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“We have waited more than 50 years for justice,” says
Rongelap islander and ERUB group president Rokko Langinbelik.
“The world needs to know of our suffering.”
With the 51st anniversary of the Bravo hydrogen bomb test
approaching on March 1, ERUB is organizing conferences and
activities to put the problems caused by Bravo into the
spotlight. For the first time, this year’s anniversary will
include links between survivors of US testing in the
Marshall Islands and survivors of the huge nuclear power
plant accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine that happened in
1986.
ERUB, which is both an acronym for the four nuclear
test-affected islands of Enewetak, Rongelap, Utrik and
Bikini and is the Marshallese word for “broken”, was formed
more than a year ago to put focus on ongoing nuclear test
problems in the RMI.
In April 1986, an accidental explosion inside the Soviet
nuclear reactor at Chernobyl ignited a powerful fire that
raged for ten days. The resulting radiation forced the
evacuation and resettlement of over 350,000 people and
caused an estimated $300 billion of economic damage, and is
likely to lead ultimately to huge numbers of excess cancer
deaths among those exposed to the fallout.
Langinbelik has invited other survivors of atomic and
nuclear radiation to a conference to be held in Majuro
starting next week Friday, February 25 through March 1.
A follow up conference will be held in Hawaii from March
2 to 5, according to ERUB organizers.
Next week Thursday in Honolulu, ERUB organizers and their
Hawaii supporters will hold a press conference with Dr.
Lyudmyla Porokhnyak, a “downwinder” from Chernobyl and now
medical director of the Ukrainian non-profit organization
“Zhinocha Hromada” (“Women’s Society”) who will attend the
conference on Majuro and O’ahu. She will stop over in
Honolulu on her way to the Majuro meetings.
As a survivor of the April 1986 Chernobyl accident
Porokhnyak sees this conference as a significant exchange
between people affected by radiation from so many parts of
the world, according to an ERUB statement. In Majuro,
Porokhnyak will be joined by survivors from the Marshalls
and other parts of the world.
“Future generations need to be spared the suffering that
we have endured,” Langinbelik said. “We need to educate our
communities and the world to these dangers.” |
