avaiki: dawn of the nuclear age

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tahiti nuclear test group at hiroshima

NEWS

Moruroa e tatou president Roland Oldham visited Hiroshima, Japan, to take part in memorial ceremonies marking the planet’s first nuclear attack.

Oldham presented a submission on actions by Moruroa e tatou to “draw attention towards the rights of former Moruroa workers."

Oldham sees historical parallels among Maohi who worked on Moruroa, a former French nuclear test site until ten years ago. FIRST NUKES

America airforce pilots dropped the first ever wartime nuclear bombs at the end of World War II, 62 years ago, on 6 August 1945.

An estimated 135,000 civilians died in the Hiroshima attack or soon afterwards from injuries. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki a few days later, causing 64,000 casualties.

Nuclear weapons have never been used in war since then. DECADES OF TESTS World War II finished, but tests continued. “For us, in Polynesia, the page was not turned with the closing of the nuclear test centre on Moruroa in 1996.”

“Hundreds of former workers from Moruroa have died since then and their widows demand justice,” states Oldham, in a press release.

TODAY

“In 2007, current institutions of Polynesia as much as the French State do not want to seriously accept consequences from 197 nuclear tests on the health of Polynesians and their environment.”

Oldham spoke about successes in obliging the French State to start a clean up of old military sites and to consider medical follow-ups for workers, family and general populations.

But this is not enough for Oldham and the association.

RIGHTS

“We are becoming aware that our fight for the rights of the victims of the nuclear tests is nowhere but at the start.”

“States that imposed nuclear tests must from now on assume their responsibilities.”

As many 35,000 people were working in French Polynesia at the height of the French nuclear test programme, many of them Maohi assured of high safety standards.