A tiny nation of 55,000 inhabitants in the western Pacific, the Marshall Islands were the scene of 67 American nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, the environmental and health impacts of which are still being felt. “We did not choose this nuclear destiny, it was chosen for us“, President Hilda Heine declared on Wednesday from the podium of the UN General Assembly, stressing that at the time, the territory was under American administration within the framework of a UN mandate.
“We cannot erase the past. But as the United Nations, we owe it to ourselves to atone by adopting a resolution that apologizes for our failures to address the demands.” of the people of the Marshall Islands, she added, referring to resolutions adopted at the UN in the 1950s which allowed nuclear testing to continue.
These nuclear tests have “left a legacy of death, disease and contamination. The impacts are passed down from generation to generation”, she denounced.
During this period, “the people of the Marshall Islands were deceived, forcibly displaced and subjected to scientific surveillance and experimentation without their consent,” she insisted Thursday during a meeting on the elimination of nuclear weapons, referring to radiation equivalent to “1.6 times Hiroshima, every day for 12 years”.
“And despite these wrongs, after nearly 80 years, no one responsible has issued an official apology,” she denounced.
She indicated working with other territories and populations affected by nuclear tests, notably in French Polynesia, Algeria and Australia. “All should realize that damage caused by the use, detonation or testing of nuclear weapons is the responsibility of the member states that carried them out.”
With AFP
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