An American Congressman visiting the Marshall Islands, American Samoa's Faleomavaega, Eni Hunkin has said the U.S. government needs to make good on its obligations to compensate nuclear test victims in the western Pacific.
He asked island leaders to provide him with evidence to convince the U.S. Congress to provide more funding for compensation, health care and radiation clean ups.
Faleomavaega, who chairs the House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and the Global Environment, held three days of hearings in the Marshall Islands.
They were the first such hearings by a U.S. Congressperson there since 1976.
The hearings put a spotlight on the fact that since the Marshall Islands filed a petition for additional nuclear test compensation in 2000, it has received no formal response from either the Bush Administration or the U.S. Congress.
The U.S. tested 67 nuclear weapons at Bikini and Enewetak, including many large hydrogen bombs, from 1946 to 1958.
The Marshall Islands Foreign Minister, Tony deBrum, told the hearing, it was like 1.7 Hiroshima bombs going off every day for 12 years.
