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Flags flew at half-mast Monday in honor of Nuclear
Survivors Remembrance Day.
But while Monday marked the 50th anniversary of
the day that the Bravo hydrogen bomb test spewed radioactive fallout across the
Marshall Islands, President Kessai Note and representatives of nuclear-affected
islands repeatedly emphasized that they don’t view themselves as “victims” and
called on the United States to meet its responsibility to the survivors.
“For our people, for the Marshall Islands, March 1, 1954 is the defining moment
in world history,” said Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi whose atoll was engulfed
in a snow storm of radioactive fallout.
“At a time when the US is spending billions to
study nuclear clean ups at US mainland weapons productions sites, and hundreds
of billions to make the world a safer place, the US has a legal and moral
obligation to finally resolve the legacy of nuclear testing in the Marshall
Islands — a democratic ally that asks for nothing except just compensation for
judicially determined (nuclear) claims.”
A police honor guard led nuclear survivors,
anti-nuclear activists, a high-level US church delegation, and local students on
a march down mainstreet to the capital building for a day-long program of
speeches and music.
President Note said this central Pacific nation
is asking the US “to help us to overcome the severe obstacles of the nuclear
weapons program.”
He said the $270 million compensation provided by the US in a recently expired
Compact of Free Association “was not enough” and he called on the US government
to respond to the RMI’s petition seeking more compensation, clean up money and
health care funding.
“We can’t rewrite history, but we can look for
a better future for our people,” he said.
Speaker after speaker challenged the US
government to meet its obligations to nuclear test survivors, and many
questioned US efforts to cut back health care and environmental monitoring
programs for nuclear affected islands.
Emotion runs high at workshop
There were mixed emotions during the 50th
Anniversary of the Bravo Test workshop held at RRE’s Boknake House last Friday.
Participants went from being sympathetic to
being frustrated as the survivors unfolded yet another chapter in their painful
legacy with regard to the nuclear testing.
The workshop was organized by a group known as
ERUB (the initials of Enewetak, Rongelap, Utrik and Bikini) and its goal was to
allow the survivors to share their stories with the participants with the hope
that their stories would bring comfort to those who suffered.
The participants included representatives from
the National Council of Churches of Christ USA, the United Church of Christ in
Hawaii, the United Methodist Church, a Rescue Member Committee from Puerto Rico,
as well as a number of local personalities.
The opening prayer was given by Rev. Enja Enos,
the introduction by Rongelap councilwoman Rokko Langinbelik and then a short
film of the nuclear testing on Bikini atoll was shown.
Although the participants felt much sympathy
towards the survivors, the audience — many of them survivors themselves —
expressed resentment and anger toward the US government regarding their efforts
to gain reparations and compensation for the damage done to the four atolls.
Many are still in disbelief and shock as to
what and why all this happened to them, while at the same time they are
impatiently awaiting answers from the US government and a response that may be
favorable to them. Some of the participants expressed sympathy and grief towards
the survivors. One church leader said: “It troubles me to use people to test
bombs because as Christians we believe in God’s world and what right do we have
to play God?” Another said: “It saddens me that the US told the Bikinians that
they were all in God’s hands.”
One of the speakers at the workshop was
Johannes Peter of Utrik, who was 18 years old on March 1, 1954. “I was climbing
a coconut tree when I heard this loud explosion and the coconut tree started
shaking,” he said.
He then explained that his custom and culture
was deeply disturbed because both men and women were told by US officers to
bathe together in the sea in order to clean their bodies every day.
Johannes said that after being relocated a
number of times, he was finally transferred to Utrik where the people were told
all was safe. Then the people started eating contaminated food from the islands,
which had a big impact on their health. He said he was initially diagnosed with
thyroid cancer, but was able to have surgery. He continues to have health
complications.
Also speaking was Erine Jitiam of Enewetak who,
in 1948, was relocated to Ujelang where she stayed for 30 years. She said that
in 1952 she and her people were put on a ship and they stayed in the ocean for
three months until the testing ended.
Another speaker was Lemeyo Abon, who was 13 at
the time of the blast. He question to the US government was about various issues
that seems to remain unclear and unresolved. For example, she asked, “when are
the Rongelapese people due to return home?” “When is the US going to apologize
to all Marshallese?” “What is the US going to do with their loved ones who have
died?” And, “Is the US government going to account for the emotional and
physical deformities that have resulted from the nuclear testing?”
Charlie’s story of three ships
Well-known local businessman Charles Domnick
has a not-so-well-known story to tell about the Bravo test.
Speaking to the ERUB-sponsored workshop last
Friday in Majuro, Domnick said he was 12 years old and living on northern Likiep
Atoll in 1954. Three navy ships showed up at Likiep following Bravo, he said.
The first arrived within a few days, stayed
outside the pass and sent in two launches with officers who walked around the
island with geiger counters to check radiation levels. They took samples and
then left without telling anyone what they were doing, he said. About one month
after Bravo, a second vessel arrived. This one was interested in getting fish
samples. Domnick said he knows because he gave a fish to one of the navy men in
an unsuccessful attempt to get him to part with his diving mask.
A year later, a third ship came and anchored in
the lagoon. Everyone was taken to the ship for a full medical examination that
included taking urine and blood samples, he said.
Fast-forward a quarter of a century, and
Domnick was in Washington, DC with then-President Amata Kabua and Tony deBrum as
part of Compact negotiating team. US officials were telling them about plans to
conduct studies related to nuclear tests, and Domnick recalls responding: “I
said you’re wasting your time. Just come up with the reports from these three
ships that came to Likiep.”
US officials told Domnick there were no such
ships. “I wasn’t a baby in 1954,” Domnick said. “I remember the ships.” He said
that he advised Kabua not to continue negotiating with people who were clearly
not negotiating in good faith on this issue.
He said the US was covering up then, and 50
years later it continues to hide information. “The US should put everything on
the table.” At the workshop, he criticized the US government for spending
billions on problems such as AIDS in countries with which the US doesn’t have
close ties. What about the people in the Marshall Islands who suffered from
their nuclear testing? he asked. He believes the US should play fair and give
all records of what really happened.
US church groups back RMI’s cause
The head of the National Council of Churches of
Christ in the US told nuclear test victims in the Marshall Islands Saturday that
the 50th anniversary of the Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini is a “very
important moment in history” and “Americans need to hear your voice.”
Rev. Robert Edgar, the general secretary of the
New York-based National Council of Churches — which represents 50 million
members in 36 major churches — was in Majuro for ceremonies marking the 50th
anniversary of the largest American hydrogen bomb that was exploded on March 1,
1954.
In addition to heading this large church
organization, Edgar was a six-term member of the US House of Representatives
from Pennsylvania. Edgar was speaking Saturday to a workshop in Majuro sponsored
by the community group “ERUB”, which represents the initials of the four primary
nuclear test-affected atolls of Enewetak, Rongelap, Utrik and Bikini, but also
is a Marshallese language word meaning “damaged” or “ruined.”
Edgar was heading a high-powered team of
religious leaders from the United States that included top officials from the
United Church of Christ and the Methodist Church.
The American church groups are supporting the
cause of the islands for fair and just compensation, Edgar said. Commenting on
what Marshall Islands workshop participants described as their customary
politeness, Edgar said that Marshall Islanders must be “aggressively polite” in
their lobbying to get Washington to fully address the problems of nuclear
testing.
He said that Marshallese nuclear survivors have
friends in Washington in the the national church organizations that are
supporting their cause — and need to keep knocking on their doors to support
lobbying efforts in the US capital. He also believes that with more and more
Americans questioning their government over the grounds for the war in Iraq,
there is a greater willingness on the part of the American people to hear the
story of Marshall Islands nuclear survivors.
He said that Americans are dropping their
“blind support” of the Bush Administration in favor of a “reflective mood”
because of the misinformation from the Administration about the reasons for
going to war in Iraq.
“Bush Administration information for going to war was false,” he said. “Many
people are questioning the actions of the US government and will be more
receptive to hearing the Bravo story. “But,” he added, “I will say ‘Bravo’ when
the US government agrees to fully compensate the people and clean up their
islands.”
The US government provided $270 million in
compensation and health care programs that ended last year. The Marshall Islands
government and ERUB leaders say that this compensation was woefully inadequate
and has not satisfied the obligation of the US government to return islanders
safely to nuclear test-affected islands, to provide long-term health care
programs and adequate compensation for hardships suffered.
James Winkler, general secretary of the General
Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, who is based in
Washington, told Marshall Islanders at the ERUB workshop that his church opposes
the “preemptive war strategy” of the U.S. government. He described Marshall
Islands fallout survivors as “victims of this preemptive war policy.”
Bikini Islander Johnny Johnson said “the United
States needs to pay in full for what it did to us and return us to our islands
to live freely as God provided.”
Bikini Islanders are still living in exile 58 years after they were first moved
by the U.S. Navy in 1946 for the first post-World War II atomic tests.
“The war in Iraq just happened yesterday, and
the United States is providing billions of dollars,” Johnson said. “What the US
did to us was 50 years ago. They still owe us and should have taken care of us
by now.”
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