PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

By Giff Johnson

MAJURO, Marshall Islands (Marianas Variety, Sept. 28) – An American attorney representing nuclear test-affected islands in the Marshall Islands called on the U.S. Congress Wednesday to deal directly with the U.S. obligation to provide adequate nuclear test compensation, which he called "the skunk at the garden party."

Speaking at a hearing in Washington, D.C. Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Bikini Atoll attorney Jonathan Weisgall said nuclear test-affected atolls support Senate Bill 1756 that proposes funding for health care, monitoring of a nuclear waste site, providing eligibility for Marshall Islanders who worked at test sites to an American nuclear worker compensation law, and additional radiation studies.

But the islands want greater health care funding, and for the Congress to break its silence on a request for additional compensation that has languished without response since 2000.

While supporting a plan to fund a health program for Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utrik — four atolls heavily impacted by the 67 American nuclear tests — Weisgall said they want funding bumped up from the proposed US$2 million a year, which is the same level of funding that the program received starting 1986, to US$4 million annually.

On the Senate proposal for a new study of radiation exposure in the Marshall Islands, Weisgall commented: "I would just observe that there have been numerous studies on this question — from U.S. government labs, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the National Cancer Institute. If you know there is a problem, why study it over and over? Why not act on it?"

A glaring omission in the bill is nuclear compensation, Weisgall said.

"It ignores the skunk at the garden party — the failure of the U.S. to provide the Nuclear Claims Tribunal with the funding needed to pay the awards it made to the four atolls," he said. The Tribunal, which was created by the U.S. government to satisfy compensation needs in the Marshall Islands, has awarded more than US$1 billion in personal injury and land damage claims that it does not have the funding to pay, he said.

"Where does the U.S. stand on providing the Tribunal with the funding needed to pay these awards?" Weisgall asked. "To put it bluntly, all three branches have played a shell game. More than seven years ago, the Marshall Islands presented this committee with a petition filed under the ‘Changed Circumstances’ article of the Section 177 Agreement that specifically requested Congress to appropriate additional funds to cover unpaid Tribunal property claims based on new (U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency radiation standards. Seven years later, you have yet to act on that petition.

"Meanwhile, the Marshall Islands sought to engage the executive branch on this issue, but that branch refused, using as an excuse and stating in writing that the issue was pending before you.

"The judicial branch has also failed to act — at least while the ball is in your court."

Weisgall urged the Senate committee to make a decision on these claims related to testing that ended in 1958.

"Either act on the (compensation) petition and move forward to pay these claims — or, if you determine that this request falls outside the criteria of the changed circumstances provisions, state this in your report language on this bill together with the fact that this issue is now up to the courts to resolve," he said.

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