1. The Pacific Islands in the Cold War Era (1947-1991)
The end of the Second World War, one could say, was the beginning of another. The Cold War.
A struggle between two sets of ideas about how to run countries:
Capitalism (United States and its allies)
Communism (Soviet Russia, mainland
China, and other communist nations)
A series of smaller wars, acts of espionage, and other forms of contestation
Nic Maclellan, ‘The Nuclear Age in the Pacific Islands’, The Contemporary Pacific, Sept, 2005,
Donald Denoon, Steward Firth & et. al, The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders, Cambridge University Press, 1997, [Chapter No.10, pp ]
Report on International campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.
I.C. Campbell, A History of the Pacific Islands, University of California Press.

2. Meaning of Cold War
The term ‘Cold War’ refers to the period of struggle and conflict between the USA and USSR between Each of the Superpowers saw the other as a threat to its continued survival and adopted strategies to preserve their positions. The two Superpowers never went to war directly with each other in this period, therefore this conflict is termed as the Cold War rather than a conventional hot war.
The Cold War was a struggle between two sets of ideas about how to run countries: capitalism and communism. Each side tried to convince that their idea was good, the other’s bad. During the Cold War was the constant fear that a full-blown war, just like the two previous world wars, would break out.

3. USSR [Communism] Vs USA [Capitalism]
The USSR and the USA emerged as by far the most powerful nations from the Second World War. The former Great Powers – Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – were no longer capable of dominating the rest of the world, only the USA and the USSR, the Superpowers, remained unbroken.
During the Cold War was the constant fear that a full-blown war, just like the two previous world wars, would break out. This new war, if it were to happen, would be fought between the USA and the Soviet Union, with allies for each camp.
The new war, if it were to happen, would be fought between the capitalist nations and the communist nations, and thousands of nuclear weapons from both sides would destroy the earth and all human life.

4. The Cold War
The nuclear weapons developed and constructed were stored by each side just in case the need arose.
But that ‘just in case’ meant an ominous set of misfortunes to the Pacific nations. At least 250 nuclear devices were tested on the Islands of Bikini, Eniwetok, Johnston, Christmas, Malden Mururoa and Fangataufa.
Nuclear weapons research and development.
Damages by Nuclear Tests
The level of damage ranged from destruction of whole islands to disruption to people’s everyday lives. As you may have heard of the effects of Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, contamination from nuclear devices can have severe consequences on living organisms: including human, animals, plants, soil, air and water.

5. Time line of Nuclear Era in the Pacific

6. The Dawn of Nuclear Weapons
United States of America (USA) was the only one to possess the Nuclear Technology during II World War [ ].
Later Soviet Union, Britain and France armed themselves with Nuclear weapons.
Soviet Union tested their bombs within their own borders whereas Americans, British and French tested their Nuclear test in distant colonies where population was less and the political cost was minimal.
USA, UK & France’s Nuclear test sites in Pacific Islands
Bikini [ ] and Enewetak atolls [ ] in the Marshall Islands; and Johnston [1962] by USA. Also Amchitka Island, Alaska, United States
Christmas [ ] and Malden [1968] in the Northern Line Islands by Britain. Britain also tested in remote islands [Monte Bello Island 1952] and deserted country in Australia [Maralinga and Emu Field 1953].
Mururoa [ ] and Fangataufa atolls [ ] in the Tuamotua Archipelago by France.

7. Reasons for Nuclear Test in Pacific Islands
First reason was that these sites were on Islands remote from Western population.
Second reason was the Islanders were politically subordinated to the nuclear powers.
Nuclear Weapons: Research and Development
Misfortunes to the Pacific nations.
More than 250 nuclear devices tested on the Islands of Bikini, Eniwetok, Johnston, Christmas, Malden Mururoa and Fangataufa.
Destruction of islands
Disruption to people’s everyday lives
Radioactive contamination harming: humans, animals, plants, soil, air and water

8. British Tests, &
British tested weapons in the Australian atmosphere from 1952 to 1957.
A hydrogen and two atomic bombs on Christmas and Malden Islands. The British worked with Americans to conduct more tests at Christmas [now Kiritimati] and Johnston Islands.
British continued with a series of minor trails in South Australia till Access to sites in Australia was not a problem to Britain. Australian PM Robert Menzies made available uninhabited site Monte Bello Islands off Western Australia; arid west of South Australia like Emu Field and Maralinga.
Aboriginal people suffered from illness, suffering and death. After huge protest Britain finally agreed to pay compensation of 20 million in 1993 to clean up the contaminated lands of the Maralinga area.

9. American Tests,
After taking the Marshall Islands from the Japanese in 1944, the United States conducted tests there.
Nearly 70 tests at the Bikini Atolls. The people on the Atolls were relocated, and could not return. US exploded 66 nuclear weapons in the northern Marshall Islands between , these were the most powerful and contaminating bombs in the history of American testing.
People of several atolls in Marshall Islands like Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utrick joined together against American tests.

10. American Tests, 1946-1958; Bravo Test, 1954
Islanders used to obeying chiefs, adapted to the Americans as chiefs of the earth. But as time pass, the atoll people demanded for compensation, decontamination and repatriation.
Americans made their first thermonuclear device MIKE, with an explosive force equivalent to 500 Hiroshimas. Mike test was so destructive. But the biggest and more destructive test yet to come known as BRAVO.
Detonated the largest thermo-nuclear device, a hydrogen bomb named Bravo
1000 times more powerful than the bomb at Hiroshima
Fireball 6.5 kilometres wide; The bombing was a success for the Americans
Bravo shot created a mushroom cloud of unprecedented magnitude and spread radioactive fallout over a vast area.
But the blast went well beyond the zone
23 fishermen onboard saw black ash falling, the waste from the bomb.
Also residents of Rongelap, Ailinginae and Utrik Islands exposed to radiation, evacuated

11. American Tests, 1946-1958 Bravo Test, 1954
The radio operator on board died six months later. At his deathbed he said, “I want to be the last person to die from nuclear weapons”. Several petitions were filed for radioactive injury, loss of land, removal of people from their homelands and demanded compensation.
Japan outraged. The test led to a strong anti-nuclear movement, then it transformed into anti-American movement.
United States government offered compensation to the Japanese government, to stop the Japanese from turning against the USA.
After conducting test from , USA paused for some time and then returned to the Pacific for a final series at Johnston Atoll and Christmas Islands in 1962

12. Race of arms between USA and USSR
Due to race of arms with the Soviet Union, the pace of American nuclear testing increased in 1950s. As many bombs were exploded in Bikini and Enewetak in 1958.
The nuclear war plan presented to the Kennedy administration in 1961 called for a strike against the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China as a response even to the threat of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
Impact of Nuclear testing and Restricted research allowed
American tests contaminated and destroyed land, and left physical injury and psychological disturbance among groups of Marshall Islands whose lives have revolved around the bomb since the 1940’s.
Britain’s bombs had contaminated land and exposed people to radiation injuries.
French testing were made under tight security and blanketed the program.
All these countries claimed a perfect safety record during these tests. No comprehensive and independent study of contamination has been ever taken place, although the authorities have permitted other studies under strict supervision

13. Impact of Radiation and US gave compensation to Islanders
Islanders concern was with loss of land and life, so people of Rongelap told a United Nations Visiting Mission in 1961 of miscarriages, abnormal births, stomach disorders and fatigue.
This UN Mission wanted to know the effects of BRAVO, but USA described this problem as more psychological than real and stated these exaggerations were made by Islanders to demand hefty compensation.
Finally people of atolls got sympathy and compensation in the terms of Compact Free Association [1986] between the Marshall Islands and the United States. US established a once for all trust fund of $ 150 million to distribute through nuclear claims tribunal in the islands.

14. Clean up campaign and compensation
Clean up or decontamination was made in 1988.
By 1992, the people of four recognised ‘radiation atolls’ had received $US67 million in direct compensation and a further $21 million had been paid for a health-care program, scientific surveys and damages claims.
The Nuclear Claims Tribunal established by Marshall Island government recognised 25 medical conditions presumed to result from radiation exposure and specified compensation in each case.
Another legacy of the affected people was the loss of their independence, as the people of radiation atoll depended on US for food. Their lives were organized around compensation money, medical care and welfare entitlements.

15. USA interest in Palau, Micronesia
In 1971, USA announced its plans for the possible military use of large parts of Palau. US wanted guarantee of land for military training, air-fields and port facilities.
This was resisted by Palauan as the land was life of the people, the source of security, identity, and status.
US military continued to access the island and atoll for its strategic usage and did not want Micronesia to gain full independence.
Palau constitution
In 1979, the Palauans having decided to seek an independent future, wrote a constitution which barred the use, storage, test and disposal of an nuclear, toxic, chemical or similar material.
Americans were willing to give aid to a decolonized Palau but only under condition which were incompatible with nuclear-free character of Palau’s constitution. Americans forced Palauans to choose between aid and anti-nuclearism. After strong resistance to American’s mission, Palauans finally got independence after the end of Cold war.

16. French Tests,
Algeria [Sahara Desert] was a French colony in Africa from the 1830s to France conducted nuclear tests there after World War Two.
After Algeria became independent, French testing shifted to Mururoa and Fangataufa [ ]
Mururoa was uninhabited atoll, 1200 kilometres from Tahiti From 1960 to 1996.
On 17 July 1974, a test exposed Tahiti to 500 times the maximum allowed level of plutonium fallout.
At least 175 French nuclear experiments
Started underground testing in 1975
In the atmosphere of regional and global opposition, France conducted final series of nuclear test in 1995 and 1996.
The people on French Polynesia were divided. Whilst the testing caused many problems and posed health risks to the islands, financial assistance from the French was too good to refuse.
France carried out 210 nuclear tests, 17 in the Algerian Sahara and 193 in French Polynesia in the South Pacific, symbolised by the images of a mushroom cloud over the Mururoa atoll.
For decades, France argued that the controlled explosions were clean. Later, Jacques Chirac, the French president, controversially resumed nuclear atoll explosions in the South Pacific shortly after being elected in 1995.

17. Tahitian opposition to Nuclear Test of France
After II World War, France was inclined towards self-determination for its colonies. French reforms were paralleled by the growth of a Tahitian nationalist movement under the charismatic leadership of Pouvanaa a Oopa.
Pouvanaa formed a political party RDPT [Rassemblement Democratique des Populations Tahitiennes] for the political and social reforms of Tahitian people or Maohi people. He wanted to expand the powers of Territory Assembly and reduce the role of the Governor.

18. Anti-Nuclear Resistance, 1950s-1990s.
People in French Polynesia divided:
Testing caused many problems and posed health risks. Yet, financial assistance from the French was significant.
Over the years of bomb testing from 1966 to 1996, military spending turned French Polynesia into a nuclear dependency, where people relied on the testing centre to supply the cash, capital investment and jobs that underpin modernisation in the territory.
France was still conducting atmospheric tests 10 years after United States, Britian and Soviet Union had signed a Partial Test Ban Treaty and moved their tests underground. Finally, France was also forced in 1973 to shift to underground testing.

19. Effects of Nuclear Test in Pacific
American tests contaminated and destroyed land and left physical injury and psychological disturbance among groups of Marshall Islanders.
USA, UK and France’s Nuclear tests in Pacific were opposed by Pacific. But no comprehensive study have proven the negative impact of these nuclear tests.
Besides contamination and injury, there were political and social effects as after 1970’s Island people raised the idea of a nuclear-free Pacific

20. Anti-Nuclear Resistance, 1950s-1990s
Tahitian nationalist Pouvanaa o Oopa petitioned and collected signatures for the Stockholm Peace Appeal.
After British government announced nuclear testing at Christmas Island, Western Samoa petitioned United Nations Trusteeship Council in 1956 to stop the test
Also in 1956, Rarotonga Island Council requested tests be carried out farther away from the Cook Islands

21. Religious Anti-Nuclear Resistance, 1960s-1990s
Roman Catholic leaders spoke out against nuclear weapons:
Ratu Kamisese Mara of Fiji
Bishop Patelisio Finau of Tonga
Jean-Marie Tjibaou of New Caledonia
These three Catholic leaders were outspoken critics of French policy in the 1970s and 1980s.

22. Religious Anti-Nuclear Resistance, 1960s-1990s
Opposition from the predominantly Catholic Islands
France is a predominantly Catholic nation
Catholic teachings on war, peace and social justice
Religious inspiration. Camaraderie amongst Pacific Islanders and motivation to unite against colonial power

23. Demand for Nuclear-free Pacific
So long as the Islands were colonies, Islanders’ objections to nuclear tests could be dismissed by the authorities. But in the 1970’s, as more territories gained independence and French atmospheric testing offered a rallying point for nuclear-free sentiment, popular opposition became more organized and began to influence the foreign policies of new states.
‘A Nuclear-free Pacific’ became a universal goal of independent staes in the early 1980s.

24. Conference of Nuclear Free Pacific in Fiji in 1975
The conference for a Nuclear-Free Pacific in Fiji in 1975 initiated an organised movement for a nuclear-free and independent Pacific.
The conference called for a treaty to establish a comprehensive nuclear-free zone in the Islands.
Other movements also started against large-scale military manoeuvers, the testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles, practice bombing in Hawai’i, mining of uranium in Australia and dumping of radioactive waste by Japan. Although these kind of movements failed as it affected the security interest of US and France.

25. Political Anti-Nuclear Resistance
South Pacific Forum was formed 1970, and head of government at its first meeting in 1971 appealed to France to make its current test series the last in the Pacific. In 1975 forum accepted New Zealand’s idea of a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone in principal.
Palau struggled to draft a non-nuclear constitution
By 1980, the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific [NFIP] campaigned against nuclear testing, dumping of the nuclear wastes in the Pacific Ocean, transport of nuclear materials through Pacific island fishing grounds and the mining of uranium on indigenous land.
Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu endorsed the concept of a South Pacific Nuclear free Zone in 1981; Vanuatu declared nuclear-free status, 1983
Fiji banned nuclear ships, but it was later cancelled
Fiji Labour Party opposed nuclear weapons
International treaties
Rarotonga Treaty for a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, [SPNFZ] 1985

26. New Zealand and Australia
Australia and New Zealand had traditionally sided with Europeans and Americans up through the world wars and after
For instance, Australia exported uranium
to Britain for nuclear weapons in the 1950s
But this was not to last for ever....
Pacific nations became resentful of European and American use of the Pacific Islands
Australian and New Zealand anti-nuclear movements from the 1950s, but they were relatively weak. New Zealand noted high levels of radioactivity in the air and in rainouts in various Pacific Islands, included the Cook Islands, Western Samoa and Fiji.
Changes in popular sentiments in the 1970s. Many Australians and New Zealanders fought in the Vietnam War, became more concerned about the Cold War.
Australia and New Zealand took France to the International Court of Justice, where they argued that French nuclear tests has infringed national sovereignty and exposed their peoples to insidious poison.
New Zealand sent a naval warship to the Tuamotus to capture photographs of nuclear test and its outcomes, these were smuggled out of French Polynesia and dramatized the issue world wide.

27. New Zealand and Australia
Also in the 1970s, Britain joined the European Common Market, forerunner of today’s European Union.
Australia and NZ had depended so much on Britain for export. Now trade with Britain declined. Needed to rethink their places in the world.
Australia and NZ in a difficult position. Trade and co-operation with the United States becoming more important.
For NZ to declare itself a nuclear-weapon free zone was a serious issue of debate amongst its politicians and the public.
NZ home to many anti-nuclear groups including Greenpeace

28. New Zealand and the Rainbow Warrior Scandal
Greenpeace planned to oppose French nuclear testing in French Polynesia
Their usual tactic was to go into the nuclear testing zone and to protest at the very site of testing.
One Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, was about to go to Mururoa Atolls to protest against French testing
But just days before the voyage, on 10 July 1985, ship was bombed at Auckland Harbour
Ship destroyed. One journalist on board drowned.
Who bombed the ship?
French naval commandos stormed the vessel, smashed windows and overpowered the protesters with teargas, provoked further opposition to French testing world-wide.
Two French espionage agents. France was annoyed with Greenpeace activities.
The two French secret agents charged and convicted for sabotage.
Strong antipathy amongst New Zealanders towards France
Tarnished relations between France and New Zealand
New Zealand resolved to renounce nuclear weapons – even if it was to irritate the Untied States
Other Pacific nations encouraged by New Zealand’s stance

29. End of the Cold War,
The bombs went away, but effects on the health of people and on environments will stay longer
Disused equipment and infrastructure
Disposal of unused and used materials
Funding for cleanup jobs
What happens to the places once cleared?
France began to dismantle the Pacific test facilities and joined the US and Britain in signing the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty
All nuclear powers [USA, UK, France, USSR, China] had agreed that the days of testing in the Pacific were over.
Legacy of Nuclear Tests.
Legacy of Nuclear blasts were the people exposed to radiation and risk of future contamination of environment.
Proposals to dump nuclear waste on isolated atolls, uranium mining on indigenous peoples’ land; and testing of a new generation of missile defense and satellite systems, which threaten the militarization of space.