'French forgery allowed Clemenceau to cross Suez'
by Vikram Vishal

    New Delhi: Greenpeace India has said that forged documents were used by the toxic French warship 'Clemenceau' to cross the Suez Canal where it got environmental clearance despite claims that it was carrying hundreds of tones of hazardous material. Ramapati Kumar, representative of Greenpeace India, termed the recent move by the French government as "unethical" and asked the Environment Ministry to take measures to bar the entry of the French warship.

    "The documents that they have submitted to the Egyptian authority clearly indicate that the French government can go to any extent to get rid of this ship. What they are doing at the moment is morally not correct. It's a complete double standard because when it comes to the protection of the health of their own people, they have banned asbestos in their own country in 1996. But when it comes to the question of protecting the human health of the third world countries they are dumping the ship in the name of the old documents which is unaccepted and unethical," Kumar said. "France must take a step now and call back the ship and we call upon the Ministry of Environment and Forest to take immediate action and to communicate to the Egyptian authority and to the French authority that the ship is not welcomed here in India," he added. Kumar lashed out at the lax attitude of Government of India for not taking enough steps to stop the ship from entering Indian territory and not allowing India become a dumping ground for the developed world. "The whole world is talking about this issue. But I fail to understand that how come the Ministry of Environment and forest is keeping quiet. Their passive approval, their silence is giving a tacit approval to the game that France is doing and France is ready to play any kind of dirty game to get rid of this ship and to dump it in our backyard," said Kumar. Earlier, French authorities had said that the most dangerous work -- the removal of 115 tones of brittle asbestos -- had been carried out in France and the remaining 45 tones of asbestos had to be kept in place to keep the ship seaworthy on its final journey.

   Supreme Court had on Monday barred the decommissioned warship from entering the country's waters until a report by a team of environmental experts. The aircraft carrier 'Clemenceau' left France in December for the massive Alang ship-breaking yard amid protests from the environmental group Greenpeace. The group said the 27,000-tonne ship contains hundreds of tones of hazardous material, including 500 tones of toxic asbestos, which could pose a risk to the health of scrap workers. Last week, Egypt had said that it faced no environmental threat from the warship's passage through the canal and gave it permission to proceed. The vessel is currently en route to India after being delayed for three days before it could enter the Suez Canal. The decommissioned Clemenceau ship, heading for the Alang scrapyard in Gujarat, is facing criticism from environmentalists, particularly Greenpeace activists, for being hazardous as it contains large amount of cancer causing asbestos.

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