Bombs in the ocean of peace COMBAT POIIR ENO

Scan page 18

They don't test nuclear weapons in Paris. the Pacific, and military to become more important US submarine-launched The the US take their nuclear Pacific and the Indian Ocear areas for the deplovment of nuclear missiles.

SINCE THE END OF World War 2, the islands of the Pacific have given vital support for nuclear weapons development. On August 6, 1945, the US bomber Enola Gay took off from Tinian in the Northern Marianas, and dropped the atomic burb on the people of

From that initial use of

nuclear weaponry until today - when thousands of nuclear warheads are deployed throughout the world - the Pacific Islanders have continually been the victims of the nuclear and military strategies of larger powers.

The people of the Marshall Islands, in eastern Micronesia, became the first victims. In 1946, the US military governor visited the islands, and proclaimed to the people that American scientists were experimenting with nuclear weapons "for the good of mankind and to end all world wars." In the detonation of at least sixty-six nuclear bombs in the 1940s and 1950s, some islands were literally wiped off the face of the map.

The Marshallese, treated as guinea pigs by the American mintary,. continue to suffer from their exposure to

nuclear weapons. But to the people who live

high levels of radioactive fallout. Even while many have become afflicted with cancer, the US government

still attempts to prevent residents from understanding the problems of radiation sickness. It remains impossible for residents to return to some of their home islands; one island, Bikini, remains off-limits for at least another half a century.

US nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific ended in the early 1960s, but was replaced with the testing of nuclear weapons delivery systems, also in the Marshalls. The people of Kwajalein were evicted from their homes in 1964 so that their island, the largest atoll/ lagoon in the world, could be used as a target for long-range missiles fired from Calitornia 4,700 miles away.

Today, Kwajalein is vital to the development of the nuclear arms race, since it is the only US facility available for the testing of new weapons systems such as the ISL Ne: Auj hill Ork Ro:

vide phc adv PAI SOC mer Sur bur CO' Soli stra 1pn Spe rep CHI Thu ber mus biti WOI Uni Mal Det ity 1

there.

MX, the Trident, and the

Minuteman III.

Sacrificed for the cause,

the 8,000 people of Kwajalein are crowded onto 66 acres on nearby Ebeye -existing in some of the worst poverty found anywhere in the Pacific Islands.

The US government considers the Pacific a vital strategic preserve in many other ways as well. In Tinian, north of Belau, large tracts of fertile land have been set aside for an Air Force base. Some of the Pentagon's most important strategic nuclear weapons, the B-52 long-range bombers and Polaris and Poseidon submarines, are based in Guam, a US territory.

Navy

In addition, the Navy depends upon its strategic forces having transit througl analysts expect the Westerr INGTON SO- Group.

xt meeting: Sunday 29 gust at 3pm, ThornNeighbourhood Project, cney House, Caledonian Tea and sandwiches proed. FOr baby-sitting, ›ne Nik (607-5268) in ance.

LESTINE Solidarity

ial to raise funds for dical aid for Lebanon.

Iday August 29, Blooms*y Theatre.

VENTRY Palestine

idarity Campaign demonition: Saturday August 21 n from Edgewick Park.

akers to include PLO and a Jewish socialist.

ILE/El Salvador festival:

irsday-Saturday Septem24-26. Three days of sic, poetry, theatre, exhions, films, seminars and kshops, at Manning Hall.

versity of London Union, et St, London WCI.

ails: El Salvador SolidarCampaign, 01-359 2270. STOP SIZEWELL B - national rally/conference against the Pressurised Water Reactor. Saturday November 6, Central Hall, Westminster. Called by Anti-Nuclear • Campaign. COM

The French and the Japanese governments are also active in the Pacific. Even now, the French test nuclear weapons in their Polynesian colony, where over seventy nuclear bombs have been detonated since the early 1960s. According to an independent French

study, the testing leads to more than 40 cancer cases each year among the native population.

Despite continuing protests from the peonle the French have made no concessions, other than to switch from atmospheric to underground testing in 1975. Nonetheless, underground testing causes destruction to both the environment and to the health of the Polynesian people as well.

The Japanese, who have accumulated more than 200,000 55-gallon drums of nuclear wastes from their expanding nuclear power pavalaulle dioactive garbage. dump • Japanese government's Science and Tech- ton. nology Agency has proposed disposing of the wastes between Japan and the Northern Marianas, and Japanese scientists have been dispatched to try to convince the Micronesians that the proposed dumping would not harm them.

The people of the Pacific, however, cannot be so easily persuaded. "If it is safe, they inquire, "why don't you dump it in Tokyo?" Polynesians ask the French Micronesians demand that

----- pull-quotes -----

To the world's warmo like an acceptably

ngers, the Pacific looks remote place to test it doesn't look like that