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Greenpeace activists meet French officials

Vaiju Naravane

Presidential advisers were "utterly amateurish, knew nothing"; Government "not interested"

Paris: A delegation from Greenpeace and anti-asbestos organisations was received at the Elysee presidential palace on Friday, where they met two of President Chirac's advisers for the environment and Defence Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau.

Yannick Jadot, who heads Greenpeace France's campaign operations and was part of the delegation, described the attitude of the presidential advisers as "utterly amateurish."

He told The Hindu : "They knew absolutely nothing. We were astonished by the amateurish way the environmental advisers reacted. In fact, the French Government was not at all interested in decontaminating the ship and everything had been left to the private operator SDIC, the acquirer of the ship. They were asking us what needed to be done and are now proposing to add an engineer here, a technician there."

The delegation presented a letter to President Chirac, urging him to visit the shipyards at Alang, Gujarat, where the Clemenceau is to be dismantled, "to see for himself the extremely precarious working conditions of the Indian workers."

France's decision, they wrote, was "in total contradiction with the vision that you [Chirac] regularly advance, of a fairer kind of globalisation, of international solidarity, workers' rights and the protection of the environment."

Mr. Jadot said: "We are addressing the President of the republic as the moral authority of France. The only possible destination for the Clemenceau is [the French port of] Toulon, where its asbestos decontamination can be completed. We asked the President's advisers if asbestos on a warship was less dangerous than on a normal ship and if it was less dangerous in India than in France."

Decision in country's best interest: committee

Aarti Dhar reports

from New Delhi:

The Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC) on Hazardous Wastes Management chairperson G. Thyagarajan on Friday said the decision on whether or not to allow the decommissioned French warship, Clemenceau, to come to India for dismantling would be taken in the "best interest of the country."

Briefing reporters during the SCMC's meeting here, Dr. Thyagarajan said, "It was an issue of national pride" and the decision would be taken in an "integrated and holistic" manner.

The SCMC is expected to meet again on February 6 to analyse the information and form an opinion.

The Monitoring Committee is to submit its final report to the Supreme Court before February 13, based on which the apex court would make the final decision. The SDIC had already given an undertaking in the apex court that it would not permit the entry of the ship into Indian waters till the matter was finally decided by the court.

"We cannot allow the last rites of dead ships here but we have an open mind and have asked the French Government to provide us more details and documents," he said. Deposing before the Committee on behalf of the French Government, the French Ambassador to India reiterated his Government's stand that the ship was not hazardous waste as defined under the Basel Convention and the Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989. The French team said the ship's hull was decontaminated prior to its departure from France, leaving a balance of only about 45 tonnes of asbestos or asbestos containing material, most of which could not be removed without dismantling.

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