Warriors of the Rainbow hope for miracles

Warriors of the Rainbow hope for miracles
by : www.thejakartapost.com

DENPASAR (JP): Dutch national activist, Diederick van Gelder, arrived on board Greenpeace’s global flagship Rainbow Warrior with just a light suitcase.


Van Gelder was aboard the vessel from Sri Lanka, along with other activists, to observe the historic climate change conference meeting in Bali with hopes participating nations save the earth from man-made climate disasters.

“Usually when I sail, I take a big suitcase. But this time I brought only two of this, four of this, two of this, five of this and two of this,” said the sailing activist, pointing to his shoes, socks, shorts, underpants and shirt he was wearing when asked about his preparation to join the journey to Bali.

As for the last item, he said their number has increased.

“I’ve got plenty of these (campaign shirt) now,” said van Gelder, who prefers being called a seaman than an activist.

Packing fewer clothes should make life easier, because crew members do their own laundry on board, he told reporters from behind the dock gates while immigration officials cleared the activists’ documents before letting them step onto the resort island.

The international environment group’s vessel docked in Bali’s Benoa harbor Friday after sailing for about three months from India.

A flotilla of traditional fishing boats carrying banners saying “Save Our Sea” and “Save our Climate” escorted her arrival along with 17 environmental activists on board.

“We are here for a miracle,” Mike Fincken, the Rainbow Warrior’s captain told The Jakarta Post from the bridge where he controls the green three-masted sailing ship.

uring her journey to Bali, green activists from different nationalities have come aboard what Greenpeace activists call “the floating United Nations”.

In the Indonesia’s waters, Rainbow has stopped in several regions, such as in Riau province and Jepara in Central Java.

In Riau, Rainbow blocked a ship from leaving a port in an anti illegal logging campaign, while in Jepara, the Indonesian Bureau of Intelligence reportedly instructed police to halt Rainbow’s planned public open day.

However police miraculously allowed them to go ahead with the open day, to nods of approval and thumbs up to join a rally of restless residents opposing the construction of a nuclear power plant about ten kilometers from their village.

“I was handed a declaration in opposition to the nuclear power plant construction signed by the heads of the Islamic, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist and Protestant religions.

“Rainbow Warrior has been asked by this community to take a banner bearing many thousands of signatures to Bali -- to block the way to nuclear…,” Fincken said, “Rainbow Warrior is asked to help.”

Fincken has captained the Rainbow Warrior for about two years and sailed around the globe to campaign the protection of the earth from nuclear power, carbon emissions and all destructive and polluting by-products of human activities.

“I have previously sailed with almost all of Greenpeace’s vessels,” said the 40-year-old captain, who begun sailing when he was 18 years-of-age.

The current Rainbow Warrior was built from the hull of the deep sea fishing ship, Grampian Fame. She is the successor of the first Rainbow Warrior that was sunk by the French foreign intelligence agency while docked in Auckland harbor, New Zealand on July 10, 1985.

Greenpeace gave the vessel new masts, a gaff rig, new engine and a number of environmentally low-impact systems to handle waste, heating and hot water. She was officially launched in Hamburg on the fourth anniversary of the sinking of her predecessor.

As a “floating United Nations”, what really matters to members of the Rainbow Warrior, at sea, is a good chef trained in serving international food.

“We have a chef named Babu. He’s the best in the world,” Fincken said.
He said the chef must be able to cater the taste of the vessel crew coming from southern nations, such as Thailand, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand to northern nations such as England and Canada. “We had Mediterranean today,” he said.

Before coming to Bali, the Rainbow Warrior has previously sailed to Indonesia six times in 1985, 1997, 2002, 2004 and 2006.

From March to April 2006, she sailed to Papua to protest the ships that carried plywood from a factory in Papua. Greenpeace has documented the export of plywood the group alleges comes from illegal logging.

She will be in Bali until the United Nation climate conference closes Dec. 14.

Optimistic about the growing global awareness of the adverse effects of climate change, Fincken said he hopes that a great change will take place during the two-week meeting.

With his belief in miracles, Fincken will continue to sail the globe playing a part in a story he told locals in Jepara:

“When the earth is sick here will rise up, among her children of different creed and color, the warriors of the rainbow.” (Ary Hermawan)