June 29, 2023
Nuclear free moment celebrated
Veterans of the peace and anti-nuclear movements have marked the 50th anniversary this week of New Zealand sending HMNZS Otago to France’s nuclear test zone around Mururoa.
The country’s last working class prime minister – Norman Kirk – said the frigate would be ‘a silent accusing witness, with the power to bring alive the conscience of the world’.
The previous year Northern Maori MP Matiu Rata had made the voyage to French Polynesia on board the Boy Roel, alongside the Greenpeace III.
Peace and anti-racism activist John Minto, says it was the moment Aotearoa took its place in the world.
“I was at university, so I was about 19, 20, or so and I just remember feeling really proud that New Zealand was sending a boat – an official government frigate, right into the French nuclear testing zone. And I thought that was one of those things that really made you proud to be a New Zealander. I remember that quite distinctly,” he says.
John Minto says ever since, New Zealand has mostly distinguished itself as a nation of integrity.