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Congressman Wants Additional Nuclear Claims Payments For Marshallese

By Giff Johnon on Majuro
Sunday: March 30, 2008

The United States nuclear test legacy in the Marshall Islands and an impasse over future American use of Kwajalein Missile Testing Range were put in the spotlight this past week with the visit of a U.S. Congressman to the Marshall Islands.

American Samoa Delegate Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin, who chairs the House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and the Global Environment, held oversight hearings in the Marshall Islands through Friday -- the first such hearings by a member of the U.S. Congress since the late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink of Hawaii did so in the mid-1970s. Faleomavaega spent nearly a week in the RMI before departing today to the U.S.

“My visit is to establish a record for my subcommittee to better assess problems that have plagued the Marshall Islands ever since we started nuclear testing more than 50 years ago,” Faleomavaega told the hearing in Majuro Friday, which was nationally broadcast by the government. Faleomavaega visited Kwajalein, Ebeye and Majuro during his six-day stay.

The U.S. tested 67 nuclear weapons at Bikini and Enewetak atolls from 1946 to 1958.

“It was like 1.7 Hiroshima bombs going off every day for 12 years,” Foreign Minister Tony deBrum told the hearing Friday. He said a Marshall Islands petition for additional nuclear test compensation lodged with the U.S. Congress in 2000 has languished since, receiving no formal response from either the Bush Administration or the Congress.

“The United States has a moral obligation (to nuclear test victims), Faleomavaega said. “As a member of Congress, I want to ensure we make good (on our obligations). I will work with my colleagues to make good on our promises made to Marshallese more than 50 years ago when we started nuclear testing.”

But Faleomavaega said the Marshall Islands will have to help him convince other members of Congress that compensation is still due. The situation is further complicated by budget cuts forced by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Between 1986 and 2003, the U.S. government provided a $150 million trust fund to compensate the Marshall Islands for all clams past and future, and the U.S. State Department in a recent report to the U.S. Congress said bluntly that the U.S. has no legal obligation to provide more funding.

“The (compensation agreement) was woefully inadequate,” Nuclear Claims Tribunal official Philip Okney told Faleomavaega. Both personal injury and land damage claims have been adjudicated by the Tribunal, which was established by the Compact of Free Association between Washington and Majuro to address compensation needs. But about $2 billion in awards issued by the Tribunal remain unpaid for lack of compensation from the U.S.

“There are about $2 billion in total claims outstanding,” Bikini official Jack Niedenthal said. “Take the weekend off from the Iraq war and all the claims can be cleared.”

“The challenge before me is to come up with information to convince (key members of Congress),” Faleomavaega said. “How do I convince the U.S. Congress to fulfill its responsibility?”

Tribunal official Bill Graham said since the nuclear test compensation agreement was negotiated in the early 1980s, there is now “overwhelming evidence to dispute (the U.S. contention) that only four atolls were fallout-affected. The original settlement amount ($150 million) was pulled out of the air.”

Graham, who is an advocate for test-affected islanders at the Tribunal, said the Tribunal already determined that more than $500 million is needed just to clean up nuclear fallout-affected islands that the U.S. recognizes to the same standard as the U.S. EPA would use in the U.S.

But the U.S. message in refusing to act on Marshall Islands requests for additional funding is, “We don¹t deserve the same level of clean up as in the U.S.  I’m not talking about compensation or health care. This is just clean up to protect future generations.”

Health Minister Amenta Matthew, who represents Utrik islanders exposed to fallout from the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb, said that after a brief relocation immediately after Bravo, several hundred islanders were moved back to Utrik by the U.S. authorities within three months of the 15-megaton blast.

“This had fatal consequences,” she said. “It subjected people to high levels of radiation exposure (from living and eating food grown in a radioactive environment) thousands of times higher than allowed in the U.S.”

She asked Faleomavaega to help establish a trust fund to support a nuclear clean up of her atoll.

Faleomavaega said he will continue to advocate for Marshall Islanders and if he’s re-elected in November will take matters up with the new U.S. president in 2009.

“It took over 50 years before my government offered a full apology to Japanese Americans for putting them in concentration camps during World War II,” he said, adding it took over 100 years for a formal U.S. government apology to Hawaiians for the U.S. Marine-led overthrow of the Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani in 1898.

On the prospects for a new long-term agreement for use of the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll, Foreign Minister deBrum said the landowners are open to negotiation a new “land use agreement” (LUA) needed to implement a government-to-government agreement giving the U.S. use of Kwajalein through 2066 and options to extend its use of the key missile range.

“The new government has pledged to conduct negotiations to arrive at a new LUA,” he said. But the U.S. must change its offer to the landowners, he indicated. The U.S. and the landowners are deadlocked by a mere $4 million annually for rent.

“It¹s not conducive for achieving a new LUA to go back with the same offer,” deBrum said.

But the Kwajalein picture has been complicated by the large-scale layoffs of Marshallese workers happening this year and planned for next year. The approximately 100 jobs to be cut this year will “affect 1,000 others on Ebeye,” deBrum said. “Life on Ebeye is already intolerable. This is going to exacerbate an already bad situation.”