What Do You Know About Bikini Atoll?

To put the past efforts to compensate the Marshallese people in perspective, consider the following comparison. The U.S. government (at the time of this writing) has spent only one-third the money over fifty years for restoration and cleanup in the Marshall Islands from 12 years of nuclear bombing, that it is currently spending weekly during the restoration and cleanup efforts after the 120 day war in Iraq. If, as many predict, this restoration in Iraq goes on for ten years, we are looking at a possible total expenditure of 520 billion dollars for people who have never been U.S. citizens compared to the modest $350 million dollars outlaid to restore “semi-safe” living conditions to naturalized U.S. citizens who underwent significantly worse hardship, danger, contamination and death over 12 years rather than a mere 120 days.

But perhaps the most famous blast, “Bravo,” under Operation Ivy, was detonated on Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954; it was a 15 megaton hydrogen bomb, the largest blast to date, 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Due to the decision to continue with the detonation of this massive bomb in spite of unfavorable weather conditions that developed shortly before the test, a literal snowstorm of gritty, white ash descended on several nearby atolls within hours of the blast. Those exposed experienced nausea, vomiting, and irritation on their skin and eyes. Residents of Rongelap were evacuated 48 hours later and those residing on Utrik were evacuated 72 hour after “Bravo” was detonated.

Rongelap was heavily contaminated by the Castle Bravo blast. The official explanation is that the wind suddenly shifted. Many of the islanders believe that the wind direction was known and the blast occurred anyway. The U.S. Navy waited several days before evacuating the island. In 1957, the Rongelapese were told their island was safe again -- a blatant untruth -- and were transported back to their ancestral home, where they proceeded to die of cancer and give birth to large numbers of stillborn, deformed children. The bodies of many of the islanders were removed by U.S. personnel and examined.

Nuclear Savage is the story of what we did to the Marshall Islanders throughout the Cold War with our nuclear testing program. Not only did we expose many thousands of them to ghastly -- often lethal -- levels of radiation with 67 nuclear blasts, with glaring evidence that at least some of the exposure was intentional, done for the purpose of studying the effects of radiation on human guinea pigs; not only did we wreck the Marshall Islanders' way of life and pristine paradise, creating a nation of internal refugees confined to a Western-style slum on the island of Ebeye; not only did we cower, as a nation, from any real responsibility for what our fallout did to these people, settling our genocidal debt to them with $150 million "for all claims, past, present and future"; but also, throughout our dealing with them as nuclear conquistadors, we displayed a racism so profound, so cold-blooded, its exposure must forever shatter the myth of American exceptionalism.

The Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal awarded more than $2bn in personal injury and land damage claims arising form the nuclear tests but stopped paying after a compensation fund was exhausted. As those who remembered the day gathered in the Marshall Islands’ capital of Majuro, along with younger generations, to commemorate the anniversary, many exiles refused to go back to the zones that were contaminated despite US safety assurances. 'I won’t move there,' said Evelyn Ralpho-Jeadrik of her home atoll, Rongelap, which was engulfed in fallout from Bravo and evacuated two days after the test. 'I do not believe it’s safe and I don’t want to put my children at risk.'

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Congress has enacted legislation to compensate to residents living near DOE's Nevada Test Site uranium miners, nuclear weapons workers, and military personnel for radiation-related illnesses. These laws provide for a greater benefit of the doubt than for the people of the Marshall Islands where 66 nuclear weapons were exploded in the open air. In 2005, the National Cancer Institute reported that that the risk of contracting cancer for those exposed to fallout was greater than one in three. The people of the Marshall Islands had their homeland and health sacrificed for the national security interests of the United States. The Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress should promptly correct this injustice.

As it now stands, if forced to return to their homeland the Rongelap people could receive radiation doses about 10 times greater than allowed for the public in the United States. Until the U. S. Government can assure that steps to mitigate doses to the same levels that are protective of American people are demonstrated, efforts to force the Rongelap people back to the home by Members of the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration is unjustified and unfairly places the burden of protection on the Rongelap people.

When the Rainbow Warrior arrived at the seemingly idyllic tropical island on the 17th May, local women sailed out to greet the crew singing Marshallese songs. Other Rongelapese waiting on the beach held up banners that read, 'We love the future of our kids.' With all they had heard and read about Rongelap, it was an overwhelming experience for the crew of the Warrior: the realisation that these people who had been living here for thousands of years would probably never see their homes again. For the next few days the Greenpeace crew and the islanders worked together to dismantle the houses and ferry the materials to the Warrior.

The violence exerted on the natural, geophysical and living elements by nuclear weapons illustrates the relationship which can develop between man and the environment. This is reflected in the ecosystems and the terrestrial, marine and underwater landscapes of Bikini Atoll. The nuclear tests changed the history of Bikini Atoll and the Marshall Islands, through the displacement of inhabitants, and the human irradiation and contamination caused by radionuclides produced by the tests. The Bikini Atoll tests, and tests carried out in general during the Cold War, gave rise to a series of images and symbols of the nuclear era. They also led to the development of widespread international movements advocating disarmament.