Department of Interior
officials notified Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi earlier
this week that the United States government has deposited a
new contribution of $1.78 million into the Rongelap
Resettlement Trust Fund.
Two more payments will be made in the same amounts between
now and October 1, 2006, according to Matayoshi.
“These payments will
fulfill the US promise to pay an additional $5.3 million to
Rongelap under the 1996 resettlement assistance agreement
between RALGov and Interior,” he said.
The full amount of $45
million was authorized by Congress in 1996, but available
funding appropriated at the time fell $5.3 million short of
the authorized amount. Since the last agreement was not a
binding legal obligation, it took RALGov five years to build
support for the final US payments to the resettlement fund,
he said.
“Those years of hard work
going back to Washington when it was cold have finally paid
off,” he said. “We will use this $5.3 million for a
state-of-the-art food program at Rongelap so anyone who
resettles will have a totally safe supply of food. This is
an important piece of the puzzle we needed to make
resettlement possible. We want to thank our friends in the
Congress, at DOI and in the RMI for supporting this funding
for our people.”
RALGov said it is also
pleased that this funding and the rest of the resettlement
trust fund was approved under a legal agreement in which
RALGov did not waive the claims of the Rongelap people that
are being heard by the Nuclear Claims Tribunal and as part
of the changed circumstances petition before Congress.
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