Thursday, November 16, 1995


   UNITED NATIONS (Reuter) -- U.N. members Thursday called for an
immediate end to nuclear tests and deplored those already conducted by
adopting a resolution aimed at France and China.
   The vote in the General Assembly's disarmament and international
security committee was 95 in favor, 12 against, with 45 abstentions.
The decision means the resolution will be endorsed by the General
Assembly next month and Australia wants a higher vote at that time.
   While the resolution was adopted easily, reflecting the international
outcry against France's resumption of nuclear testing, the draft
obtained less than the crushing majority that had been expected among
the 177 states eligible to vote.
   Australia's ambassador Richard Butler told a news conference about 15
states who were expected to support the resolution, voted against,
abstained or "went to the loo (bathroom)" at the last moment because of
French pressure.
   "The French went out in the last week in a massive program of
twisting arms, threatening and cajoling states to either abstain from or
vote against this resolution," he said.
   He added that one delegate from a francophone nation spoke of the
"worst pressure he suffered in his public life" while another called the
French campaign "immoral."
   None of the five acknowledged nuclear powers voted in favor. France,
China and Britain voted against the resolution while the United States
and Russia abstained.
   Among France's colleagues in the 15-member European Union, 10 voted
in favor, Germany, Spain and Greece abstained and only Britain sided
with France in a no vote.  Others opposing the document were francophone
states Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Gabon, Mali, Mauritania, Monaco, Niger,
Senegal and Togo.
   The resolution, sponsored by more than 40 countries, most of them in
the Pacific or Latin America but also South Africa and Norway "strongly
deplores" current nuclear testing and "strongly urges" all nuclear tests
stop.
   French officials said they lobbied hard as was their right to counter
heavy campaigning by the draft's supporters.
   France last month staged its third nuclear test in the South Pacific
since September, fulfilling President Jacques Chirac's vow to conduct a
final series of checks on French nuclear arms before ending tests
forever.  Three more blasts are planned until mid-1996.
   China conducted two tests this year, the first one within 24 hours
after the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was extended
indefinitely in May.
   French delegate Joelle Bourgois told the committee the resolution was
"inspired by feelings rather than seriousness, by passion rather than
reason, by short term calculations rather than long term aims."
   France's U.N. ambassador Alain Dejammet said later:  "We are a bit
more than satisfied by the fact that our opponents did not reach the
watershed of 100."
   He said demands for France to stop tests immediately were meaningless
because everyone knew of Paris' plans.  The resolution also neglected to
say anything about progress toward a meaningful Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty in 1996, he added.
   U.S. delegate Stephen Ledogar objected to a preambular paragraph on
the potential harm to the environment and health he said "goes too far
without relevant evidence."
   British delegate Sir Michael Weston objected to a provision in the
draft saying that nuclear testing was inconsistent with the May NPT
conference.  He called this a "gross misrepresentation of the facts"
because the nuclear powers had promised only to act with "utmost
restraint."
   In response, Butler said Britain had misrepresented "what is in our
resolution to justify a position they choose to take for reasons of
their own."
   The NPT conference, he said, did not envisage China conducting a
nuclear explosion 24 hours after the NPT meeting ended.  "Nor did it
include a rapid fire series of (French) tests in a sensitive coral atoll
just weeks afterward."