Fight still on in Marshall Islands 60 years after nuclear tests

Transcript

Exactly sixty years since the United States' biggest ever nuclear test - the Bravo blast on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands - the fight is still on for the United States to come clean on the true extent of its testing programme.

And the people in the Marshall Islands still haven't given up their fight for compensation.

Sally Round reports.

The Bravo hydrogen bomb blast on Bikini Atoll on the 1st March 1954 was unexpectedly huge, yielding a force a thousand times bigger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The bright light and boom carried for miles, heard by the likes of the Marshall Islands government minister Tony de Brum, just a boy at the time on his home atoll of Likiep 450 kilometres away.

TONY de BRUM: I was on Likiep as a nine year old when it happened and I saw Bravo with my own eyes, yes, and I still get, what they call in Hawaii, chicken skin, goosebumps when I think about that thing.

The Bikinians had been evacuated but not so the two hundred or so people of nearby Rongelap who fell sick from fallout and were not evacuated until a few days later. They were told they could return home a few years later only to have to leave again when their atoll was found to be unsafe. Adam Horowitz's award-winning documentary "Nuclear Savage" includes archive footage and official documents which he says show how the people of Rongelap were deliberately used as guinea pigs for studying the effects of fallout from the Bravo test.

ADAM HOROWITZ: There's documents and films referring to them as "savages" and that's where the name of the film comes from - a US government official source where they refer to the Marshall Islanders as savages but "happy amenable savages".

The people of the Marshall Islands have been compensated for the testing under the Compact of Free Association which brought them independence from the United States. But, they say not to the full extent they're owed under the law. Tony de Brum describes the sixtieth anniversary as a major checkpoint in the nuclear saga, highlighting that Marshall Islanders are still a long way off their goal of righting the wrongs they have suffered.

TONY de BRUM: We have hit a brick wall in not just obtaining just compensation for people who were harmed, both physically as well as harmed in terms of their property but also to get full disclosure from the United States as to what actually happened here.

Jack Niedenthal has been helping Bikinians fight for what they're owed ...claims amounting to more than 2 billion US dollars. He says the compensation issue is still going through the courts but there is a feeling of helplessness among the people.

JACK NIEDENTHAL: When we go back to Washington I liken it to banging a tin cup in front of some of these people and I don't like that feeling. I think for the elders of Bikini and the leaders it's a very undignified feeling. We feel like we've done so much for the United States in terms of giving up our land and in some cases even our lives.

The United States Ambassador to the Marshall Islands, Thomas Armbruster, says sixty years since Bravo is a very significant anniversary marking many years of co-operation between the United States and the Marshall Islands people.

THOMAS ARMBRUSTER: We're certainly thankful for their contribution to global security during those difficult times of the cold war and we've had continuing programmes with them regarding health and environmental monitoring. This is an occasion we very much want to mark.

He says the US and the Marshall Islanders do not see eye to eye on all the issues but they're trying to work through them.

THOMAS ARMBRUSTER: The compensation has been about US$600 million, about US$1.05 billion in 2011 money. For now the US considers that full and final compensation has been paid according to the 1986 Compact of Free Association. Whether there was a cause for what they call changed circumstances that's an issue for the US Congress to decide.

He says the US also acknowledges its special responsibility to the Marshallese through health and environment programmes and scholarships. But Tony de Brum says it is not just about compensation. The US must come clean about what actually happened.

TONY de BRUM: They must provide all the information that they have, that they classified supposedly for national security reasons  so that we can judge for ourselves the true extent of the damage that was caused by the nuclear test. There cannot be any closure of the issue without full disclosure from the United States.

That's echoed by the film maker Adam Horowitz who says the United States committed crimes on a par with Nazi doctors in the Second World War.

ADAM HOROWITZ: When the Marshall Islands signed that independence agreement with the United States and accepted that payment most of the information was deliberately kept from them. They did not know the extent of the contamination and the US lied to the Marshall Islands as to the extent of contamination, the long term effects, the fact that people had been severely and deliberately exposed. they were lied to.

That's a claim the US Ambassador rejects.

THOMAS ARMBRUSTER: I think as far as the Department of Energy is concerned, the DoE has the lead on health issues and they pushed very hard for declassification and for openness. No I don't accept that interpretation and I've never seen anything that would lead me to that conclusion.

These days Bikini is still unpopulated except for half a dozen caretakers. Jack Niedenthal says the soil is still too contaminated for long-term habitation but world heritage status in 2010 and diving tours attract intrepid tourists despite poor transport links..

JACK NIEDENTHAL: It's gorgeous, you have some fabulous diving up there, world class diving there. You have the aircraft carrier up there, the USS Saratoga which is bigger than the Titanic. All those ships were sunk in battle-ready conditions by nuclear weapons. So it's still a treasure and there's still lots for people to see.

But he says for the 5000 Bikinians scattered around the world, including the remaining 20 elderly who have actually lived there, Bikini atoll has become something of a mythical place. And he says the fight should go on to allow Bikinians to return to their homeland.

JACK NIEDENTHAL: The idea of saying you know Bikini's now safe, we've done the clean up, the idea of providing that as an option I think is important for the future generations and I would hope we can still continue to work towards that goal.