Friday, 22 January 2021, 9:12 am
By Emily Defina, Legal Adviser with the International
Committee of the Red Cross
It was 1995. Thousands
of people marched peacefully hand-in-hand through the
Tahitian capital of Pape’ete. The palm-lined streets were
awash with songs of protest. On a nearby shorefront, Cook
Islander warriors had just arrived by traditional voyaging
canoe: a vaka. They were there to deliver a message of
solidarity with their island neighbours, en route to the
nuclear test site of Moruroa. These warriors, sailing at the
forefront of the Pacific’s fight against nuclear weapons,
delivered their message of peaceful resistance with prayers,