A controversial shipment of weapons-grade plutonium left the French port of Cherbourg late last week, bound for Japan.

And although the route taken by the ship is far from Bermuda -- via South Africa and the south Pacific -- international environmental activist group, Greenpeace has issued a warning that future shipments could be sent through the Caribbean and the Panama Canal.

Ten years ago, a ship carrying a deadly shipment of nuclear waste was forced to divert to Bermuda after an accident in an engine room injured a crew member.

Greenpeace claimed the MV Pacific Swan that entered Five Fathom Hole in 1990 after an accident at sea was capable of causing a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster in Bermuda.

The British-owned vessel was travelling from Japan to Europe when it diverted to Bermuda on July 13 after the accident off the coast of Haiti, Greenpeace said.

The Pacific Swan remained anchored at Five Fathom Hole while two crew members were replaced. One of the crew members was believed to have been injured in the accident which local sources said was confined to the engine room.

The other crewman was a Bermudian who decided to remain on the Island.

In 1990, a Greenpeace spokesman said that shipments of highly radioactive nuclear waste and spent fuel from Japan pass through the Panama Canal and the Caribbean Sea about once a month, on their way to European reprocessing plants.

Spent-fuel is the material removed from a nuclear reactor after it is no longer useful in sustaining the reaction.

Greenpeace claims the spent fuel becomes much more radioactive during the course of its use and is one of the most radioactive materials known.

In 1989, there were 11 shipments of waste through the Caribbean. The shipment that diverted to Bermuda was the fourth shipment of that year.

At that time, a Greenpeace spokesman said that if there was an accident involving one of these ships, the radioactive waste could turn tourist regions into the kind of uninhabitable wasteland that now surrounds Chernoybl; 69,000 square kilometres of farmland were abandoned after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The latest shipment is being transported by the British-lagged freighter, Pacific Pintail which left France at 5 p.m. on Friday, January 19, loaded with a cargo of mixed plutonium/uranium nuclear fuel (known as MOX).

The cargo contains some 230 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium -- enough material to construct over 20 nuclear weapons.

The ship was joined by another freighter, the Pacific Teal , and the two vessels will travel in tandem to Japan. Each freighter is armed with three 30-mm canons and has an armed security force on board.

Greenpeace spokesman, Damon Moglen said: "This transport is a disaster waiting to happen. It is utterly mad to put nearly a quarter of a tonne of plutonium onboard a ship which also contains a massive amount of fuel oil and some seven tonnes of explosive ammunition.

"An accident involving such a shipment could have absolutely disastrous effects on the environment and public health.'' Under significant pressure, British, French and Japanese officials confirmed on Saturday that the ship would travel along the west coast of Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, up through the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, and then north, straight through the waters of a number of island nations in the south Pacific and onward to Japan, a voyage of some 30,000 kilometres.

Opposition is mounting from nations along the route and Portugal is seeking information from Britain confirming that the nuclear transport will not violate their 200-mile economic exclusion zone (EEZ).

Given the past history of clandestine nuclear shipments between Europe and Japan via the Caribbean Sea and Panama Canal, it has been feared that the plutonium shipment would be made via this route.

Strong historical opposition from countries throughout the wider-Caribbean and by such regional organisations as CARICOM, may well have had an impact on the routing decision.

But as though to warn the Caribbean and Central American nations that this was only a deferral and not a reprieve, the Japanese Foreign Ministry and state-controlled French plutonium company, COGEMA, have both stated that the Caribbean/Panama Canal route is on the candidate list for future shipments of plutonium, nuclear waste, and irradiated nuclear fuel.

And Greenpeace has warned that transports through the Caribbean and Panama Canal could undergo a dramatic increase in the course of the next year or two.

Mr. Moglen of Greenpeace said: "It is crucially important that the countries of the wider-Caribbean region use this time to take united action to prohibit these shipments through the national and regional legislation and regulation.'' In October 1992, CARICOM issued a declaration concerning possible shipments of nuclear materials through their region. They stated: That shipments of plutonium and other radioactive or hazardous materials should not traverse the Caribbean Sea; that the Caribbean should not be used for the testing of nuclear devices, and; that the Caribbean Sea should be declared a nuclear-free zone for purposes of shipment, storing or dumping of any radioactive or hazardous substances or toxic waste.