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By GIFF JOHNSON The US government’s ability to maintain
its position that there are no “changed circumstances” is
rapidly unravelling, Rongelap Atoll’s attorney told the
Journal this week.
Attorney Howard Hills said the US National Cancer
Institute’s recent study predicting that half of the
expected cancers are still to come, combined with latest
National Academy of Science’s report that even low doses of
radiation are harmful has undermined the US government’s
position that nothing has changed since the early 1980s when
the first agreement was approved.
Hills, based in the US, was here for two days of strategy
meetings with Rongelap leadership and the community last
weekend.
“If the Marshall Islands knew in 1982 (when the Compact’s
nuclear compensation was negotiated) what we know now, it
wouldn’t have accepted the 177 agreement,” Hills said.
But Hills said that the these studies open new
opportunities for cooperation among all parties in the RMI —
the government, the four atolls and those atolls and islands
that want to be recognized as exposed by the US.
In the past, the four atolls were seen in “competition” with
the other islands, so that the success of one was considered
to be to the detriment of other islands, he said.
Today there’s been a huge change that “enables the RMI to
take off the gloves to work as hard as it can with the four
atolls (and the other islands),” he said.
“If the four atolls are successful in the Tribunal, the
Congress or the US courts, it will open the doors for the
other atolls,” Hills said. “We’re not competing interests.
Our successes are tied together.”
A prime reason for this is that the NCI study confirms
that cancers from the nuclear tests are expected throughout
the Marshall Islands.
He said the State Department has attempted to make the
case to the US Congress that the issue is simple. “The State
Department’s position is it’s simple because it’s over,”
Hills said. But the hearing before the House of
Representatives in late May made it clear that it’s not
over, he said.
“Will the US honor the integrity of the NCI report and
recognize there are changed circumstances?” Hills asked. “I
hope it will.”
Hills said that if the RMI plays its cards right and the
US honors the NCI study conclusions, “there is the potential
for a mutually satisfactory agreement.”
He thinks that because of the import of the NCI report, the
RMI and US could achieve a political agreement on health
care issues. But he believes that the issues raised by the
Tribunal’s approved land awards are too big for a political
settlement by the Congress, and would more logically be
referred to the US courts for review and resolution.
“We’d like to see a political agreement on a legal
solution,” he said, adding that everyone hopes to avoid a
legal showdown. |
