By IPS Correspondents
SANTIAGO, Mar 13 1995 (IPS)

The environmentalist organisation Greenpeace reported that the “Pacific Pintail,” carrying highly radioactive plutonium, will be headed towards the turbulent waters of Cape Horn on Tuesday.

On Monday, the ship was 380 miles off the east coast of Brazil and was travelling south, where it will either remain off Latin America or head toward Africa, Greenpeace said.

Cecilia Suarez, Greenpeace coordinator for the South Pacific based in Santiago, said that if the ship maintains course, it will be off Cape Horn, off the south coast of Chile, within a week.

The Pacific Pintail set out from the French port of Cherbourg on Feb.23 with a cargo of 14 tonnes of radioactive waste headed for Japan, which has an advanced plutonium recovery programme.

The waste came from nuclear material reprocessing plants in Cap de La Hague in France and Sellafield, England, which together with Japan have refused to release the ships itinerary.

Suarez said that if an accident were to occur, the resultant radioactive contamination would equal half that caused by the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine eight years ago.

The waters of Cape Horn are among the most dangerous on earth, Chilean Naval Commander, Admiral Jorge Martinez said recently.

Ships normally negotiatiate the passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans either via the Strait of Magellan or the Beagle Canal, passing through Argentina and Chilean waters.

However, forced to stay in international waters, the Pacific Pintail will use either the route around Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope off the southern coast of Africa, both much riskier.

Last week Chile’s House of Deputies passed a resolution banning the transport of radioactive material, and called on the government to take whatever measures necessary to assure that the British flagged ship will not enter Chilean territorial waters.

Greenpeace coordinator Suarez said it is also important for the public to take a stand against the ship’s using the route around Cape Horn.

This is the second contraversial incident regarding a ship carrying radioactive waste to Japan – in 1993 the Akatsui Maru carrying 1.7 tonnes of nuclear material was forced to use the Cape of Good Hope instead of travel through Latin American waters.

Due to the outcry, the Japanese government said it would reconsider its plutonium recovery programme.

But in June of 1994, Japan launched a plan which will give it the world leadership in production of weapons quality plutonium, according to Greenpeace reports, which indicate that Japan, France and Great Britain have a secret plan which will involve dozens of shipments of radioactive material between 1995 and the year 2000.

The Pacific Pintail cargo consists of 3,000 bars of the most dangerous waste ever produced, and a human being standing within one meter of the material would receive a fatal dose of radiation in less than a minute.

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