Pacific Magazine > Magazine > September 1, 2006

Voices

Remember Moruroa

The Nuclear Age Is Still With Us

By Nic Maclellan

As Pacific leaders gathered last June at Jacques Chirac’s Presidential Palace in Paris for the second France-Oceania summit, another meeting was taking place at the same time in Tahiti.

Nic Maclellan

Moruroa e Tatou—the association of former workers from the Moruroa test site —organized a major conference to mark the 40th anniversary of France’s first nuclear test at Moruroa atoll, on July 2, 1966.

From the beginning of the nuclear age, indigenous peoples of the Pacific bore the brunt of nuclear weapons testing by France, Britain, and the United States. Seeking “empty” spaces, the western powers chose to conduct Cold War programs of nuclear testing in the deserts of central Australia or the isolated atolls of the central and south Pacific. Nuclear testing in the region ended in 1996, but the health and environmental consequences continue to this day.

At the 40th anniversary conference, held at Oscar Temaru’s presidential palace in Papeete, I was struck by the vivid testimony of nuclear veterans and their families. They spoke of events from decades ago, but brought home the consequences of the nuclear era which affect people to this day.

Eiji Okomura was six when the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on his home town of Nagasaki in 1945. Even today, more than 60 years later, his words conjure up stark images of the horrors of that day.

Jean-Claude Hervieux was a young electrician when he took up a job in 1960 at the French nuclear test site in the Sahara desert. With good pay and an exciting job, he transferred to the South Pacific. Hervieux helped set up the test site at Moruroa atoll and witnessed a series of atmospheric tests. Today, he says that he’s one of the few members of his crew who hasn’t died from cancer.

Paul Ah Poy from Fiji told us that the first time he visited Tahiti was in 1956. He was one of two Fijian sailors aboard a New Zealand warship that stopped in Tahiti, en route to survey Christmas Island for Britain’s hydrogen bomb tests. Paul returned to Christmas Island in 1957 to witness seven British atmospheric tests.

Anne Tardieu spoke as the widow of a French soldier who served at Moruroa. She described the burden for wives and children, coping with the lingering health problems of husbands who served at the test sites. She described the anger, frustration and even violence of dying men, who are constantly told that nuclear radiation could not have contributed to their illness. As she spoke of these forgotten men, Tahitian women around the hall were nodding in sympathy and recognition.

And then one by one, the members of Moruroa e Tatou stood up to speak. They’re angry that the French authorities continue to stonewall their calls for compensation and ignore their demand that the nuclear archives be opened to independent
researchers. They want France to acknowledge its responsibility for the health and environmental impacts of past nuclear tests. They simply want France to say it is sorry.

The campaigning by Moruroa e Tatou is slowly bearing fruit. In a major breakthrough, the French government medical research institute INSERM has officially confirmed: “We now consider that it has been proven that atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by France have contributed to an increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer in French Polynesia.”

The 2004 election of the UPLD coalition led by Oscar Temaru has opened the way for further action. The Assembly of French Polynesia has conducted an important study on the effects of atmospheric testing, and the Temaru government has formed a follow-up committee with the support of churches and nuclear veterans.

At a time when Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard is promoting new uranium sales, we cannot let the legacies of nuclear testing fade from public memory. The day after Oscar Temaru returned from the France-Oceania summit in Paris, the long-time anti-nuclear and independence campaigner joined a ceremony to erect a memorial in central Papeete. We stood in the sunlight as a choir sang and the president unveiled a cairn of five stones and a plaque to commemorate 50 years of nuclear testing around the Pacific.

With appropriate symbolism, the memorial is located in a quiet park called “Place Chirac.”

Nic Maclellan is co-author of “Kirisimas,” a history of the Fijian soldiers and sailors who witnessed Britain’s nuclear tests at Christmas Island.