Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: Tony de Brum

Remarks on Bravo Day

These comments were delivered by Tony de Brum at a ceremony in Japan on March 1, 2016.

I am honored to be here with you on this very special occasion.

I wish to first offer my apologies for not keeping my promise to be with you in previous years for reasons which were not within my control.

I bring you greetings from the people of the Marshall Islands who, like you, share the knowledge of the horrors of nuclear weapons and their ever increasing threat to human life, to our children, and to our mother earth.

While our experience with nuclear arms cannot even come close to matching that of our Japanese brothers and sisters, it has taught us lessons of everlasting value not just for ourselves but all of mankind. From the deliberate exposure of human beings to radiation to systematic cover up of critical health impacts, from human experimentation to premature resettlement of exposed populations, from denial of claims to withholding of information critical to basic understanding of the extent of damage, the nuclear history of the Marshall Islands has been nothing short of a testament to human beings being abused, mistreated and marginalized by more powerful, more ambitious neighbors.

The most important of these lessons can only be that nuclear weapons of any kind are immoral and illegal and cannot be allowed to exist amongst civilized human beings. Nuclear weapons cannot be justified for any reason whatsoever, including those we continue to hear from countries claiming that these arms are required to preserve peace and security for the world.

Nuclear weapons have no conscience, no sense of discrimination, and cannot differentiate between good and evil. Like all weapons of mass destruction, nuclear arms have no mercy for babies and children, they are not selective as to flowers and trees and food and soil. They destroy all life and render a devastation that is final, complete, and irreversible. That itself should be reason enough to ban them from the face of the earth.

Between 1946 and 1958 the United States conducted atomic and thermonuclear tests and experiments in the Marshall Islands. The cumulative output of these tests has been described by Mr. Jon Weisgall, an attorney for the people of Bikini Atoll, as having a yield equivalent to “detonating 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day, for twelve years”. One of those events, the BRAVO shot of March 1, 1954 had the combined force of 1000 Hiroshima bombs. That the experimentation of nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands wreaked havoc on the island community is an insensitive and cynical understatement, forever insulting and hurtful to our people. America’s nuclear program in the Marshall Islands inflicted pain and suffering to those who lived to see the tests themselves, those who survive today as Marshallese wounded in body and spirit, and those of future generations who will continue to bear the scars of this terrible chapter in our country’s history.

To this day, the United States continues to classify information pertinent to tests even though we have repeatedly requested their release. To this day, knowledge critical to our understanding the true extent of nuclear damage done to our people and our homeland is kept secret by America. According to their government, this information is withheld from public scrutiny because it is in the national interest of the United States that nuclear secrets be kept secret. Even after review by a United Nations Rapporteur and very specific recommendations made in his report, the United States still remains intransigent in its position to keep secret their nuclear activities in the Marshall Islands.

Unless and until the United States government releases all the information held in secrecy but necessary for the full understanding of its nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, no government, no leader worth his salt, no legislature, commission or scientific panel can claim fair and just resolution to the nuclear disagreement. There can be no closure without full disclosure.

As we speak, even more discoveries are being made in the Marshall Islands where environmental degradation and pollution directly attributable to nuclear weapons testing continue to threaten the health and livelihood of our people and pose immeasurable dangers to the health and well being of our children and their future generations. In Kwajalein Atoll, where missiles to deliver nuclear weapons are tested, severe heavy metal and other contamination of land and water has been so severe, the consumption of fish and other seafood has been found to be dangerous to human life and health. We cannot observe this injustice in silence and fear. We cannot allow our future generations to be permanently wounded on account of our timid refusal to confront and seek justice under the law. We cannot justify our existence as leaders and caretakers of our lands and heritage if we do not do all in our power to ensure that the truth of nuclear madness is exposed and the end of nuclear insanity is part of our global agenda. Only then will true peace be achieved and only then will the sacrifice of our forebears receive the respect and honor deserved.

In recent times, the Marshall Islands have filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) a lawsuit against the nuclear powers of the world seeking their compliance with Article VI of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. That action seeks to compel those countries with nuclear weapons to commence immediate negotiations to disarm and to negotiate in good faith an agreement for the elimination of nuclear weapons from the earth. Oral arguments are being heard in the Hague on the 7th of March of this year. We are confident that justice will prevail and that our nuclear powers will see their way clear to comply with the undertaking they made in signing the NPT to rid the world of nuclear weapons. I must make it absolutely clear that these ICJ lawsuits do not seek compensation, nor do they seek to point fingers or level liabilities against any of the nuclear powers. Our lawsuits only seek to engage the nuclear powers in negotiations for disarmament as they agreed to in the NPT.

To our brothers and sisters in Japan, the people of the Marshall Islands stand with you in your efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to ban all development of these terrible arms which threaten us, whether in the military context or in its civilian for power generation. As long as these weapons are around and are capable of deployment at a second’s notice, we are in danger.

Nuclear weapons can be used by design or by accident, by military planning or by the act of insane characters; for as long as they exist, they are making human race a target in the nuclear killing field. That must end, it must stop, and we must be part of the movement to restore true peace and harmony in a world without nuclear weapons. It is something that we owe to those who have passed on before us as well as those of our future generations. It is the least we can do for our children and children’s children. Until that happens we must unite in our mission to eliminate nuclear weapons and serve that purpose until every breath in our bodies is gone.

To all our friends who have gathered with us today we bring you love from your Marshallese neighbors. May peace be with you and all our brothers and sisters in Japan, in Polynesia, and in every corner of our world.

Ours is a just cause, and we shall prevail.

March 3, 2016
Statement of Marshall Islands to the 2015 NPT Review Conference

PERMANENT MISSION OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE MARSHALL ISLANDS
TO THE UNITED NATIONS

New York

Hon. Mr. Tony deBrum
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Republic of the Marshall Islands
9^th Review Conference of the States Parties to the
Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
General Debate
27 April 2015

check against delivery

Mr. Secretary-General, Madame President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen –

For far too many years, these circular negotiations on nuclear non-proliferation have failed to listen closely to those voices who know better. There are several nations and peoples in the world who have experienced nuclear weapons directly — and the Marshall Islands stands among them in close solidarity. In particular, many Hibakusha have traveled from Japan to this meeting to ensure global decision-makers hear their powerful message.

How many in this room have personally witnessed nuclear weapon detonations?

I have — as a young boy at Likiep atoll in the northern Marshall Islands, during the time in which 67 nuclear weapons were tested between 1946 and 1958 — at an explosive scale equivalent to1.6 Hiroshima Shots every single day, for 12 years.

When I was nine years old, I remember well the 1954 Bravo shot at Bikini atoll – the largest detonation the world had ever seen, 1000 times the power of the Hiroshima blast. It was the morning, and I was fishing with my grandfather. He was throwing the net and suddenly the silent bright flash — and then a force, the shock wave. Everything turned red — the ocean, the fish, the sky, and my grandfather’s net. And we were 200 miles away from ground zero. A memory that can never be erased.

These nuclear tests were conducted during the Marshall Islands time as a United Nations Trust Territory — and many of these actions were taken, despite Marshallese objections, under UN Trusteeship Resolutions 1082 and 1493, adopted in 1954 and 1956. Those resolutions remain the only specific instances in which the United Nations has ever explicitly authorized the use of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons tests have created lasting impacts in the Marshall Islands — not only a historical reality but a contemporary struggle for our basic human rights — but I have not traveled to the NPT meeting to air out any differences with our former administering authority, the United States. The facts speak for themselves. Instead, I bring with me this moral lesson for all nations – because no one ever considered the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, the Marshallese people still carry a burden which no other people or nation should ever have to bear. And this is a burden we will carry for generations to come.

The serious shortfalls in the NPT’s implementation are not only legal gaps, but also a failure to address the incontrovertible human rights clarified by the recent outcomes of the Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Norway, Mexico and Austria. Over 150 nations, including the Republic of the Marshall Islands, have joined the Statement on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons at the UN General Assembly’s First Committee. An overwhelming global majority agrees that the humanitarian dimension of disarmament must be the strongest centerpiece of multilateral assurance.

It should be our collective goal to not only stop the spread of nuclear weapons, but also to truly achieve the peace and security of a world without them, and thus end the cycle of broken promises. This is why the Marshall Islands serves a co-agent in action presently before the International Court of Justice, which has brought this matter to the direct attention of the world’s nuclear powers. After decades of diplomacy, the NPT’s defining purpose remains unfulfilled, and those who are unwilling to negotiate in good faith will be held to wider account.

Still, there is hope – the Republic of the Marshall Islands lends it’s support to the recent outcomes, driven by the United States and the “P5 plus 1,” that opens doors towards a framework approach which will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons . These negotiations are far from final — but if they are completed, the international community will have proven that multilateral negotiation can still yield positive steps towards averting nuclear danger.

If only such resolve was carried into the NPT. It is true that the world has slowly reduced the number of nuclear weapons. But no one can keep a straight face and argue that sixteen thousand nuclear weapons are an appropriate threshold for global safety. We are seeing nuclear nations modernize and rebuild when they could use the opportunity to reduce. There is no right to “indefinite possession” to continue to retain nuclear weapons on security grounds.

At this year’s meeting, we need to address legal approaches capable of achieving “effective measures” on disarmament — and if that means a new legal framework towards the time bound elimination of weapons and risks, with good-faith parameters rather than loopholes, and with meaningful participation from all necessary nuclear actors — then the Marshall Islands is all for it.

The 2010 NPT action plan is an important benchmark but it reveals serious shortcomings in implementation — which cannot merely be “rolled over” without consequence. The valid right of NPT Parties to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only exists with the highest standards of safety and security — and NPT States must be held to full account for violations or abusing withdrawal provisions.

We should further affirm that the Test Ban Treaty is vital to the NPT, recognizing that it’s entry into force is essential. The Marshall Islands’ own direct experience should be lesson enough for the world to firmly commit to ending nuclear testing.

Further, all relevant States Parties should take necessary measures to bring about entry into force of agreements establishing nuclear-free weapons zones. In particular, the support of the Republic of the Marshall Islands for a nuclear-free Pacific has long been clouded by other agreements, and we are encouraged that the United States has provided a new perspective on the Rarotonga Treaty’s Protocols. We express again our aspirations to join with our Pacific neighbors.

Madame President,

There may be different avenues towards on achieving a world without nuclear weapons — but our worst fear is merely continuing the status quo – seeing no meaningful answer at all. Perpetuating the status quo, patting ourselves on the back and expecting accolades for making zero progress at this NPT Review Conference is totally unacceptable to all peoples and all nations. Surely we can, and must do better.

April 27, 2015
Speech Delivered to the Marshall Islands Parliament

This is the English translation of the speech delivered by Foreign Minister Tony de Brum to the Nitijela (Parliament) of the Republic of the Marshall Islands on February 23, 2015.

On February 3, 2015, the US Federal District Court granted the US government’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the Marshall Islands seeking to hold the US to its legal obligations to pursue negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race at an early date and for nuclear disarmament. On February 6, 2015, the US Embassy in Majuro issued a statement in which it welcomed the Court’s decision. We now wish to explain some of the issues in the February 3^rd ruling, provide our position on certain aspects, and respond to certain parts of the US February 6^th statement.

Since the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force 45 years ago, and the US recommitted to its obligations under the NPT in 2010, we believe the time is right for legal action to enforce the US disarmament obligations. Every day that nuclear weapons remain in the world on high alert status, the Marshall Islands and every other country remains threatened. And every day that the US continues to refuse to negotiate for nuclear disarmament, the RMI is denied the benefit of the bargain under the NPT.

The US did not argue the case on the merits, but rather sought dismissal on jurisdictional grounds. The Court upheld the US claims that the RMI did not have standing to bring the lawsuit, and that the case was subject to the Political Question doctrine and thus should be left in the hands of the political branches of government, in this case the Executive. We are disappointed with the Court’s ruling and, respectfully, believe it to be in error.

Regarding standing to bring the case, the Court held that the harm to the Marshall Islands from the US breach of the NPT was speculative, and that even if the RMI were denied the benefit of its bargain under the NPT, the Court could not order the Executive to comply with the law. But the harm is not speculative, and the US Senate history confirms that—referring to vertical nuclear proliferation as the gravest threat to humankind. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the US arguing that harm from the pursuit of nuclear weapons by other countries is speculative. Yet the US Embassy welcomes a decision finding harm from a breach of the NPT to be speculative.

As a party to the NPT, we believe that we have standing to bring this case against other NPT parties, including the US, that are not fulfilling their obligations. But the Court, in dismissing, creates precedent that parties to treaties with the US do not have legal recourse in US courts. Instead compliance with treaties is subject to the unassailable interpretation, politics and disposition of each changing President. Again, it is hard to imagine the US arguing that legal compliance by other countries with respect to the law concerning weapons of mass destruction is subject to the unassailable interpretation, politics and disposition of each sitting Executive.

Regarding the Political Question doctrine, the Court held that it was up to the Executive to fulfill (or, implicitly, decide not to fulfill) its legal obligations to negotiate in good faith back for nuclear disarmament. Contrary to the US February 6^th statement, the Court did not rule that the objective of a world without nuclear weapons “can only be achieved ‘politically,’ through patient diplomacy.” Instead, in its February 3^rd decision, the Court cited cases that provide that if negotiations fail (or don’t even begin), then war may be the next option, as opposed to a peaceful judicial remedy. We could not disagree more. It is exactly because we seek a peaceful resolution of the issue that we brought the case to the courts.

In its February 6^th statement, the US said, “President Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons…remains a key objective of U.S. national security policy.” The RMI welcomes this reassertion of President Obama’s vision. We share this vision. That is why we implore the US to honor its binding NPT Article VI obligations, namely negotiations in good faith relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament. We implore the US to do what we are asking the Courts to order it to do: call for and convene negotiations for nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. Instead of continuing to claim compliance with the NPT while refusing to call for or convene any such negotiations, why doesn’t the US demonstrate compliance by actually calling for and convening such negotiations? Perhaps then the US commitment to achieving nuclear disarmament could become “unassailable,” as it claims it is in its February 6^th statement.

Also in its February 6^th statement, the US referred to the Marshall Islands as “our friend and ally.” We have the same feeling toward the US. It is with respect and as a sovereign nation that we have gone to court to insist that the US fulfill its obligations under Article VI of the NPT and customary international law. Nuclear weapons are not our friend, nor the friend of the US or any other country. Rather, these weapons are the enemy of all humankind. That is why we will stand up for what we believe in, and we will be appealing the Court’s dismissal of the lawsuit to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the next step in the American judicial process.

Finally, we note the US recognition, repeated in its February 6^th statement, that “the Marshall Islands ‘has played an outsized role in the fight for a safer world.’” The legal action is part of that continued fight.

February 23, 2015
Tony de Brum at the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits Forum

For video of this event, click here.

I’m proud to be here. I thank everyone in this room and their organizations who have made this possible for my country to be here. And I represent my country while I’m here. But I wanted to also share with you my personal experience so that those of you who have been involved in the law books and in the scientific journals and all the different sources of information that you have amassed to bring us to where we are today, will have a feeling, a direct touch, I hope, with what the Marshall Islands has gone through all these years and what brought us to where we are now.

The evacuation of the people of Bikini, you know the two – made room for the “peaceful use of the atom” – was in 1946. And even at that meeting when the United States representative told the Bikini people that they were going to be moved for just a while, a short while and that they would be repatriated as soon as possible, because this experiment was for the good of mankind, and it was the will of God – from that day on they started lying and giving us double talk and duplicity in all that they did in the testing period. Beyond and after to this day we are still being denied the information we seek to be educated, to be able to understand what happened to our country.

When the Enewetak people were forcibly removed in ’47 to make room for further testing on Enewetak, it was the same story. We will take you off on this ship to (this island) and we will bring you right back when we are through. To this day, neither Bikini nor Enewetak can be safely, totally safely resettled.

My experience with the bomb did not start in ’54. I actually remember as early as when I was four years old listening to the rumbles and the flashes from the west from the island where I lived with my grandfather called Likiep. But the experience of the morning of 1954, March 1st was, I think, the jolt on my soul that never quite left me. Seeing Bravo as a nine year old was an experience I would not recommend to anyone because it still gives us nightmares – the people of my age and younger and around maybe some older from that time.

So when we had the opportunity to go to school, four years later, 1958 I left home to go to school and did not return until 1968. When we had the opportunity to go to school, we were overwhelmed with having to catch up with civilization, with mathematics, with science, with whatever it took to graduate. And we were not able to access information that would give us more understanding of what we had experienced as children.

But when we returned we had that opportunity. We had that new license to speak – the fact that we were educated in American colleges was the license that we sought and that the people that we worked for recognized as the ability to speak up on their behalf. Even when I returned from school, the program of so-called “testing’ exposed people was in full swing. Each year, scientists – I call them scientists – though they liked to refer to themselves as doctors – would come in and study our people, take blood samples and other samples and do all kinds of things to keep up, to keep track of the radiation outside and within their bodies. It was not a pleasant experience for our communities, but it was a continuation of what had happened from Bravo and the subsequent years after.

From the time the testing started in ’47 until Bravo, about half of the 67 “events” were conducted by the United States. And then between ’57 and ’58, 33 or 34 more shots were done in that short period of time, of 2 years. After, the people were removed and were put back on Rongelap to continue the experiments.

Part of what John was referring to earlier in that interview in the movie, the video, Nuclear Savage, was our attempt to understand documents that had been released by the Clinton administration, pursuant to our requests, for years, for information which demonstrated and proved to us that these doctors that I spoke about were actually conducting human experiments on the people of Rongelap and Utirik. They we not treating them for the anomalies that were coming up, but they were actually studying the affects of radiation on human beings.

It is unfortunate that between 1954 and 1994 we were not able to access that information. But even after we’ve understood that, there is still denial that Project 4.1, the project I referred to is a project to study the affects of radiation on human beings. It’s still being denied by officials of the United States.

Our attempts to bring justice to the people of the Marshalls for all that happened to them during this time have been hampered primarily by the withholding of information by the United States on the excuse, and it’s simply an excuse, that it is in the security interest of the United States to do so. How information such as the yield of a particular weapon or the “event” or the “detonation” can be classified on that basis is a mystery to us. But nevertheless, it’s still being used to this day to deny us the information we seek.

The direct effects of some of the testing, especially Bravo, resulted in various anomalies, birth anomalies and sicknesses that the communities of the Marshalls had never experienced before.
But because the islands were closed to any interference from outside between 1946 and 1968, there was very little information that flowed out from the Marshalls until then.

Before 1968 in order, even for some of us to try to leave the Marshalls to go away to school, in order for us to leave our country we needed the permission of the Navy Admiral in Guam to allow us to catch military airplanes out of the Marshalls to Honolulu and on to the US mainland for schooling. So there was already at that time an attempt to decide who amongst us would be allowed to go away to school and who would be denied passage simply because of your family or because of whom you associated with in high school.

When the opportunity arose for us to seek compensation and seek the truth for the damages we suffered from the nuclear testing it was under the auspices of the negotiations leading to independence. We were concerned that the United States was cutting and running – walking away from a responsibility that it had created for itself and was denying in terms of making sure that we had the right information based upon which we could make the right decisions on how this relationship would proceed.

Secondly, we were being presented with information that was claimed to be the infinite, total, complete information that the United States was able to provide in a 1978 survey.

And number three, we were told that if we did not accept the nuclear deal, the 150 million compensation in a trust fund and the establishment of a nuclear claims tribunal, that we would not be allowed independence.

So regardless of what is said about that deal, it was tied to freedom. And the final decision that was placed on us was – are you willing to settle for this agreement, this nuclear claims agreement – in return for your freedom? Or, we will keep you as a trust territory for as long as we want because we have that authority under the United Nations.

The decision was made to be free.

But to continue to seek information that would give us a final answer to all our concerns about the testing period and what it did to us. We have since found out of course that the information provided to us was also very much, ah, “edited” “abridged” “painted” in a way that we would accept it and with the assurances that the amounts that the United States estimated to be adequate for health care and for compensation for physical injury would suffice. As it turned out, none of these things were true.

The people of the Marshalls have filed before in times past. Both the people of Bikini and the people of Enewetak have filed cases in US courts for compensation based on information that they were able to garner through the nuclear claims tribunal and experts hired by that tribunal to provide technical information that (assists) to them. These cases have been dismissed, not on any good grounds accept that the time had run out. We were violating, what is the word I’m looking for – we were violating statues of limitations issues and not on the merit of the cases themselves – procedural rather than substantial reasons.

Today, we have completely run out of funds to address the individual physical injury cases adjudicated by the tribunal and we have not even touched damages to home and property because there are no funds left to address those.

Under the Compact of Free Association there was an agreement that should the terms of the settlement be proven inadequate that there would be a window of opportunity to revisit the issue between the United States government and the Marshall Islands. This request has gone in, in several forms, over the past twenty years only to be rejected again on the grounds that time has run out and the political settlement had been reached in 1986.

So, while we still bear the scars and in fact in some cases, still the open wounds of physical harm from the testing period, there is no physical avenue of settlement at the present time. And just within the last five years, the US Supreme Court has rejected the last two attempts by the people of Enewetak and Bikini to seek justice.

Now, I should say from the beginning here that the lawsuits that I discussed before are different from what we have done now. What we seek now is for the United States and the nuclear powers to abide by the treaty to which they acceded before and for those that did not, by customary law, should also follow. It is an important part of our history because without it, it will remain open-ended – and incomplete. It will not be acceptable for us to leave that open (vacuum?) for our future generations.

It is also right for us to do that because we have seen first-hand the effects of nuclear weapons on human beings. The scourge of displaced communities within their own homeland – the scourge that the people of Enewetak must now live in an atoll that is half contaminated, half acceptable for habitation, at least by US standards, is not a very comfortable end of a very long hard journey.

Just recently a professor from Columbia University has written a piece about the Runit Dome, the only nuclear storage area in Micronesia located in Enewetak where the United States pushed and shoved plutonium contaminated material into a bomb crater, then steeled the top with a concrete cap, and said we will keep it away from human beings for 24,000 years. Now, we have seen because of normal wear and tear, and because of higher seas, cracks in the dome and the possibility now appears that some of this contaminated material may permeate into the lagoon and surrounding communities.

The most recent response from the United States to this concern is as follows: Even if the crater were to be blasted completely open and everything in it were to flow out to the community and the lagoon – what’s in the crater is not as dangerous as what’s outside the crater.

So much for the clean-up of Enewetak.

So, in spite of assurances that it is in fact safe for some of our people to live in, say, Rongelap, or Bikini, or Enewetak, it has always been a stressful issue. And neither Rongelap nor Bikini are inhabited and the half of Enewetak that is, in fact, occupied by some people of Enewetak, is very sparsely populated because most of them have left to the other atolls or to the big island of Hawaii where a sizable, meaning a few hundred, Enewetak people now live.

There is nothing more final in the life of an island person than to be separated from your homeland. It is living hell. It is death while alive. It is impossible to hold your head up as a human being when you cannot ask for your land, ask your land to provide for yourself and must depend on somebody else for that privilege.

So unless and until some form of settlement is again reached and people are repatriated to their own lands, this nuclear legacy of the Marshalls will continue. And we do not wish this upon anyone else, anyone else in the world.

I may not look that old but I do have nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren of which I’m very, very proud. And until today, until the very day I left to come on this trip they look up to you and they ask, “What’s going to happen? What are you going to come back with? What are the answers you seek? You’re away too much.” And you must always go back from these ones saying “Very soon, very soon.”

But we will never give up. And it is the support and the council of the people we have in this room today that gives us that courage and that determination – that through our efforts, as meager as they may be, and as small as we are in the world – we have one vote in the UN – and we have a voice that will not be silenced until the world is rid of all nuclear weapons. Because that’s the cause of this all. Thank you.

December 12, 2014
Acceptance Speech for the Sean MacBride Peace Prize

On December 5, 2014, the International Peace Bureau awarded the Sean MacBride Peace Prize the people and government of the Marshall Islands. Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum accepted the award. His speech is below. Video of the award ceremony is available here.

I am deeply honored to receive this, to accept this award, on behalf of the people and the government of the Marshall Islands. I accept it on behalf of President Christopher Loeak and his government, who have been very supportive of all our efforts in every faction on the floor of Parliament, in the cabinet, throughout the ministries and the public service, through the education system, through the public live broadcast system and in all of our encounters with the young people of the country – educational meetings, graduation speeches, and the like.

I accept it with humility on behalf of all the people of the Marshall Islands, for all the fathers of the many families, both those that remain in their homelands, and those that are so sadly separated from the land which nurtured their parents and their grandparents and which gives them the soul to be Marshallese persons.

I accept it on behalf of the women of the Marshall Islands who have had to quietly suffer through the years the indignation, the shame, the hardship of being cast aside as different or as deserving of their fate because they happened to not know what it was that affected them. I accept it on behalf of those women, especially of the community of Rongelap, who on the morning of Bravo – two days after Bravo actually was still the morning of Bravo in Rongelap – had to withstand the shame of being stripped naked in front of their village, in the village square, to be hosed down to get rid of the radioactive powder on their bodies, in front of their children, their sons, and their male relatives.

I accept it on behalf of all the children who were born partly human: jellyfish babies, children who were born without arms, or without heads, brains, but with a heart that beat nevertheless for some reason.

I accept it on behalf of children who have died because they had no access to medical care, proper medical care, whose diseases and sicknesses and anomalies could not be properly diagnosed because we were told that we could not hire doctors for the dead when we were struggling to employ doctors for the living.

I accept it on behalf of those women who were accused of having illicit relationships which caused their children to become jelly babies, being accused of incestuous relationships and therefore not being capable of having proper babies.

I accept it on behalf of the children who have survived, like my granddaughter whose two year battle with leukemia has resulted in a healthy nine-year-old in the fourth grade who is doing well, thank you, for now.

I accept it on behalf of all the people of Bikini who cannot return home, but must stay in two split societies, one in Kili, one in Ejit, while they still call themselves Bikinians, and are proud to say “I come from KBE,” – Kili, Bikini, Ejit – because Kili is where one half of them stay, Ejit is where the other half, and Bikini is the place where they long to stay.

My colleague, Obet Kilon, is from Bikini. He’s a young, up-and-coming Foreign Service officer in our government, and he will carry this banner long after I am dead and gone, I am sure. I accept it on behalf of Kilon and his family, and all the other people of Bikini.

The people of Enewetak, who must now live as one society, when in truth, they are really two societies in one atoll, who always refer to themselves as the people of Engebi and of Enewetak living in Enewetak Atoll, unfortunately must live on one island in that atoll because it is contaminated, and the people of Engebi cannot return to Engebi. I accept it on behalf of the people of Enewetak who must witness the breakup of the dome at Runit with tons and tons and tons of plutonium-contaminated material.

I accept it on behalf of the children of the Marshalls who will be born next year, and the year after, and the decade after who, for God’s sakes, must have a better life than their parents did.

I accept it on behalf of all of those who have contributed to make it happen that we are recognized for filing the cases against the nuclear states in the ICJ. Without your support, without your counsel, without your confirmation that what we wanted to do was the right thing to do, it would have been difficult for us to step forward and carry out this very, very important step in bringing peace to the world in getting rid of nuclear weapons once and for all.

I accept it on behalf of all those who have sent support for our efforts. I accept it on behalf of our friends from Japan, some of whom are here tonight, who have suffered more directly than we have.
If there was one thing that we could point to and accept as perhaps a wish that no one could possibly deny exists in the heart of every Marshallese, it is that this madness be nipped at the bud, that it not be allowed to happen again, that war with nuclear weapons must be recognized for what it is: an evil end to civilization. It is no longer bombs being tested, it is no longer select cities where bombs will be dropped, and then things will be over. It is a final, a very final, act of insanity.

And as someone earlier said, “How can we be sure that nuclear weapons will not be used again?” The only way to be sure that nuclear weapons are not used again is to make sure we don’t have any nuclear weapons to use. And the small islands of the Marshall Islands, barely 70,000 people, are maybe small islands but a big ocean country: we believe that firmly, and we want to share that belief with the world.

I will take this medal back with me to the President and his cabinet, to Parliament in the January session, which begins the first Monday of January, and then we will pass it around to all the islands of the Marshalls for them to see, for the children to feel it, for the children to see that, yes, there are smart and concerned people in the world that believe like we do.

The most rewarding part of doing what we do in spreading the word of nuclear peace is to see the eyes of children light up when they understand what is being done. Because the bad side of the story has been told to them, what we are trying to do is to tell them the good side of the story, and this will be a milestone in the telling of that story.

Thank you very much.

December 5, 2014
Marshall Islands Statement to 2014 NPT PrepCom

Republic of the Marshall Islands

Hon. Mr. Tony de Brum
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of the Marshall Islands
Statement at the General Debate of the
3rd Meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the
2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference
United Nations, New York 28 April 2014

Mr. Chairman, Excellencies, Colleagues, Distinguished Ambassadors, Ladies & Gentlemen,

I have the honor to speak on behalf of the Marshall Islands.

The Marshall Islands wishes to thank Mexico for holding the recent Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, and the Marshall Islands is also proud to have joined 124 other nations in the Joint Statement on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons, delivered by New Zealand before the UN General Assembly’s First Committee last October.

Mr. Chairman,

The Marshallese people have one of the most important stories to tell regarding the need to avert the use of nuclear weapons, and one which should spur far greater efforts for nuclear disarmament.

I must remind this meeting that it was ultimately under the status and administration of the United Nations, as a UN Trust Territory, that the Marshall Islands was used as a nuclear testing ground. Indeed, the only instance I am ever aware of in which the UN specifically authorized testing and use of nuclear weapons is under UN Trusteeship Resolution 1082, adopted in 1954, and UN Trustee Resolution 1493 adopted in 1956. We experienced 67 nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958 – at a scale of 1.6 Hiroshima shots every day for twelve years. This is not only a historical issue but one whose consequences remain with us today as a burden which no nation, and which no people, should ever have to carry. It was the experience in the Marshall Islands of nuclear testing which ultimately served to shock the world into pursuing not only non-proliferation but ultimate disarmament.

I have not come here today with any intent to air out bilateral issues with the former UN administering power, the United States, which conducted these tests. The facts speak for themselves, they have been recognized by the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum, and most importantly by the 2012 report of the UN Special Rapporteur. It will be rightly in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Council, including through its Universal Periodic Review, where human rights issues will be raised in full.

Rather, I have come here today to ask if it must be the Marshall Islands that again reminds the United Nations, and particularly its member states, of the risks and consequences of nuclear weapons?

Ministers and Disarmament Ambassadors and experts have gathered here from around the world with the serious responsibility to achieve ultimate disarmament under the NPT – but I must ask how many people in this room, here today, have personally witnessed nuclear detonations?

I, for one, have – I am a nuclear witness and my memories from Likiep atoll in the northern Marshalls are strong. I lived there as a young boy for the entire 12 years of the nuclear testing program, and when I was 9 years old, I remember vividly the white flash of the Bravo detonation on Bikini atoll, 6 decades ago in 1954, and one thousand times more powerful than Hiroshima – and an event that truly shocked the international community into action.

The UN Trusteeship resolutions and documents on the nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands are fading as the yellowing pages crumble in your fingers – some of them are missing altogether – but our Marshallese memories and experience have not faded. It is as though the world has lost true focus of this nuclear threat as if it is treated in passing as a casual risk, and not a dire and grave threat. I challenge the other NPT member states to prove wrong my skepticism.

Mr. Chairman,

Like so many other nations, the Republic of the Marshall Islands also believes that the awareness of the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons must underpin all approaches and efforts towards nuclear disarmament. It is in the interest of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances – and the truly universal way to accomplish this is through the total elimination of such weapons, including through fulfilling the objectives of the NPT and achieving its universality. It should be our collective goal as the United Nations, and as Parties to the NPT, to not only stop the spread of nuclear weapons, but also to pursue the peace and security of a world without them.

The Marshall Islands urges all NPT members to achieve the treaty’s obligations – this is not an issue of bloc politics, it is an issue of collective security. If the treaty’s goal from over 45 years ago is no less relevant today, than it seems this relevance is not fully matched by political will and adequate progress. We have seen almost five decades of an endless cycle of promises and further promises.

The 2010 NPT Action Plan – adopted by consensus – is an important benchmark against which everyone is measuring progress in implementing the NPT through specific and often time-bound actions. But this Action Plan is also likely to reveal serious and grave shortcomings in implementation – it should be beyond any question that legal obligations remain unfulfilled, that under the NPT’s defining purpose, and after decades of diplomacy, we are all still so far from the end conclusion.

Disarmament is only possible with political will – we urge all nuclear weapons states to intensify efforts to address their responsibilities in moving towards an effective and secure disarmament. The Marshall Islands affirms important bilateral progress amongst nuclear powers – but further underscores that this still falls short of the NPT’s collective and universal purpose. International law – and legal obligations – are not hollow and empty words on a page, but instead the most serious form of duty and commitment between nations, and to our collective international purpose.

It is for this reason why I have participated as a co-agent in recent filings at the International Court of Justice and elsewhere against the world’s major nuclear powers. Those that make binding obligations within international treaties, and those who are bound by customary international law, must and will be held accountable for the pursuit of those commitments and obligations.

Further, while the Marshall Islands recognizes the valid right of all States Parties to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under relevant NPT articles, this is an obligation that only exists with the highest standards of safety and security. The Marshall Islands underscores that these rights exist not only in any false cover or inarguable abuse. Moreover, the NPT itself is not a light switch to be turned on and off at convenience – States must be held to full accountability for violations of the Treaty or in abusing withdrawal provisions – a matter of concern for every nation, and the wider global community that defines us all.

The Marshall Islands is not the only nation in the Pacific, nor the world, to be touched by the devastation of nuclear weapons testing. The support of the Republic of the Marshall Islands for a nuclear-free Pacific has long been clouded by other agreements, and we are encouraged that the United States has provided a new perspective on the Rarotonga Treaty’s protocols. We express again our aspirations to join with our Pacific neighbors in supporting a Pacific free of nuclear weapons in a manner consistent with international security.

Thank you, and kommol tata.

April 28, 2014
2012 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award Acceptance Speech

It is with profound gratitude and humility that I receive this coveted Distinguished Peace Leadership Award 2012. I wish to thank Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for the great honor.

I am aware that in receiving this award, I am following in the footsteps of some of the most gallant and respected notables of our century – among them, His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the late King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, Jacques Cousteau, Walter Cronkite and many other distinguished champions of peace.

I am truly humbled to be following the lead of such exceptional human beings. With their contributions to world peace and harmony they have touched and influenced many of us gathered this evening and impacted the lives of many more around the world.

My life was deeply traumatized by the nuclear legacy of the United States in the Marshall Islands. My public career has been shaped by the nuclear insult to my country and the Marshallese people. I have endeavored to make my modest contribution to peace by bringing their story to the world through all opportunities available to me.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

I have been a student of the horrific impacts of the nuclear weapons testing program for most of my life. I served as interpreter for American officials who proclaimed Bikini safe for resettlement and commenced a program to repatriate the Bikini people who for decades barely survived on the secluded island of Kili. I accompanied the American High Commissioner of the Trust Territory just two years later to once again remove the repatriated residents from Bikini because concentrations of strontium and cesium had exceeded safe limits and their exposure had become too high for the established US government’s health standards.

I was also personally involved in the translation of the Enewetak Environmental Impact Statement that declared Enewetak in the western Marshall Islands safe for resettlement. In a television interview on CBS Sixty Minutes I expressed my concern to Morley Safer at the time by describing the military public relations efforts associated with the Enewetak clean-up as a dog-and-pony show. Today, for the most part the atoll remains unsafe for human habitation.

Later, during negotiations to terminate the trust territory arrangement mandated by the United Nations and assigned to the United States, we discovered that certain scientific information regarding Enewetak was being withheld from us because, as the official US government memorandum stated, “the Marshallese negotiators might make overreaching demands” on the United States if the facts about the extent of damage in the islands were known to us.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

The Marshall Islands’ close encounter with the bomb did not end with the detonations themselves. In recent years, documents released by the United States government have uncovered even more horrific aspects of this burden borne by the Marshallese people in the name of international peace and security. US government documents prove in no uncertain terms that its scientists conducted human radiation experiments on Marshallese citizens and American servicemen assigned to our part of the world. Some of our people were injected with or coerced to imbibe fluids laced with radioactive substances. Other experimentation involved the purposeful and premature resettlement of people on islands highly contaminated by the weapons tests to study how human beings absorb radionuclides either from their foods or from their poisonous environment.

Much of this human experimentation occurred in populations either exposed to near lethal amounts of radiation, or to “control” populations who were told they would receive medical “ care” for participating in these studies to help their fellow citizens. At the conclusion of all these studies, the United States still maintained that no positive linkage could be established between the tests and the health status of the Marshallese. Just in the past few years, a National Cancers Institute study has predicted a substantively higher than expected incidence of cancer in the Marshall Islands resulting from the atomic tests.

Throughout the years, America’s nuclear history in the Marshall Islands has been colored with official denial, self-serving control of information, and abrogation of commitment to redress the shameful wrongs done to the Marshallese people. The scientists and military officials involved in the testing program picked and chose their study subjects, recognized certain communities as exposed when it served their interests, and denied monitoring and medicinal attention to subgroups within the Marshall Islands.

I remember well their visits to my village in Likiep where they subjected every one of us to tests and invasive physical examinations the United States government denied ever carrying out. In 1978 as a representative on the negotiations with the United States, we raised the issue requesting that raw data gathered during these visits be made available to us. United States representatives responded by saying that our recollections were juvenile and could not possibly reflect the realities of the time.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

While a resolution of the status question was eventually reached, the issue of damages and personal injury from the testing remain a matter of contention between our two countries to this day. The unresolved aspect of the agreement remains the question of damages and personal injury claims yet to be addressed. Attempts to resolve these outstanding issues through the Compact of Free Association between our two countries as well as through the United States court system have been unsuccessful.

The courts have invoked the statutes of limitation while the administration contends that the circumstances of the claims do not constitute provable differences from knowledge based on which the agreements in 1986 were reached. We do not deny signing an agreement. We do admit though that this was based on information provided us by the United States contending that the damages were as they described in various studies presented to us to justify the adequacy of nuclear compensation and purported to describe in full the true damages caused by the tests.

In order to break this impasse we would require evidence which has been declared top secret by the United States to which the public has no access. It is interesting to note that the United States has expressed strong interest to bring the nuclear issues with the Marshall Islands to closure. We have responded that there can be no closure without full disclosure.

Further the United States Government tells us, our government is now responsible for nuclear claims, stemming from what is called the espousal provision of the Compact of Free Association. That basically says, we have settled all claims and should any new ones arise, the Government of the Marshall Islands will be responsible and liable. Ironically, the only other time in the history of the United States where ‘espousal’ was used to squelch claims was in the settlement to release the hostages in Iran.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

Last month in Geneva, the 21st Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted the Independent Special Rapporteur’s report, which in short, found that the US nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands resulted in both immediate and continuing effects on the human rights of the Marshallese. The adopted report also sets forth a set of far reaching recommendations, among them, under subparagraph (f); “Guarantee the right to effective remedy for the Marshallese people, including by providing full funding for the Nuclear Claims Tribunal to award adequate compensation for past and future claims, and exploring other forms of reparation, where appropriate, such as restitution, rehabilitation and measures of satisfaction; including, public apologies, public memorials and guarantees of non- repetition; and consider the establishment of a truth and reconciliation mechanism or similar alternative justice mechanisms.”

How far the United States government will act on these recommendations remains uncertain. In spite of all that has occurred in this relationship, the American people will not find a better friend than the people of the Marshall Islands.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

I accept this high honor you bestow upon me this evening in the name of my country, my fellow citizens, and all who have in one way or another contributed to the understanding of the Marshallese nuclear plight.

I accept it on behalf of Lijon Aknelang and the Almira Matayoshi of Rongelap Atoll, who passed away recently but were never discouraged in their fight to find peace and justice. I dedicate it to the mothers of Rongelap whose shameful treatment by American scientists violated all acceptable norms of human decency and respect. I accept it on behalf of Senator Jeton Anjain and his brother Mayor John Anjain, who exposed the dark secrets of the experimentation on the Rongelap people. This honor I share with Mayor Anjain’s son, Lekoj Anjain who became the first recognized leukemia victim of nuclear tests. I accept this honor on behalf of the Marshallese Traditional Leaders, especially Iroijlaplap Jebro Kabua and Anjua Loeak, who made lands under their stewardship available for the humane resettlement of displace nuclear nomads. I accept it on behalf of Marshallese community leaders who petitioned in vain to stop the tests through avenues known to them, both directly to the United States and to the United Nations. I accept on behalf of Senator Ishmael John of Enewetak who fought to his death to bring justice to the people of his home who to this day remain unable to resettle their ancestral lands and whose atoll continues to store nuclear wastes including plutonium.

I would be remiss if I did not include the many friends throughout the world who have contributed to our knowledge of the dangers of nuclear weapons and the clear and present danger they are to the universe as we know it. I accept it on behalf of all Marshallese whose lives have been directly or indirectly affected by the horrific effects of the nuclear test. But most of all, dear friends, I accept on behalf of my granddaughter Zoe, who, as a brave young four year old, battled with leukemia for two very difficult years, and is now declared healthy enough to return to school and live a normal life. For this I will always be thankful to God and His Mercy.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

For the use of our country in the maintenance of what is called an unquestionable military supremacy over the world, Kwajalein Atoll, which is my parliamentary constituency, has been tasked to bear the burden. I therefore dedicate this honor to the people of Kwajalein whose continuing sacrifice of providing the home of their forefathers for the “preservation of international peace and security” continues to this day and for the next seventy-four years.

The Marshall Islands are by no means the only ones who have experienced a taste of nuclear horror. The people of Hiroshima and Nakasaki, Kazakhstan, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and French Polynesia have had first-hand experience. The 67 nuclear events in the Marshalls, equivalent to 1.7 Hiroshima shots every day for 12 years came complete with physical displacement, nuclear illness, birth anomalies, alienation of land, massive destruction of property, injury and death. But perhaps the most hurtful of all was official denial and secretive cover up and refusal to accept responsibility on the part of the perpetrators.

The Marshall Islands were also subject to years of expensive clean up and rehabilitation of land and habitat which fell far short of restoring the lands and sites to any productive use. In certain parts, repatriation will not be possible for at least 12,000 years. And that’s only from testing.

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned is that any way you look at it, nuclear weapons and the horrific destruction they bring, whether in war or in experimentation, leave permanent and irreversible damage to man and nature. All things surrounding nuclear weaponry threaten life on our planet and perhaps even our universe. It is not good for men and women, boys and girls, and dogs and cats. It is harmful to trees and to plants we eat. It poisons fish and wildlife. It makes our world less, not more, secure.

If the lessons of the end of World War II, and the lessons of all the tests conducted since then have not been learned then we must learn them. If the experiences of laboratory exposure, also denied, are not part of our learning pathway, then they must be added. If we do not take the message of nuclear survivors to heart, then we will have to soften our hearts. Nuclear weapons threaten us, they do not protect us. No matter where they are located or deployed, one push of a red button could be the end of life as we know it. That is not a chance worth taking.

If we continue to imagine any kind of a benefit being derived from the fact that the atomic powers are now armed to the teeth, then the sacrifice of all we have cited in this brief message tonight will have been in vain. Enlightened modern leaders of the world have not been blind to this fact of life. It is just that they have yet to put the matter of the nuclear race to rest.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

Barely forty-eight hours ago we were in India at the 11th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity where 193 countries, both governments and non-government organizations, met to discuss the accelerated decline in the integrity of the environment and its genetic resources. Also debated were programs and efforts to address the unsustainable global development direction and the dangers that it poses to the world.

As in nuclear disarmament efforts, we have a situation where world leaders fully understand the problem, are aware of the solutions, but cannot decide who should go first. There is no question that if civilization does not keep global warming under 2 degrees C by 2050, this effort to protect mother earth will be in vain. I am confident that the entire membership of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is familiar with the issue and knows what must be done to avoid climate chaos. But like nuclear disarmament, the world know the problem, it knows the solutions, but lacks the collective political will to execute.

As a small islands developing state, the Marshall Islands, and its neighbors are among the most ecologically vulnerable areas on the planet. We are actively working with other Pacific Islands to ensure that ocean resources in the region are governed and protected from exploitation. As a nation whose single most important productive sector and key export is in fisheries, the state of the world’s oceans and fish stocks and how these vital resources are being exploited remains on the list of our immediate priorities.

Recently, the Marshall Islands, in partnership with Palau and Micronesia, has undertaken a feasibility study for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion or OTEC technology, which uses the deep ocean temperature differential to generate electricity, water and other marketable by-products. If successful, OTEC will turn the Marshall Islands and its neighbors from oil-dependent basket case economies into net exporters of renewable energy. On this score we salute the enlightened efforts on sustainable energy in which our friends in California have been admirably proactive.

The Marshall Islands cannot afford to wait for global movement on climate change. Barely two meters above sea level, the stakes are a bit high here. And having had our share of displaced populations, we do not see moving elsewhere as a viable option. We are partnering with our neighbors in Micronesia in examining alternative financial mechanisms for economic security and earlier this month held a workshop in the islands on the subject of Debt for Adaptation Swap on Climate Change. This promises to be an innovative means of dealing with nonperforming governmental development loans of the recent past.

The Micronesia Challenge is a partnership of island states of the North Pacific to jointly set aside for protection and conservation substantial areas of their individual and collective territories. In addition, Palau, the state of Kosrae in Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands have declared a total ban on fishing and finning of Sharks in their economic zones, effectively creating the world’s largest shark sanctuary. We are taking these extraordinary steps as proud stewards and protectors of some of the world’s richest and most diverse ecosystems. We want to leave our planet intact for the benefit of our children, and their children’s children.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been stalwart in its mission of nuclear disarmament and the elimination of the nuclear threat to man. For the nearly two decades I have been associated with its efforts, I can attest to its diligence and dedication to marshal its resources to promoting peace and harmony in a nuclear free world. That goal is pure in its intent, necessary in pursuit, and is the only option through which we can leave a world where healthy children and a healthy environment can live in harmony, now and forever.

For whatever is remaining of my life, I pledge to follow this dream that one day we can rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons and that peace can be achieved not by what harm we can do to each other, but by what good we can do together.

I share in this award, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, and recognize with gratitude those who have walked with me in this journey of life. I want to thank most especially my wife and my best friend, Rosalie, and our three daughters – Doreen, Dolores and Sally Ann for always standing by my side and supporting me, even when the odds were overwhelming. My dad, my brothers and sisters and the numerous people who have made it possible for me to be recognized and honored, I wish to express to you my deepest gratitude and kamolol (mahalos).

For me, the work to address the plight of all affected peoples continues with renewed determination. We owe it to the nuclear victims and the nuclear survivors, but most importantly we owe it to the future generations of our planet.

Yokwe and God Bless you all.

October 21, 2012
Indigenous Presentation to the Delegates of the Seventh Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

It is an honor for me to be able to speak to you today on behalf of indigenous people throughout the world whose lives have been dramatically affected by the proliferation of weapons. I bring you the greetings of the people of the Marshall Islands, and more specifically the paramount leaders of the Ralik chain, Iroijlaplap Imata Kabua, and Iroijlaplap Anjua Loeak, whose domains have borne the brunt of United States military weapons development – from the nuclear bombs of the Cold War to the missiles that carry them today.

I lived on the island of Likiep in the northern Marshalls for the entire 12 years of the US atomic and thermonuclear testing program in my country. I witnessed most of the detonations, and was just 9-years old when I experienced the most horrific of these explosions, the infamous BRAVO shot that terrorized our community and traumatized our society to an extent that few people in the world can imagine.

While BRAVO was by far the most dramatic test, all 67 of the shots detonated in the Marshall Islands contributed one way or another to the nuclear legacy that haunts us to this day. As one of our legal advisors has described it, if one were to take the total yield of the nuclear weapons tested in the Marshall Islands and spread them out over time, we would have the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima shots, every day for twelve years.

But the Marshall Islands’ encounter with the bomb did not end with the detonations themselves. In recent years, documents released by the United States government have uncovered even more horrific aspects of the Marshallese burden borne in the name of international peace and security. US government documents clearly demonstrate that its scientists conducted human radiation experiments with Marshallese citizens. Some of our people were injected with or coerced to drink fluids laced with radiation. Other experimentation involved the purposeful and premature resettlement of people on islands highly contaminated by the weapons tests to study how human beings absorb radiation from their foods and environment. Much of this human experimentation occurred in populations either exposed to near lethal amounts of radiation, or to “control” populations who were told they would receive medical “care” for participating in these studies to help their fellow citizens. At the conclusion of all these studies, the United States still maintained that no positive linkage can be established between the tests and the health status of the Marshallese. Just in the past few weeks, a new US government study has predicted 50% higher than expected incidence of cancer in the Marshall Islands resulting from the atomic tests.

Although the testing of the atomic and thermonuclear weapons ended 48 years ago, we still have entire populations living in social disarray. The people of Rongelap Atoll, the inhabited island closest to the ground zero locations, remain in exile in their own country. I might also add that although the people of Rongelap were evacuated by the US government for earlier smaller weapons tests, the US government purposefully decided not to evacuate them prior to the detonation of the BRAVO event – a thermonuclear weapon designed to be the largest device ever detonated by the United States. The people of Rongelap were known to be in harms way but were not warned about BRAVO in advance and had no ability or knowledge of how to protect themselves or reduce their exposure.

Throughout the years, America’s nuclear history in the Marshall Islands has been colored with official denial, self-serving control of information, and abrogation of commitment to redress the shameful wrongs done to the Marshallese people. The scientists and military officials involved in the testing program picked and chose their study subjects, recognized certain communities as exposed when it served their interests, and denied monitoring and medical attention to subgroups within the Marshall Islands. I remember well their visits to my village in Likiep where they subjected every one of us to tests and invasive physical examinations which, as late as 1978, they denied every carrying out. In later years, when I was a public servant for the RMI, I raised the issue requesting that raw data gathered during these visits be made available to us. United States representatives responded by saying that our recollections were juvenile and did not consider the public health missions of the time.

For decades, the US government has utilized slick mathematical and statistical representations to dismiss the occurrence of exotic anomalies, including malformed fetuses, and abnormal appearances of diseases in so called “unexposed areas,” as coincidental and not attributable to radiation exposure. We have been told repeatedly, for example, that our birthing anomalies are the result of incest or a gene pool that is too small – anything but the radiation. These explanations are offensive, and obviously wrong since these abnormalities certainly did not occur before we became the proving ground for US nuclear weapons. Selective referral of Marshallese patients to different military hospitals in the United States and its territories also made it easier for the US government to dismiss linkages between medical problems and radiation exposure. The several unexplained fires that led to the destruction of numerous records and medical charts for the patients with the most acute radiation illnesses further underscores this point. In spite of all these studies and findings, we were told that positive linkage was still impossible because of what they called “statistical insignificance.”

I have been a student of the horrific impacts of the nuclear weapons testing program for most of my life. I served as interpreter for American officials who proclaimed Bikini safe for resettlement and commenced a program to repatriate the Bikini people who for decades barely survived on the secluded island of Kili. I accompanied the American High Commissioner of the Trust Territory just a few years later to once again remove the repatriated residents from Bikini because their exposure had become too high for the US government’s comfort. I was also personally involved in the translation of the Enewetak Environmental Impact Statement that declared Enewetak safe for resettlement. I voiced my doubts in a television interview at the time by describing the US public relations efforts associated with the Enewetak clean-up as a dog-and-pony show. Later, during negotiations to end the trust territory arrangement with the United States, we discovered that certain scientific information regarding Enewetak was being withheld from us because, as the official US government memorandum stated, “the Marshallese negotiators might make overreaching demands” on the United States if the facts about the extent of damage in the islands were known to us.

The outcome of our negotiations was the end of the United Nations Trusteeship and a treaty, which, among other things, provided for the ongoing responsibilities of our former trustee for the communities impacted by the nuclear weapons tests. This assistance provided by the US government for radiation damages and injuries is based on a US government study that purports to be the best and most accurate knowledge about the effects of radiation in the Marshall Islands. Our agreement to terminate our United Nations trusteeship that the US government administered was based largely on those assurances. We have since discovered that even that covenant by the United States was false. Today, not only is the US government backpedaling on this issue but its official position as enunciated by the current administration is to flee its responsibilities to the Marshall Islands for the severe nuclear damages and injuries perpetrated upon them.

After spending decades of my life trying to persuade the US government to take responsibility for the full range of damages and injuries caused by the testing of 67 atmospheric atomic and thermonuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, a new global arms system arrived at the door of the Marshall Islands. After years of ICBM testing, the Marshall Islands now has the dubious distinction of hosting the US government’s missile shield testing program. The US government shoots Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) at the Marshall Islands. From an area leased by the US Army on Kwajalein Atoll, the Ronald Reagan Missile Defense Test Site, the US launches interceptor missiles at the incoming ICBMs to test the ability of these interceptors to track and destroy incoming missiles. These tests impact every aspect of our lives… from the local people who are relocated from their homes, to the whales, sea turtles, and birds that have lived in harmony with human beings in our region of the world for centuries.

As history repeats itself in the Marshall Islands, the people of Kwajalein have been removed from their homelands, crowded into unbearable living squalor on a 56-acre island with 18,000 residents called Ebeye. This is the equivalent of taking everyone here in Manhattan and forcing them to live on the ground floor – can you imagine the density of Manhattan if there were no skyscrapers? The US Army base depends on Ebeye for housing its indigenous labor force, but the US Army has also erected impenetrable boundaries keeping the Marshallese at an arm’s length; Marshallese on the island adjacent to the US base are unable to use the world-class hospital in emergencies, to fill water bottles during times of drought, or to purchase basic food supplies when cargo ships are delayed. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to suspect that the lands, lagoon, and surrounding seas of Kwajalein, are being damaged from depleted uranium and other substances. Unfortunately, our efforts to seek a clear understanding of the consequences of the missile testing program – data we need to make informed decisions regarding our future or the prerequisite rehabilitation of our lands before repatriation – have been spurned by the United States government. Perchlorate additives in the missiles fired from Kwajalein have been detected in the soil and the water lenses but to date no real data has become available for meaningful, independent study. The lands leased by the United States military are compensated far below market. Efforts by the Kwajalein leadership to deal with the realities which face them when the current agreement expires in 2016 have been largely ignored as the US openly and callously discusses the uses of our lands beyond 2016 and into 2086…all without our consent. Our Constitution specifically prohibits the taking of land without consent or proper compensation.

We call upon the international community to extend its hands to assist the people of the Marshall Islands to extricate themselves from the legacy of the nuclear age and the burden of providing testing grounds for weapons of mass destruction. In the countries that produce these weapons we have come together to protest, if a person’s land or resources become contaminated, persons so affected have the option to buy another house and move elsewhere. For indigenous people it is not that simple. Our land and waters are sacred to us. Our land and waters embody our culture, our traditions, our kinship ties, our social structures, and our ability to take care of ourselves. Our lands are irreplaceable.

When we talk about the importance of non-proliferation of weapons we also must include in our discourse the essential non-proliferation of illness, forced relocation, and social and cultural ills in the indigenous communities that pay disproportionately for the adverse consequences resulting from the process, deployment, and storage of weapons. A relatively few number of world leaders and decision-makers do not have the right to destroy the well-being and livelihood of any society, whether large or small, in the name of global security. Security for indigenous people means healthy land, resources and body – not the presence of weapons and the dangers they engender. Global leaders do not have, nor should they be allowed to assume the right, to take my security away so that they may feel more secure themselves.

MAY PEACE BE WITH YOU.

Thank you.

May 11, 2005