wfn.org | Survivors of atomic bomb tests seek aid from Congress

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Sept. 10, 2002	    News media contact: Joretta Purdue7(202)
546-87227Washington	10-21-71B{401}
 
By Joretta Purdue*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - Rokko Langinbelik wants to tell her story to members of
Congress. The soft-spoken grandmother is from Rongelap in the Marshall
Islands, an area used by the United States for testing atomic and hydrogen
bombs from 1946 to 1958. 

She and five other Pacific Islanders are in the nation's capital to share
the little-known facts about how those tests have affected the people of
their area, and to seek aid from Congress.

"They removed us to Lae," another island, before the testing began, recalls
Langinbelik, now 60. A year or two later, she and other people from her
island were allowed to go home. "After the testing in 1954 we were having so
many kinds of sickness ... so many kinds of cancer" and miscarriages,
deformed fetuses and handicapped children, she says.

She and the others tell of being relocated several times, as the U.S.
military cleared out their area for testing its bombs. However, on one
occasion in 1954, the islanders on Rongelap were not moved. The test was
carried out, despite a change in the wind's direction, and the local
residents were not warned ahead of time. Fallout rained down on the
unsuspecting islanders - men in their fishing boats, others tending or
gathering crops, children at play.

"We were burned all (over) our body," Langinbelik says. "We were vomiting
and itching, and our hair was falling down in clumps."

She and the other survivors must take medicines every day to try to keep
their various afflictions from becoming worse, she explains, but the Compact
of Free Association, which included a provision for health care, expired in
2001. In 1999, the Republic of the Marshall Islands submitted a "petition of
changed circumstances" to the U.S. government, saying the cost of health
care was underestimated when the compact was negotiated. This petition was
resubmitted to the new U.S. administration in March 2000, but has not been
acted upon.

"Now, how can I find the medicine? I have no money," Langenbelik says.
Because the people of the islands need medicine, her group has come to
appeal to Congress for medical care for the survivors, their children and
grandchildren.

The delegation is being hosted by the United Church of Christ, one of
several denominations on record as supporting the survivors of the testing
that was done in the Marshall Islands. Betty Henderson, a volunteer staff
member at the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, has worked with
the Washington office of the United Church of Christ to facilitate the visit
of the four women and two men from the islands.

The United Methodist Church's highest legislative assembly, the General
Conference, passed a resolution in 2000 titled "Atomic Testing on the
Marshall Islands - A Legacy," in which the church agrees with the government
of the islands in calling for "more just compensation and 
expansion of medical care" than what has been provided. The resolution says
the U.S. government provided full compensation to the American citizens who
lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site, but Marshall Islanders have received
less, even though their islands subjected to much greater tonnage in the
bombs detonated there.

Aruko Bobo, now 64, was also on Rongelap that day in 1954. Speaking through
an interpreter, she describes how she got particles from the sky in her eyes
and cannot see well. Her teeth continue to chip away. Thirty-five kinds of
cancer are on the list approved for treatment, but current health care
provisions do not cover eyes or teeth, she says. She also has a tumor in her
throat and has to take lots of medicines to control the condition.  

Many members of her family developed various sicknesses. Both her parents
developed inoperable thyroid cancer about two years after the exposure and
died. Her oldest son has a heart problem that she believes stems from the
radiation. Her sister had a pregnancy in which the fetus looked like a bunch
of grapes - just masses of tissue. A niece must take daily medications to
prevent convulsions.

Bobo says the islanders had been kept in the dark too much about what
happened and their own medical treatments. The first medical personnel -
who, she says, were always taking blood and tissue samples - were scientists
from Brookhaven National Laboratories in Upton, N.Y. The scientists did not
tell people enough about their own conditions and treatment, she says. She
had minor surgeries on her neck and arms, and the scientists once drilled
into her collarbone. They just said they were going to do it and they did,
she explains.

"In 1954, (the military) did not relocate the people, even though they knew
the wind had changed," said Elma Coleman, who serves as translator for the
group. Originally a native of the Marshall Islands, she now lives in Hawaii.
Coleman added that the people of the islands felt like they were guinea
pigs, and the medical follow-up was less to treat them than to see how their
genes had been altered by the radiation.

But at least they were being checked annually by the people from Brookhaven,
the islanders note. Now the survivors relate to a different department of
the U.S. government. Current health care is by contract with one doctor who
employs inexperienced doctors and does not have up-to-date equipment, the
islanders say. Though they once were sent to the states when more
sophisticated care was needed, they are now told that no money exists for
that. 

"All they do is prescribe medication," Bobo says.

Letwan Tulensa, 67, and others from Enewetak island were moved around
several times, and spent the years 1947-74 on Ujelang island. When they
returned to Enewetak, they found the land had been damaged. The contaminated
topsoil had been removed, but things still do not grow well in the subsoil,
which also is contaminated. 

A military airport has taken the land where Tulensa once lived, so even
though she is back on Enewetak, she says, "it is a different place." 

Erine Jitiam, 27, who lives on Enewetak also, explains that all the food
consumed on the island comes by ship because of the contamination in the
soil and the sea surrounding the island. Through the years, the amount of
food supplied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture has not changed,
although the population has grown larger, she says.

"For those who live on our island, the problem is that sometimes when there
is no ship, they have no food," Jitiam says. The boats are supposed to come
every three months, but sometimes are late. "It's so tempting," especially
when they are hungry, to eat the fish and clams and arrowroot that are
around them, even though these foods are contaminated. 

Enewetak also has a nuclear storage site, which the islanders have been
advised to avoid.

"They have found a crack in the cement covering," and radiation is believed
to be leaking from the structure, says Johnny Johnson. 

Johnson, 54, is from Bikini island but has never been able to live there. He
was born two years after the island's first exposure. No one is able to live
there as a result of the tests, he says. The target island has a mile-long,
200-foot-deep crater, and two other islands within the Bikini group were
pulverized.

Johnson, in his capacity as a Bikinian local government official, has
returned to island for commemorative observances of the day everyone left.
He believes that exposure is responsible for heart bypass surgery he needed
a few years ago.

For Johnson, the loss of cultural identity is one of the great tragedies of
what has happened. 

"We consider the land as our identity," he says. The land does not get
bought and sold in the islander's culture, but it is considered a gift from
the Creator and is passed from family to family. "It's part of us," he says.

"When we lived together in the past, everybody shared together whatever they
have," he says. The land and sea provided everything the people needed
before it was poisoned by radiation. Now his children live in Hawaii, Oregon
and the Marshall Islands, but no one can live on Bikini. And, he notes, his
grandchildren speak English better than Marshallese.

"Families feel isolated," Coleman adds.

Accompanying the delegation is the Rev. Wie Fiti, who comes from the island
of Chuuk, several hundred miles from the Marshalls. He is leader of the
Micronesia Council of the United Church of Christ. 

The group's week in Washington will culminate with a briefing for
legislators and aides on Sept. 13. The islanders hope they can make their
case to Congress that they need more help, especially medical aid. 

Bobo's situation illustrates their problems. She lives on Enewetak, but her
mother is living on another island, where she is seeking medical aid for her
condition. Bobo's two oldest children live with their father's family on
another island. Referring to her children, Bobo says, "I have to tell them
the truth, that we can't stay in Enewetak because it's not good for their
health. 

"They have to look for a better life."

# # #

*Purdue is news director in United Methodist News Service's Washington
office.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org