Minister,

You are about to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a time of real global tension.

Moments like this define countries.

My great-grandfather fought fascism.

• READ MORE: ‘Complete demolition’: Trump repeats Iran ultimatum as deal deadline looms
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In 1935, when fascist Italy invaded my country of birth, Ethiopia, then Abyssinia, Emperor Haile Selassie warned the world at the League of Nations. Many countries hesitated. New Zealand didn’t.

Under Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage, we called for sanctions. We chose principle over power.

We used to be clear about our principles in international politics. We stood against apartheid. We stood against nuclear testing in the Pacific.

In the 2010s, New Zealand went across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia asking for support to sit on the UN Security Council — not as a powerful country, but as a voice for the powerless.

Many countries trusted us and backed us. And for a time, we honoured that trust.

On 23 December 2016, under [then Foreign Minister] Murray McCully, we backed a UN resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal under international law. There was pressure. We stood firm.

On 25 March 2026, the UN voted to recognise slavery and the transatlantic slave trade as among the gravest crimes against humanity. Most countries supported it. New Zealand stepped back.

And as of 2026, we still refuse to recognise the State of Palestine while genocide unfolds in Gaza.

Minister, the current global tensions make this even more important. New Zealand is clear on international law when it comes to Iran. We must be just as clear when it comes to the United States and Israel.

As a small trading nation, our economic, diplomatic and security interests depend on international law being applied consistently. If we pick and choose, we weaken that system and we weaken ourselves.

Our reputation was built by standing up and punching above our weight, even when it was uncomfortable.

That is where our soft power came from. We have the potential to be a superpower in soft power.

Right now, we risk losing that by moving closer to powerful countries, even when they are in the wrong.

Minister, take that history with you into that meeting. Be clear. Be consistent. Stand for international law everywhere, not just where it is easy.

People in New Zealand and around the world are watching. And history has a long memory.

Nureddin Abdurahman is a Tangata Tiriti from Addis Ababa 17 years ago and a Wellington City Councillor. He first won a seat as a Paekawakawa/Southern Ward councillor in 2022 and was re-elected in 2025.

Pacific civil society groups say 2025 has been a big year for the ocean.

Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) representative Maureen Penjueli said the Pacific Ocean was being hyper-militarised and there was a desire for seabed minerals to be used to build-up military capacity.

“Critical minerals, whether from land or from the deep ocean itself, have a military end use, and that’s been made very clear in 2025,” Penjueli said during the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) 2025 State of the Ocean webinar.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Ocean militarisation reports

“They’re deemed extremely vital for defence industrial base, enabling the production of military platforms such as fighter aircraft, tanks, missiles, submarines.

“2025 is the year where we see the link between critical minerals on the sea floor and use [in the] military.”

PANG’s Joey Tau said one of the developments had been the increase in countries calling for a moratorium or pause on deep sea mining, which was now up to 40.

“Eight of which are from the Pacific and a sub-regional grouping the MSG (Melanesian Spearhead Group) still holds that political space or that movement around a moratorium.”

Deep-sea mining rules
Tau said it came as the UN-sanctioned International Seabed Authority tried to come to an agreement on deep-sea mining rules at the same time as the United States is considering its own legal pathway.

“It is a bad precedent setting by the US, we hope that the ISA both assembly and the council would hold ground and warn the US.”

He said unlike US, China spoke about the importance of multilateralism and it for global partners to maintain unity within the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) agreement which has not been ratified by the United States.

Also in February was the deep sea minerals talanoa, where Pacific leaders met to discuss deep sea mining.

“Some of our countries sit on different sides of the table on this issue. You have countries who are sponsoring and who are progressing the agenda of deep-sea mining, not only within their national jurisdiction, but also in the international arena,” Tau said.

In May, UN human rights experts expressed concern about the release of treated nuclear wastewater.

Japan’s government has consistently maintained the release meets international safety standards, and monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency shows there is no measurable impact beyond Japan’s coastal waters.

Legal and moral problem
However, Ocean Vision Legal’s Naima Taafaki-Fifita said as well as being an environmental issue, it was also a legal and moral problem.

“By discharging these radioactive contaminants into the Pacific, Japan risks breaching its obligations under international law,” she said.

“[The UN special rapporteurs] caution that this may pose grave risks to human rights, particularly the rights to life, health, food and culture, not only in Japan, but across the Pacific.”

Taafaki-Fifita said it was a “deeply personal” issue for Pacific people who lived with the nuclear legacy of testing.

In September, what is known as the “High Seas Treaty” received its 60th ratification which means it will now be legally effective in January 2026.

The agreement allows international waters — which make up nearly two-thirds of the ocean — to be placed into marine protected areas.

Taafaki-Fitita said it was important that Pacific priorities were visible and heard as the treaty became implemented.

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

The Marshall Islands marked 71 years since the most powerful nuclear weapons tests ever conducted were unleashed over the weekend.

The Micronesian nation experienced 67 known atmospheric nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, resulting in an ongoing legacy of death, illness, and contamination.

The country’s President Hilda Heine says her people continue to face the impacts of US nuclear weapons testing seven decades after the last bomb was detonated.

• READ MORE: Marshall Islands signs treaty banning nuclear weapons in the South Pacific
• Four decades after Rongelap evacuation, Greenpeace makes new plea for nuclear justice by US
• Nuclear justice for the Marshall Islands — a strategy for coordinated action
• UN rights council examines nuclear legacy consequences in the Marshall Islands
• Eyes of Fire – the Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior archive (Little Island Press)

The Pacific Islands have a complex history of nuclear weapons testing, but the impacts are very much a present-day challenge, Heine said at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Tonga last year.

She said that the consequences of nuclear weapons testing “in our own home” are “expensive” and “cross-cutting”.

“When I was just a young girl, our islands were turned into a big laboratory to test the capabilities of weapons of mass destruction, biological warfare agents, and unexploded ordinance,” she said.

“The impacts are not just historical facts, but contemporary challenges,” she added, noting that “the health consequences for the Marshallese people are severe and persistent through generations.”

“We are now working to reshape the narrative from that of being victims to one of active agencies in helping to shape our own future and that of the world around us,” she told Pacific leaders, where the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was a special guest.

She said the displacement of communities from ancestral lands has resulted in grave cultural impacts, hindering traditional knowledge from being passed down to younger generations.

“As well as certain traditional practices, customs, ceremonies and even a navigational school once defining our very identity and become a distant memory, memorialised through chance and storytelling,” President Heine said.

“The environmental legacy is contamination and destruction: craters, radiation, toxic remnants, and a dome containing radioactive waste with a half-life of 24,000 years have rendered significant areas uninhabitable.

“Key ecosystems, once full of life and providing sustenance to our people, are now compromised.”

Heine said cancer and thyroid diseases were among a list of presumed radiation-induced medical conditions that were particularly prevalent in the Marshallese community.

Displacement, loss of land, and psychological trauma were also contributing factors to high rates of non-communicable diseases, she said.

“Despite these immense challenges, the Marshallese people have shown remarkable resilience and strength. Our journey has been one of survival, advocacy, and an unyielding pursuit of justice.

“We have fought tirelessly to have our voices heard on the international stage, seeking recognition.”

In 2017, the Marshall Islands government created the National Nuclear Commission to coordinate efforts to address testing impacts.

“We are a unique and important moral compass in the global movement for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation,” Heine said.

The US Deputy Secretary of State in the Biden-Harris administration Kurt Cambell said that Washington, over decades, had committed billions of dollars to the damage and the rebuilding of the Marshall Islands.

“I think we understand that that history carries a heavy burden, and we are doing what we can to support the people in the [Compact of Free Association] states, including the Marshall Islands,” he said.

“This is not a legacy that we seek to avoid. We have attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment,” he told reporters in Nuku’alofa.

A shared nuclear legacy
The National Nuclear Commission chairperson Ariana Tibon-Kilma, a direct descendant of survivors of the nuclear weapons testing programme Project 4.1 — which was the top-secret medical lab study on the effects of radiation on human bodies — told RNZ Pacific that what occured in Marshall Islands should not happen to any country.

“This programme was conducted without consent from any of the Marshallese people,” she said.

“For a number of years, they were studied and monitored, and sometimes even flown out to the US and displayed as a showcase.

“The history and trauma associated with what happened to my family, as well as many other families in the Marshall Islands, was barely spoken of.

“What happened to the Marshallese people is something that we would not wish upon any other Pacific island country or any other person in humanity.”

She said the nuclear legacy was a shared one.

“We all share one Pacific Ocean and what happened to the Marshall Islands, I am, sure resonates throughout the Pacific,” Tibon-Kilma said.

Billions in compensation
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for the Pacific head, Heike Alefsen, told RNZ Pacific in Nuku’alofa that “we understand that there are communities that have been displaced for a long time to other islands”.

“I think compensation for survivors is key,” she said.

“It is part of a transitional justice approach. I can’t really speak to the breadth and the depth of the compensation that would need to be provided, but it is certainly an ongoing issue for discussion.”

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

The Marshall Islands has become the 14th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member state to join the South Pacific’s nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament treaty.

The agreement, known as the Treaty of Rarotonga, was signed in Majuro during the observance of Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day on Monday.

The Pacific Islands Forum said the historic signing of the treaty on March 3 — seven decades after the most powerful nuclear weapons tests ever conducted — underscored the Marshall Islands’ enduring commitment to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

• READ MORE: Four decades after Rongelap evacuation, Greenpeace makes new plea for nuclear justice by US
• Nuclear justice for the Marshall Islands — a strategy for coordinated action
• UN rights council examines nuclear legacy consequences in the Marshall Islands
• Eyes of Fire – the Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior archive (Little Island Press)

“By becoming a signatory to the Treaty of Rarotonga, the Marshall Islands has indicated its intention to be bound with a view to future ratification,” the PIF said.

“This reinforces the region’s collective stand towards a nuclear-free Pacific as envisaged by the Rarotonga Treaty and the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.”

PIF Secretary-General Baron Waqa, who is in Majuro, welcomed the move.

“This step demonstrates the nation’s unwavering commitment to nuclear disarmament,” he said.

‘Marshall Islands bears brunt of nuclear testing’
“Marshall Islands continues to bear the brunt of nuclear testing, and this signing is a testament to Forum nations’ ongoing advocacy for a safe, secure, and nuclear-weapon-free region.”

The Rarotonga Treaty was opened for signature on 6 August 1985 and entered into force on 11 December 1986.

It represents a key regional commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, contributing to global efforts to eliminate the threat of nuclear proliferation.

The decision by the Marshall Islands to sign the Rarotonga Treaty carries profound importance given its history and ongoing advocacy for nuclear justice, the PIF said.

Current member states of the treaty are Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

‘We are committed’, says Heine
“In our commitment to a world free of the dangers of nuclear weapons and for a safe and secure Pacific, today, we take a historic step by signing our accession to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Rarotonga Treaty,” President Hilda Heine said.

“We recognise that the Marshall Islands has yet to sign onto several key nuclear-related treaties, including the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), largely due to our unique historical and geopolitical circumstances.

“However, we are committed to reviewing our positions and where it is in the best interest of the RMI and its people, we will take the necessary steps toward accession.

“In the spirit of unity and collaboration, we look forward to the results of an independent study of nuclear contamination in the Pacific,” she added.

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

In the year marking 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French secret agents and 71 years since the most powerful nuclear weapons tested by the United States, Greenpeace is calling on Washington to comply with demands by the Marshall Islands for nuclear justice.

“The Marshall Islands bears the deepest scars of a dark legacy — nuclear contamination, forced displacement, and premeditated human experimentation at the hands of the US government,” said Greenpeace spokesperson Shiva Gounden.

To mark the Marshall Islands’ Remembrance Day today, the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior is flying the republic’s flag at halfmast in solidarity with those who lost their lives and are suffering ongoing trauma as a result of US nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Nuclear justice for the Marshall Islands — a strategy for coordinated action
• UN rights council examines nuclear legacy consequences in the Marshall Islands
• Eyes of Fire – the Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior archive (Little Island Press)

On 1 March 1954, the Castle Bravo nuclear bomb was detonated on Bikini Atoll with a blast 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

On Rongelap Atoll, 150 km away, radioactive fallout rained onto the inhabited island, with children mistaking it as snow.

The Rainbow Warrior is sailing to the Marshall Islands where a mission led by Greenpeace will conduct independent scientific research across the country, the results of which will eventually be given to the National Nuclear Commission to support the Marshall Islands government’s ongoing legal proceedings with the US and at the UN.

The voyage also marks 40 years since Greenpeace’s original Rainbow Warrior evacuated the people of Rongelap after toxic nuclear fallout rendered their ancestral land uninhabitable.

Still enduring fallout
Marshall Islands communities still endure the physical, economic, and cultural fallout of the nuclear tests — compensation from the US has fallen far short of expectations of the islanders who are yet to receive an apology.

And the accelerating impacts of the climate crisis threaten further displacement of communities.

Former Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony deBrum’s “nuclear justice” speech as Right Livelihood Award Winner in 2009. Video: Voices Rising

“To this day, Marshall Islanders continue to grapple with this injustice while standing on the frontlines of the climate crisis — facing yet another wave of displacement and devastation for a catastrophe they did not create,” Gounden said.

“But the Marshallese people and their government are not just survivors — they are warriors for justice, among the most powerful voices demanding bold action, accountability, and reparations on the global stage.

“Those who have inflicted unimaginable harm on the Marshallese must be held to account and made to pay for the devastation they caused.

“Greenpeace stands unwaveringly beside Marshallese communities in their fight for justice. Jimwe im Maron.”

Ariana Tibon Kilma, chair of the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission, said that the immediate effects of the Bravo bomb on March 1 were “harrowing”.

“Hours after exposure, many people fell ill — skin peeling off, burning sensation in their eyes, their stomachs were churning in pain. Mothers watched as their children’s hair fell to the ground and blisters devoured their bodies overnight,” she said.

“Without their consent, the United States government enrolled them as ‘test subjects’ in a top secret medical study on the effects of radiation on human beings — a study that continued for 40 years.

“Today on Remembrance Day the trauma of Bravo continues for the remaining survivors and their descendents — this is a legacy not only of suffering, loss, and frustration, but also of strength, unity, and unwavering commitment to justice, truth and accountability.”

The new Rainbow Warrior will arrive in the Marshall Islands early this month.

Alongside the government of the Marshall Islands, Greenpeace will lead an independent scientific mission into the ongoing impacts of the US weapons testing programme.

Travelling across the country, Greenpeace will reaffirm its solidarity with the Marshallese people — now facing further harm and displacement from the climate crisis, and the emerging threat of deep sea mining in the Pacific.

Author David Robie’s new Rainbow Warrior book Eyes Of Fire is due to be published in July 2025.

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 US tested 67 nuclear weapons on the Marshall Islands, tricking the people who lived on Bikini Atoll to leave their homeland “for the good of all mankind.”

But the Bikini Islanders didn’t know the US would contaminate their island and make it uninhabitable.

Now nearly 70 years later, many Marshall Islanders have moved to Springdale, Arkansas, nearly 600 miles (965 km) from the nearest ocean.

But as many Marshall Islanders build new lives there, they know Arkansas is not their permanent home, and their nuclear legacy is something both Americans and the next generation of Marshall Islanders need to remember.

The US forced the 167 islanders living on Bikini Atoll to leave in 1946 to enable American testing of nuclear weapons.

Over the next decade, the US tested 67 nuclear devices — 23 of them on Bikini.

Tabish Talib traveled to the Ozarks to learn how the Marshall Islanders are staying connected to their roots so far from their home.

“I feel like a nomad,” says a sixth generation representative of the Bikini Islanders in Arkansas, Sosylina Jibas-Maddison. “And it’s heartbreaking knowing there that we don’t have a home to go to.”

This is known to Marshall islanders as Bikini Day on July 5, the day that is also marked for the inaugural design of the swimsuit named by its French designer after the nuclear “bombshell”.

• AJ+ Reports: Why a royal princess from the Pacific is in Arkansas (13m30s)

The AJ+ Reports documentary on the Marshall Islands in the US.

On the 61st anniversary of the first raising of West Papua’s symbol of independence — 1 December 1961 — the Morning Star flag:

We, the Indigenous caucus of the movement for self-determination, decolonisation, nuclear justice, and demilitarisation of the Pacific, call for coordinated action for key campaigns that impact the human rights, sovereignty, wellbeing and prosperity of Pacific peoples across our region.

As guardians of our Wansolwara (Tok Pisin term meaning “One Salt Water,” or “One Ocean, One People”), we are united in seeking the protection, genuine security and vitality for the spiritual, cultural and economic base for our lives, and we will defend it at all costs. We affirm the kōrero of the late Father Walter Lini, “No one is free, until everyone is free!”

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Activists, academics fight plans to put nuclear waste in Pacific Ocean

We thank the mana whenua of Ōtepoti, Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, the National Centre for Peace and Conflict and Kā Rakahau o Te Ao Tūroa Centre for Sustainability at the University of Otago for their hospitality in welcoming us as their Pacific whānau to their unceded and sovereign lands of Aotearoa.

We acknowledge the genealogy of resistance we share with community activists who laid the mat in our shared struggles in the 1970s and 1980s. Our gathering comes 40 years after the first Te Hui Oranga o Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, hosted by the Pacific Peoples Anti Nuclear Action Committee (PPANAC) at Tātai Hono in Tamaki Makaurau.

Self-determination and decolonisation
We remain steadfast in our continuing solidarity with our sisters and brothers in West Papua, who are surviving from and resisting against the Indonesian genocidal regime, injustice and oppression. We bear witness for millions of West Papuans murdered by this brutal occupation. We will not be silent until the right to self-determination of West Papua is fully achieved.

We urge our Forum leaders to follow through with Indonesia to finalise the visit from the UN Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua, as agreed in the Leaders Communiqué 2019 resolution.

We are united in reaffirming the inalienable right of all Indigenous peoples to self-determination and demand the sovereignty of West Papua, Kanaky, Mā’ohi Nui, Bougainville, Hawai’i, Guåhan, the Northern Mariana Islands, Rapa Nui, Aotearoa, and First Nations of the lands now called Australia.

Of priority, we call on the French government to implement the United Nations self-governing protocols in Mā’ohi Nui and Kanaky. We urge France to comply with the resolution set forth on May 17th, 2013 which declared French Polynesia to be a non-self-governing territory, and the successive resolutions from 2013 to 2022. The “empty seat policy” that the administering power has been practising since 2013 and attempts to remove Mā’ohi Nui from the list of countries to be decolonised have to stop. We call on France to immediately resume its participation in the work of the C-24 and the 4th Commission of the United Nations.

Nuclear justice
We grieve for the survivors and victims who lost their lives to the nuclear violence caused by over 315 nuclear weapons detonated in Marshall Islands, Australia, Kiribati, Johnston Atoll and Mā’ohi Nui by the United States, United Kingdom/Australia and France. The legacy and ongoing nuclear violence in our region is unfinished business and calls for recognition, reconciliation and reparations to be made by nuclear colonisers are long overdue.

We call for the United States, United Kingdom/Australia and France to deliver fair and just
compensation to Indigenous civilians, workers and servicemen for the health and environmental harms, including intergenerational trauma caused by nuclear testing programs (and subsequent illegal medical experiments in the Marshall Islands). The compensation schemes currently in place in all states constitute a grave political failure of these aforementioned nuclear testing states and serve to deceive the world that they are recognising their responsibility to address the nuclear legacy. We call for the United States, United Kingdom/Australia, and France to establish or otherwise significantly improve
accessible healthcare systems and develop and fund cancer facilities within the Marshall Islands, Kiribati/Australia and Mā’ohi Nui respectively, where alarming rates of cancers, birth defects and other related diseases continue to claim lives and cause socio-economic distress to those affected. The descendants of the thousands of dead and the thousands of sick are still waiting for real justice to be put in place with the supervision of the international community.

We demand that the French government take full responsibility for the racist genocidal health effects of nuclear testing on generations of Mā’ohi and provide full transparency, rapid assessment and urgent action for nuclear contamination risks. While the President of France boasts on the international stage of his major environmental and ecological transition projects, in the territory of Mā’ohi Nui, the French government’s instructions are to definitively “turn the page of nuclear history.” This is a white-washing and colonial gas-lighting attitude towards the citizens and now the mokopuna of Mā’ohi Nui. It is
imperative for France to produce the long-awaited report on the environmental, economic and sanitary consequences of its 193 nuclear tests conducted between 1966 and 1996.

We proclaim our commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons and call all states of the Pacific region who have not done so to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), namely Australia, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. We urge Pacific nations along with the world’s governments to contribute to the international trust fund for victims of nuclear weapons implemented by the TPNW. We urge Aotearoa/New Zealand and other states who have ratified the TPNW to follow through on their commitment to nuclear survivors, and to create a world free from the threat and harm of nuclear weapons through the universalisation of the TPNW. There can be no peace without justice.

We oppose the despicable proposal of Japan and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to dump 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive wastewater next year in 2023, and support in solidarity with the citizens of Japan, East Asian states and Micronesian states who sit on the frontlines of this crisis. This is an act of trans-boundary harm upon the Pacific. We call on the New Zealand government and others to stay true to its commitment to a Nuclear Free Pacific and bring a case under the international tribunal for the Law of the Sea against the proposed radioactive release from TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi planned from 2023 to 2053.

Demilitarisation
We condemn the geopolitical order forced upon our nations by imperial powers, who claim to be our friends, yet treat our islands as collateral damage and use financial blackmail to bully us into submission. We demand that the United States remove and remediate all military bases, infrastructure, debris and nuclear and chemical waste from the Pacific. Of priority is the US-owned nuclear waste storage site of Runit Dome on Enewetak Atoll which threatens nuclear contamination of the ocean and marine-life, on which our lives depend. Furthermore, we call for all remaining American UXOs (unexploded ordnances) from World War II in the Solomon Islands, which cause the preventable deaths of more than 20 people every year to be removed immediately!

We support in solidarity with Kānaka Maoli and demand the immediate end to the biennial RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) exercises hosted in Honolulu, Hawai’i. We urge all the present participating militaries of RIMPAC to withdraw their participation in the desecration and plunder of Indigenous lands and seas. We support in solidarity with the Marianas and demand an end to munitions testing in the Northern Marianas and the development of new military bases. We rebuke the AUKUS trilateral military pact and the militarisation of unceded Aboriginal lands of the northern arc of Australia and are outraged at Australia’s plans to permit further military bases, six nuclear-capable B52s and eight nuclear-powered submarines to use our Pacific Ocean as a military playground and nuclear highway.

We call on all those committed to ending militarism in the Pacific to gather and organise in Hawai’i between 6-16 June 2024, during the Festival of the Pacific and bring these issues to the forefront to renew our regional solidarity and form a new coalition to build power to oppose all forms of military exercises (RIMPAC also returns in July -August 2024) and instead promote the genuine security of clean water, safe housing, healthcare and generative economies, rather than those of extraction and perpetual readiness for war.

We view colonial powers and their militaries to be the biggest contributors to the climate crisis, the continued extractive mining of our lands and seabeds and the exploitation of our resources. These exacerbate and are exacerbated by unjust structures of colonialism, militarism and geopolitical abuse. This environmental destruction shifts the costs to Pacific and Indigenous communities who are responsible for less than 1 percent of global climate emissions.

As Pacific peoples deeply familiar with the destruction of nuclear imperialism, we strongly disapprove of the new propaganda of nuclear industry lobbyists, attempting to sell nuclear power as the best solution for climate change. Similarly, we oppose the Deep Sea Mining (DSM) industry lobbyists that promote DSM as necessary for green technologies. We call for a Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty to be implemented by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and for safe and equitable transition to better energy solutions. We reject any military solution for the climate crisis!

We recognise the urgent need for a regional coordinator to be instituted to strategise collective grassroots movements for self-determination, decolonisation, nuclear justice and demilitarisation.

Our existence is our resistance.

We, the guardians of our Wansolwara, are determined to carry on the legacy and vision for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific.

• More information

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.

Greenpeace Aotearoa has condemned New Zealand for “standing by” while “deep wounds are inflicted on its Pacific neighbours” by silence over deep sea mining.

Greenpeace’s seabed mining campaigner James Hita made the critical statement today after a dramatic shift at the UN Oceans conference in Lisbon this week when several Pacific governments formed an alliance to oppose deep sea mining in international waters.

The environmental movement said the continued silence from the New Zealand government on the issue was “deafening”.

• READ MORE: Fiji, Palau and Samoa call for deep-sea mining moratorium at UN conference
• France’s Macron says deep-sea mining must not go ahead
• Other deep-sea mining reports

To standing ovations, Fiji and Samoa joined the alliance opposing deep sea mining announced by Palau on Monday.

The following day Tuvalu, Tonga, and Guam announced their support for a halt to deep sea mining and France is now also calling for a legal and robust framework to ban deep sea mining in the high seas.

But so far the New Zealand government has not taken a stance on the issue.

“New Zealand risks standing by while deep wounds are inflicted on its Pacific neighbours if it continues to stay silent on deep sea mining,” James Hita said.

‘Ruthless corporations’
“This move by ruthless corporations to begin deep sea mining in the Pacific is the latest example of colonisation in a region that has already suffered so much from nuclear testing, overfishing and resource extraction by the developed world.

“It’s a sad irony that when French nuclear testing threatened the Pacific, Norman Kirk’s Labour government sent a frigate in protest, but now, when corporate seabed mining threatens the Pacific, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government does nothing while Macron’s French government speaks out to protect the Pacific.

“New Zealand has a golden opportunity right now to show real solidarity and leadership in the Pacific and we call on Prime Minister Ardern, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta and Minister of Oceans and Fisheries David Parker to seize the day and make us proud.

“To maintain respect in the Pacific, the Ardern government needs to start standing up for the things that matter to the Pacific.

“Palau, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa are all calling for a moratorium on seabed mining but so far the New Zealand government is sitting on its hands,” said Hita.

Deep sea mining is a destructive and untested industry where minerals are sucked up from the ocean floor and waste materials pumped back into the ocean.

A sediment plume smothers marine life, threatening vulnerable ecosystems, fisheries and the people’s way of life.

Ocean floor disruptions
Scientists say that disruptions to the ocean floor may also reduce the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon, adding to the climate crisis.

Without action from governments to stop it, mining of the deep seas in the Pacific could begin as early as mid-2023.

• Greenpeace Aotearoa launched a petition in June calling on the NZ government and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta to support a ban on deep sea mining in the Pacific and around the world. More than 9000 people have signed.

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.

Radio 531pi Breakfast Talanoa host Brian Sagala has talked about the Rarotonga Treaty with Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie.

“It was hugely significant for the Pacific. It was sort of like a threshold for the Pacific really standing up to the big powers and predated New Zealand’s nuclear-free law,” says Dr Robie.

“It was a huge step forward. It was not only a declaration against France, which was detonating nuclear weapons at the time, but also against the US and Britain that had also conducted many nuclear tests in the Pacific.”

LISTEN HERE: Brian Sagala and David Robie on 531pi

The South Pacific Nuclear Free Pacific Zone Treaty 33 years ago ushered in a radical era for the Pacific, which predated NZ’s own nuclear-free law.

Dr Robie also talks about the Rainbow Warrior’s humanitarian voyage to Rongelap to help the islanders move to another home across the Pacific Ocean. He is the author of the book Eyes of Fire about nuclear testing in the Pacific.

• Eyes of Fire microsite

Tahitians will today mark the 51st anniversary of the first French nuclear weapons test in the Pacific as advocates still press for justice and better compensation.

The French military carried out the first of its 193 nuclear tests at French Polynesia’s Moruroa Atoll, about 1250 km southeast of Pape’ete, on this day in 1966 after the testing programme was moved to the South Pacific from Algeria due to the War of Independence.

The tests — some were also carried out at Fangataufa Atoll — ended three decades later in 1996.

The pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party, led by former territorial President Oscar Temaru, who declared his community of Fa’aa “nuclear free” in 1983, has launched a petition for alleged human rights violations which it plans to submit to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

Roland Oldham, head of French Polynesia’s nuclear veterans organisation Moruroa e Tatou, says even though former nuclear workers were dying, their descendents continue to face the problem of nuclear fallout.

Talking to Radio New Zealand’s Dateline Pacific, he said:

“I would say that the story of nuclear [testing] will never end. We know when it started but we don’t know when it’s going to end. It seems to me there is no ending because of what we know exactly of the situation, of what we know about the health and about the environment is still very very alarming for the future generation.”

Oldham is just back from the UN Conference on a Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons.

Listen to Radio NZ’s Dateline Pacific:

• ‘Ban the bomb’ – how NZ’s ordinary ‘Davids’ checked the nuclear Goliath
• Pacific Media Watch’s weekly radio commentary Southern Cross on French nuclear tests

Off The Wall: with Padre James Bhagwan in Suva

As we conclude the month of June 2017, it would be remiss of me not to draw our attention to our neighbour New Zealand, which yesterday broke a 14-year drought on the water to convincingly win the oldest trophy in international sport — the America’s Cup.

However, the emergence of New Zealand as a yachting superpower is not the only reason it makes history this month. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Aotearoa becoming a “nuclear-free” country when the NZ Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act came into force on 8 June 1987, the day we globally mark as World Ocean’s Day.

Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre, believes activist movements in New Zealand through the 1980s helped spark the change needed for the country’s nuclear-free stance in the Pacific.

“What pushed NZ in the direction it did with the nuclear-free approach was the masses of activism, of just ordinary people, people getting out on their boats on Auckland harbour for example.”

Speaking at an event, “Celebrating 30 years of Nuclear-Free Aotearoa/New Zealand 1987/2017,” organised by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) — Aotearoa, Dr Robie said the process to achieve the nuclear-free stand was a David and Goliath struggle to make NZ nuclear-free against the US and global pressure.

“The real ‘David’ were the ordinary people of New Zealand who exerted extraordinary pressure on the government to deliver. The barrages of letters from citizens, constant lobbying by peace campaigners, local councils … declaring themselves nuclear-free, the door-knocking petitioners and, of course, the spectacular protests.”

Pacific ‘ahead of the game’
The author of Eyes of Fire: the Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior (1986, 2005 and 2015), and Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific (2014) also reflected on the impact of what happened in NZ on the Pacific, acknowledging some small Pacific countries and communities who were “actually ahead of the game”:

• 1979 — The Republic of Palau (Belau) adopted a nuclear-free Constitution and was forced by the US to hold a further 10 referenda in attempts to undermine the document. The “father” of the Constitution, President Haruo Remeliik, was assassinated on June 30, 1985. In the end, the people of Belau were ironically forced to vote to drop their nuclear-free status for “economic survival” a month after New Zealand’s Bill became law;
• 1980 — The newly independent nation of Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides, also adopted a nuclear-free Constitution and banned nuclear ships from its territorial waters. The country was led by the inspirational Father Walter Lini, who linked nuclear weapons with colonialism;
• 1983 — Tahiti’s airport suburb of Fa’aa led by mayor Oscar Temaru, who later became president of French-occupied Polynesia several times, declared itself nuclear-free; and
• 1987 — The first Fiji Labour Party government led by Dr Timoci Bavadra also planned to bring in a nuclear-free law but was deposed at gunpoint in the first military coup of Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka in May that year.

Why is this 30th anniversary of a nuclear-free NZ and the Pacific struggle to also be nuclear-free important today?

According to ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), nine countries together possess around 15,000 nuclear weapons. The US and Russia maintain roughly 1800 of their nuclear weapons on high-alert status — ready to be launched within minutes of a warning.

Many times more powerful
Most are many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. A single nuclear warhead detonated on a large city could kill millions of people with the effects persisting for decades.

The failure of the nuclear powers to disarm has heightened the risk of other countries acquiring nuclear weapons. The only guarantee against the spread and use of nuclear weapons is to eliminate them without delay. Although the leaders of some nuclear-armed nations have expressed their vision for a nuclear-weapon-free world, they have failed to develop any detailed plans to eliminate their arsenals and are modernising them.

Someone, who participated in the early Pacific-wide protest movement against nuclear weapons testing and militarisation of the Pacific region, Fiji-based Vanessa Griffen says: “In the Pacific, we have collectively experienced the known and unknown consequences of nuclear weapons use, the push by non-nuclear states for a ban on nuclear weapons is the only sensible, humane and responsible course of action to take.

“Nuclear weapons states should be regarded, collectively, as lawless and flouting international humanitarian standards.”

Griffen became aware of the environmental and genetic impacts of radioactivity from French nuclear weapons testing in French Polynesia as a student at the University of the South Pacific. She joined the anti-nuclear movement ATOM (Against Testing on Moruroa) and helped form the early Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) network.

Concurrently, she was part of the Pacific women’s movement which was always against nuclear weapons testing and for a peaceful Pacific.

She has been a representative of FemLINKPacific, a partner member of ICAN and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC).

Plea to use statehood
“Pacific Island states, with an unusually high experiential qualification for speaking up for nuclear disarmament, are a significant number in the United Nations and should use their statehood collectively and effectively on this global issue of nuclear disarmament,” she said.

From 1946 to 1958, the US conducted 67 atomic and hydrogen bomb tests at Bikini and Enewetak atolls in the Marshall Islands, accounting for 32 percent of all US atmospheric tests. In the 1960s, there were 25 further US tests at Christmas (Kiritimati) Island and nine at Johnston (Kalama) Atoll.

The UK tested nuclear weapons in Australia and its Pacific colonies in the 1950s. Starting in 1952, there were 12 atmospheric tests at the Monte Bello Islands, Maralinga and Emu Field in Australia (1952-57).

There were also more than 600 “minor” trials, such as the testing of bomb components and the burning of plutonium, uranium and other nuclear materials, conducted at Maralinga.

Under “Operation Grapple”, the British Government conducted another nine atomic and hydrogen bomb tests at Kiritimati and Malden islands in the central Pacific from 1957 to 1958.

After conducting four atmospheric tests at Reggane (1960-61) and 13 underground tests at In Eker (1961-6) in the Sahara desert of Algeria, France established its Pacific nuclear test centre in French Polynesia.

For 30 years between 1966 and 1996, France conducted 193 atmospheric and underground nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls.

Fragile ecology
Their impact on the fragile ecology of the region and the health and mental wellbeing of its peoples has been profound and long-lasting. Pacific Islanders continue to experience epidemics of cancers, chronic diseases and congenital abnormalities as a result of the radioactive fallout that blanketed their homes and the vast Pacific Ocean, upon which they depend for their livelihoods.

As you read this, the United Nations is convening negotiations in 2017 on “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”. This new international agreement will place nuclear weapons on the same legal footing as other weapons of mass destruction, which have long been outlawed.

The negotiations began at UN headquarters in New York for one week in March and will continue from June 15 to July 7, with governments, international organisations and civil society participating.

Despite being the most destructive, inhumane weapons ever invented, nuclear weapons are the only “weapons of mass destruction” that are not yet banned under international law. (Chemical and biological weapons are both banned internationally.)

In December 2016, the UN General Assembly took action to address this crucial gap, voting to begin negotiations in 2017 for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.

Pacific Island governments have joined the historic talks at the United Nations that should result in an international treaty that bans nuclear weapons as the second, and possibly final round of negotiations aims to have a final text on a treaty adopted in early July.

Reverend James Bhagwan is an ordained Methodist minister and a citizen journalist. He contributes the regular “Off The Wall” column to The Fiji Times and this article is republished with permission. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Methodist Church in Fiji or the newspaper.

• ‘We shouldn’t rest on our laurels’
• A David and Goliath struggle
• John Pilger’s documentary The Coming War On China

A group of Marshall Islanders is calling on the Pacific to stand with them in solidarity as they urge leaders to prioritise healthy oceans.

The Marshall Islands Student Association (MISA) delivered a talk at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji expressing concern about current political inaction towards addressing land-based contaminants in the ocean.

“The time to act is now. We have to act now,” said Brooke Takala, a MISA member and doctoral candidate who specialises in education for sustainability.

With the United Nations Oceans Conference set to take place in New York in June, MISA has launched a campaign called MISA4thePacific, where Pacific Islanders can submit poetry, dance, art and photos urging for action regarding Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14.1.

SDG 14.1 seeks to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds by 2025, particularly from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution, the implementation of which is to be discussed at the conference co-hosted by Fiji and Sweden.

“If we don’t prioritise SDG 14.1, all of our other sustainable development goals are moot. There’s no point,” Takala said.

“If we have radiation leaking into our ocean and poisoning our food systems there’s no food security, there’s no water security, there’s no maternal health, there are no opportunities. This has to be prioritised.”

Widespread suffering
This call to action comes in light of widespread suffering still endured by the Marshallese following nuclear testing on Enewatak and Bikini atolls by the US during the 1940s and 1950s.

Nuclear testing in the Pacific has caused countless people in the region to suffer from the effects of radioactive fallout.

These include widespread displacement, loss of culture, and serious health issues including high rates of cancer and deformity.

More than 70 years on from the first nuclear tests, many islands and atolls remain uninhabitable.

Plutonium leakage
The members of MISA highlighted that there is an inability to address large quantities of plutonium leakage from the dome on Runit Island on Enewatak Atoll, which contains toxic waste left over from the 67 nuclear and thermonuclear bombs tested by the US.

Takala said she wanted the US to finally take stock of its “unfinished business” in the Marshall Islands and recognise that Castle Bravo, the 15-megatonne hydrogen bomb tested on Bikini Atoll in 1954, which had a blast one thousand times bigger than Hiroshima, was not simply an “accident”.

“For me personally as a mother of a young Enewatak boy whose land rights are on that island with a nuclear waste storage site, I want the world to know that the US has stolen my child’s future and that they need to be held accountable. And I think when we share that message that it is this child’s future, all of our children’s’ futures at stake, and that we cannot let this go.”

Data collected by the US which would fully determine whether the water surrounding Runit Island is contaminated is either still classified or redacted, she added.

This means the ocean surrounding Runit Island could be polluted, but no one knows for certain as radiation is difficult to detect without access to scientific equipment.

The atoll’s fresh water lens, which is present under the island and sits on the salt water, enters the dome from below every high tide as it is elevated, meaning as the tide rolls out radioactive isotopes are dispersed into the ocean, MISA says.

‘Radiation knows no boundaries’
“Radiation knows no boundaries. You cannot taste it, you cannot smell it, you cannot see it and it does not stop at our colonial boundaries, our country boundaries,” said Takala.

Danity Laukon, a member of MISA, said before radioactive nuclear waste was stored on Runit Island it was a beautiful place with prime fishing ground.

“It’s not the same anymore. On top of this climate change is happening.”

Takala said the Marshall Islands was at the forefront of climate change, so addressing the leakage of Runit’s dome was urgent.

This is because climate change for the Runit Islands is not a question of if, but when.

Climate change implications
“When those inundations come, and when sea level rises happening, and Runit Dome becomes underwater, it won’t just be a matter of it leaking into the ocean from the bottom, but the whole thing.

“So for those of us who live on Enewatak, whose families are from Enewatak, this is the most pressing matter for us. For the rest of us in the Marshall Islands, it affects all of us. But even on a larger scale for all of us in the Pacific.”

Maureen Penjueli, a supporter of MISA, reflected that it was now time for the remainder of the Pacific and the next generation to take up the baton in the fight for nuclear-free oceans.

She said the Marshall Islands had been fighting and endured enough.

“It’s a burden for the rest of us to bear.”

MISA said despite calls for Pacific solidarity, they remained determined to make leaders recognise the need to address the lingering effects of radiation in the ocean.

“Going to New York is the plan.”

Julie Cleaver and Kendall Hutt are in Fiji for the Bearing Witness project. A collaborative venture between the University of the South Pacific’s journalism programme, the Pacific Centre for the Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), the Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre and documentary collective Te Ara Motuhenga, Bearing Witness seeks to provide an alternative framing of climate change, focusing on resilience and human rights.

• John Pilger’s documentary on US nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands

Japan has historically been one of Indonesia’s biggest investors, but it was dealt a blow in 2015 when President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s government awarded the contract for a high-speed train project linking Jakarta and Bandung, West Java, to China.

The tensions surrounding the railway deal seemed to have eased on Sunday, when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after a meeting with Jokowi in Bogor, West Java, that his country would cooperate with Indonesia to build railways and other types of infrastructure.

The two leaders also discussed North Korea, with Abe saying that the country’s development of nuclear capabilities and missiles has reached “a new level of threat”.

North Korea said last week that it can test launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at any time from any location chosen by leader Kim Jong-un. The county also said the United States’ hostile policy towards it was to blame for its arms development.

Solving disputes peacefully
On the South China Sea, Abe said Japan believes in the importance of upholding international law and solving disputes peacefully.

“The South China Sea issue has drawn the attention of the international community and it directly affects peace in the region,” Abe said.

Maritime security cooperation is of utmost importance for fellow maritime nations, Japan and Indonesia, he added.

“Japan will actively encourage cooperation in maritime security and the development of Indonesia’s remote islands,” the prime minister said.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, which has around $5 trillion worth of trade passing through annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also lay claim to parts of the sea.

Although Indonesia is not part of the dispute, it does object to China’s claim to the waters around the Natuna Islands.

Railway wars
Winning the contract in 2015 for the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, estimated to cost $5.5 billion, was a coup for China, which is vying for influence in the region under its “One Belt, One Road” policy as part of its ambitions to become a global train supplier.

The roughly 600km Jakarta-Surabaya project is likely to cost less than the Jakarta-Bandung railway, as it will run at a slower speed, while most of the land for the project has already been secured, according to Indonesia’s transport minister.

The minister was reported to have said in October that the government invited Japan to work on the Jakarta-Surabaya project, which is aimed at slashing journey times between the capital and the East Java city by more than half, to around five hours.

Japan and Indonesia also plan to develop the Masela gas block in Maluku Province and Patimban Port in West Java, Jokowi said.

On other regional issues, Abe said North Korea’s kidnapping of Japanese citizens is a very important challenge for his administration to resolve.

Pyongyang admitted in 2002 to kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens a decade ago. Abe has made resolving the emotive issue a signature pledge of his political career.

Above all, David Robie’s Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem  and Human Rights in the Pacific is a damning indictment of the parlous state of affairs in parts of this region.

The book is also a telling account of the continuous failure of leadership on a fairly grand scale, with ordinary people bearing the brunt of it.

Dr Robie, professor of journalism at the Auckland University of Technology and director of the Pacific Media Centre, deals with the vital issues of environmental degradation, media censorship, social chaos and human suffering (largely caused by bad governance), various types of violent and nonviolent conflicts, and colonialism and neocolonialism.

Allegedly apathetic international and local media also attract some flak. Robie, who has a long record of service in the Pacific Islands, laments that a region with so much promise due to its relative tranquility, natural beauty, and richness of culture has been in such a prolonged state of decline, despite the postindependence optimisms.

That tranquility has been shattered by coups, civil uprisings, and corruption; the region’s pristine environments damaged by nuclear testing, wanton resource exploitation, and the spectre of climate change; and indigenous cultures threatened by the twin forces of neocolonialism and neoliberal economics.

These adversities are superimposed on growing incidences of human rights abuses and draconian  media legislation in some countries.

The looming threats of global warming and sea-level rise only complicate matters.

Robie has been reporting these trends in the Asia-Pacific region since the 1980s, both as a journalist and as a media educator, covering self-determination for indigenous minorities in New Caledonia, the struggles in Timor-Leste and West Papua, the Bougainville rebellion, nuclear testing in French Polynesia and the Marshall  Islands, and the ethnically motivated coups in Fiji.

Documented conflicts
Some of these conflicts are documented in his earlier books: Blood on the Banner (1980) highlighted indigenous Pacific Islanders’ struggle against the remnants of colonialism, while Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific (1992) depicted a continuing battle against environmental catastrophe, communal unrest, growing militarisation,  ongoing  poverty, colonialism, and neocolonialism.

In Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face, Robie reproduces some of his previous writings as a yardstick and a backdrop for deeper insights into the Pacific’s seemingly intractable problems. Reflecting on his two-and-a-half decades of Asia-Pacific coverage, Robie intones, “Sadly, not a lot has changed” (page 6).

He adds, “Political independence has not necessarily rid the Pacific of the problems that it faces, and in many cases, Pacific political leaders are themselves part of the problem” (27). One of the more startling statistics, at least for the uninitiated, is the deaths of an estimated 120,000 Pacific Islanders in various disputes over the past quarter-century, plus another 200,000 when Timor-Leste is included (311).

If the narrative sounds depressing, it is regrettably all  too predictable: long-term ethnic and political tensions coupled with low growth rates and underdevelopment are usually fodder for violent conflict in fragile states (see Securing a Peaceful Pacific, by John Henderson and Greg Watson  [2005]).

Robie is forthright in putting the blame for these serious issues squarely on various corrupt Pacific Island leaders, whom he views as having been part of the problem for far too long. But it is not only rogue Pacific Island leaders who are causing problems.

Robie also faults leaders from developed countries for their inaction in the face of what he describes as a litany of tortures, murders, exploitation, rapes, military raids, and arbitrary arrests. Most affected is West Papua, where the brutal repression of the native Melanesians by the Indonesian security services is well documented.

The book reminds us why the Pacific is still struggling despite copious amounts of bilateral aid over the decades. It is in the interest of nuclear powers France and the United States to keep their territories in a dependent state in order to further their own military, economic, and geopolitical ambitions.

Exploitation ‘normalised’?
The question is whether the exploitation of Island countries by economically and militarily powerful nations has become normalised. Recently, Australia and New Zealand remained unmoved in the face of Pacific Islander anger over the two countries’ apparent intransigence regarding a joint proposal by Pacific Island nations for a tougher global target on greenhouse gas emissions. Is the world resigned to the bullying and maltreatment of Pacific Island nations by the bigger powers?

Robie does not hide his disappointment with what he sees as the media’s failure to tackle these crucial issues.

He feels that the international media ignore or underreport major issues, such as Indonesian repression of West Papua and the assassination of journalists in the Philippines. In his eyes, Australian media failed to sufficiently probe their country’s 2006 security treaty with Indonesia. Robie insists that the treaty led to Australia’s overt repression of pro-independence Papuan activists.

To be fair to the media, the Indonesian government has banned foreign journalists from West Papua for years. However, Robie argues that the problem goes deeper. He links it to the media’s commercially driven priorities, which he feels supersede social, humanitarian, and public-interest obligations.

Under this journalistic framework, West Papua would be deemed too costly an assignment for sustained coverage, financially and politically.

Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face tries to prod the media’s conscience by highlighting the suffering in the region. Robie advocates a new, more thorough, considered, and inclusive reporting approach, which he describes as “critical development journalism.”

This proposed framework sources grassroots rather than just elite views, emphasises conflict resolution,  promotes  human rights, and supports development (325–330).

Empowered media
Robie’s views are consistent with a growing recognition among some policy makers that an empowered media could play an important role in regional development, especially in politically fragile Island societies. However, new ideas often face resistance.

As a result of challenging the orthodoxy, Robie has attracted criticism from some traditionalists, who believe that concepts such as “peace journalism” contravene media objectivity, what with Bainimarama’s military-backed government in Fiji touting its version of “journalism of hope,” fueling suspicions about government control of the media under the guises of stability and development.

Robie is adamant that critical development journalism is not soft journalism, and neither would it pander to political slogans such as “cultural sensitivity,” which he sees as  a cover-up for abuse of power.

To the contrary, Robie envisions an approach based on a greater level of intensive journalism focused on exposing the truth, reporting on alternatives, and offering solutions. Robie’s central thesis is that the Pacific is caught in a vicious cycle of conflicts and underdevelopment.

Traditional subsistence lifestyles have been under sustained pressure from globalisation and other forces. The media are duty-bound to keep track of these trends and draw attention to them, but their response has largely been inadequate.

Robie is calling for a new media strategy, based on greater journalistic effort, commitment, and foresight. Some may question whether such a new direction is even possible, given media’s entrenched, deadline-driven, profit-focused economic model.

These ideological arguments aside, the post–Cold War trend  of mayhem in the Pacific demands investigation into the media-politics-conflict nexus in the Pacific context. Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face seeks to fill this gap.

Dr Shailendra Singh is a senior lecturer and coordinator of journalism at the University of the South Pacific. This review was commissioned by The Contemporary Pacific journal and has been republished with permission.

• Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, by David Robie. Auckland: Little Island Press. [Second edition.] ISBN 978-1-8774- 8425-4; 363 pages, maps, notes, bibliography, index. Paper, NZ$40.00.

An admission by Alain Juppé, a former French prime minister at the time of the last nuclear tests in the Pacific, during his visit to French Polynesia last week that nuclear tests did have an impact on the environment and health has left antinuclear activists here puzzled.

He also appealed to the nuclear-free groups to play down the decolonisation overture to the United Nations, saying: “We will look for the path to reconciliation. We need to trust each other again.”

Juppé was prime minister for President Jacques Chirac in 1995 when France embarked on the final series of Pacific nuclear tests – the last test was triggered on January 27, 1996.

He left Tahiti at the weekend after a week in the French Pacific territory.

Juppé, mayor of Bordeaux, was on a mission for Les Republicains (former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s political party) primaries to be held in November.

He hopes to be become candidate to run for the presidential election next year.

Juppé came to French Polynesia to measure his popularity – he met officials of the territory and several mayors.

‘The truth’
A day before leaving Tahiti, Juppé went to a meeting with antinuclear organisations.

After two hours of talking (journalists were not invited), Juppé declared: “Considering nuclear tests as safe isn’t right. It is not the truth – nuclear tests had, and still have, an impact on the environment which is worrying. They also had an impact on people’s health.”

Juppé also announced to the antinuclear groups that, if he would be elected in 2017, he would modify an article of the so-called “Loi Morin” (Morin Law) of 2010, which outlined the conditions for compensation for nuclear testing victims.

His modification would remove the heavily criticised “insignificant risk” clause, which could lead to a larger population being potentially eligible for compensation.

Only 19 people have received compensation – seven from French Polynesia – out of 1043 claims filed under the law.

Before leaving Tahiti, Juppé also advised the antinuclear organisations not to press the issue at the United Nations Decoloniisation Committee hearings in October.

Leaders of the Tahitian antinuclear organisations were puzzled.

“I’m waiting to see what is going to happen when he is going to be elected, if he becomes president,” said Roland Oldham, president of Moruroa e Tatou.

“The French government needs to be honest towards Polynesian people and to show its real will to compensate them.”

Alain Juppé still has a long way to go before 2017. But people here in Tahiti will not forget his words.

• United Nations Committee of 24 (Decolonisation Committee)

On April 24, 2014, the RMI filed nine groundbreaking lawsuits at the International Court of Justice and another lawsuit, separately, against the United States in US Federal Court.

Captain Peter “Pete” Willcox isn’t known among his peers at Greenpeace to “sugar-coat anything” and one issue he certainly doesn’t is when it comes to climate change.

Speaking to Asia Pacific Report from on board the Rainbow Warrior, Willcox says he remains unconvinced world leaders care about climate change following the United Nations Climate Change Conference last year, lauded by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius as a “historic turning point” in reducing global warming.

At the helm of Greenpeace environmental campaign vessels for more than 30 years, Willcox has seen first-hand the effects of climate change and says world leaders are still hiding behind fossil fuels.

“It’s an irresponsible position to take,” he says.

Despite agreements among 195 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the negotiated, but as-of-yet unsigned Paris Agreement, Willcox says ignoring renewable energy is a “huge mistake” and the burning of fossil fuels and coral bleaching “not a joke”.

Sophie Schroder, a communications specialist with Greenpeace New Zealand, supports Willcox’s view of the weak commitment of world leaders to combating climate change.

“I think reaching an agreement probably made a few world leaders feel good and look good at a time when there’s lots of pressure for change and I think some do take it seriously and will be making changes, but I think for others it was just about the PR,” she says.

Although Schroder acknowledges Paris was a “good first step” and “more positive than the ones before it”, she stresses it should not be seen by leaders — and the world — as the “be-all-and-end-all”.

Key not serious
Schroder draws attention to the fact Prime Minister John Key returned from Paris and announced he had no plans to scale back searches for fossil fuels.

“That in itself is proof we’re really not taking it [Paris] seriously.”

New Zealand received the “Fossil of the Day” award from Climate Action Network (CAN), an international coalition of environmental non-governmental organisations, on the first day of the conference, following an address by John Key calling on countries to take more responsibility in eliminating fossil fuel subsidies.

Attention was drawn to the “hypocritical” nature of Key’s address, given the fact New Zealand’s fossil fuel production subsidies have increased seven-fold since Key’s election in 2008.

New Zealand also received a second fossil award a few days later after its involvement in blocking compensation for vulnerable countries affected by climate change.

However, it is not the first time New Zealand has received such an award.

New Zealand received two “Fossil of the Day” awards back in 2012 on the first day of climate change talks in Doha, Qatar, where its inability to come to the table regarding greenhouse gas emission reductions was criticised both by CAN and the Green Party.

Willcox’ leadership vital
Schroder, who also worked on board the Rainbow Warrior with Willcox on Greenpeace’s six-week Pacific tuna tour last year which highlighted overfishing, feels people like Willcox are important in the fight against climate change.

“I think it’s vital that we have people like Pete that are willing to be outspoken and not sugar-coat anything and say things the way they are. We need to be honest about what we’re saving.”

Martini Gotjé, first mate on the original Rainbow Warrior bombed by French agents in 1985, concurs people like Willcox are “useful” in speaking out about what he terms a “bloody complicated” and “extraordinarily difficult” issue.

“I think Peter has credibility and he’s very useful in pointing out things.”

Climate change also happens to be an issue Willcox is quite vocal about in his book being published tomorrow: Greenpeace Captain: My Adventures in Protecting the Future of Our Planet.

In this book, the first time all of his adventures appear in one place, Willcox likens polluting the planet to defecating in our own backyard.

“I have a lovable, slightly dim-witted, little mutt named Deacon. Even he won’t shit in the house. But we so-called sapiens do it all the time.”

Harpoon gun parallel
Willcox likens this “shortsightedness” to standing before a harpoon gun while pulling the trigger at the same time, and when asked if this battle would ever be won, he simply responds:

“It’s not a matter of timing. It’s a matter of when we’ll lose.”

Importantly, the opening chapter of Greenpeace Captain documents Willcox’s experience of the 1985 bombing of the first Rainbow Warrior.

But if the public thinks the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior is a “touchy” subject for Willcox, both Gotjé and Schroder insist Willcox is “fully” and “pretty open” about talking about it.

Willcox himself says he has no qualms, although he does acknowledge the death of Portuguese-born Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira, and the fact he made no attempts to save him, still hangs over him.

“To this day it still haunts me that I didn’t make an attempt, but realistically it probably would have meant that the navy divers would have to bring up my body as well.”

However, for Willcox, 30 years has not lessened the blow that the French government has not faced justice over the bombing, or Pereira’s death.

Asked if he thought they had, Willcox replied, “No, not at all. [They] never apologised to Greenpeace or the Pereira family.”

Retired colonel’s apology

An apology did come last year, but from retired secret service colonel Jean-Luc Kister, for his part in the bombing.

Kister’s apology, which appeared on TVNZ’s Sunday programme, came despite long-held interests of the French government in avoiding its accountability for the bombing.

But where to next for the Greenpeace veteran?

Willcox has spent the last three months in Japan on board the Rainbow Warrior, supporting a research vessel chartered by Greenpeace Japan investigating the radioactive fallout of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor disaster on the marine environment along Fukushima’s Pacific coast.

While in Japan, Yuki Sekimoto, head of media and communications at Greenpeace Japan, says Willcox spoke to Japanese journalists about his life on the Rainbow Warrior, notably relocating the Rongelap islanders to Mejato islet in the Marshall Islands a few weeks before the 1985 bombing.

Break before action
“It was a great opportunity for Greenpeace Japan as an office located in the only nation to be hit by atomic bombs,” Yuki says.

With the campaign in Japan wrapping-up last week, Willcox says he is “ready to go home for the next three months”.

However, despite being 63, Willcox says he has no thoughts of retiring until he can leave his daughters a “planet they love” and a “safe place to raise their families”.

Willcox will be back at the helm of the Rainbow Warrior in three months’ time, for Greenpeace’s next campaign in the Mediterranean.

And if there is anything he would like his readers to take away from his book, he says, it is this:

“Get off the couch and do something. We can all do better”

Kendall Hutt is a graduate journalist from AUT University, currently completing her Honours year in Communication Studies. This is an Asia-Pacific Journalism Studies assignment.

Greenpeace Captain: My Adventures in Protecting the Future of Our Planet, by Peter Willcox (with Ronald B. Weiss). Penguin Random House, Australia, release date, April 18.

• Polar bear mojo for Greenpeace skipper’s environmental thriller
• Twelve Nobel Prize winners, a Beatle and the Pope can’t all be wrong

In April 2014, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a tiny island country part of Micronesia, filed groundbreaking lawsuits to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries.

Now, almost two years later, the ICJ has heard preliminary oral arguments in three of the cases.

Between 1946 and 1958, 67 nuclear tests were conducted by the US in the Marshalls, making it one of the most contaminated places in the world. With a population of less than 70,000, the Islanders suffered greatly from the impact of radiation; the land and sea poisoned as well.

In 1985, the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior helped to relocate the residents of one of the most severely impacted islands, Rongelap, after it became clear that high levels of radioactive contamination made most of the island unfit for habitation.

Between 7-16 March 2016, the ICJ’s panel of 16 judges heard oral arguments by the Marshall Islands and three respondent nations – the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan.

Tony de Brum, Co-Agent of the Marshall Islands and former Foreign Minister, reminded the court why the Marshall Islands, a small nation with limited resources that is seriously threatened by climate change, would bring these lawsuits against some of the world’s most militarily powerful nations.

During the second day of the hearings, he recalled one occasion in 1954 of the testing of a thermonuclear bomb that was 1,000 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb. When the explosion occurred, it began to rain radioactive fallout at Rongelap.

Within hours, the atoll was covered with a fine, white, powder-like substance.

Radioactive fallout
“No one knew it was radioactive fallout,” said de Brum. “The children thought it was snow. And the children played in the snow. And they ate it.”

The other six nuclear-armed nations – the United States, Russia, France, China, Israel and North Korea – do not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ and therefore, would not appear before the Court.

The Marshall Islands contends that the UK, India and Pakistan are in breach of existing international law, which requires good faith negotiations for an end to the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament.

The court is expected to deliver its decision in approximately six months from now. Greenpeace will continue to stand with the people of the Marshall Islands in their fight to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

To read more about the hearings just concluded at the ICJ, advocates at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation have been writing daily summaries here. Asia Pacific readers can also access to all relevant court documents at the ICJ website for the cases against the UK, India and Pakistan.

Jen Maman is the senior peace adviser at Greenpeace International.

Nuclear Zero petition at www.nuclearzero.org.

Eyes of Fire, a book about the Rongelap voyage and bombing of the Rainbow Warrior

Eyes of Fire: 30 Years On microsite – video interviews, articles and photo galleries.

Hollande‘s first move was to lay a wreath at the grave of Pouvanaa a Oopa, the campaigner for Tahitian independence considered the founder of Tahiti’s modern political culture.

But the focus of the visit was very much on the victims of 193 nuclear tests carried out by France between 1966 and 1996 on the atolls Moruroa and Fangataufa.

The French president acknowledged on Monday in Pape’ete that the nuclear tests conducted in French Polynesia had affected the environment and the health of the islands.

“I recognise that the nuclear tests conducted between 1966 and 1996 in French Polynesia had an environmental impact, and caused health consequences,” he said.

Hollande said he wanted to “turn the page” on nuclear tests, while hailing Polynesia’s crucial role in developing France’s nuclear capabilities.

Without its overseas territories, “France would not now have nuclear weapons and the power of dissuasion”, he said, using the French expression for nuclear deterrence.

Process review
Hollande also announced a review of the application process for compensating the victims of the tests. Only about 20 people have received compensation for the spread of cancers allegedly linked to the tests from among some 1000 plaintiffs.

France’s “nuclear debt” owed to Polynesia, dubbed the “Chirac Billion” (in francs, now worth about NZ$25 million), is an annual payment to the islands that has been reduced year after year, and which Polynesians want to be made permanent.

Hollande’s arrival in the Wallis and Futuna islands marked the first time a French president had visited Wallis since Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in 1979 and the first-ever visit to Futuna.

The far-flung Pacific islands are among many French Overseas Departments and Territories scattered around the world, vestiges of France’s colonial empire that today still boast an aggregate coastlines, or Exclusive Economic Zones, second only to those of the United States.

Hollande was due to fly to Peru, followed by Argentina and Uruguay later in the week – where he is set to promote scientific, cultural and university ties.

Although he is travelling with a delegation of business leaders from top French firms such as Carrefour and Thales, no major economic deals are expected to be signed on the trip.

By Colin Archer in Geneva

The Oslo-based International Peace Bureau has nominated former Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum and the republic’s legal team for their “courageous step” in filing lawsuits against the world’s nine nuclear powers.

Under de Brun’s leadership, the republic sued the states for failing to comply with their obligations under international law seeking the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Tony de Brum was one of the four winners of last year’s Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”. The people of the Marshall Islands were joint recipients.

The IPB is dedicated to the vision of a World Without War.

We are a Nobel Peace Laureate (1910), and over the years 13 of our officers have also been recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Our 300 member organisations in 70 countries, and individual members, form a global network bringing together expertise and campaigning experience in a common cause.

The IPB’s full citation says:

Geneva, 26 January 2016
Norwegian Nobel Institute
Henriks Ibsens gate 51
0255 Oslo

Dear Sir/Madam

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE NOMINATION 2016: Tony de Brum and the legal team of the
Republic of the Marshall Islands.

The International Peace Bureau is pleased to convey to you its nomination for the 2016 Prize: former Foreign Minister Tony de Brum and the legal team appointed by the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) to handle its nuclear weapons cases.

On April 24, 2014, the RMI filed landmark lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed nations for failing to comply with their obligations under international law to pursue negotiations for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons. As the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation underlines: “The Republic of the Marshall Islands acts for the seven billion of us who live on this planet to end the nuclear weapons threat hanging over all humanity. Everyone has a stake in this.”

The RMI has made a courageous step in challenging nine of the world’s most powerful states at the International Court of Justice. The tiny Pacific nation has launched a parallel court case against the USA at the Federal District Court. RMI argues that the nuclear weapons‐possessing countries have breached their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non‐Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and customary international law by continuing to modernise their arsenals and by failing to pursue negotiations in good faith on nuclear disarmament.

RMI’s former Foreign Minister Tony de Brum has played the key political role in gaining support and approval for this initiative. He in turn has been supported by a highly effective legal team. De Brum and RMI have already received at least two important international prizes for their action.

The Marshall Islands were used by the USA as testing ground for nearly 70 nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958. These tests gave rise to lasting health and environmental problems for the Marshall Islanders. Their first‐hand experience of nuclear devastation and personal suffering gives legitimacy to their action and makes it especially difficult to dismiss.

The Marshall Islands are presently working hard on the court cases. Hearings on preliminary issues in the International Court of Justice will take place in March 2016, and an appellate hearing in the case in the US court will take place in 2016 or possibly 2017. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize would do much to draw public attention to this extremely important initiative and to help ensure a successful outcome.

It is certainly not the case that the RMI, with its some 53,000 inhabitants, a large proportion of whom are young people, have no need of compensation or assistance. Nowhere are the costs of a militarised Pacific better illustrated than there. The country is burdened with some of the highest cancer rates in the region following the 12 years of US nuclear tests. Yet it is admirable that the Marshall Islanders in fact seek no compensation for themselves, but rather are determined to end the nuclear weapons threat for all humanity.

The world still has around 16,000 nuclear weapons, the majority in the USA and Russia, many of them on high alert. The knowhow to build atomic bombs is spreading, largely due to the continued promotion of nuclear power technology. Presently there are 9 nuclear weapon states, and 28 nuclear alliance states; and on the other hand 115 nuclear weapons‐free zone states plus 40 non‐nuclear weapons states. Only 37 states (out of 192) are still committed to nuclear weapons, clinging to outdated, questionable and extremely dangerous ‘deterrence’ policies.

IPB has a long history of campaigning for disarmament and for the banning of nuclear weapons (www.ipb.org). The organisation was, for instance, actively involved in bringing the nuclear issue before the International Court of Justice in 1996. The IPB sincerely believes that the Marshall Islands initiative will prove to be a significant and decisive step in ending the nuclear arms race and in achieving a world without nuclear weapons.

Further details about the lawsuits and the campaign are available at www.nuclearzero.org

Yours sincerely

Colin Archer
Secretary‐General

Nuclear Zero

Archive: First published on Aug 27, 2015