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, April 19) – A group of Marshall islanders exposed to high-level nuclear test fallout were awarded more than US$1 billion in compensation Tuesday by a special tribunal but are not likely to receive even US$1 in compensation.

The Marshall Islands-based Nuclear Claims Tribunal, which issued the ruling Tuesday, has virtually no funding to pay the award and has labeled United States-provided compensation "manifestly inadequate."

The Tribunal, which since 1991 has annually paid personal injury claims of islanders, halted these payments in 2006 for lack of money.

A Tribunal official said the compensation trust fund provided by the U.S. has dropped from its original 1986 amount of US$150 million to just US$1 million, and is expected to be exhausted by administrative costs to operate the Tribunal next year.

[PIR editor’s note: According to PIR news files, as of 2004, more than US$80 million for personal injury claims of about 1,800 Marshall Islanders, and more than $1 billion for loss of use, suffering and nuclear clean-up requirements for Bikini and Enewetak atolls — and its inability to pay the awards are the basis for a petition the Marshall Islands government has lodged with the U.S. Congress for increased test compensation. Overall, the U.S. provided US$270 million for nuclear test damages in an agreement negotiated in the early 1980’s, just US$45 million of which went to the tribunal and which is has been largely exhausted.]

The billion dollar ruling was issued more than 15 years after the claim was first filed by leaders from Rongelap, a low-lying coral atoll that was engulfed in snow-like nuclear fallout from the 1954 Bravo test at Bikini — the U.S. government’s largest hydrogen bomb test.

Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi said that the islanders plan to file suit against the United States in the U.S. Court of Claims to seek enforcement of the Tribunal’s US$1,031,231,200 decision.

It is the largest of the four awards the Tribunal has made, but not paid for the lack of funds. Bikini and Enewetak islanders filed suit last year against the U.S. government in the Court of Claims to get enforcement of their Tribunal awards, and the Justice Department has asked the court to dismiss the cases, which go for their first joint hearing in Washington, D.C. on April 23.

The Tribunal, which was funded by the U.S. government as part of a US$270 million nuclear test compensation program established in 1986, has already issued awards totaling over US$1 billion for claims filed by Enewetak and Bikini — the two ground zeroes for 67 U.S. tests from 1946-1958 — and for Utrik, another atoll that was hit by fallout from the Bravo test.

The Tribunal decision commented on the additional radiation exposure that the people were subjected to by U.S. officials, years after their Bravo exposure.

"Although the people were assured that it was safe to return to Rongelap in 1957 (after a three year evacuation following Bravo), it was evident that the U.S. knew Rongelap was still contaminated at that time," Tribunal judges James Plasman and Gregory Danz, both Americans, said in their ruling.

From their U.S.-imposed return to Rongelap in 1957 until the islanders self-evacuated in 1985 fearing continued radiation exposure, they "suffered emotional distress and a degraded quality of life as a consequence of the contamination of their property," the judges rules.

The judges said that the people "came to feel like guinea pigs, used for experimentation by the U.S."

The award is broken into three parts, with the largest amount — US$784.5 million — being awarded for past and future loss of property value from radiation contamination. The Tribunal also awarded US$212 million for cleanup and restoration of the atoll for future resettlement, and US$34.7 million for hardship and suffering.

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