Tutu gives Greenpeace his blessing

CAPE TOWN -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu paid a surprise visit to the Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza, in Table Bay harbour yesterday and gave his blessing to the crew and vessel.

Tutu joined them in wishing for a clean, nuclear-free future as Greenpeace continued its work ahead of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

Tutu was taken on a private tour of the ship, which returned to Cape Town this week after protesting at the passage of a plutonium shipment from Japan to the United Kingdom.

The Esperanza intercepted the Pacific Pintail as it sailed past the Cape coast. The Esperanza will be berthed in Table Bay harbour for the duration of the Earth Summit.

"Thank you for your work for peace and a nuclear-free world, it is wonderful and we thank you," the Noble Peace prizewinner told the crew.

One of the key demands that Greenpeace will put to all heads of state at the Earth Summit, is that they should reject climate-changing and dirty-energy policies -- referring to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries.

Greenpeace said governments at the summit must make a commitment to divert the annual $250 million (about R2750m) subsidies from dirty power and invest in sustainable energy systems such as solar, wind and wave technology, which could bring electricity to two billion people.

"One day down the line people will say, why did it happen," the archbishop said. "It will be because of the contribution of you and you," he said, pointing to the crew.

Tutu thanked the crew "for the people of today and the people of tomorrow who are not yet born, but who, because of what you are doing, will be able to live in a world that is clean".

The blessing from Tutu was the first for the Esperanza, the newest ship in the Greenpeace fleet.

Tutu's visit echoed a visit made to her sister ship, the Rainbow Warrior, by the Dalai Lama during the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago.

The archbishop spent almost an hour on board the Esperanza and was presented with a Greenpeace book documenting the 30-year history of the international environmental group's protest campaigns, and two Greenpeace T-shirts bearing the logo: "Choose Positive Energy" and "Stop Plutonium Terror." -- Sapa