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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 27, No. 13. 1964.
Declaration
Declaration
Prior to the sending of the ships, a declaration of New Zealand's reasons and aims should be sent to the United Nations and the Governments and Press of all countries. Everybody must know what is happening, and know that each development and every threat or pressure will be made public. Nothing must be hushed up. The issues must be kept unclouded.
For two years the French nuclear tests in the Sahara have been one of the burning issues all over independent Africa. What have we heard about it?
Finally, it was only when action was taken by the new Algerian Government that the French decided not to test their bomb in the Sahara.
The Government should also demand that the South Pacific be a nuclear-free zone; but ultimately we want to create a situation that will lead to the end of all nuclear tests, and to disarmament. The idea could well catch the imagination of the New Zealander, who is very conscious of his own ineffectuality and his country's smallness and isolation. It would have the French, and anybody else, in a dilemma that would create a new situation and therefore force the opportunity for a new answer.
This is what we all want, and what we should struggle for.