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Nuclear Issues

Inquiry Commission on the Consequences of Aerial Tests

Press Release Papeete , January 20, 2006

January 27, 1996 , France definitively ended its nuclear testing in French Polynesia . Ten years later, the elected representatives that make up the French Polynesian Assembly are publishing the report of their Inquiry Commission on the Consequences of Aerial Tests from 1966 to 1974.

“We are scandalized by the absence of cooperation and the contempt shown by the defense ministry and State officials towards the elected representatives of Polynesia ,” states Madame Unutea Hirson, president of the commission. All the letters and requests for documents or visits to nuclear sites that the commission has sent to the defense ministry have received no response, not even a receipt. “In spite of all its declarations of transparency, does the defense ministry still have secrets to hide from the Polynesians?” Madame Hirshon asks in astonishment.

The report of the inquiry commission which will be made public next week will demonstrate that the authorities who carried out the tests intentionally lied to the Polynesians and the French people by stating that the tests were clean. The report provides the proof, supported by documents, that the aerial tests systematically caused radioactive fallout over all the inhabited archipelagos of Polynesia.

“How can we be surprised that today in Polynesia we have a thyroid cancer rate that is among the highest in the world? How can we be surprised today that medical experts find that certain leukemia, considered to be induced by radioactivity, such as acute myeloid leukemia, are four times more common in Polynesia than in the rest of the world?” says the head of the commission.

The commission which went to the islands and inhabited atolls near Moruroa was scandalized by what the members were able to see: devastated zones, piles of ruins and waste near to places where islanders live, populations left without replacement infrastructures, which could have compensated them for thirty years of military occupation.

“France has been able to glorify itself for having stopped nuclear testing ten years ago and for having given itself a good conscience before the international community. The Polynesians still endure the contempt and the ingratitude of Metropolitan France, which acquired its rank among the nations by using the Polynesian atolls. Ten years after testing ended, it is time that a dialog based on truth and justice be established between the French State and Polynesia .”

Contact: Patrice Bouveret, president of the CDRPC (in France ), 33 6 30 55 07 09

--Translated by Mary Davis

Press Release

Observatoire des armes nucléaires françaises/Centre de Documentation et de Recherche sur la Paix et les Conflits (CDRPC)

Lyon, January 19, 2006 France and Nuclear Proliferation

In the midst of an international crisis with Iran, Jacques Chirac will try to convince the French people that it is appropriate to strengthen the nuclear arsenal, this January 19, during a visit to the submarine and naval air deterrent forces at Brest. For what purpose? Against what enemy? Are not the current threats, international terrorism and the increasing North-South inequality? This is not appropriate, as these weapons are not what is needed to resolve these conflicts.

Ten years ago, on January 20, 1996, Jacques Chirac announced the “definitive” end of nuclear tests. That decision, described as “favorable to nuclear disarmament”, must not be “the tree that hides the forest”, according to Bruno Barrillot, director of the Observatory of French Nuclear Weapons/CDRPC. “In fact, Jacques Chirac has launched a 21st Century nuclear armaments race with his program of simulated tests”.

Since his arrival at the Elysée Palace [president’s headquarters], Jacques Chirac has pursued a policy of modernization and of constant increase in the funds allocated to the nuclear deterrent. This year, another 3.322 billion euros, or 21.5 % of the equipment budget of the Ministry of Defense, are dedicated to weapons of mass destruction. The CDRPC estimates that during the period 1945-2010 nearly 300 billion euros will have been allocated to the nuclear arsenal.

Because of Chirac’s political view of international security, France will maintain until 2040 her rank as the number four nuclear power. Presently, 348 nuclear warheads compose the strike force. These weapons are divided between submarines (4 missile-launching nuclear subs) and the air force (60 Mirage 2000-Ns, 24 Super-Etendards). Between 2009 and 2015, the entire system of nuclear weapons and their carriers will be renewed. The aerial component will receive its first squadrons of the nuclear Rafale (F3). These aircraft will be equipped with the new improved air-to-surface medium range missile (ASMP-A) and with a new nuclear warhead (TNA). Likewise for the submarine component: it will be composed of four new generation SNLE [missile-launching nuclear subs], new M51 ballistic missiles with a new nuclear tip (TNO).

The Megajoule Laser is the principal tool of this modernization, which will make possible the design and durability of the future warheads. The cost of the program is estimated to be at least two billion euros.

Along with the above, on this anniversary, we should not forget that the 219 nuclear tests carried out by France in the Sahara and in Polynesia “mobilized” 150,000 military and civilian personnel. Many veterans of the nuclear tests and the people of these sites now suffer illnesses linked to these nuclear experiments. These people are still waiting for recognition and for the acceptance by France of her responsibility for their condition.

Contact in France:

Patrice Bouveret, president of the CDRPC: 33-6-30-55-07-09

Jean-Marie Collin, journalist and researcher associated with the CDRPC: 33-6-88-79-57-29

For additional information:

Jean-Marie Collin, Vers une Europe sans armes nucléaires, CDRPC, October 20003

Bruno Barrillot, Le complexe nucléaire, CDRPC, February 2005

--Translated by Robert M. Davis

Social Security Recognizes Work-Related Illnesses of Nuclear Test Veterans

Press Release from AVEN November 30, 2005; Lyon, France

After similar actions for military veterans for whom the Military Pension Tribunals (TPA) have granted pensions for disabilities caused by their service, Social Security has now recognized, one after the other, as work-related the illnesses from which two civilian veterans have died. One was an employee of a sub-contractor, the other was an engineer in the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Both participated in the nuclear tests in the Sahara and in Polynesia.

These favorable results run counter to the official position that tests were “clean” and therefore without health consequences. In the absence of all official scientific reports on the harmlessness or the danger of nuclear tests for health, AVEN (the Alliance of Veterans of Nuclear Tests) has undertaken an investigation among its members. The results, based on the first 1500 responses, indicate that their ratio of cancers is double that of the French population of the same age. These cancers occur early, two-thirds of them before the age of 60. We are convinced that, gradually, the link between nuclear tests and the illnesses suffered by many veterans will be recognized. At present, each veteran must furnish proof that his illness was caused by nuclear tests.

AVEN calls upon Parliament to pass a law recognizing a presumptive link between illness and presence on the test sites, as is the case in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain. The health of veterans should be the object of a political consensus in France.

Already in Polynesia, an inquiry commission, established by the French Polynesian Assembly, is charged with evaluating the consequences of aerial nuclear tests on the health of the Polynesian population, the environment, and the economy. The only reaction of the Ministry of Defense has been to send to the Tureia atoll and to the island of Mangareva, which are seriously contaminated, military personnel with the mission to destroy anti-nuclear shelters, the last remaining proof of the effects of aerial nuclear tests, without informing the Polynesian government.

Dr. J.L. Valatx, President of AVEN

Press Release from the CDRPC in Lyon, September 8, 2005

The Polynesians: Nuclear France ’s Guinea Pigs?

Ten years ago on September 5, 1995 , the first underground test ordered by Jacques Chirac ignited a social explosion in Tahiti . “Despite the end of the testing, the matter is not settled. Indeed, the 46 atmospheric nuclear experiments carried out over Moruroa and Fangataufa between 1966 and 1974 today represent that many time bombs for the health of the French Polynesian population,” states Bruno Barrillot, director of the CDRPC. This answer is confirmed by the “Cancer du tropique” an investigation broadcast September 9 by Thalassa over the France 3 television channel.

This past April, Damoclès, the periodical of the CDRPC (Center for Documentation on Peace and Conflicts) revealed documents classified “military secret,” which mention considerable radioactive fallout, especially over the island of Mangareva , near Moruroa. Today, Damoclès continues its task of information on the consequences of the texts by the publication of Barrillot’s report,” A Contribution to Research on the causes of Thyroid Cancer in Polynesia,” carried out as part of his mission as an expert hired by the Polynesian government on July 1, 2005.

In 2005, the rate of thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases is four times greater for Polynesian women than for European women. On the “Old Continent,” Chernobyl is blamed. In Polynesia , nuclear tests are rightly blamed. Indeed, the Chernobyl accident and the nuclear tests emitted radioactive iodine, which tends to settle in the thyroid gland, as all scientists know.

The authorities in charge of the tests knew that, as the Damoclès report makes clear. Each year, from 1966 to 1974, the French government published and sent to the United Nations a document (Radioactive Fallout from Nuclear Explosions in Polynesia) in which the fallout of radioactive iodine over all of Polynesia was described and analyzed with regard to the risk to the thyroids of Polynesian infants, children, and adults. In short, the observation was made but the preventive measures, already known before 1960, were not taken.

At the time, of course, the claim was made that there was no danger. Today, the French Ministry of Defense holds to that claim. By contrast, in the United States , the National Cancer Institute admitted that more than 500 cancers above the norm are due to the fallout from American nuclear testing over the Marshall Islands between 1945 and 1963. Astonished, Bruno Barrillot asks, “Did France, contrary to the United States , the United Kingdom , and Russia , carry out ‘clean tests’”

Damoclès no. 116-117, 14 pages, 4 euros, is available on the Internet (www.obsarm.org) or from the CDRPC, 187, montée de Choulans , 69005 Lyon

For further information contact: Bruno Barrillot in Polynesia 00 689-24-38-35

Patrice Bouveret in France 33-4-78-36-93-03

Press release from the Association of Veterans of Nuclear Testing in Lyon, France, June 13, 2005

The Brest Tribunal Grants a Pension to a Nuclear Test Veteran

On Monday, June 13, for the second time within a week, a veteran of French nuclear testing has been granted a pension by a military pension tribunal. Michel Cariou, a member of the Association of Veterans of Nuclear Testing (AVEN), had a distinguished military career as a radiation security officer. From 1966 to 1972, he was assigned to the joint Radiation Security Service during the atmospheric nuclear tests at Muroroa and Fangataufa. In that context, he made measurements of radiation on the nuclear atolls and on the inhabited neighboring islands.

Since 1997, Michel Cariou has been affected by several cancerous pathologies, including thyroid cancer. Last February, after the rejection by the Ministry of Defense of his compensation claim, he presented his case to the military pension Tribunal of Brest. Assisted by Attorney Laurence Chevé of the Teissonnière law firm, which defends victims of French nuclear tests, Michel Cariou laid out to the judges an irrefutable case, demonstrating the link between his illness and participation in 31 atmospheric nuclear tests.

After the positive decision of the Tribunal at Tours on June 7 that granted a military pension to Mr. André Mézière, a veteran of the Sahara nuclear tests, the Brest judges were convinced of the validity of Michel Cariou’s case, while simultaneously recognizing that serious negligence concerning protection, according to the testimony of the veteran, was all too common during the tests. The judges officially recognized that Mr. Cariou’s thyroid cancer results from contamination by iodine 131 emitted by the nuclear explosions while he was serving on Muroroa.

AVEN, with a membership of 3000 now, is pleased by the important new victory benefiting one of its members. “We fervently hope that other tribunals will follow the example of the decisions at Tours and at Brest. Several veterans have cases pending at present, and nearly 200 claims are being made before tribunals in France and in Polynesia”, says Dr. Jean-Louis Valatx, president of AVEN. “These positive results will encourage victims of nuclear testing to make their rights known after so many years of silence.” Henceforth, the claim of the Ministry of Defense, boasting of its “clean tests” without health effects, will collapse. The door is open for the creation of an indemnity fund for all victims of nuclear tests. It is now up to the executive and legislative branches of the government to pass a law establishing the tracking and compensation of all veterans, civilian or military, French people from metropolitan France or Polynesia, and Algerians, who years later experience the disastrous consequences of the 210 nuclear tests carried out by France, in the Sahara and in Polynesia.

For further information

Dr. Jean-Louis Valatx, president of AVEN

E-mail valatx@free.fr

Michel Verger, vice-president of AVEN

E-mail aven49@wanadoo.fr

Follow-Up on Nuclear Testing in Polynesia
Press Release, June 9, 2005

The government of Oscar Temaru in French Polynesia has decided to create an advisory board on the follow-up of the consequences of French nuclear testing and an expert mission presided over by Bruno Barrillot, director of the CDRPC.

The council of ministers of French Polynesia decided, during its session June 8, 2005 , to create for the country’s president an “advisory board on following up the consequences of the nuclear tests carried out in French Polynesia between 1966 and 1996.” As proposed by vice president Jacqui Drollet, the council will be composed of representatives of the government, representatives of the Polynesian Assembly, and representatives of the organization Moruroa e tatou and, possibly, experts.

At the same time the council of ministers decided to give financial support to the organization Moruroa e tatou, which is made up of almost 4000 former Polynesian workers at the nuclear sites. The ministers recognize, “the exceptional quality of the work accomplished by the organization” which has brought to attention the extent of the health, social, and economic consequences of the nuclear tests in Polynesia .

In addition, the government plans to set up an expert mission, “charged with making an independent evaluation of the consequences of the tests on health and the environment and in this framework drawing up proposals in regard to laws.” The expert mission is expected to last for a year and will be led by Bruno Barrillot, director of research at the Centre de Documentation et de Recherche sur la Paix et les Conflits (CDRPC) and of the Observatoire des Armes Nucléaires. The final report of the mission will be delivered in the first half of 2006.

Following the revelations in the periodical Damoclès on the fallout from the first nuclear tests, held in 1966, on Mangareva (an inhabited island near Moruroa), which came as a bombshell three weeks ago, the government of Polynesia intends to take care of its responsibilities. “M. Oscar Temaru and his government cannot be suspected of connivance in the ‘systems of nuclear tests,’ which was imposed on French Polynesia almost forty years ago,” states Bruno Barrillot. Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of this government to give itself the means of knowing the reality of the health and environmental consequences of thirty years of nuclear testing and to undertake a process of monitoring the populations/-people who worked at the test sites and lived on the islands and atolls near Moruroa.”

The president of Moruroa e tatou, Roland Oldham hopes that the French defense minister will “cooperate fully in the investigations that will be conducted” and will support “making the truth known, without reservations,” in accordance with the recent statements of Jean-François Bureau, spokesperson for Mme Alliot-Marie.

For additional information:

Centre de Documentation et de Recherche sur la Paix et les Conflits (CDRPC)

e:mail: cdrpc@obsarm.org

internet site: www.obsarm.org

Press Release , May 17, 2005

from: Moruroa e tatou; Observatoire des armes nucléaires françaises/CDRPC; Association des veterans des essais nucléaires (AVEN)

Discovery of Secret Reports on Nuclear Testing in Polynesia

The Polynesians Demand Explanations and Appeal for Justice

Papeete , Tuesday May 17, 2005

Recent revelations published by the French periodical Damoclès* on the conditions in which nuclear test campaigns took place in Polynesia in 1966 have shocked Polynesians and particularly the residents of Mangareva. Reports from 1966 stamped “Secret,” recently rediscovered, mention significant radioactive fallout on the islands and inhabited atolls near Moruroa and in particular on the island of Mangareva in the Gambier archipelago. Signed by important people in the military hierarchy who at the time visited islanders to tell them that they were not in any danger, these reports recommend that the extent of the contamination due to the first nuclear tests be kept secret and that the real figures be minimized and the people left in ignorance. To sum up, these reports allow it to be understood that the carrying out of the nuclear testing program had a higher priority than the protection of personnel and residents.

In consultation with their layer, Jean-Paul Teissonniere, the association Moruroa e tatou, Madame the Mayor, and the residents of Gambier, supported by the association Vétérans des essais nucléaires and by the Observatoire des armes nucléaires/CDRPC, have decided to file with the defense minister a request that there be made accessible to applicants all information and documents allowing them to learn the consequences on their health and on that of their descendents of the nuclear tests carried out in French Polynesia.

“Today, the Polynesians begin to see the truth about what really happened during the period of nuclear testing,” states Roland Oldham, president of Moruroa e tatou. They now have proof that they were deceived about the reality of the radioactive fallout that can explain the extent of the health problems experienced, not only by the former workers in Moruroa but also by all the population of Polynesia .

Following a press conference held today at the Maohi Protestant Church, the president and the directors of the association Moruroa e tatou placed their request in the hands of the representative of the high commissioner of the Republic, asking him to transmit it to Madame the Defense Minister.

“Not only are we demanding the entire truth about the nuclear tests carried out here by France , but we have decided to demand justice. Several days ago, our lawyer filed a first series of demands for recognition of occupational illness with the social contingency fund for ten former workers at Moruroa, four of whom have unfortunately died. We will fight to the end to have the rights of all the victims of nuclear tests recognized, whether they are former workers at Moruroa or others whose health has suffered as a result of the tests,” concluded Roland Oldham.

Contacts:

--Moruroa e tatou: Tel 466 6666; e-mail moruroaetatou@mail.pf

--AVEN: Tel 04-78-36-93-03; e-mail aven@aven.org

*Damoclès nos. 112/114, May 2005 (in French), can be ordered on the web site www.obsarm.org. An editorial that introduces this number of Damoclès is translated below.

The Damning Evidence Concerning the Fallout from the First Nuclear Tests in Polynesia

Defense Secrecy

In February, 2005, independent epidemiologists showed that chromosome anomalies are three times more common in Polynesian patients with thyroid cancer than they are in a control group of European patients. The independent researchers suggested that these chromosome anomalies are the result of nuclear testing. The Polynesians were worried.

At the beginning of April, 2005, the very official Liaison Committee for the coordination of the medical followup to French nuclear testing stated that the “probability of observing an impact from ionizing radiation appears small.”

Confronted with this bad faith on the part of the authorities, Damoclès is publishing this dossier on the first French nuclear tests in Polynesia and, in particular, on the island of Mangareva , near Moruroa. The discovery of the unbelievable history of the first French nuclear tests in the Pacific must rightfully encourage the State to open its archives. Democracy requires it!

The documents that we are publishing in this special dossier have only recently been rediscovered. They describe the first two test campaigns, in 1966 and 1967, in French Polynesia . The majority of these documents are stamped “Secret” or “Confidential Defense.”

They are reports drawn up by the various “services” responsible for the tests and transmitted to the relevant authorities. They include accounts of specific missions, reports of a testing campaign or of a “half-campaign,” the levels of radioactivity after the tests, the results of incidents during the tests . . . . A major part of these documents come from the SMSR (Mixed Service for Radiological Safety), an entity co-directed by the CEA (Atomic Energy Commission) and the armies.
 

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