Rongelap atoll evacuated by Rainbow Warrior

Tu Tangata, Issue 26, 1 October 1985, Page 16

Rongelap atoll evacuated by Rainbow Warrior

Story and pictures by David Robie

Beside the lagoon of Rongelap atoll in the Marshall Islands lies a small cemetery filled with whitewashed headstones among coral sand and coconut palms. One grave stands out more than the others. It has a polished black plaque bearing the name Lekoj Anjain: Born Feb 21 1953, died Nov 15 1972, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. He was the first radiation victim on Rongelap, dying of myelogenous leukemia at the age of 18.

Lekoj's father, former mayor John Anjain, 63, was in the first batch among 320 Rongelap islanders to recently evacuate their atoll in the Marshall Islands republic because of nuclear contamination. They abandoned their ancestral home and left on board the Greenpeace ecology campaign ship Rainbow Warrior which was on its last mission before being bombed in Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour on July 10. Anjain’s final gesture before leaving was to give a last polish to his son’s headstone.

For the tangata whenua, the plight of the Rongelapese is the most chilling evidence of the colonial nuclearisation of the Pacific. They have no word in their language for enemy yet have become the biggest sufferers from baijin fallout poison.

For Anjain the new home of Mejato island, on the western rim of Kwajalein atoll where the United States has a ballistic missile range represents fresh hope for his people. But they will always remain alienated from their land unless they can one day return to Rongelap. “We didn't have any choice but to leave our own island in spite of loving it so much," says Anjain. “Some of the old people found leaving an agony.”

The Rongelap people stripped their houses of corrugated aluminium roofs, plywood walls and other building materials, and transported them along with the village school on board the Rainbow Warrior to Mejato, 150 km south-east. The remarkable exodus took almost two weeks and four voyages, each leg taking roughly 14 hours.

“We’ve been told the problems on Rongelap aren’t all that serious and that is why we received little help from the US government. What nonsense!” says Anjain. “On the other hand, the US actually used Bikini and Enewetak atolls for testing so they felt obliged to help those people.”

On March 1, 1954, the US triggered the 15 megaton Bravo thermonuclear bomb America’s largest ever at nearby Bikini atoll and north-easterly winds swept the radioactive fallout onto Rongelap atoll. The 82 islanders on Rongelap, and Alinginae atoll close by, were not warned nor were they evacuated until three days after the mammoth blast. They were allowed to return to Rongelap in 1957 without any clean-up operation being carried out by US authorities. Other nuclear tests among the 66 conducted by the US in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 also contaminated Rongelap. “In a sense, the Marshallese are the first victims of World War III,” says in-

dependent Australian filmmaker Dennis O’Rourke, whose latest documentary, Half Life, about Rongelap includes official footage of the Bravo blast in the most desolate and realistic sequence of a nuclear holocaust ever shown on film.

“They are the first culture in the history of humankind which has been effectively destroyed by radiation. And they are a small culture the end of the line,” he says. “Decisions were made to deliberately allow these gentle and trusting people to be exposed to radioactivity. In the name of national security the US has irreversibly destroyed the fragile world of the Marshall Islanders for countless generations to come.”

In the four years after Bravo, women on Rongelap had a miscarriage and stillbirth rate more than twice that of unexposed women. More than 77 per cent of those on Rongelap who were aged under 10 when Bravo happened have undergone surgery for removal of thyroid tumours. Lekoj Anjain’s death in 1972 was the first of a Marshallese which the American authorities admitted was due to fallout. John and Mijjua Anjain have since received $50,000 in compensation.

“I’m greatly upset by what's happened what the US had caused by these tests. Why should they do such a terrible thing?” Anjain asks. “I know the US scientists won’t come out and tell the truth. I’ve had the experience with my son. I look at the thyroid trouble, the deformed babies and stillbirths and I know from my own experience that we have a severe radiation problem on Rongelap.” Two other sons of Anjain, Zacharias. 38, and George, 35, needed surgery for thyroid tumours. And, according to a noted American researcher. Dr John Gofman, of the University of Galifornia,

Berkeley, all Rongalapese aged under 15 when exposed to the Bravo fallout face a premature death from cancer.

“I remember the day of the test vividly,” recalls Anjain, as he relaxes with a nephew in the shade of a pandanus tree. “I was making coffee with a friend just before dawn. All of a sudden, a big bright light flashed in the west and the explosion came later. And about 10 in the morning powder started to fall on the island.

“People carried on doing their own thing but the children played in this strange stuff falling out of the sky we didn’t know what it was. About 10 pm. many of the islanders had become sick. They were vomiting, felt nausea or had diarrhoea. When we got up the next day and drank the water it had turned to a dark yellow almost black.

“On the second day, people were really sick and couldn't move around. Just a few strong men tried staggering from home to home to check on everybody and get food. Most of our people were terribly sick that day all they could do was lie down and wait.

“About five o'clock a US Navy seaplane came from Eniwetak and two Americans with combat suits came ashore. I asked them what they were doing, and they said. ‘We've just got 20 minutes to come ashore.'

“They brought what I was later told was a geiger counter to measure the radiation. As soon as they got ashore they went near the church and checked the nearby water tank. I guessed they knew the radiation was too high, but they said nothing and left.

“On the third day, a destroyer arrived in our lagoon and a landing craft came ashore. The military talked to me as I was the mayor. They told me to get all the people ready to leave because another dav on the atoll and we would

all die.” Medical teams from the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy) began examining the islanders after they were moved to Kwajalein atoll and have returned to do follow-up tests at least once a year since then, as part of an official study of the exposed people. They bring their own food from the US and do not eat local coconut crabs, turtles, clams, coconuts and breadfruit.

A document from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, produced three years after Bravo, said: “Greater knowledge of radiation effects on human beings is badly needed.... Even though the radioactive contamination of Rongelap island is considered perfectly safe for human habitation, the levels of activity are higher than those found in other inhabited locations in the world. The habitation of these people on the island

will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings.” Little wonder that the Rongelapese allege they have been used as guinea pigs by the US in a planned experiment on radiation.

Documents I have in my possession under the freedom of information legislation, including a 1954 report on the Bravo test prepared by the Defence Nuclear Agency, challenge the official US government claim that the fallout was an “accident” because of a sudden change in wind direction. The DNA report reveals that six hours before the blast, weather briefings showed “winds at 20,000 feet were heading for Rongelap to the east.” And still the bomb was triggered.

Filmmaker O’Rourke, whose documentary is a powerful indictment of US policy in the Marshall Islands, says: “I never believed when I started the research that the Americans set out with a deliberate policy to expose the Marshallese to radiation, although I met a lot of people who asserted that they did. But at the end of the project I can say that they certainly allowed the exposure to happen, and have used the victims ever since as guinea pigs to study the long-term effects of radiation on human beings who have to live in a contaminated environment. This will be all of us in the event of a nuclear war.”

Scientists check only the 59 people, originally exposed on Rongelap who are still living while using a small “unexposed” group for a control population. The department doesn't systematically follow up the entire population to identify possible second and third generation health disorders.

“The DOE checks are the ultimate in degradation for these people it is like animals being loaded onto an experimental conveyor while the scientists maintain an arrogant silence,” says Glenn Alcalay, a Marshallese-speaking anthropologist who recently testified before the United Nations Trusteeship Council. “When one considers the in-

ternational fuss being made over the search for Nazi war criminal Dr Josef Mengele, it is sobering to remember there are any number of Dr Mengeles being given free rein in the Marshall Islands.”

Alcalay, 35, now a consultant with the National Committee for Radiation Victims, was a Peace Corps volunteer on Utirik atoll between 1975 and 1977 when he helped initiate legal and legislative proceedings which led to some congressional compensation for the people of Bikini, Eniwetak, Rongelap and Utirik.

t he women of Rongelap probably reflect the greatest agony of their island. Lijon Eknilong, who was seven at the time of Bravo, says: “Like many of the women exposed during the bomb tests, I have had seven miscarriages. I have lived in fear... and feel my life is in danger.” She recently told a congressional hearing: “We appeal to the US to look into our problems with a humane conscience. Of the 82 people who were directly exposed to radiation fallout in 1954 only 59 are alive today.”

Another woman, Kiosang Kior, who was 15 at the time of Bravo, says she had her first baby about 1958 and “it

was born without bones like this paper, it was flimsy. It lived half a day. After that, I had several miscarriages and stillbirths. Then I had a girl who has problems with her legs and feet, and thyroid trouble.”

A recent medical report prepared by American researcher Dr Thomas Hamilton makes disturbing reading. Citing statistics drawn up by the Brookhaven National Laboratory, which previously hadn't been made available to Rongelap islanders, it shows:

miscarriages and stillbirths doubled among Rongelapese women. Tests showed a substantial proportion of the population had developed genetic changes considered typical of radiation effects.

Growth retardation has become common among both boys and girls.

Seventy-seven per cent of all Rongalapese under 10 at the time of exposure developed thyroid tumours which needed surgery.

started for all contaminated Rongelapese to counter thyroid tumours. The medication is needed for the rest of the islanders’ lives.

Brain tumours have developed in two exposed Marshallese women one on Rongelap and the other on Utirik. The tumours are regarded as radiation-linked.

At least two men have died from radiation-linked illnesses. Besides

Lekoj Anjain, the other was a 64-year-old man. He was also exposed to highdose radiation and died from gastric cancer in 1974.

The report also called for a full independent inquiry on Rongelap atoll and its people. Recently, the Congress interior subcommittee on public lands and national parks, the House group responsible for Micronesian affairs, voted a grant of $500,000 to pay for such a survey. Rongelap leaders are now seeking the help of doctors and researchers of the University of Bremen, West Germany. “Only by including international experts will the survey be truly independent,” says Julian Riklon, another Rongelap leader who is treasurer of the Kwajalein Atoll Corporation, a land rights organisation.

In fact, say radiation experts, the worst has yet to come for the Rongelapese. Even though they have moved to a safe island, the peak time for the eruption of radiation-linked cancers is expected 40 years after exposure, which in the case of the Marshallese would come in the 19905.

Now a brother of John Anjain. Senator Jeton Anjain, is one of the key Rongalapese leaders who are heading the struggle to overcome the legacy left by Bravo. Senator Anjain, 52, resigned as Health Minister in the Marshall Islands government two years ago in protest against the lack of support for his people. He accuses the Reagan administration and Marshall Islands government of failing to follow humanitarian principles and take responsibility for the problem.

Tired of waiting after two years of appeals to the US government to help them move, the islanders decided to take action themselves. They asked Greenpeace, which already had scheduled a visit to the Marshall Islands by the Rainbow Warrior as part of its ill-fated Pacific peace voyage, to help out.

“When we decided to leave the atoll, the old people cried to leave their homeland,” says Senator Anjain. “But I said, what about your grandchildren? Do you want them to die, just because they eat fish and coconuts?”

The evacuation logistics were hazardous. Because of a treacherous reef two shipwrecks lay nearby the nearest Rainbow Warrior could get to Mejato island was about 3 km offshore. Building materials were unloaded in a heavy swell into two Greenpeace Zodiac inflatable dinghies and a bum bum a small Marshallese fishing boat.

One 18-year-old Rongelapese youth crushed his right foot between the Warrior and the bum bum and plunged into the sea. But in spite of fears of a broken limb, he escaped with shock.

Besides building materials, the evacuation involved transport of school and dispensary supplies, personal belongings, mats, lanterns and footpowered sewing machines. Many of the islanders’ belongings were packed into trunks bearing the name Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Before the islanders began leaving, Pastor Jatai Mongkeyea compared the flight from Rongelap to the Biblical deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. A sort of nuclear exodus.