For French Polynesia, today marks the 51st anniversary of the first French nuclear test in the Pacific, an event which will be marked with marches and remembrance.
In 1966, the French Polynesian atoll of Moruroa was struck by the first of France's 193 nuclear tests in the South Pacific, which has had lasting effects on the region.
Roland Oldham, the head of French Polynesia's nuclear veterans organisation Mururoa e Tatou, recently returned from the UN Conference on a Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons where he shared his experiences as a victim.
Mr Oldham told Mackenzie Smith that 51 years on from the first test in Moruroa, the catastrophic event was no less significant.
Photo: screenshot / Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Transcript
ROLAND OLDHAM: There's a march planned by the other organisation which we are working with an organisation called [Association] 193, they are starting the march on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and on Sunday they will be arriving in another central place in Tahiti where the ceremonies of remembering the first test will happen. And this march is also for continuing to inform our people about the damage on a generation, the environment and all the rest. And on top of that we have some priorities for this year that we are aiming at and so probably the big thing about this 2nd of July, for example the system of education, we have to put in our system of education in Polynesia, how it's happened, why this happened on the workers, on the civilians and on the generation and the same thing about the environment. And some other points that are very important, we are battling as well to have a centre of memoir, we say it in French, that's to keep all the information somewhere here where all this information in this 30 years of nuclear testing. Those documents have to be somewhere and those documents should be accessible to scientists, to researchers, to students, to the lot of us that is a very important point. That is what we call a centre of memoir. Also we have other projects that are doing some research on 3rd generation... second and third generation because we find out there are still some, there are new things that we are finding out. The more we go with this nuclear issue we are finding out things.
MACKENZIE SMITH: With it being 51 years, it's obviously a long time and there's concerns over the more time passes, the fewer victims are around to remember it and acknowledge it for what it is. So does it feel like time is maybe running out to get the proper recognition?
RO: You can say that, you're right, but the reality is that the damage of nuclear will not stay to one generation so that is why we have to keep up the thing the transmit all this information to next generation for them to carry on the battle. Of course time is running out when you talk about former workers that are dying one after the other but now it's the children and then the grandchildren that are affected by this, well that's why it's running out. But on the other hand we did, if we be a bit positive, we did succeed to have a few things. For example the opening of the military archive, the making of the law for compensation, that law is not perfect and so there's still a lot to do about that so it's something they're going to carry on. I would say that the story of nuclear will never end. We know when it started but we don't know when it's going to end. It seems to me there is no ending because of what we know exactly of the situation, of what we know about the health and about the environment is still very, very alarming for the future generation. For example when you talk about Fukushima, and the situation of Moruroa is very unstable. The atoll of Moruroa that could sink in the ocean any day. And all these situations is a worry for the next generation, that's why it is important that everybody know all this and it is important that the generation to come to continue this battle and I think that also the banning of nuclear weapons, all these battles are joined somewhere.
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