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NewsAsia – AFP, 28 Apr 2014
Greenpeace
on Monday sent a protest ship to meet a Russian tanker carrying the first oil
drilled offshore in the environmentally fragile Arctic.
 |
| The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior. (AFP/Romeo Gacad) |
THE HAGUE:
Greenpeace on Monday sent a protest ship to meet a Russian tanker carrying the
first oil drilled offshore in the environmentally fragile Arctic.
The ship,
Rainbow Warrior, is captained by Peter Willcox, who was among campaigners
detained by Russian authorities last year after staging a high-profile protest
against Arctic drilling.
The vessel
set sail from Rotterdam on Monday afternoon, Greenpeace said, and will seek to
escort to harbour the Russian tanker Mikhail Ulyanov, which is delivering oil
purchased by French energy giant Total.
The oil was
drilled at the Prirazlomnaya platform, an offshore rig owned by Russian energy
giant Gazprom and the site of Greenpeace's protest last September.
The
protest, which saw two campaigners attempt to scale the rig, prompted Russian
authorities to seize Greenpeace's Dutch-flagged Arctic Sunrise boat and detain
the 30 activists and journalists on board.
Greenpeace
argues that the Gazprom rig is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen
that risks ruining the pristine Arctic ecology of the southern Barents Sea
where the deposit is located.
The
activists had faced lengthy prison terms before Moscow announced amnesties.
"We
want to escort the ship into the harbour," at Rotterdam, Greenpeace
activist Patric Salize told AFP by telephone from aboard the ship.
He declined
to say what kind of protest action the group might have planned.
There are
23 people on board the vessel, which may meet the Russian tanker on Tuesday
night, another campaigner Willem Wiskerke told AFP, also from aboard the
Rainbow Warrior.
"We do
not disclose in advance what we are going to do, but I can assure you we will
send a clear message to the world that this oil is very dangerous,"
Wiskerke said.
Greenpeace
has accused France's Total of hypocrisy for buying the Arctic oil, after its
CEO Christophe de Margerie said in 2012 that his company would not drill in the
fragile region.
A Total
spokesman in Paris confirmed the controversial purchase but insisted the
company would not itself be drilling in the Arctic.
"The
environmental risks are too high," the spokesman said, asking not to be
named.
Greenpeace
oil campaigner Ben Ayliffe accused Total of "real hypocrisy".
"Its
CEO has already pledged not to drill in the icy waters of the far north, and
yet he is apparently happy to buy the stuff if Gazprom takes on the risk,"
Ayliffe said in a statement.
"Mr De
Margerie cannot have his cake and eat it."
Greenpeace
is suing Russia before the European Court of Human Rights for what it says was
the illegal detention of its activists as it breached the right to freedom of
expression.
Russian
authorities are still holding the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker.
- AFP/ec
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