Caribbeans Want Nuclear-Free Zone

A 13-nation Caribbean group wants to block a possible French shipment of nuclear waste by having the region declared a U.N. nuclear-free zone, Trinidad’s foreign minister says.

The environmental group Greenpeace says a ship carrying the waste is to leave Cherbourg, France, in midFebruary and travel through the Panama Canal to Japan in the first of many such shipments.

Japan has sent 2,900 tons of nuclear waste to France for reprocessing into fuel for nuclear reactors. A shipment of 1.7 tons of plutonium back to Japan in 1993 provoked protests about safety from nations along the ship’s route.

The Caribbean Community believes it has a “strong scientific and moral case to have the region declared a nuclear-free zone, and we intend pressing that case at the United Nations,” Foreign Minister Ralph Maraj told The Associated Press late Thursday.

The Caribbean Community, known as Caricom, adopted a resolution in 1992 against shipments of hazardous materials through the region. A nuclear waste shipment scheduled for later that year avoided the Caribbean.