Voices from some of the Rainbow Warrior crew:

Peter Laue, American, 70 years of age:

I retired in late 1988, having been an engineer aboard deep sea tow boats for nearly twenty years. Feeling it was time to do something good for the environment, and missing the sea, I applied to Greenpeace for an engineering job. I felt strongly that I would like to leave a greener and cleaner world for my children and grand children. Greenpeace seemed to fit what I thought I should do, and what I was trained to do. They have not disappointed me.

I was finally hired as chief engineer aboard the MV Greenpeace, and soon found myself leaving Amsterdam for Norway and Russia in 1991. we were protesting the then-Soviet Union's nuclear bomb tests in Novya Zemlya, an island above the Arctic circle, north of Archangel, conducted by the Soviet Union. At the test site, we were arrested at gunpoint and held aboard for a week by the KGB. Once released, we sailed for Norway, Iceland, Ireland and England, hunting for a ship loaded of nuclear waste going from Europe to England. They out-foxed us that trip.

Other voyages I've made have been opposing toxic dumping and saving endangered sea turtles in the Mediterranean, protecting the Antarctic, and the anti-whaling campaign. Waste trade (shipping of waste from developed to developing countries) campaigns in South East Asia, driftnet fishing campaigns in the Bay of Biscay and Mediterranean have also been a highlight in my work. Many, if not most, of these campaigns have to do with educating the visitors aboard ship about the particular campaign: the reasons why we are protesting, the issues involved, and working with other environmental groups.

This last campaign, as you know, was a witness to the world about nuclear testing.

Have there been any exciting moments? Yes, many, some of which would happen when we least expected trouble. But our very presence seemed to upset some people who seem to have enough of a guilty conscience to over-react in a tense situation.

For me, atomic testing in the Pacific or any other place in the world is a crime against all living things on the planet -- it is time to stop -- and the people of the world have to know about it.

Americans should be concerned about testing as much as the rest of the world. Who do we want to kill with these nuclear bombs? How many children with leukaemia or birth defects from radiation do we need to see before we question our reliance on nuclear weapons and power? How much more of our resources do we wish to dump down a hole of destruction? Winston Churchill said it best: "The second bomb only bounces the rubble." If the French test, there are people in the US -- who do not realise or know the consequences of their actions -- who will want to resume testing in the US. Then we would see the same craziness of the nuclear arms race starting all over again. Albert Einstein's words put it best when he said that the splitting of the atom changed everything, save our mode of thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe.

When the French commandos boarded the Rainbow Warrior, I was on the bridge with the captain, so if any systems broke down or he needed assistance I would be right there. I was tear gassed along with everyone else. After being herded on deck, it was discovered that the radio room which was barricaded was also tear gassed, and that two campaigners and the radio operator were in there. We were afraid they might be hurt or overcome by gas. Two of them scrambled out the porthole, thankfully, while one hung out the porthole for air.

I had to reenter the ship to get tools and show the commandos how to open the door: this time I really got a dose of tear gas. The French commandos, or Foreign Legion, or Navy or Police (they were all there) didn't seem to know what to do with us, and there were many conflicting scenarios of what was going to happen to us. Finally the Rainbow Warrior was towed into Moruroa lagoon and tied up to a mooring buoy. Then we were taken ashore and separated into groups so no one knew where or what was going on with anyone else.

Lastly, we were interrogated. We all gave our names as Fernando Pereira, the Greenpeace photographer killed when the French blew up the first Rainbow Warrior ten years ago - and then more waiting. Finally, everyone was assembled at the dock to be taken back to our ship. We refused to go until our inflatables (which they had been seized) were returned for safety reasons. They refused -- after much more talk, more officers and then finally a bus load of Foreign Legionnaires arrived. They finally gave us one inflatable back and the Legionnaires said they would use force if necessary to put us back on the Rainbow Warrior. They carried, pushed and shoved us aboard a launch and took us back to our ship. They then towed us out of the lagoon to the 12 mile limit and let us go.

The same people who make and test these bombs and spread nuclear pollution through the world without good reason are the same people who will use these bombs of mass destruction... People should think of the money and resources used to make and test these bombs: which could be used for peace and the enhancement of people's lives world wide instead.