, France has finally been
forced to clean up a toxic mess of its own
making.
While we savour this victory and the return
of the Clemenceau to France it is just a
poster child for a wider problem. Every
year a vast decrepit armada bearing a dangerous
cargo of toxic substances, asbestos, PCBs
and heavy metals, ends up in ship-breaking
yards in Bangladesh, India, China and Pakistan,
where they are cut up in the crudest of
fashions, taking a huge toll on human health
and the local environment. Shipbreaking
is one of the most visible forms of the
trade in toxic waste that ends up dumped
in developing countries -- but that trade
is also made up of smaller, more day-to-day
items like phones, computer parts, and portable
electronics.
We believe that rich governments should
look at the precedent of the Clemenceau
case and take action to reduce the toxic
wastes they produce, and to stop the dumping
of toxic waste in all forms on poor countries.
Only effective action will prevent another
Clemenceau-style scandal.
