Fiji recently lost Dr Meraia Taufa Vakatale, a monumental woman leader who broke many glass ceilings with her numerous firsts. As an educationalist, diplomat and politician, she profoundly impacted on the lives of tens of thousands in Fiji and the Pacific region, particularly young women in politics and anti-nuclear activists.

Dr Vakatale was Fiji’s first woman deputy prime minister, the first woman to be elected as a cabinet minister, the first female to be appointed as a deputy high commissioner, and the first Fijian woman principal of a secondary school in Fiji.

Dr Vakatale was also a fervent anti-nuclear activist. In 1995 she took a costly stand against her party and the then Sitiveni Rabuka government on renewed French nuclear testing on Moruroa Atoll in “French” Polynesia.

• READ MORE: Other nuclear-free Pacific reports

Joining a protest march against French testing led to her losing her cabinet position in the Rabuka-led government, in which she served as a member of the Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT) party.

She held the portfolio of Education, Science and Technology in two stints — from 1993 to 1995 and then, after being reinstated, from 1997 to 1999. In 1997, she was appointed Deputy Prime Minister.

In 2000, she resigned as President of the SVT party over the 2000 coup fallout.

She was a woman ahead of her time. Dedicated to her principles, she “paid it forward” to Pasifika generations by her fight to keep the Pacific a nuclear-free zone.

Idealism inspired thousands
Dr Taufa Vakatale’s spirited and unwavering determination, her activism, idealism and her principles inspired thousands of women and youth to fearlessly pursue their dreams.

The name Taufa Vakatale was first linked to the renowned all-girls Adi Cakobau School when she became a pioneer student there in 1948, aged 10 years. She was also the first female student at the all-male Queen Victoria School.

She completed her 6th form year at Suva Grammar School, where she became the first Fijian female to pass the NZ University Entrance. She entered the University of Auckland and in 1963 was the first Fijian woman to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree, privately funding her studies from her wages as a teacher in Fiji.

Taufa Vakatale went on to further studies in the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1971. On return to Fiji, she became the first Fijian woman president of the Fiji YWCA and principal of her old school, the Adi Cakobau School.

The YWCA in Fiji was the driving force of the anti-nuclear protest movement in the early 1970s, while she was president.

In her time as an educator, Dr Vakatale disciplined fairly, understood her students, and entrusted them with positive goals for their future, instructing them to “leave the world better than we found it”.

She was respected and honoured. Her feats helped ease the students’ own steps, to bring to life the Adi Cakobau School motto.

Towering moral stature
Of petite and elegant frame, in moral stature Dr Vakatale towered above many. In diplomacy she served as Fiji’s Deputy High Commissioner to the UK in 1980, while single-handedly raising her daughter to become a lawyer.

The University of St Andrews in Scotland awarded her an Honorary Doctorate of Letters for her contribution to the cause of Pacific women, while Fiji bestowed her with the Order of Fiji in 1996.

The extraordinary Dr Meraia Taufa Vakatale died on 24 June 2023, aged 84. She leaves behind her only daughter Alanieta Vakatale, three granddaughters, and many more following in her footsteps to leave this world a better place.

Thirty eight years on from the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and the adoption of the Pacific nuclear-free zone treaty, the Rarotonga Treaty, and with the imminent release of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant radioactive waste into the Pacific ocean, the leadership and sacrifices of Dr Vakatale must be hailed, and her life celebrated.

Asenaca Uluiviti is a community legal officer in Auckland. She has worked as a state solicitor in Fiji and at its diplomatic mission in the UN, and has served as chairperson of Fiji YMCA, and on the NZ board of Greenpeace. She went to the Adi Cakobau School. Sadhana Sen is regional communications adviser at the Development Policy Centre. Republished from the DevPolicy blog through a Creative Commons licence.

Fifty years ago 242 men left New Zealand on a mission to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia.

The crew of HMNZS Otago, and later the frigate Canterbury, were sent there to protest against French nuclear testing.

Little did they know that the fallout from the mission would continue decades later, with health problems and worries about the effects on their children and future generations.

• READ MORE: France has underestimated impact of nuclear tests iin French Polynesia, research finds
• Other French nuclear testing reports

Prime Minister Norman Kirk farewelled the Otago on 28 June 1973.

Twenty-year-old sailor Tony Cox was on board.

“I was standing on the deck along with a lot of other guys, and Norman Kirk was with the skipper, talking to various members of the crew.

“He said to me, ‘Don’t worry about anything, son. Nothing’s going to happen, but if it does, we will look after you’.”

Witnessed atmospheric test
A month later the Otago witnessed an atmospheric test just over 20 miles away.

The crew initially sheltered below deck.

“As soon as the flash had gone they said we could go up and have a look, so [we went] up the ladder and opened the door and out we went,” Cox said.

“It was a bit disappointing. It wasn’t like the movies. It was almost a straight line to start with, then it started to form into a mushroom. It had a pinky, grey colour to it.”

Fellow Otago crewman Ant Kennedy turned 20 at Moruroa.

“I got married at Honolulu. I didn’t know I was going to be married then. We were on the way to southeast Asia to be part of New Zealand’s deployment there.

“Then we were called back and it was jokingly called Norm’s Mystery Tour.”

Labour government opposed
France started nuclear tests in the Pacific in the 1960s and Kirk’s Labour government was staunchly opposed.

Cabinet Minister Fraser Colman travelled there on the Otago, and transferred to the HMNZS Canterbury when it took over protest duties.

Aboard the Canterbury, Gavin Smith also witnessed a test.

“We were inside a gas-tight citadel for the explosion. We never thought about the consequences of it until much later, and then people started dying and getting crook.

“We realised that the seawater around there was contaminated. The seawater was used on board for washing vegetables. We washed in it, bathed in it.”

The water was desalinated, but that didn’t remove radiation, as Cox recalls.

“The water around us was contaminated. We didn’t know that,” he said.

‘No fish, no seabirds’
“There were no fish there, so that was a waste of time. There were no sea birds anywhere. They were well dead, gone. It was totally different to all the different oceans I’ve been through over the years.”

Kennedy said his health was okay, but he knew he was one of the lucky ones.

He remembers one fellow sailor needing surgery.

“He had this bad cancerous stuff on his face. And a guy called Cloggs. He was a signalman on Canterbury. He was at one of our reunions, and basically he came to that and that was that.

“He was younger than me.

“I thought, holy hell. This seems to be a bit out of the ordinary. You’d expect fit, young sailors to live into their 80s.”

About 20 years ago Cox’s oncologist told him he had a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Excessive doses of radiation
“[He said], ‘The only time you get this type of cancer is from excessive doses of radiation. Where would you have got that from?’

“I said, ‘I did go to a nuclear bomb test,’ and he said, ‘That’ll do it’.”

Veterans’ costs are covered for sickness arising from service.

But as Smith, the president of the Moruroa Nuclear Veterans group, said, there was concern about subsequent generations.

The group, formed in 2013, is active in trying to get recognition for possible effects on their families.

“Our children and grandchildren have oddball illnesses and we would like to know if that was a result of our service at Moruroa,” Smith said.

“Are we passing on bad genes or are we not?

Asking for DNA testing
“All we ask is for DNA testing to be done and when science can prove that fact one way or another we have an answer.

“If science does prove we have passed on bad genes we would simply like our children and grandchildren and the next generations to be looked after if they have an illness that’s related to our service.”

So far, that has not happened, despite regular lobbying of officials and ministers.

For Donna Weir, whose father Allan Hamilton was aboard the Canterbury, that concern was real.

Hamilton died in 2021 from aggressive cancer.

“I have had fertility problems, multiple miscarriages and things like that. We have kids who have problems that nobody can explain, if that makes sense.”

That included stomach and vision problems.

So much trouble
Weir said one older sister, who was conceived before 1973, had no such trouble.

The nuclear test veterans deserved greater recognition for their service, she said.

“They’re some of New Zealand’s most forgotten heroes, I think.

“I asked Dad if he knew then what we now know, would you have gone. His answer was quite simply, ‘I signed up to serve my country and that’s what I did.'”

French nuclear tests in the Pacific went underground from 1974, but continued until 1996. France conducted a total of 193 nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in the Pacific, 41 of them atmospheric.

Veterans’ Affairs has been approached for comment.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Vanuatu Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau says Pacific security is about the security of the Pacific peoples and their way of life as identified by Forum leaders in the Boe Declaration.

Kalsakau said this reaffirmed climate change as the single greatest threat to regional security.

The PM was speaking at the opening of the Pacific Fusion headquarters in Port Vila on Tuesday, alongside Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific climate action reports

He said Vanuatu, with the world’s first climate change refugees with the relocation in 2005 of 100 villagers in Torba Province, “will always consider climate change its top priority”.

He said climate change is real, an existential threat, impinging on the security and stability of all nations.

“We do not have to look too far to see how the increased intensity of climate change-induced tropical cyclones wreak havoc on the daily lives and livelihoods of our people and set us back years in our development,” said Kalsakau.

He said Vanuatu’s Pacific brothers also faced human security challenges caused by the nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands (by the US), Mororoa Atoll (France) and Australia (United Kingdom).

‘Our reefs are dying’
“With the effects of global warming and nuclear testing, our ocean is getting warmer, our reefs are dying and fishes are now very scarce.

“Our children and grandchildren are bound to never experience what we’ve enjoyed in our childhood.

“The maintenance and sustenance of our marine resources must be the top priority of our Pacific leaders.”

Kalsakau said there were other pressing issues such as the Fukushima nuclear waste water discharge and AUKUS.

“I say again that Pacific security is about the security of our Pacific peoples and way of life.

“This is why Vanuatu stood alongside our Pacific brothers and sisters to produce the Rarotonga Treaty. Which brings me to today’s very special occasion.

“The Pacific Fusion Centre is guided by the regional security priorities identified by the Boe Declaration and supports regional decision-making on these shared security priorities,” he said.

The centre, which is funded by Australia and to be run in collaboration with Pacific Forum member states, will aim to provide training and analysis on regional security issues.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

French Polynesia’s anti-nuclear organisation Association 193 has criticised the latest French report about the impact of the France’s nuclear weapons tests.

France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research evaluated additional declassified data from the tests at Moruroa Atoll and found that radiation from them had a “minimal” role in causing thyroid cancer.

The association’s president, Father Auguste Uebe-Carlson, told the AFP news agency there was a tendency by the French state and the institute to minimise the impact of the nuclear fallout.

• READ MORE: Other Tahiti nuclear test impact reports

He said the French Committee for the Compensation of Victims of Nuclear Tests refused to recognise the files of victims born after 1974, when the military carried out its last atmospheric test.

But Father Uebe-Carlson said there was an argument to also recognise cancer sufferers born since then.

According to Father Uebe-Carlson, the institute would one day have to explain why there were so many cancers in French Polynesia.

He has repeatedly accused France of refusing to recognise the impact of the tests, instead using “propaganda” to say they were clean or a “thing of the past”.

He said health problems were now being attributed to poor diet and lifestyle choices.

He said that three years ago he had carried out a survey in Mangareva, which is close to the former weapons test sites, and found that from 1966 onward all families reported cases of still-born babies.

Call for release of scientific data
The president of the test veterans’ organisation Moruroa e Tatou said the release of the scientific data was not enough.

Hiro Tefaarere told Polynésie 1ère TV that it was “absolutely necessary” for his organisation to get from the French state the register of the cancer patients and cancer deaths during the testing period.

He said it was “imperative” that these files be given to Moruroa e Tatou.

Tefaarere said this research, if the state agreed to release it, would give his organisation the essential elements to consolidate the complaints which have been filed

A Territorial Assembly member, Hinamoeura Cross, who suffers from leukemia, said she was outraged that reports were still being published that were downplaying the tests’ effects.

The new Tahitian president, Moetai Brotherson, said he would take the latest report into account when he entered into discussions with the French government.

French Polynesia had for years been trying to get France to reimburse it for the costs of cancer sufferers.

$1bn to treat radiation cancers
Its social security agency, CPS, said that since 1995 it had spent almost US$1 billion to treat 10,000 people suffering from cancer as the result of radiation from the tests.

In 2010, Paris recognised for the first time that the tests had had an impact on the environment and health, paving the way for compensation.

Between 1966 and 1996, France carried out almost 200 tests in the South Pacific, involving more than 100,000 military and civilian personnel.

Paris has refused to apologise for the tests, but President Emmanuel Macron said France owed “a debt” to the French Polynesian people.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Pacific Youth are looking at how they can spark positive change following the Hiroshima G7 Youth Summit which has just wrapped up.

Youth from around the world have met in the Japanese city in an effort to find solutions to stop the use of nuclear weapons.

The summit was co-organised by the Centre for Peace at the Hiroshima University and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

• READ MORE: Other nuclear weapons protests

Among the attendees was Māohi — indigenous French Polynesian — youth delegate Tamatoa Tepuhiarii.

“I feel empowered, empowered to contribute for my community,” Tepuhiarii said.

He is aiming to do a PhD in anthropology, and said he wants to examine nuclear impacts on Māohi people.

“My Grandpa, he worked on Moruroa [atoll], and he died suddenly; he just fell suddenly and my mum told me that the blood came out from his mouth.

“We know now that his death is related to the nuclear testing period,” he said.

From 1966, French Polynesia’s Moruroa and Fangataufa tolls were the main French nuclear weapons test sites — that is where Tepuhiarii’s grandfather worked, unaware of the devastating consequences to come.

Some of the explosions were 200 times the strength of the bombs dropped by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

“We can see the impact of nuclear weapons on our society, on the Māohi society,” he said.

“The nuclear testing period, and particularly nuclear testing, has impacted on the whole society now 27 years after the last bomb, which exploded at Fangataufa,” Tepuhiarii said.

For Tepuhiarii, learning more about his family’s nuclear history is vital, to preserve the knowledge and share the stories of those who have suffered and continue to suffer.

Youth G7 outcomes
The youth summit statement noted the concerns some Pacific nations have on Japan’s plans to release more than one million tonnes of ALPS treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.

ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) is a multi-nuclide removal system to strip various radioactive materials from contaminated water.

“[We] support in solidarity with the states who sit on the frontlines of this crisis and see this as an act of trans-boundary harm upon the Pacific,” the joint statement said.

Eleven requests have been made for G7 countries to take onboard including, “sincerely committing to steps towards nuclear disarmament”.

“We urge you to take bolder and more decisive actions by honouring our recommendations,” the G7 youth statement requested.

The official G7 meeting with world leaders starts on May 19.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The new French High Commissioner to French Polynesia has heard calls for support and compensation for atolls close to the test sites of France’s nuclear weapons tests.

High Commissioner Eric Spitz has been on his first tour of the outer islands since arriving from France last month to discuss France’s efforts to overcome the test legacy in line with an undertaking of President Emmanuel Macron to “turn the page” over the tests.

Spitz has been visiting Mangareva and Tureia, which are among the inhabited atolls closest to the former test sites of Moruroa and Fangataufa, used for more than 190 tests between 1966 and 1996.

• READ MORE: France ‘must pay’ for study on genetic impact of its Pacific nuclear tests
• Macron to host French nuclear test legacy talks
• Moruroa nuclear site could collapse, MP warns UN
• France asked to pay for Tahiti nuke victims
• Other French nuclear testing legacy reports

The High Commissioner is travelling with the project manager for the French prime minister on the consequences of nuclear tests, Michel Marquer, and the head physician of the monitoring Department of the Nuclear Test Centres of the General Defence Directorate, Dr Marie-Pascale Petit.

The government delegation has been updating the atolls’ residents on the latest findings about residual radiation and the risks emanating from the test sites, weakened by dozens of underground detonations.

The mayor of Tureia, Tevahine Brander, said she would like to have support from France because some locals had given their lives for France while it was developing its nuclear deterrent.

“Perhaps the French state has taken a big step today on the nuclear issue, but my people will always remain vigilant on this subject. Our elders have endured a lot of suffering,” she said.

The mayor of Rikitea on Mangareva, Vai Gooding. also called for compensation, with locals telling the visitors of ongoing concerns.

‘Victims who have died’
Jerry Gooding, who is with the anti-nuclear organisation Association 193, told Tahiti-infos that “in Rikitea, there are victims who have died, and their children have cancer too, although they were born after the nuclear tests.

“This is why the association is asking for a transgenerational study into the genetic impact of the tests.

“Macron went to ask forgiveness in Algeria but did not ask forgiveness from the Polynesians. He must come and apologise to the Polynesians,” he added.

A resident, Benoit Urarii, said “everyone knows that Hiroshima was catastrophic, and everyone knew that it was dangerous for the population. General De Gaulle was aware and chose Moruroa because there were fewer people.

“But it is close to us, so we are the first victims. The first test in 1966 was catastrophic for us Mangarevans. And we got infected. Nobody can deny that.

“We were not asked for our opinion, and we knew exactly how dangerous nuclear tests were.”

The medical expert Dr Petit said there was cancer before nuclear testing.

‘Cancer not only due to nuclear tests’
“It will exist afterwards, and we all know that cancer is not only due to nuclear tests. Nobody is able to say that this is a cancer due to nuclear testing or not. We do not yet have a marker that will make the difference,” she said.

Concern was also raised about a possible collapse of the test area on Moruroa atoll, but Dr Petit said movements were gradually diminishing, leaving a very low probability of a sliding of a sediment plate.

She said whatever happened, the possible swells were likely to be weaker than what Tureia had already experienced.

Doubt persists as residents point to the complex and expensive technology in use to monitor the area around Moruroa, which is still a military “no-go” zone.

Until 2009, France claimed that its tests were clean and caused no harm, but in 2010, under the stewardship of Defence Minister Herve Morin, a compensation law was passed.

Plans are afoot to build a memorial site in Pape’ete, but a resident in Tureia said it should be on his atoll.

“The centre should be here, it’s more honest. But not a memorial for those who have taken advantage of all these years of nuclear testing to enrich themselves and stuff their bank accounts,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The French nuclear compensation commission CIVEN says that last year it paid out US$16.6 million to victims of France’s nuclear weapons tests.

France tested 193 atomic weapons in French Polynesia over three decades from 1966 to 1996 after abandoning its testing regime in Algeria.

In its report for 2021, the commission said it had processed 199 applications of which 46 percent were found to be eligible for compensation.

• READ MORE: Other French nuclear tests reports

It said a further 217 compensation claims were filed last year, which was an increase of 79 over 2020.

Until 2010 when a compensation law was passed, France had claimed that its weapons tests were clean and caused no harm to human health.

The provisions of the law have been controversial because of the large number of rejected claims, which led to amendments.

In 2020, CIVEN said it had paid out US$30m to victims of France’s nuclear weapons test since 2010.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

French Polynesia’s nuclear test veterans have called for July 2 to be made a public holiday to remember the impact of France’s nuclear weapons tests on the local population.

The call was made as more than 2000 people gathered in the Tahitian capital Pape’ete to mark the 56th anniversary of the first test at Moruroa Atoll, which is still a French military no-go zone.

The annual commemoration was organised by Moruroa e Tatou and Association 193, whose name refers to the number of atomic tests carried out over three decades.

• READ MORE: Other French nuclear test reports

The groups keep demanding that France pay compensation for those affected by the tests.

Since 1995, the local health system has paid out US$800 million to treat a total of 10,000 people suffering from any of the 23 cancers recognised by law as being the result of radiation.

The head of Moruroa e tatou, Hiro Tefaarere, described the tests as France’s largest case of “genocide”.

The head of the Māohi Protestant Church, Francois Pihaatae, said the truth about the tests begins to be known.

After ending the tests in 1996, France continued to claim until 2009 that none of the tests had any negative effect on French Polynesians’ health.

A compensation law was adopted in 2010 and despite its revision, most claims have failed.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Following the publication of the book Toxic some 9 months ago and President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to French Polynesia last July, the response from the French administration has been to send French nuclear experts to Tahiti.

Their mission was to give clear and transparent answers about the state of former nuclear test sites among other topics. It was a way to counter the book’s anti-official version of the CEA’s (Centre d’Experimentation Atomique) claim of “clean and non-contaminating radioactivity” on both atolls.

The Commission of information created for those former sites of nuclear tests of the Pacific, was made up of 3 French civil servants involved in the controversial Paris roundtable — also called Reko Tika — organised by President Macron last July.

• READ MORE: The Moruroa Files – how cutting edge science, secret documents and journalism exposed a Pacific lie
• Thousands rally in Tahiti over nuke legacy
• France reassures Tahiti about nuclear legacy

In a media conference, they talked about radiological and geo-mechanical surveillance of the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls. They came with more scientific expertise and data that seemed to dispel the original idea of “clear and transparent answers”.

As far as the environment was concerned around those former nuclear sites, the conclusion was that the sites were much safer now after the presence of caesium-137 (a radioactive isotope of caesium formed as one of the more common products of nuclear fission) was noticed to be less year by year in all parts of the environment.

To “prove” their case of an independent and transparent study, they took samples of beef meat, whole milk or coconut juice from both atolls and are readily available to the population and analysed those samples.

Their results showed that the levels of radioactive concentration were far less than the “maximum levels admissible” — or whatever that means for the Ma’ohi who are not versed in the scientific jargon.

Artificial radioactive fallout level ‘low’
As for the health of the population, they reassured the people from the atolls that the level of toxicity of artificial radioactive fallout measured from 2019 to 2020 was extremely low, according to the data collected by the Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRNS).

They established that the overall efficient dose (external exposition, internal exposition by ingestion and inhalation) of radioactivity was evaluated at 1,4 mSv (the measure of radiation exposure) in Mā’ohi Nui — which is two times lower than in France.

An even stronger reassurance was offered to the media when the question of a possible collapse of the northern part of the atoll of Moruroa was mentioned. The French experts replied that such a disastrous scenario was extremely unlikely, because the geo-mechanical system Telsite 2 put in place in 2000, would detect signs of unusual activities weeks beforehand.

Notwithstanding their initial answer, they added that even in the worst-case scenario, preventative measures would be taken to evacuate the population of Moruroa, and Tureia would not be hit by this improbable landslide.

A reassurance that clearly leaves doubt on whether Moruroa is at all safe.

When asked by one of the local journalists, Vaite Pambrun, why the atolls were not “retroceded” (ceded back) to their people now that it is “safe”, the delegate to Nuclear Safety M. Bugault was at pains to explain that it was not possible because plutonium was not buried deep enough under the coral layer, and for safety reasons the French state still needed to monitor the atolls.

A somehow contradictory response that does not surprise the people who are used to the rhetoric used by the French state for the last 50 years.

France seems to offer very reassuring measures and answers, but the populations have learnt in the past that the word of the French state must be taken with a lot of mistrust and scepticism especially when it comes to nuclear matters.

France trying to wipe out nuclear traces from Polynesian memory

Independence leader Oscar Temaru, and former president of Tahiti, was quick to organise a press conference where he criticised the conclusions reached by the nuclear experts who seemed to contradict their findings about the safety of the atolls that still needed more monitoring, hence the refusal to retrocede.

After the last Paris roundtable, Temaru accused the French state and the local government — which he calls the local “collabos” (alluding to the French who collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War) to try “to wipe out the last evidence and vestiges that constitute the history of nuclear colonisation by the army and the money”.

According to Temaru, there is a trust crisis against the local government of territorial President Eduard Fritch and the French state that is going to last for a long time.

Those strong words also came after the decision was taken to completely destroy the last nuclear concrete shelter on the atoll of Tureia, wiping out for ever any traces of nuclear presence.

This decision is reminiscent of the one taken by the same French state to raze to the ground the two nuclear shelters used by the army on Mangareva.

By the same occasion, the hangar with the flimsy protection of corrugated iron used for the local population during the nuclear tests was also demolished. All those structures were pulled down in the early 2000s.

Father Auguste Ube Carlson, president of the anti-nuclear lobby Association 193, has also denounced the rhetoric used by the French state which “pretends’ to bring some new answers that have a “sound of deja-vu and that do not fool any of the populations who have suffered through the nuclear era”.

According to one of the Association 193 spokespeople, France is telling local populations that all is well in the best of worlds and there is nothing to worry about.

A more mitigated reaction

Local historian Jean-Marc Regnault conceded that it has been a struggle to get the French state to give access to files that at one point were declassified and then re-classified to now be reopened to the public which he considers a victory.

He does not share the same stance taken by Oscar Temaru regarding the wiping out of the last atomic shelter in Tureia. According to the historian, the shelter is a hazard to the population of Tureia as it contains asbestos and therefore needs to be destroyed.

Regnault positions himself as a researcher who, like any other member of the public, will be able to write the history of the nuclear era thanks to all those thousands of documents now available to be consulted, unless classified as state secrets.

He sees the history of a nation not in terms of buildings but in terms of what can be written and taught to the younger generations. The destruction of the building does not equal the wiping-out of a nation’s memory.

He finds it remarkable that teachers will have the material to teach the history of the atomic tests in Mā’ohi Nui, which was one the tenants of the Tavini party when they were at the helm of the country in 2004.

It is up to the women and men of Ma’ohi Nui to realise their dreams of writing the history of their islands by consulting those archives, especially the military ones and not be forced to only hear one narrative, that of the French state.

There is a movement toward more transparency, according to Regnault.

What about the conclusions drawn by the book Toxic?
The Delegate to Nuclear Safety M. Bugault, has been particularly dismissive of the book Toxic. He says that it is clear that the calculations based on the simulations are wrong and he rejected the deductions made by the book that the French state have played down the impacts of nuclear tests fallout on the Polynesians.

However, he admitted that 6 nuclear tests did not have favourable weather forecasts and generated radioactive fallout that led to doses “below the limit accepted by those working on the nuclear sites” but “higher than the doses accepted by the public”.

This is the reason why it is absolutely legitimate for people who have been contaminated to seek compensation.

He tells the press that the calculations and the investigation by Disclose wrongly contradict those made by the CEA in 2006 where the data and the mode of calculations were extremely technical and scientific and 450 pages long.

He suggested that those who were involved in the research and the publishing of Toxic were not versed enough in the technical jargon of the final document released by the CEA.
It is not enough to tell the truth but it must be accessible to the public, according to Bugault.

The book Toxic fails to explain in a clear and simple way how its calculations were carried out and achieved. He promised that in April 2022 the anti-Toxic book will be published by the CEA on Tahiti.

Ena Manuireva, born in Mangareva (Gambier islands) in Ma’ohi Nui (French Polynesia), is a language revitalisation researcher at Auckland University of Technology and is currently completing his doctorate on the Mangarevan language. He is also a campaigner for nuclear reparations justice from France over the 193 tests staged in Polynesia over three decades and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

French President Emmanuel Macron said this week that Paris owed “a debt” to French Polynesia over nuclear tests conducted in the South Pacific territory between 1966 and 1996, but stopped short of apologising, reports France 24.

“I want truth and transparency,” Macron said in a speech to Polynesian officials during his first formal trip to the territory, adding that there should be better compensation for victims of the tests.

“The nation owes a debt to French Polynesia. This debt is from having conducted these tests, in particular those between 1966 and 1974.”

• READ MORE: The Auckland event on Sunday mirroring the Mā’ohi Lives Matter rally in Pape’ete
• NZ nuclear-free activists, campaigners join Tahiti’s Mā’ohi Lives Matter rally
• Temaru calls for massive turnout for Mā’ohi Lives Matter nuclear-free rally
• Mā’ohi Nui’s search for nuclear justice – the French ‘reset’ button still to be reset
• France denies cover-up over deadly nucear tests
• Macron hosts French ‘truth and justice’ Pacific nuclear test legacy talks
• A round table on nuclear power to determine relations between France and Polynesia
• French nuclear tests: ‘I bury people nearly every day, what was our sin?’
• French nuclear tests legacy and Disclose revelations

France’s president said it owes French Polynesia a “debt” for doing nuclear tests there in 1966-96. He did not apologize.

Researchers say France covered up the effects and over 100,000 people were contaminated — almost the whole population at the time.

Only 63 were compensated. pic.twitter.com/n8mRBE4LEK

— AJ+ (@ajplus) July 29, 2021

The legacy of French testing in the territory remains a source of deep resentment and is seen as evidence of racist colonial attitudes that disregarded the lives of locals.

The 193 tests were conducted from 1966 to 1996 as France developed nuclear weapons.

Officials denied any cover-up of radiation exposure earlier this month after French investigative website Disclose reported in March that the impact from the fallout was far more extensive than authorities had acknowledged, citing declassified French military documents.

Macron echoed the sentiments in his remarks on Tuesday.

“I want to tell you clearly that the military who carried them out did not lie to you. They took the same risks… There were no lies, there were risks that weren’t calculated, including by the military.”

“I think it’s true that we would not have done the same tests in La Creuse or in Brittany,” he said, referring to regions inside France.

Macron says France owes “a debt” to French Polynesia

Calls for apology
Ahead of Macron’s four-day visit, residents in the sprawling archipelago of more than 100 islands were hoping that Macron would apologise and announce compensation for radiation victims.

Only 63 Polynesian civilians have been compensated for radiation exposure since the tests ended in 1996, Disclose said, estimating that more than 100,000 people may have been contaminated in total, with leukaemia, lymphoma and other cancers rife.

“We’re expecting an apology from the president,” Auguste Uebe-Carlson, head of the 193 Association of victims of nuclear tests, said ahead of Macron’s visit.

“Just as he has recognised as a crime the colonisation that took place in Algeria, we also expect him to declare that it was criminal and that it is a form of colonisation linked to nuclear power here in the Pacific.”

Meeting Macron on Tuesday on the island of Moorea, Lena Lenormand, the vice-president of the association, renewed the call.

‘Urgent demands’
“There are urgent demands, people who are suffering. We’re asking you to own what the state did to these Polynesian people, for an apology and real support,” she told Macron.

“We can’t help but think that you are at the end of your term, so words are one thing, but afterwards, what will be done concretely?” she told Macron.

In response, Macron said he was “committed to changing things” regarding compensation.

“I’ve heard you, and I’ve heard what you are asking of me, and you will see my response.”

In his speech, Macron said that since his election in 2017, there had been progress in compensation claims, but he admitted that it was not enough and said the deadline for filing claims would be extended.

• The Moruroa Files

About 35 people joined an Auckland rally last Sunday in solidarity with a Mā’ohi Nui Lives Matter demonstration by thousands of Tahitians happening in Pape’ete, the capital.

In solidarity and in sync with the Pape’ete event, the Mai te Paura Atōmī i te ti’amara’a: From Bomb Contamination to Self-determination rally was organised by Les Tahitiens de Nouvelle-Zélande (Tahitians of New Zealand) and hosted at Auckland University of Technology.

Ena Manuireva and colleague Tony Fala were the main organisers at AUT.

• READ MORE: NZ nuclear-free activists, campaigners back Tahiti’s Mā’ohi Lives Matter rally
• Thousands rally in Tahiti in protest over nuclear weapons legacy

With the live feed from Tahiti in the background, the message was clear to those who attended:

• French nuclear tests were wrong, killed people, and destroyed the environment; and
• France must now pay reparations.

The organisers wanted to remind the audience about the important date of July 17, 1974, as the largest radioactive nuclear test named Centaur — a test that contaminated more than 100,00 people which was nearly the entire population of Mā’ohi Nui at the time.

Nine takeaways from the event

1. This rally is the start of more solidarity action for Mā’ohi Nui people. We hope to engage more members of the Mā’ohi Nui community living in Aotearoa in this work.
2. It is reassuring to have the support of rally speakers in Auckland who represent different peoples of Oceania.
3. The nuclear issue in Mā’ohi Nui is being commemorated in other ways in Aotearoa. The Auckland Museum launched an exhibition on Remembering Moruroa and the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū is celebrating the artistic vision of one of Aotearoa’s most significant artists, the late Ralph Hotere. His collection includes the Moruroa watercolours — which has a fitting title, Ātete! (to resist).
4. The organisers plan to have further meaningful discussions with the Green MPs concerning the Mā’ohi Nui issues. They hope to work with Green MPs to develop concrete proposals so that the issue of nuclear waste in Mā’ohi Nui can be tabled in Parliament.
5. The organisers intend to reach out to the Department of Disarmament and Arms Control. They plan to talk to Nuclear Disarmament Minister Phil Twyford about this issue.
6. In the same vein, the organisers will approach the Ministry of Education to propose changes to the new school curriculum emerging in 2022 — changes that would include the teaching of the history of the anti-nuclear stand that New Zealand took in Oceania.
7. Rally organisers Ena, David, James, Mua, and Tony acknowledge the support of Greenpeace, former members of NFIP, and Peace Movement Aotearoa.
8. The organisers thank Mahealani Coxhead, Tasha Dalton, Ma’ara Maeva, Sally Manuireva, and Jos Wheeler for their invaluable contributions to the rally.
9. The organisers thank the Auckland rally audience and express solidarity to Oscar Temaru over the continuing struggle in Mā’ohi Nui.

The MC and speakers

Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua is an activist, educator, and poet. He was the master of ceremonies for the rally and event co-organiser. He introduced all the speakers.

Ena Manuireva is a Mangarevan-Tahitian, Mā’ohi Nui activist whose story started back on his native island of Mangareva. Mangarevans were the first people in French-occupied Polynesia to be used as guinea pigs and contaminated during the first so-called “clean” French nuclear tests on July 2, 1966. Ena narrated the personal story of how his mother became sick and vomited as her lips bled after she unknowingly ate contaminated fish; of how his older sister had weak bones as a baby, and how she developed a vulnerable body that forced his family to flee to Tahiti to save her life and find refuge. Manuireva challenged France to restore truth and justice through reparations and to return independence to Mā’ohi Nui.

The generation that paved the path for activism in Aotearoa and around the Moana-Nui-a-Hiva:

Hilda Halkyard-Harawira is a distinguished Māori activist, community worker, educator, and founder of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement (NFIP). She shared some rich impressions regarding her work as a Māori activist working in the NFIP movement from 1980. Hilda told the moving story of travelling with Māori activists to Mā’ohi Nui in 1995; of witnessing the vibrant anti-nuclear struggle in Tahiti, and of meeting Mā’ohi anti-nuclear protest leaders Charlie Ching and Oscar Temaru. She read extracts from an important address she presented at a 1995 anti-nuclear activist gathering in Tahiti. Moreover, Hilda spoke of her great friendship with Oscar Temaru while expressing her abiding support for Mā’ohi Nui’s struggle for nuclear justice and for independence from France today. Hilda Halkyard-Harawira’s rich address reminded the audience of the profound whakapapa interlinking Māori activists with Mā’ohi Nui, the wider Pacific, and the NFIP Movement.

Maire Leadbeater is of Pākehā heritage. She is an activist, former Auckland city councillor, historian, and writer. Maire is a member of West Papua Action Auckland. Maire expressed solidarity with Mā’ohi Nui in her oration. She explained why West Papua is not on the United Nations list of territories to be decolonised. Maire provided an important update on the contemporary West Papua struggle. Maire Leadbeater’s speech allowed the rally audience space to consider the significance of the West Papua struggle alongside that of the noble Mā’ohi Nui resistance in wider Oceania.

Dr David Robie is a Pākehā environmental activist, editor of Asia Pacific Report, and retired founding director of the AUT Pacific Media Centre. He sees events during his career around the Pacific, including French-occupied Polynesia, as a “game changer”. Those events include the publication of the book Moruroa Mon Amour in the 1970s by Bengt and Marie-Therese Danielsson, Tahiti-based activists, describing their outrage regarding the use of Moruroa as the testing site, leading up to the recent publication of the book Toxic and its damning revelations about France’s persistent lies over the nuclear tests. He also mentioned his Blood On Their Banner on Pacific independence struggles, first published in Swedish in spite of censorship thanks to the Danielssons’ contacts, and his inspiration from meeting Oscar Temaru which contributed to his commitment to the Mā’ohi Nui cause. David demands compensation for the harm done by the nuclear tests, a formal apology to the Mā’ohi Nui people, and a return of their independence.

Political support to the cause shown by the Greens:

Teanau Tuiono is of Māori and Atiu heritage. He is a member of parliament for the Green Party and a long time indigenous environmental activist. Teanau articulated the story of the abiding relationships interconnecting the peoples of Atiu and Mā’ohi Nui. He spoke powerfully about the visits of Atiu men to Mā’ohi Nui to work in the phosphate industry in years gone by. Teanau affirmed Oceanian solidarity towards the peoples of Mā’ohi Nui in his korero. Further, he acknowledged that Oceania’s peoples are bound together by the twin whakapapa of both genealogy and shared struggle. Teanau narrated the story of how he marched in support of the Mā’ohi Nui people as a student activist in 1995. Moreover, he spoke of being part of the group who hosted Oscar Temaru at Waipapa Marae at the University of Auckland after the march. Tuiono’s oration provided the audience opportunity to understand the solidarity Māori and Pacific Island peoples have extended to Mā’ohi Nui in Aotearoa since the 1990s.

Golriz Ghahraman is of Iranian descent. She is a member of parliament for the Green Party, a lawyer, and a community advocate for migrants and refugees. Speaking as a former refugee to Aotearoa, Golriz extended her solidarity to Oscar and the Mā’ohi Nui people in her speech. She illuminated the connections between Mā’ohi Nui; struggles in the wider Pacific; refugees, and migrants. Golriz spoke of the importance of the Palestinian struggle in her labours. She provided the rally audience with the ability to reflect upon the interconnections between the Mā’ohi Nui struggle — and that of the Palestinian, refugee, and migrant communities within and beyond Oceania.

The emergence of the young generation of activists:

James Hita is a Māori Greenpeace activist and coordinator for Greenpeace Deep Sea Mining. His message was unequivocal: nuclear tests are not isolated threats; they are part of the many perils that are directly impacting our Ocean. Climate change, nuclear tests, and deep-sea mining all negatively impact upon our most important natural food supply, Te Moana-Nui-a-Hiva. His message was a constant call to awareness for all of us that we must stand united and fight together against the many wrongdoings inflicted upon our Moana-Nui-a-Hiva.

Anevili TS is a Samoan activist and media worker who represents Indigenous Pacific Uprising (IPU) and Te Ara Whatu activist organisations. A link for her oral presentation at the conference can be found here. Anevili critiqued French colonialism in Mā’ohi Nui. Further, she reminded her audience that the climate change and nuclear issues cannot be separated in Mā’ohi Nui or in wider Oceania. Anevili extended solidarity to Oscar and the Mā’ohi Nui people and invited the French to get out of the Pacific. Anevili’s powerful address articulated the message that younger people in the Moana in Aotearoa stand in solidarity with Mā’ohi Nui today.

India Logan-Riley is a Māori climate change activist, an Indigenous rights campaigner, and a member of Te Ara Whatu. She talked about the whakapapa (genealogy) that the Mā’ohi Nui people have with their land and how France is trying to steal and destroy the land. She highlighted the difficult position New Zealand occupies at the UN- New Zealand is in alliance with other colonial powers such as France. However, she commended the resilience of the Mā’ohi Nui population after more than a quarter of a century since the last nuclear tests were done. She reiterated her support for justice and reparations for the Mā’ohi Nui people. India’s talk reminded the audience of the immensely strong relationships between indigenous Pacific peoples and their lands.

The panel of speakers included young activists as the organisers wanted to acknowledge the increasingly vital role that young people will play in the future by standing up to all kinds of challenges — while acknowledging the vital role of our activist elders who have come before us.

Emerging young activists will be the ones to hold the New Zealand government to account for their lack of action on environmental issues.

Younger activists will also have to stand up and reprimand other countries when other nations’ actions threaten the people and the planet.

Acknowledgements
The Auckland rally was only one expression of solidarity for the Mā’ohi Nui people beyond Tahiti: Messages of solidarity from Fiji (Claire Slatter), Micronesia, and the wider ‘Sea of Islands’ were presented to the people of Mā’ohi Nui via video message and social media.

On behalf of all the organisers, Reverend Mua Strickson Pua:

• Acknowledged the kinship linkages connecting all of the peoples of Oceania.
• Affirmed the continuing struggles of the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa, Australia, Hawai’i, Kanaky, Mā’ohi Nui, Micronesia, Rapa Nui, West Papua, and others.
• Upheld the work of tangata whenua protectors and supporters in Aotearoa in the struggles at Aotea Island, Ihumātao, Pūtiki, and Shelly Bay.
• Affirmed the interconnections between climate change, nuclear issues, and deep-sea mining as oceanic issues requiring collective responses from all peoples of the “Sea of Islands” together.

Several thousand people in French Polynesia have joined a march demanding France own up to the damage caused by its nuclear weapons tests.

The rally yesterday was organised by nuclear veterans group and the pro-independence opposition to mark the day in 1974 when fallout from the Centaur atmospheric nuclear test covered all of French Polynesia.

The protest under the banner Mā’ohi Lives Matter came a week before French President Emmanuel Macron is due for his delayed first official visit to the territory.

• READ MORE: The Auckland event on Sunday mirroring the Mā’ohi Lives Matter rally in Pape’ete
• NZ nuclear-free activists, campaigners join Tahiti’s Mā’ohi Lives Matter rally
• Temaru calls for massive turnout for Mā’ohi Lives Matter nuclear-free rally
• Mā’ohi Nui’s search for nuclear justice – the French ‘reset’ button still to be reset
• France denies cover-up over deadly nucear tests
• Macron hosts French ‘truth and justice’ Pacific nuclear test legacy talks
• A round table on nuclear power to determine relations between France and Polynesia
• French nuclear tests: ‘I bury people nearly every day, what was our sin?’
• French nuclear tests legacy and Disclose revelations

A pro-independence parliamentarian, Moetai Brotherson, said that over the years the French tests had contributed to the death of thousands of people yet France refused to apologise for that.

France has ruled out an apology and its government told a roundtable on the nuclear legacy in Paris earlier this month that it never told lies about the testing programme.

The pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru said France had denied the reality for decades, adding that he fought against France’s lies which he likened to terrorism.

In 2018, Temaru’s Tavini Huiraatira Party and the dominant Māohi Protestant Church alleged that the weapons testing amounted to a crime against humanity and referred all living French presidents to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Fifteen days after Tahiti Nui’s anti-nuclear protest on July 2, the Tavini Huiraatira party has organised a march Mā’ohi Lives Matter this weekend with support from the Mā’ohi Protestant Church, Association 193 and Moruroa e Tatou.

Former territorial president of Tahiti and pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru has called for an “unprecedented mobilisation” of the population.

It was after the unrest caused by the publication of the book Toxic (Toxique) last March that the anti-nuclear protest was set for July 17.

• READ MORE: The Auckland event on Sunday mirroring the Mā’ohi Lives Matter rally in Pape’ete
• Mā’ohi Nui’s search for nuclear justice – the French ‘reset’ button still to be reset
• France denies cover-up over deadly nucear tests
• Macron hosts French ‘truth and justice’ Pacific nuclear test legacy talks
• A round table on nuclear power to determine relations between France and Polynesia
• French nuclear tests: ‘I bury people nearly every day, what was our sin?’
• French nuclear tests legacy and Disclose revelations

The event on Saturday (Tahiti time) is also being mirrored in Auckland at AUT University on Sunday in a Mai te Paura Ātōmī i te Tiāmara’a (From Bomb contamination to self determination) rally being organised by Les Tahitiens de NZ.

The date was chosen to mark the controversial French atmospheric nuclear test Centaur on 17 July 1974.

This was a failed test, complicated by a dreadful weather forecast, that would have blown the radioactive cloud across French Polynesia to the main island of Tahiti Nui.

According to estimates given by the journalist authors of the book Toxic, this would have exposed up to 110,000 Polynesians to radioactive fallout.

Famous JFK speech
In the days running up to the protest, it is by the historic words extracted from the famous John Fitzgerald Kennedy speech that Oscar Temaru wanted to attract popular support: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

“It is a call for a general mobilisation,” Temaru explained.

“I can’t tell how many we will be. But I can tell you that there will be thousands of people.”

And Temaru, leader of the Tavini, added: “I will be satisfied only if we have 50,000 people.”

The bar is set very high.

Fifteen days after the July 2 march that marked this year’s 55th anniversary of the first nuclear test, and a week before the official visit of President Emmanuel Macron to French Polynesia, the collective called Fait Nucléaire en Polynésie (Nuclear Fact in French Polynesia) wanted to strike hard.

At the beginning of the month, the Moruroa e Tatou association managed to gather between 2000 to 3000 protesters in Pape’ete, thanks largely to the support of the l’Église Protestante Mā’ohi (Mā’ohi Protestant Church), which provided most of the protesters.

If its representatives were not at the press conference given last Tuesday at the Tavini headquarters to promote the protest of July 17, the religious organisation is still part of the organising collective.

Richard Tuheiava tried to explain the absence of the church leaders by asking the press: “You seem to doubt the involvement of the Mā’ohi Protestant Church? Don’t worry…”

Grievances and complaints
Two points of gathering are planned for Saturday morning from 6am in Tahiti. One is the carpark of the former Mamao hospital, for protesters coming from the east coast, and the other, the Tipaerui sports stadium for those coming from the west coast.

The two marches for the protest called Mā’ohi Lives Matter will start walking at 9am toward the main place of Tarahoi which will be the focal point for the event.

There a speech is planned to remind the objective of the protest. At midday after one minute silence in homage to the sick and former Polynesian veterans who died due to the nuclear tests, a section will be dedicated to a statement by victims who survived.

Video recordings made for this occasion will be shown on a big screen to carry the message of the sick Polynesians and international sympathisers who could not physically make it to the protest.

Among them will be Hilda Lini, sister of the late Walter Lini, the father of independence of Vanuatu.

Some diplomats from the Pacific are also on the card, recognised by the United Nations along with representatives of non-government organisations which sit at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

“Partners from well-known Pacific institutions, partners of the UN and active individuals in the Pacific region who know the fight of the Tavini on the nuclear issues,” added Michel Villar, foreign affairs councillor for the pro-independence party.

Crime against humanity lawsuit
The other main issue for this protest on Saturday –- and not the least –- is tied to the lawsuit alleging a crime against humanity pressed by independent Polynesians before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, an action that has now stalled.

Since last March, anti-nuclear activists have set up a network of recommendations for those recognised as victims and compensated to file a complaint in The Hague over the shortcomings of the the so-called Morin Law and community meetings have since been organised.

These complaints are likely to reinforce the statement made by Oscar Temaru before the ICJ in October 2018, as explained by Michel Villar last March.

“People have been trained to take statements. It’s already running full speed,” said Temaru.

“I am very satisfied with the last meetings that we have had.”

On Saturday, a host of complaints would help the pro-independence and anti-nuclear causes.

At least to boost communication of their story of suffering on the international stage.

• France conducted 193 nuclear tests from 1966 to 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia, including 41 atmospheric tests until 1974 that exposed the local population, site workers and French soldiers to high levels of radiation.

Translated for Asia Pacific Report by Ena Manuireva, one of the organisers of the Mai te Paura Ātōmī i te Tiāmara’a (From Bomb contamination to self determination) rally at WF603, Auckland University of Technology at 12noon on Sunday, July 18.

The French government has denied any cover-up over radiation levels in the Pacific following its nuclear testing in the region, as state-backed discussions took place in Paris about the legacy of the explosions, reports France 24.

A two-day meeting called by French President Emmanuel Macron began on Thursday following fresh allegations that the testing from 1966 to 1996 caused hidden atmospheric and ground radiation.

“There was no state cover-up,” Genevieve Darrieusseq, junior defence minister, told the French news agency AFP yesterday in a brief comment on the sidelines of the event, where she has ruled out any official apology from France.

• READ MORE: Mā’ohi Nui’s search for nuclear justice – the French ‘reset’ button still to be reset
• Macron hosts French ‘truth and justice’ Pacific nuclear test legacy talks
• French nuclear tests: ‘I bury people nearly every day, what was our sin?’
• French nuclear tests legacy and Disclose revelations

In March, the investigative website Disclose and book Toxic created waves when it said it had analysed some 2000 pages of declassified French military documents about the nearly 200 tests carried out in French Polynesia.

Working with statistical experts and academics from Princeton University in the US, it concluded that “French authorities have concealed the true impact of nuclear testing on the health of Polynesians for more than 50 years.”

The roundtable discussions have been attended by three French ministers, as well as President Macron himself, who made no public comment after taking part on Thursday.

Edouard Fritch, the territorial president of French Polynesia, said Macron had promised to open up the military archives about the tests, a key demand from historians, and would visit Tahiti on July 25.

‘Desire to turn page’
Only records that could lead to nuclear proliferation are to remain secret.

“We felt that the president had a real desire to turn this painful page for all of us, with the resources that will need to be put in place in the future, so that Polynesians can rebuild the faith that we have always had in France,” Fritch said.

The event has met with criticism from many Polynesian politicians as well as anti-nuclear campaigners and historians, who say they have been blocked from properly investigating by state secrecy laws.

Moetai Brotherson, a supporter of independence who sits in the National Parliament representing the archipelago, refused to attend unless France apologised for the tests.

His party, the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira, said it would organise a rival event in Tahiti on Friday.

Compensation
Over the past year, President Macron has shown a willingness to tackle historically taboo issues for France, including its bloody colonial history in Algeria and its role in Rwanda in the lead up to the 1994 genocide.

The nuclear tests remain a source of deep resentment and anger in French Polynesia, where they are seen as evidence of colonial or even racist attitudes that disregarded the lives of islanders.

The US and Britain also carried out dozens of nuclear tests in the Pacific during the Cold War arms race.

Up until now only 63 French Polynesian civilians, excluding soldiers and contractors, have received compensation for exposure to radiation from the nuclear tests, according to Disclose.

The website said it had reassessed the pollution on the Gambier Islands, Tureia and Tahiti following the six nuclear tests considered to be the most contaminating in the history of French tests in the Pacific.

It claimed that its conclusions were starkly different to those of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), whose figures served as the reference for compensation for victims of the tests.

In one instance, Disclose said radioactive soil deposits on an atoll had been underestimated by more than 40 percent, while more than 100,000 people might have been contaminated in total.

Protests
France conducted 193 nuclear tests over three decades at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia until former President Jacques Chirac ended the programme in the 1996 amid an international protest campaign.

In 2016, former President François Hollande acknowledged during a trip to the region that the tests had “an impact” on health and the environment and promised to revamp the compensation process.

From 1960 to 1966, France also carried out 17 nuclear tests at desert sites in Algeria, where campaigners continue to press for compensation and clean-ups.

While a Paris roundtable about the legacy of nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls is eagerly awaited by the French Polynesian government, the nuclear veterans organisations wonder whether the victims are really represented at the talks. Like every year, they will instead mark tomorrow — July 2 — as the day in 1966 when France detonated its first nuclear bomb in the South Pacific. Walter Zweifel reports.

A high-level roundtable on France’s nuclear legacy in French Polynesia is being held in Paris this week, aimed at “turning the page” on the aftermath of the weapons tests.

Between 1966 to 1996, France carried out 193 tests in the South Pacific, yet 25 years later there are still outstanding claims for compensation and the test sites remain no-go zones monitored by France.

The two-day Paris meeting was called by the French president Emmanuel Macron in April shortly after a new study about a 1974 atmospheric weapons test caused another wave of outcry.

• READ MORE: Other reports on The Moruroa Files revelations
• French nuclear testing in Polynesia

Analysing declassified French documents, the study Toxique by the news website Disclose concluded that the fallout affected the entire population and not only the immediate testing zone around Moruroa as the public had been led to believe.

Macron’s initiative to put the recent history on the table has been welcomed by French Polynesia’s president Edouard Fritch, but has been dismissed by the opposition, nuclear veteran groups and the dominant Maohi Protestant Church, which will stay away, saying the delegation from Tahiti lacks credibility and legitimacy.

For Fritch, the problems thrown up by the nuclear test era have been discussed with French politicians for the past 25 years but he says it is Macron who at last wants to deal with this “pebble in the shoe” in the relationship with Tahiti.

This harks back to Macron’s 2017 presidential election campaign when his team promised Tahitians that Paris would assume key responsibility for health care and to pay in full for the medical costs incurred by those suffering from radiation-induced illnesses.

Tests’ impact on health, environment
Fritch told media that the upcoming talks should bring ‘truth and justice’, with an agenda looking at the tests’ impact on health and the environment, and the financial costs.

The Tahitian delegation also wants France to acknowledge its nuclear legacy in the constitution.

Fritch said he would “ask the President of the Republic to give us a precise timetable and above all to send us competent people in the matters that will be discussed”.

Accompanying Fritch is a representative of the Territorial Assembly and the territory’s members of the French legislature, such as Lana Tetuanui, as well as employer and union delegates.

Among the French participants will be the health minister but the defence minister is not certain to attend.

French Polynesia’s former president Gaston Flosse, who for decades defended France’s testing regime, was not invited.

Reflecting the simmering dissonance in Tahiti, the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party of Oscar Temaru rejected the invitation to Paris outright, labelling the planned talks a sham.

Temaru said any such talks should not be held in the capital of the colonising power, but rather in New York under the auspices of the United Nations.

While France refuses to acknowledge the 2013 UN decision to reinscribe French Polynesia on the decolonisation list, Temaru insists that “the right of peoples to self-determination is a sacred right, and there is no mixing the sacred and the vile, that is money. Our people are not for sale, Mā’ohi Nui is not for sale.”

The main nuclear test veterans organisation, Moruroa e tatou, decided to boycott the talks.

Its leader Hiro Tefaarere said that after 50 years of people suffering from the test legacy, those going to Paris put money at the forefront of their demands and not ethics.

He said Fritch would not have joined the roundtable had not it been for the release of Toxique which identified the French state’s “secrecy, lies and negligence”.

‘Crime against humanity’
Rejecting the French invitation, the Māohi Protestant Church, which is the main denomination in Tahiti, has in turn invited Macron to attend its synod when he is expected to visit Tahiti in the next few weeks.

The head of the church, Francois Pihaatae, said that by going to Paris, they would have the “wool pulled over their eyes”, but once Macron was in Tahiti the presence of the local people would create a counterweight.

The church has been critical of the French state, saying it proceeded with the tests in full knowledge of the impact of nuclear testing since before 1963.

Both the church and Temaru’s Tavini Huiraatira Party alleged that this amounted to a crime against humanity.

Three years ago, they announced that they had taken their case to the International Criminal Court (ICC), but it is not known if the court has accepted jurisdiction for their complaint.

Paris roundly rejected the claims, condemning what it called the misuse of the court’s international jurisdiction for local political purposes.

The French High Commissioner Rene Bidal said at the time the definition of a crime against humanity centred on the Nuremburg trials after the Second World War and referred to killings, exterminations, and deportations.

Soon after making his charge, Temaru was forced out of office over an election campaign irregularity, which his Tavini Huiraatira party said was orchestrated by France to “politically assassinate” him in retribution for the ICC case.

Until 2009, France claimed that its tests were clean and caused no harm, but in 2010, under the stewardship of Defence Minister Herve Morin, a compensation law was passed.

Over a decade, it proved to be a source of frustration because most claimants, who suffered from any of the 23 recognised types of cancer, failed with their applications.

This prompted a loosening of the eligibility criteria and then again a tightening, leaving it still open for further amendments.

French Polynesia’s social security agency CPS has repeatedly called on the French state to reimburse it for the medical costs caused by its tests.

It said that since 1995 it had paid out US$800 million to treat a total of 10,000 people suffering from cancer as the result of radiation.

Temaru said the money was a debt, pointing out that if a crime was committed it was not up to the victims to have to pay.

Risks around Moruroa
The question of the tests’ lasting intergenerational effects remains unanswered.

In 2018, a study was planned after the former head of child psychiatry in Tahiti, Dr Christian Sueur, reported pervasive developmental disorders in zones close to the Moruroa weapons test site.

The findings — reported in the Le Parisien newspaper — caused an uproar in Tahiti and Fritch accused Dr Sueur of causing panic.

The psychiatrist had reported that a quarter of children he treated for pervasive developmental disorders had intellectual disabilities or deformities which he attributed to genetic mutations.

However, three years on a study by a geneticist is yet to be commissioned.

Calls for a clean-up of the Moruroa test site continue.

Although France stopped its weapons tests in 1996, it has refused to return the excised atoll to French Polynesia and declared it a no-go zone.

The Tavini’s Moetai Brotherson, who is also a member of the French National Assembly, said France might lack either the technology or the financial means to remove radioactive sediments.

He also said the cracks on Moruroa were a concern which might explain why France’s biggest investment in the region is the US$100 million Telsite monitoring system against a possible tsunami.

There are fears the atoll could collapse as result of the more than 140 underground nuclear blasts.

Plans for a memorial to be built in Pape’ete have had lacklustre support from those who keep mistrusting France.

While the roundtable is eagerly awaited by the French Polynesian government, the nuclear veterans organisations wonder whether the victims are really represented at the talks.

Like every year, they will instead mark tomorrow — July 2 — as the day in 1966 when France detonated its first nuclear bomb in the South Pacific.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru says high-level talks on France’s nuclear legacy due in Paris this month should be held at the United Nations in New York instead.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the meeting in response to a report which accused France of misleading the public about the fallout after a 1974 atmospheric weapons test.

Temaru said such a meeting should not be held in the capital of the colonising power, describing it as a sham.

• READ MORE: French nuclear tests in the Pacific
• Tahitian researcher says France must pay up

He warned those attending that the French Polynesian people and its resources were not for sale.

While French Polynesia’s delegation is being finalised, the leading politicians of the late testing era, Temaru and Gaston Flosse, will not be present.

In the lead-up to the talks, the French social security agency CPS again called on the French state to reimburse it for the medical costs caused by its tests.

It said since 1995 it had paid out US$800 million to treat a total of 10,000 people suffering from any of the 23 cancers recognised by law as being the result of radiation.

Temaru said the money was a debt, pointing out that if a crime was committed it was not up to the victims to have to pay.

Between 1966 and 1996, France carried out 193 nuclear weapons tests in French Polynesia.

The test sites of Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls remain excised from French Polynesia and are French military no-go zones.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A Tahitian academic living in Auckland whose family and home island of Mangareva were impacted on by three decades of French nuclear weapons tests says Paris must pay for the full extent of health and other damage caused.

Ena Manuireva is a doctoral candidate at Auckland University of Technology.

He responds to RNZ’s Koroi Hawkins about the recent revelations by the Moruroa Files investigation and a new book, Toxique, that the impact of the the 193 nuclear tests in Polynesia was far worse than previously admitted by French authorities.

• LISTEN TO RNZ DATELINE PACIFIC: Ena Manuireva talks about the French nuclear tests in Polynesia (Duration – 8′:23″)
• The Moruroa Files – how cutting edge science, secret documents and journalism exposed a Pacific lie
• Outcry in Tahiti over nuclear fallout study

Transcript
On a more personal level a Tahitian whose family and home island was impacted by French nuclear weapons tests says Paris must pay for the full extent of the fallout.

Maururu Ena, thanks for joining us on the show. So you were born in Mangareva in 1967 just one year after the French started testing nuclear weapons in French Polynesia?

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Cutting edge nuclear science, a trove of declassified documents, and investigative journalism have exposed the human and environmental impacts of French nuclear testing in the Pacific in a new book and web microsite/database.

Between 1966 and 1996, France conducted 193 atmospheric and underground nuclear weapons tests in Polynesia in the southern Pacific Ocean.

These nuclear explosions profoundly affected the environment and health of local indigenous Maohi people and of French veterans involved in the testing programme.

• READ MORE: Moruroa Files: Investigation into French nuclear tests in the Pacific
• Toxique: Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie
• The declassified documents

Using an archive of 2000 pages of declassified French government documents, hundreds of hours of computer simulations of the nuclear tests and fallout predictions, dozens of interviews in France and Polynesia, the book Toxique presents the results of a two-year long study on the consequences of French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the continued struggle of local communities and veterans to seek justice and compensation.

It sheds unprecedented light on the radiological and environmental contamination of the people of the Pacific through scientific research, journalism, and storytelling.

It challenges existing official narratives of the consequences of the test, and reveals that more could have been done to protect the public and that justice is owed.

The book, authored by Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius, has a parallel microsite and database – Moruroa Files: Investigation into French nuclear tests in the Pacific.

Unprecedented collaboration
“This work is the result of an unprecedented collaboration between a Princeton University nuclear expert, INTERPRT, a collective of architects specialising in the forensic analysis of environmental crimes, and investigative journalists from the media Disclose.

Classified until 2013, the archives were finally made public as a result of a long legal battle between the French state and the victims of the nuclear tests.

Until now, the documents have never been studied in their totality. The research team reorganised them by date and subject matter and have now filed them into a database that can be accessed by victims of the tests, researchers and the wider public.

Along with the study of the documents, the team carried out interviews with more than 50 people, including 18 inhabitants of Polynesian atolls, 16 former military personnel, as well as with magistrates, scientists and organisations from civil society in both French Polynesia and mainland France.

Using 3D modelling tools and the visualisation of data, we have reproduced, for the first time ever, the events that followed the most contaminating of France’s atmospheric nuclear explosions carried out between 1966 and 1974.

The team also re-evaluated the extent of the radioactive contaminations these caused, and in which the civilian populations were the principal victims.

• Eyes of Fire microsite on French nuclear tests and the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior

A sit-in has been held outside the French High Commission in French Polynesia to commemorate the 54th anniversary of the first nuclear weapons test at Moruroa.

The demonstration was organised by the anti-nuclear group Association 193 which again decried the recent law change tightening compensation criteria for those suffering ill-health.

The group said most compensation claims for radiation induced diseases kept being rejected.

READ MORE: NZ gained ‘international creds’ as nuclear nation with Rainbow Warrior bombing, says author

The largest denomination, the Maohi Protestant Church, as well as the Moruroa e tatou veterans group held a conference on the tests’ aftermath, discussing action against the French state.

They argued that victims should seek redress through international courts, with a case pending in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The case was lodged in 2018 by the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party which accused France’s living presidents of crimes against humanity for exposing French Polynesia to nuclear fallout.

Until 10 years ago, France said its tests were clean and caused no harm.

The first of 193 tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls was carried out on 2 July 1966 and the last in 1996.

The tests left a toxic radioactive legacy that continues to cause immense harm to the health and wellbeing of Tahitians and other Pacific peoples, and threatens the future of the Pacific Ocean.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

The French nuclear compensation commission, CIVEN, says it will soon report on how to respond to last month’s Supreme Court reinstatement of some compensation claims from French Polynesia.

By RNZ Pacific

French Polynesia’s leading advocate for the victims of France’s nuclear weapons tests has died.

Roland Oldham, who was the founder and president of the organisation Moruroa e tatou, died at the age of 68.

He had been a teacher and a unionist who had also lived in New Zealand.

Oldham spearheaded Tahiti’s efforts to persuade France to pay compensation for those suffering ill health as a result of the weapons tests carried out between 1966 and 1996.

He was locked in a battle with the French state which only a decade ago admitted that the tests caused radiation-induced diseases.

In the face of France rejecting almost all compensation claims, Oldham pushed for a review of the law.

It has been amended and France now says more victims will be compensated.

Tens of thousands of military and civilian personnel were involved in the testing regime at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls where a total of 193 tests were carried out.

In the 1990s, Oldham, whose organisation was not affiliated to any political party, was under surveillance of the local intelligence agency.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Last week was ANZAC Day on April 25. I took my kids to the Dawn Service at Auckland’s War Memorial Museum. It’s become an annual trek for me.

I prepare the night before, pinning my father’s medals to the jersey I will wear in the morning, making sure they go on the right hand side. I pin a poppy to the left chest of my jersey and below that is pinned a Moruroa Nuclear Veterans Group badge.

I am proud of the service my father gave to his country. He was called upon in 1973 by then Prime Minister Norman Kirk and he, like his shipmates, answered that call.

As a nation we were proud of them. Heading off to French Polynesia in the middle of winter to be New Zealand’s official on-site presence as France commenced another round of nuclear testing.

They were sent there to remind France that New Zealand and other South Pacific countries did not approve of what the French were doing. By sending our sailors there we forced the world’s spotlight to be shone on France and their nuclear testing at Moruroa.

Spotlight too bright
That spotlight proved too bright and like startled bugs when a rotting log is lifted, the French government hastily retreated, taking their nuclear testing underground. We had won!

Our boys had shown the world the shameful and embarrassing, not to mention scandalous, actions of the French government and military on that little Pacific atoll. It was a victory for right and justice and became the foundation upon which our nuclear free stance has been built.

However in the ensuing years, as a nation, we have forgotten what happened in that fateful winter of 1973.

We attend ANZAC Day commemorations and we say “we will remember them”. But that is becoming simply lip service.

How can we stand there on ANZAC Day and repeat those words when we have forgotten a whole campaign?

We remember South Africa, both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Malaya, Thailand, Falklands, East Timor, Kuwait, Afghanistan. All rightly so.

But to neglect the Moruroa veterans as we have, does them a disservice.

Service ‘for nothing?’
It says to them that their service and sacrifice (and the ultimate sacrifice that many of their shipmates have made) was for nothing.

It says that their medals mean nothing to the country that have dished them out. The neglect in the annual ANZAC Day services turns those medals into little trinkets not worth the ribbon that they hang off.

It’s almost as if we as a nation don’t want to remember them because it is deemed too hard. It forces us to ask of ourselves whether we willingly sent our men to be exposed to nuclear radiation.

So instead we collectively say, “here’s a fancy medal. Now go away. We don’t want to remember you.”

They are the forgotten heroes. They’ve had to fight for everything they have got thus far and there are more battles yet to come.

Harsh words? Perhaps. But then these sailors are suffering and dying thanks to their service of their country.

Health issues
Health complications and cancers are common among these veterans and anecdotally, occur more regularly than the general population of their age.

During the annual get togethers their society organises, talk often turns to how the health of each veteran and their descendants is before the inevitable talk of who crossed the bar in the past year.

They suffer, we fail to remember or even acknowledge they exist. Norman Kirk promised those men that a grateful nation would remember them. Instead we have discarded them on the scrap heap of history.

It’s been 45 years of neglect. How much longer will it take for us to get it right and properly acknowledge these heroes as we should?

Michael Bain sits on the executive committee of the Moruroa Nuclear Veterans Group Inc as co vice-president as well as the media officer. The group is made up of former sailors on the HMNZS Otago and Canterbury, and the HMAS Supply, wives, partners and children of those sailors who served during the 1973 “tour”. This article was first published on Michael Bain’s blog Wokboy’s Wonderings and is republished here with permission. Bain is also a doctoral candidate at AUT’s School of Communication Studies.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced earlier this month that the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

ICAN is an international non-profit network of more than 465 organisations with campaigners in 100 countries.

ICAN was singled out by for the Nobel Peace Prize announced on October 6, as the committee recognised the role it played in raising awareness of the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons and in helping to bring about the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted in the UN General Assembly on July 7 this year.

The treaty now makes nuclear weapons illegal for any use, development or threat of use. They are to be eliminated.

While ICAN is honoured by the award, it immediately gave credit to the many campaigners around the world who helped make the treaty possible. It also noted the role of the hibakusa atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and nuclear weapons testing victims all over the world, who shared their suffering to bring about the prohibition treaty.

The Pacific Islands’ region has a long history of protesting against nuclear weapons due its legacy – unique in the world perhaps – of being used by nuclear armed states, the United States, United Kingdom and France as sites to develop and test their nuclear weapons.

The Marshall Islands, French Polynesia, and Christmas Island in Kiribati, were used for years for the conduct of horrendous nuclear tests.

Sixty-seven nuclear tests were conducted in the Marshall Islands from 1946-1958; French Polynesia had 30 years of atmospheric and underground tests by France.

Pacific countries protested
All Pacific countries joined in anti-nuclear protests from the 1970s to the present.

The Pacific Island states have joined other non-nuclear states and ICAN, in supporting the humanitarian initiative and calls for a legal instrument to prohibit these weapons use under any circumstances.

Several Pacific states voted on resolutions in the United Nations and in international conferences on humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, keeping up Pacific voices on the nuclear weapons issue.

In the final treaty negotiations in New York, nine Pacific countries voted for the adoption of the historic treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons, joining 122 states that voted “yes”.

Seven Pacific states had already signed the treaty when on September 20 in New York when it opened for official signatories – Fiji, Kiribati, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.

In the period now of heightened tensions between the United States and North Korea threatening to use and develop nuclear weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize gives timely support to ICAN and the treaty that makes nuclear weapons illegal.

What the Nobel Peace Prize is giving strong support for is this historic shift in international thinking on nuclear disarmament – to the opposite philosophy from deterrence -– of rejecting any use, development or threat of use of nuclear weapons because they are inhumane and dangerous.

Humanitarian initiative
The Pacific Islands have always been a part of that campaign – way before it was called a humanitarian initiative, because Pacific Islanders knew first hand the humanitarian, environmental and health impacts on many generations, of nuclear weapons because of the region’s involuntary experience of weapons’ tests.

As the Nobel Prize of 2017 is awarded this year to ICAN and its international campaign and the new ban treaty, the Pacific Island countries and many campaigners will celebrate.
The Prime Minister of Samoa, speaking at the UN General Assembly on September 22 said:

“As small island states, we are no longer protected by our isolation” and explained why he gladly signed the treaty on behalf of Samoa. He pointed to the global dynamics “leading our world perilously close to a potential catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.”

The Pacific Islands has lived through those catastrophes – still ongoing, in Marshall Islands, French Polynesia, among service men affected by nuclear radiation.

Fifty states’ ratifications are needed to bring the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons into force.

With 12 Pacific countries with UN status, the region could play a significant role again, in ratifying soon, so the period before the treaty is enforced is shortened. It is needed urgently.

The Pacific nuclear legacy has been channelled into being a force to be reckoned with. It joins other non-nuclear states that have helped create this alternative to stalled nuclear disarmament – a global treaty for nuclear disarmament that stresses humanitarian impacts as its rationale.

‘Defending’ N-weapons
Present treaties on nuclear disarmament such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) do the opposite – defending the use of such nuclear weapons they helped to shape.

None of the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons – the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel – took part in the treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons and the United States, Britain and France say they will never sign it.

On December 10, ICAN will receive its award in Oslo from the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

As most campaigners know, the work to prohibit nuclear weapons must continue with more urgency than ever. The Pacific Islands have done a great deal to share their experience of nuclear testing and launch a new approach to nuclear disarmament – prohibition of such weapons.

Dr Vanessa Griffen of Suva, Fiji, is a Pacific supporter of ICAN. She was formerly a member of the Fiji-based ATOM Committee (Against Testing on Moruroa) and a member of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement. She attended with ICAN two of the three international conferences on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons and was part of ICAN’s lobby team at the negotiations for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This article was especially written for Asia Pacific Report.